THE GENEALOGY OF CHRIST.
By H. W. Oliver
THE subject of the genealogy of Christ has occasioned much study and perplexity on the part of Biblical students, as well as criticism by those who doubt the integrity of the Scriptures. In his comment upon Luke 3, Dr. Adam Clarke said: "Perhaps few questions have occasioned more trouble to the learned than that which concerns the genealogy of our blessed Lord as it is given by St. Matthew and St. Luke. The tables found in these writers are extremely different, or, as some think, contradictory." It is one of the stock arguments of skepticism that no man can harmonize these tables. Many have tried it. One of the earliest was Africanus who wrote voluminously upon the question. Later, Dr. Barrett, and I may say all the commentators have made more or less extensive additions to the literature of this subject. Dr. Clarke himself has favored us with quite a long chapter hoping to somewhat clear up the atmosphere surrounding this question, but in the end admits that it is beset with many difficulties. It is, I trust, with becoming modesty that I submit to the readers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, a solution of this difficulty that has occurred to me as the result of considerable study upon the subject; a solution which I consider very simple, and yet withal, containing a grand and beautiful truth. The trouble found with these tables by the casual reader has arisen partly, at least, from an effort to understand them as lines of lineal descent from father to son; but it is evident that this can not be the case, as they diverge from David—one line coming down thru Solomon, and the other thru Nathan—coalesce in Salathiel and Zerubbabel, yet diverge again from the latter, to finally unite in "Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews." It is usually suggested that one table gives the lineage of Joseph and the other of Mary; but however true this explanation may be, it by no means at once adjusts all the difficulties pertaining to the situation; moreover critics disagree as to which one represents Mary. Now as a matter of fact I believe that only one of these lines—that given by Luke—is intended by Inspiration to represent simply genealogy, that is, a direct line as from father to son each step of the way. This thought first occurred to me after comparing the number of names from David down to Joseph. Matthew gives twenty-five, while Luke mentions forty. If one line simply represents the lineage of Joseph and the other Mary, as is popularly supposed, would it not seem that the number of ancestors in a given period would be more nearly equal? But if the table given by Matthew does not represent a direct step-by-step lineage, what does it represent? I answer—and this is the key to the whole situation—it represents the line of royal inheritance from David down to Joseph; showing that Jesus, as Joseph’s reputed son, was entitled to the throne of His father David. This view of the matter explains the above allusion to the less number of names as found in Matthew’s table, for some of these kings were grandsons, and others were even great grandsons of former kings. Compare Matt. 1:8, 11, with 1 Chron. 3:11, 12, 15, 16. Note that the margin for Azariah is Uzziah, who is the Ozias of Matt. 1:8. The question as to why some who occupied the throne are not mentioned in the table, I will pass with the remark that He who "ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will," either did not consider them entitled to the succession, and so purposely omitted their names from the record; or the names may have been omitted to complete the scheme of fourteen generations as mentioned in Matt. 1:17. Also the question of how the lines happened to coalesce in the case of Salathiel and Zerubbabel, I will answer by saying that we may easily understand this to have occurred by the circumstance of marriage, without doing any violence to the language used in the tables. Since Jechonias was the last king to sit, by divine appointment, upon the throne of Judah, let us now inquire who the individuals were whose names occupy the space from Jechonias down to Jesus. They were evidently those who were entitled to the crown, and who should have sat upon the Judean throne, had it not been "overturned" because of national disobedience. It is a well-known8fact that a government may lose its nationality and temporarily become a tributary without the royal succession being destroyed; and to prove that this was the case with the government of God's chosen people, I quote Gen. 49:10: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to Him shall the gathering of the people be." God had said, "There shall not fail Me a man to sit upon the throne of Israel;" and true to His promise, as the centuries rolled along, there was always provided a son of David to sway the scepter—altho part of the time the exercise of this authority was withheld because of national apostasy—until He came who should "reign over the house of Jacob forever." In closing, I remark that in the nature of Jesus, humanity was blended with divinity. He was the Son of Adam, and yet the long-wished-for Messiah and King. Luke, who wrote for the Gentiles (Luke 1:3, 4), traces the genealogy of Jesus, the supposed son of Joseph, who was son-in-law of Heli, back thru the long ancestral line to Adam, showing that in Him was fulfilled the promise made to our first parents that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. But Matthew, who wrote for the Jews, beginning back at Abraham whose "Seed" should "possess the gate of His enemies," traced down to and thru the line of kings, crowned or uncrowned, showing that the royal prerogative descended to Him of whom it was said, "He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David." Twin Falls, Idaho. H. W. OLIVER