Luke 3:28, commentary and pictures

This link names the descent through Melchi, Addi, Cosam, Elmodam and Er in the genealogy that runs upward and backward from Joseph and Heli to Adam and to God, whereas Matthew runs forward from Abraham through David and Solomon to the birth of Jesus. It belongs to the human, natural blood descent through Mary, distinct from the royal, legal descent through Joseph, descending from David through Nathan while Matthew descends through Solomon, with Heli the father of Mary and Joseph his son-in-law named in his place because ancestry was traced through men only. Placed after the baptism when Jesus was about thirty and beginning to teach, it presents him preeminently as the Son of man and the Son of Adam by tracing his mother’s line to Adam the progenitor of the race and to God the Creator. By that unbroken maternal line through David and Abraham to Adam it shows his kinship with the whole human race as the Saviour of all nations, the seed of the woman and the promised Seed of Abraham and David according to the flesh. Carried back beyond Adam to the Son of God, it shows the Son of God was truly human with a pedigree by birth into the human family, taking the same human nature with its liability to sin in order to conquer sin on humanity’s behalf.

Place in Genealogy

This link carries the line step by step through Melchi, Addi, Cosam, Elmodam, and Er, as a direct ancestral succession distinct from Matthew's line of royal inheritance. The genealogy runs upward and backward from Joseph and Heli through this link to Adam and to God, whereas Matthew runs forward from Abraham through David and Solomon to the birth of Jesus. Luke places it after his comprehensive account of Christ's birth and at the close of John's preaching and the baptism of Jesus, when Jesus was about thirty years of age and beginning to teach, as part of presenting Christ as the Son of man.

With Matthew's genealogy it compresses the centuries between the Old and New Testaments into family history rather than describing their events, while establishing royal lineage. Genesis supplies the early record needed to verify this Gospel genealogy traced back to the beginning.

Counted as father-to-son generations, the genealogy in Luke 3:23-38 has seventy-five generations from Christ back to Adam, showing that a generation is not a fixed number of years. Counted the other way it is about seventy-six generations from Adam to Christ. There are seventy-four names between Adam and Christ, excluding both, showing fewer generations from Adam to Christ than might be supposed and supporting a comparatively recent origin of mankind.

As one father-to-son link in the unbroken genealogy from creation to Christ, it gives the Bible rule for counting generations. Together with Genesis 11 and Matthew 1, six thousand years contain fewer than two hundred such generations, so the thousand generations of those who love God must extend more than eight hundred generations or twenty-four thousand years beyond 1868, proving commandment-keeping is perpetuated without end.

Line Through Mary

Luke 3:28 belongs to the genealogy that gives Christ's human, natural, literal blood and flesh descent through Mary, distinct from Matthew's genealogy of the royal, legal descent through Joseph. Joseph is named in her place because the record is reckoned through the male line, through whom inheritance passed, and Heli, named as Joseph's father, was in reality Joseph's father-in-law and Mary's actual father. In this reckoning Luke traces the line back through Heli to Adam himself, while Matthew traces back through David to Abraham, so that Luke gives the literal flesh lineage by which Jesus was Son of David according to the flesh, while legally He was Son of David and heir to the kingdom through Joseph. Through marriage to Mary, Jesus also belongs to David's royal family legally as well as naturally.

This line descends from David through Nathan, unlike Matthew's line which descends through Solomon to Joseph, Jesus' legal father. The two genealogies meet at different points among the sons of David and meet again in the stream of time. Joseph is named in Luke's genealogy as Mary's husband, and the line is Mary's side.

Heli was the father of Mary, and Joseph, though only supposed to be Jesus' father, is counted as Heli's son and named in place of Mary. In reality Joseph was Heli's son-in-law and Mary's husband of the same tribe, and because Hebrew genealogies trace ancestry through men, Joseph is counted as Heli's legal son. The record runs through men only because Jewish usage and law did not name women or the mother, so Mary herself is not named though the line is hers, and the line is carried through male relatives and household members named in place of the women. Jesus is thus Joseph's supposed son but in reality Heli's maternal grandson, and the genealogy continues back through David and Abraham to Adam and beyond Adam to the Son of God, showing the Son of God was truly human.

The two genealogies in Luke 3 and Matthew 1 do not contradict but stand together to be harmonized. Under Jewish law Joseph was Jesus' legal father, so both name Joseph as Jesus' father, while Jesus' fleshly descent came through Mary, who was treated as the son of her father through her marriage to Joseph. It is also possible that Heli was another name for Joseph. In one view, Joseph is included as the male member of the household and counted as Heli's son because Heli is understood to be Mary's mother and Joseph her husband, with Luke's genealogy having a different purpose from Matthew's royal line establishing Jesus' legal claim to David's throne.

The line through Mary contains more names than the line through Joseph, which accounts for the difference in the number of generations given by Matthew and Luke. Matthew's complete record is forty-two generations ending with Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. Luke 3:23-38 gives the genealogy of Mary tracing from Adam to Christ through Mary, while Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph, with Joseph called the son of Mary's father because he was the husband of Mary.

Christ as Son of Man

Luke's line presents Jesus preeminently as the Son of man by tracing His human descent backward from His mother to Adam the first man and progenitor of the race and on to God the Creator of man, in contrast to Matthew's royal legal descent through Joseph. Placed in chapter 3 after the full account of Christ's birth, when Jesus began to be about thirty years of age, it forms part of that presentation of Christ as the Son of man. The record runs through men only because Jewish usage and law did not name the mother, so Mary herself is not named though the line is hers, with Joseph named in her place and counted as son of Heli as His supposed legal father, Heli being the father of Mary. In the understanding of some, Joseph is included as the male member of the household and counted as Heli's son because Heli is taken to be Mary's mother and Joseph her husband. Unlike Matthew, which traces the royal line through Joseph to establish the legal claim to David's throne and connects Him with Abraham's promises, Luke carries the line through Heli on through the royal family of David and the seed of Abraham to Adam, showing Him as the true and perfect Son of man.

Carried back to Adam and beyond Adam to the Son of God, the unbroken line shows the Son of God was truly human, the Son of Adam and through Adam the Son of God, with a pedigree by birth into the human family. He had a pedigree and entered this world by birth, being both born and dying. By tracing maternal ancestry through David and Abraham to Adam, the line shows His kinship with the whole human race. In that reach back to Adam it presents Him in connection with the Saviour of all nations and of all humanity.

It shows His parents were Jews and His family descended from David and belonging to the tribe of Judah, placing Jesus in David's royal family by natural descent through Mary, whose father was Heli, and also in that line legally through marriage to Mary. It presents the Deliverer as the seed of the woman come through the female portion of the human race from Adam onward, through Adam and Enoch and Noah, while Matthew 1 traces the royal pedigree forward from Abraham through David and Solomon to the birth of Jesus. Counted through male family members with Joseph named in place of Mary, whose immediate ancestor was Heli, because she was married to Joseph of the same tribe, it carries the pedigree back to the promise of the seed of the woman in the beginning, for it belongs to Mary's line reckoned through male heads and not to the legal genealogy of Joseph given by Matthew. Together with Matthew's genealogy it connects Jesus to Abraham as the promised Seed and establishes His royal lineage, identifying Him as Joseph's supposed son but in reality Heli's maternal grandson and Heli's grandson through Mary.

It therefore belongs to the literal flesh lineage by which Jesus was the Son of David according to the flesh and born of the seed of David according to the flesh, distinct from Matthew's royal descent through Joseph, while legally He was Son of David and heir to the kingdom through Joseph. With Matthew's record it compresses the centuries between the Old and New Testaments into family history rather than describing their events. It illustrates the common scriptural usage of calling a man the son of an ancestor removed from him by many generations. The names are literal ancestors, just as Joseph and Mary were real people, and the history connected with them is literal history, not allegory, connecting the history of Adam and the patriarchal ages with the later history of Israel.

Prophecy Doctrine and Life

Luke 3:28 is one link in the preserved genealogy of Judah by which the lineage of Jesus could be traced on both His mother's side and His father's side. While the other tribes were scattered and their genealogies lost, those of Levi for the priesthood and of Judah for the rulership were kept, and the tribe of Judah was held together until Jesus came. This preservation proves that the scepter did not depart from Judah till Shiloh came, and from that time Jesus Himself became the center of the gathering of God's people.

His earthly lineage could be traced literally and legally through the line of promise back to David, Judah, Jacob, and Abraham. God thus kept the promised line through which the Deliverer, the second Adam, was to come, despite attempts to destroy it. As part of the parallel genealogical line on the side of Mary the mother of Jesus, this verse fortifies Matthew's complete record of forty-two generations ending with Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. That twofold genealogical proof leaves the Messiahship of Jesus unassailed, for its enemies never dared to attack it in the open.

The genealogy shows how Christ was descended from David and was born of the seed of David according to the flesh. In doing so it illustrates the common scriptural usage of calling a man the son of an ancestor removed from him by many generations. It is one link in the distinct tracing of Christ's ancestry from Adam, showing that Christ had a pedigree and entered this world by birth into the human family, being both born and dying. This stands in contrast to Melchizedek, who has no pedigree, had no beginning of days as an infant and no end of life, proving Christ and Melchizedek are distinct individuals who are priests after the same order.

The genealogy traces Christ's human descent through a family line containing both righteous and wicked people. His human ancestors were subject to the iniquities common to humanity. Jesus took the same human nature, with its liability to sin, and inherited the effects of humanity's sinful history, entering human flesh and the human line extending back to Adam in order to conquer sin on humanity's behalf.

The genealogy in Luke 3 traces Jesus backward to Adam the son of God, showing the Deliverer to be the seed of the woman come through the female portion of the human race from Adam onward, through Adam and Enoch and Noah, while Matthew 1 traces the royal pedigree forward from Abraham through David and Solomon to the birth of Jesus. These long genealogies bear mighty and important witness to the divinity of Scripture. They lead men to consider Christ, study His life, and give themselves to Him.