The Gospel of Luke 3:21-38 Jesus baptized, genealogy given

He did a good job with those names, didn't he? Yeah, that was something. Alright, now we're going to go through this carefully. I won't re-read all those names. He did a great job with them. We're going to go, as we look at this, when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while he was praying, heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, You are my beloved Son, and You I am well pleased." Now, what we have here, this is in response in part to a question that we put up there initially, and that is, how many books contain some reference to Jesus' baptism? And it turns out all four Gospels have reference in some degree or another.

Matthew's and Mark's and Luke's account are similar. John has a little bit of a difference that we'll point out here shortly. But 1 John 5, 5 through 12, also has reference to Jesus' baptism. So five Bible books. And since John is the author of both the Gospel of John and 1 John, he is the one who brings it up twice.

Now, one of the things that we have here that summarizes all of the accounts, they are all in a context of testimony. All three persons of the Trinity are brought up, and Jesus is presented as the Son. That's the pattern that we see in all five of those accounts. In Matthew 3, 13-17, Mark 1, 9-11, Luke 3, 21-22, and 1 John 5, 5-12, the testimony is from the Father, And the Spirit is present at Jesus' baptism. As we go into the Gospel of John, however, there's a slight difference. John the Baptist himself is the one giving testimony and making reference to the Spirit and the Father and the Son. So that's different from the other accounts. All three persons of the Trinity are presented in every case. And Jesus is presented in each case as the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. It's interesting the consistency with those accounts.

So, why was Jesus baptized? You might wonder about that. If Jesus did not repent for the forgiveness of sins, which is what John was doing with the rest of them, if Jesus never was saved, then why would Jesus have to be baptized at all? Which leads to another question, are all baptisms the same? So, Jesus' baptism did several things.

One, it signified that he identified with John's message, not that he was repenting. He didn't have anything to repent of, right? So it signified that he identified with John's message. That was part one. It provided an opportunity for testimony. And what we see is every single one of the Gospels and First John all had testimony related to Jesus' baptism. So it was a great opportunity for testimony. And next, it initiated Christ's ministry.

And you might wonder, why did Jesus, here at some 30 plus years of age, why did he wait that long to start his ministry? We'll get into that in a little bit here. But one of the things to point out is that Joseph, his father, shows up for the last time when Jesus is there at the temple at age 12. Joseph is never heard from or heard about again. And it's possible that Joseph died. Some of the things that today would be fairly minor events were fatal events in those days. And it's possible that Joseph died and that Jesus, being the eldest, had to work to continue to raise up the rest of the kids before he could start ministry.

Now, the other thing that happened here at this baptism, with John and Christ together, it helped reveal and clarify the distinction between them. John says, I must decrease, he must increase. John says, I'm not the Christ, but behold the Lamb of God. So with John and Christ together, John is in a much better position to point out the distinction between himself and Christ. And notice what he does, he directs things to Christ. I'm not even fit to untie a sandal.

Now, then, we get into this genealogy. And I won't reread it for you. Okay? And what Nancy pointed out, it's real interesting. Verse 26 has Yoda. Isn't that something? Okay. So one thing it says there is about 30 years of age is how it begins. 30 years of age was a significant age in biblical history, even going centuries back. Joseph was 30 years old when he began to serve under Pharaoh. So there's a pattern. A priest entered the service at age 30, and not before.

Numbers 4.3 says that's when you start him, age 30. So, pre-centered service at age 30, and David became king of Israel at age 30. So, 30 was a significant time. When we put it together, what we end up with, Christ was over 30 when he entered the ministry. And we'll talk about why we reach that conclusion here shortly. Here you have a timeline on page 2 of your handout for events in the Gospel of Luke.

John the Baptist is born about 6 BC. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It says 5 BC because we know when Herod died and we know You know when he could have carried out the things that he did like giving orders and that kind of thing We know that about the latest that Christ could have been born is about January of 4 BC and Still have things happen with Herod the way they were so Then we go down there, Jesus' family flees to Egypt, returns to Nazareth after Herod's dead, and he's no longer a threat. Jesus' age 12 talks with the teachers, that's about 8 AD. Jesus works as a carpenter in Nazareth, probably from about that time, because we don't hear about Joseph after that 12-year-old event.

And then John the Baptist begins his ministry. 28 or 29, and I think 29 is one that we concluded from the year of Tiberius Caesar. John the Baptist begins his ministry and then Jesus begins his ministry shortly thereafter. Jesus is crucified and resurrected.

It says 33 or 30. Those are the two years where it's possible and fits into the schedule for Passover to be when it was. Increasingly, the evidence is stacking up that Jesus was crucified on April 3rd, 33 AD. And just this last year, previous year, geological evidence of the earthquake pointed to April 3rd, 33 AD.

Okay, so why a genealogy? I mean, it was really a challenge, and he did a great job getting all those names in there, and you go through that, and it's like, whoa, boy, that's quite a genealogy. And Luke's is more complete and lengthy. He went all the way back to Adam. Genealogies were important to the Jews because, one, who a person was descended from defined you.

Notice that, you know, son of, son of, son of. Oftentimes people were referred to by, you know, who's the father, right? And we have this example from 1 Samuel 16. Then one of the young men said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse. The Bethlehemite. So here's David, but he's referring to him by his father's name. The Bethlehemite, who is a skillful musician, a mighty man of valor, a warrior, one prudent in speech, and a handsome man, and the Lord is with him. Right? Referred to by his father's name. Everything's identified about him. You can tell it's David, but his father's name is what gets mentioned here. People were defined frequently by how they showed up in the genealogy.

Besides that, priests had to be from the tribe of Levi and of the line of Kohath. Aside from that, the Levites had to be from the tribe of Levi, and they did other work around the temple, and other work having to do with serving in the temple. The kings once David became king, had to be of the line of David. Had to be.

So you had to keep those genealogies. And the genealogies were kept there at the temple, and recorded, and someone who wanted to know anything, like Dr. Luke, could go there to the temple and look at the genealogical records. Prophecies were made at times on genealogical lines. David was told by Nathan, as we have here in the illustration, David was told by Nathan, a descendant of yours shall rule over Israel, ultimately pointing to Christ. as the ruler.

Genealogies also conveyed historical reality. These were real people. It reminds me of an account. There were some Bible translators translating for a minor language that was previously not translated. And so they wanted to hurry and get some translation work out. And so they took the Gospel of Matthew and truncated the genealogy at the front. And so they got it to the people, and people read it, and they just weren't sure what to do with it. And then they added the genealogy to the account, and the people said, oh, you mean those are real people, right? So the genealogy for a number of different language groups and cultural groups, genealogy conveys this is real people. Real people.

So all those reasons for having this genealogy included, both Matthews and Luke's. Now, one of the things we point out is genealogies were not all the same. If you look at the one in Matthew, and you look at the one here in the Gospel of Luke, they're quite different. In Matthew, it starts from time past and works to the present. And it's begat, begat, begat, begat, begat. One of the things you heard repeatedly, as Brad read this for us, is son of. So in a reverse pattern. and going back in time as you get farther along all the way back to Adam.

So genealogies through the father were used to determine tribe or clan and were used for deciding inheritance. Things had to stay within the tribe or clan and that was the aim of having these and they went through the line of fathers to get there. Genealogies through the male line down to a man related by blood or marriage were used for inheritance when there was no son. And so we'll see how that applies here in the Gospel of Luke.

So then we have another pattern. Among Jews to this day Jewishness is passed through the mother. So you can get tribe or clan, but to say someone is Jewish You have to nail down, okay, through the line of the mother. So Timothy, as we have in this picture here, is half Greek and half Jewish, right? But he gets to be called a Jew, and Paul even circumcises him before he goes out on ministry. He gets to be called a Jew because he has a Jewish mother, and Paul wrote about that.

Now, let's contrast on several points the genealogy in Matthew. It starts at the beginning of Matthew 1 with that of Luke that Brad just read for us here. Matthew's version begins with Abraham and traces through David and ends with Jesus as the Messiah. Matthew's version includes the name of four women, and oddly enough, three of whom are Gentiles, and you've got in a few different instances some sexual sin. that's associated with them. So that's like shocking, stunning to see those names listed. Luke's version begins with Christ and traces through David and Abraham all the way back to Adam. Luke's version does not include the name of any woman and no Gentiles until he gets to the time before Jacob and Isaac and Abraham. Now, some more contrast. Matthew goes and edits, drops out names so that he has 14 generations each between Abraham to David, David to the exile, the exile to Jesus.

Now, why would he do that? In Hebrew, the letters that make the sound D and V and D, which is how they would put together David, are also numbers. 4 plus 6 plus 4 is 14. So it makes the whole genealogy focus on David's name. And so you have here the numbering system for the different letters, and that's how the Hebrews would put together their numbers. So that's why I would insist on the 14. It makes the whole genealogy point to Jesus through Joseph, makes it point to David. The whole thing, by the numbers that are picked. David, David, David, David. It spells out David every time.

Luke's version doesn't seem to edit any name from the list, as Brad discovered. Not missing a one. It seems like it's all there, and where you have some points of comparison, he's got everything listed, like for example, back in Genesis. So he doesn't drop out anything. Luke doesn't do anything by the numbers. He doesn't edit things to try to meet some specific number or anything. So real different that way. There are even more contrasts.

Matthew gives the genealogy right away. Matthew's account of Christ's birth seems to focus on Joseph, the revelation to him in dreams. One of the things we discovered at the Christmas Eve service is three times the Lord gave revelation to Joseph through a dream. Once, to let him know it's okay to marry. Once, also, to let him know you've got to get out of Bethlehem right now. Go to Egypt. And the third time, to let him know it's okay to return. So those three times.

But the focus is on Joseph in great part in the book of Matthew. Luke, on the other hand, and as we've discovered, as we've studied through the first few chapters here, Dr. Luke waits until Christ is beginning his ministry before he gives this long genealogy. It doesn't start off like Matthew does. And Dr. Luke's account of Christ's birth definitely focuses on Mary.

This is where the angel Gabriel comes to Mary, lets her know, you know, you're going to bear the Christ child, and she says, you know, as the Lord wills. Just do it. And she then goes down and visits Elizabeth. The account of Mary in Dr. Luke's account is the only place where we have what happened to Mary. But he definitely focuses on Mary here.

Now, we've got three slides here of Jewish genealogy principles. And one of the things that when you read a Jewish genealogy, you've got to think like a Jew, right, in order to understand it properly. So we compare Ezra 7.3 with 1 Chronicles 6, 7, and 10. Those two are parallel passages. And we see how Ezra skipped six generations from Marias to Azariah. And that sets the precedent for Matthew. It's okay. to skip generations. He's got an example there in Ezra. So that's an example of why Matthew could go in and edit out names. It was okay, Ezra did it.

Son, in some cases, can be used for someone who's not a direct biological son, and we'll see some variations on that. So we'll see son of, son of, son of, and the reality is, well, wait a minute, that's not a son. The Jews didn't have a way to say son-in-law. It just wasn't in their language structure. So what they did was they just called someone who was a son-in-law, son. And we have an example here in Jair. He was a distant son-in-law of Manasseh. And yet, several different times, we see son of Manasseh. Now, Jewish genealogy principles are number two. The second slide here.

Jesus is called the Son of David a number of times in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Those three. Joseph is also called Son of David when the angel appears to him in the first dream, refers to him as Son of David. And yet, both Jesus and Joseph are called Son of David even though it was almost a thousand years since the time of David. But you're still a Son of David. after all those son of, son of, son of, son of sequences. So a thousand years passes and you're still the son of David. Likewise, the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear a son and will be given the throne of his father, a thousand years earlier, David.

So it sounds like, to our ears, it sounds like a direct connection. But son of or father of can be a thousand years away. Now, Philtel and Zerubbabel are given in 1 Chronicles 3, 17 and 19 and those are the same guys that are mentioned in Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah numerous times. So son was used of one we know from that 1 Chronicles passage who was really a nephew. Very interesting.

Now it may have been that there was a death his actual physical father at a young age and so the other uncle basically Took up the job of raising him and then that son of idea gets transferred All right now one other Point no girls allowed in a formal Jewish genealogy.

I'm not supposed to list the women like Matthew did okay and Women were not named, but rather related. Male, however they were related, would have been put in there. And this will become relevant as we take a look at Luke's account. So whether by blood or by marriage, either way, the male gets called a son. The male gets called a son.

And that has a pattern that's been established. We give two different references, chapter 27 and chapter 36 in the book of Numbers. So that's already established. Luke's genealogy was formal. He listed no females. Matthew was informal. And that numbering system, where the letters stand for numbers, that's called gematria.

That's the particular approach to looking at things like the genealogy and looking at the numbers and applying them with some pattern and consistency. All right, now we come to a fork in the road, but not that kind. This kind. We come to a fork in the road, and the fork, in fact, is this.

There are those who hold that both the genealogy in the Matthew and the one in Luke are Jesus' lineage through Joseph. The one in Matthew going through Solomon, and the one in Luke going through Solomon's brother, Nathan. So they part ways there and go through a different line.

So some hold to that position. And there are those who hold that the genealogy given in Matthews is Joseph's and the one in Luke is Jesus' lineage through Mary. Wait a minute, Mary's name doesn't show up. No, it doesn't. And there's a reason for that. Then there are those who say that the matter can't be settled at all with the information we have available. So what are we going to do? Oh, you think I'm going to address it? Okay. Let's see.

Given what we've presented before and several additional points, Luke 3.23-38 appears to be Mary's genealogy. It fits with Luke's emphasis on Mary as he's introduced the Gospel of Luke by her marriage to Joseph. by her marriage to Joseph. That's the way Numbers 27 and Numbers 36 works out. You have some relationship with the male. Why? For inheritance purposes. For inheritance purposes. You always list the male line even if the relationship is by marriage or some other family relationship.

And the Jerusalem Talmud, a Jewish writing, actually says that Mary, spelled out as Miriam, is the daughter of Heli. And so there's a reference there. It's consistent with Luke 3, 23 through 38 as Mary's genealogy. So very interesting that the Jewish Talmud is a Jewish writing. The Jerusalem Talmud is a Jewish writing. There are different Talmud collections, and you may have heard of other ones like the Babylonian Talmud. So this particular one says that Miriam is the daughter of Heli.

Now, here you have, and this is a slide on page 4 of your handout, a literal translation of verse 23 in the first part of verse 24. And it goes like this, When he began his ministry, Jesus himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, son of Joseph, and the way that the Greek goes for the rest of what Brad read for us is Thee of Heli, Thee of Mathat, Thee of Levi, all the way to Adam.

Now, you might say, well wait a minute, isn't the word son in there? No, in a formal genealogy it was assumed that it was a son, so you didn't have to write it. So that's the way they would do the genealogy. Of course it's a son. It's male. You don't list a female, right? So he went like that, and so the word son is put in our English translations because that would, of course, you wouldn't put a genealogy together that didn't have the male line, at least a formal one. So that's the pattern that you see there.

Notice no definite article for Jesus or for Joseph. And, not only is it an exception, no definite article for Jesus, no definite article for Joseph, and between them, as was supposed. Okay. Why the difference in the way Jesus and Joseph relationship is put there? Difference is there because One, was Joseph actually Jesus' biological father?

No. That's part one. And also, because Joseph was his father by the reason of marriage. The reason of marriage. That's how he was the father. Not because there was a bloodline between Joseph and Mary. The next thing we point out is Joseph was not the biological son of Heli, but the biological son of Jacob, as it says in Matthew's account. So Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli, but they didn't have a way of saying that, so they just said son. They just said son. So that's why Mary's name is not listed at all. No women in the genealogy.

So what we have here Jesus is, from the genealogies and early chapters in Luke, Jesus is the Jewish God-man-king. That's what we get from these genealogies. Genealogies in Matthew and in Luke, and early in Luke, are given at least four specific titles for Jesus.

One, Matthew 1.1, he's called the son of David. We saw that son of David meant that even a thousand years could pass and he's still the son of David, right? He's called the son of David and the son of Abraham. He's the son of Abraham.

In Luke 3.38, he's called the son of Adam.

And in Luke 1.35, the son of God.

Now, so by saying Jesus is the son of David, then he is a king through Mary. He's got the right bloodline through Mary. Why duplicate that and have another genealogy through David in Matthew? Because that's the official right to reign as king. But this genealogy in Luke says he's of the bloodline. So they're complementary genealogies.

Next, by calling Jesus the son of Abraham, then he is a Jew. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. By calling Jesus the son of Adam, then he is a man. and by calling him the Son of God, then Jesus is fully deity. All four points are made there by those genealogies in the early chapters there of Matthew and Luke. So Jesus is the Jewish God-man-king. Fully God, fully man, fully qualified by both parents to reign as king, fully qualified to die for you and me. He's the only one, none other. So these genealogies are very important.

But we saw earlier that Mary recognized, Luke 1.47, recognized that she needed a Savior.

She makes reference to God my Savior there in Luke 1.47. Mary saw that she too needed the Savior, the very one that she birthed. Isn't that amazing?

Christ is alone qualified to be Savior, to die for us, to be buried, to rise again, and be ascended and seated in the heavenlies where we are with Him. We are identified with Him only in those five events. It's death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating. Those are the only things that we're identified with Him in.

We were not identified with Him in His birth. We were not identified with him as he crossed the Sea of Galilee in a boat. We were not identified with him when he walked on water, when he would heal people, restore sight and hearing. We weren't identified with him in those things.

Just his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Those five events, we were identified with him in that. So questions for this Sunday. Let's take a look at them. How many Bible books include or make reference to John baptizing Jesus? We saw on the first page, five. So those five. By the way, if you find the others, let me know. That's all I could find.

If we're baptized after we're saved by faith, does Jesus' baptism mean the same thing? No. John's baptism for all the others except Christ was a baptism indicating they had repented. The baptism indicating the repentance. Jesus' baptism, even though by John the Baptist too, didn't mean the same thing. We saw what Jesus' baptism meant. It signified, it was a point of testimony. It was an opportunity for John and Jesus to be shown as different. Our baptism means something different than it did for John the Baptist and for Jesus. So the external ceremony looks the same, but what actually is meant by that baptism is different for John's disciples, for Jesus, and for us in the body of Christ.

Why does the Bible include so many long genealogies? Oh, it's just to challenge people, right? No. See if you can pronounce all the names or see if you can keep from going to sleep, right? No. The Bible includes so many genealogies because they matter.

As we saw, the genealogies told us four different things about Christ, about who He was and what qualifications He had. Is the genealogy in Luke the lineage of Christ through Joseph or is it the genealogy of Mary, Jesus' biological mother? And what we, I think, have shown here is there's good reason to believe it's in Luke, Mary's genealogy, even though she isn't named. Now, questions for next Sunday.

Was it against the will of God for Jesus to be tempted by the devil? Were all of the temptations of Christ by the devil of the same nature? Should all fasts be for 40 days? Good luck with that one. I would be fast out on the floor long before 40 days. Which Bible books did Jesus quote from in order to counter the temptations of the devil?

So we'll take a look at that. And then why didn't Jesus just bind Satan and be done with him? You wonder why? Okay, we'll take a look at that. Aside from that, I want us to think about something. Think about Christ's birth, which we just have celebrated in this last week. Think about Christ's birth. Were we identified with Christ in His birth? No, we were not.

What's amazing is here is Mary who got to birth the Savior. How long did Mary stick around? Well, Acts chapter 1. right before the day of Pentecost Acts chapter 1 verse 14 Mary is named Jesus mother is named there as gathered with the Saints and his brothers were there and by the way they didn't believe before the resurrection that kind of got their attention What?

Our brother is resurrected? That would kind of change your mind. Specifically, the Apostle Paul wrote that he appeared to James. So Mary and Jesus' brothers lived into the time of the church and are therefore church saints. So you can imagine, here's Mary and Jesus' brothers. who finally come to realize that they were identified with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Mary too. Mary with us. And Christ will come to take us home to be with him, sometimes called the rapture, and he'll come for Mary.

Isn't that something to ponder? It must have blown their minds to begin to think about these things. Mary had a lot to think about. A lot to think about. Let's pray. Lord, thank you as we look at this genealogy, as we look at Christ's baptism. On the one hand it seems like a certain monotony and on the other hand some very exciting things come out of it and Some essential things come out of it Both these genealogies and Matthew and Luke are needed and so we just look to you Lord just to teach us in these things and to Help us to to ponder through them and consider them carefully. We just thank you in Jesus name. Amen