Matt 1:18 Now the origin of Jesus Christ was in this way: His mother, Mary, after she had been engaged to Joseph, before they came together, was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.
According to Jewish custom, a writer of a genealogy would never include a female name; he would include only the names of males. But in this brief genealogy five women are mentioned. Four of these five women were remarried, and one of the four was a harlot. It seems that the divine record here would not mention the good ones, such as Sarah or Rebekah, but the bad ones. Listen to the divine record: "David begot Solomon of the wife of Uriah" (1:6). The record does not even give her name; it gives only her history in order to remind us of what kind of person she was. [She] was Bathsheba, the wife of a Canaanite named Uriah whom David murdered. David took her to be his wife, and with her he begot Solomon. If we were to write a biography of Christ and there were no biographies of Him in the Bible, we would not dare to write it this way. We would hide all these impure grandmothers and give the names of the good grandmothers, such as Sarah and Rebekah. If this divine record had listed the names of the good women without the names of the impure ones, I would be in doubt about the present situation of the church. I would say, "Look at today's situation in the church. Not many are very pure." Do not think that you are so pure, so clean. We are not pure. Nevertheless, the generation of Christ includes both good ones and bad ones. In fact, it includes more bad ones than good ones. Besides the four remarried women, a virgin stands out: Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary was good, pure, and clean. This indicates that everyone mentioned in this book of generation is a sinner except Jesus. With the exception of Jesus, all are unclean.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Matthew, 1986, pp. 8-9. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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