His Family Tree Is Love

Father, our day did not encompass everything we thought it might but we did enjoy our day together! As You and I come together this evening, may our time be blessed. May my heart and mind be attentive to You. Amen

Luke 3:23-38 (<<click to read the passage)

As my eyes beheld the content of these verses, my mind went back to the King James Version…or so I thought. As I looked further into it I realized that it was Matthew’s Gospel not Luke’s that used the terminology that I recalled.

Both authors gave a genealogy of Jesus. They vary some in that Matthew’s only goes back to Abraham and Luke’s goes back to Adam. Regardless, in Matthew’s Gospel, the King James renders the phrase “was the father of” as “begat”. It means the same thing it is just older language that our modern ears are not attuned to.

So thinking along those lines we see that it is written, “Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob…” and so on and so on. Then my mind jumped to an old Latin hymn that was written in the 5^th century but was then translated into English by John M. Neale in 1854, and Henry W. Baker in 1859. The first line of the hymn is its title and here are the first few lines of the first verse,

Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending He,

Matthew and Luke both communicate that Jesus’ human lineage could literally be traced back to the very beginning. But that was flesh giving birth to (begetting?) flesh. While Jesus is fully human and has that lineage He is also fully God and is therefore begotten (birthed), also, of the Father’s love. In John’s (i.e. John the Apostle’s) first epistle (letter), he tells us that “…God is love.” 1 John 4:8 NLT (emphasis mine)

This can be a bit confusing, so I will close with Hebrews 2:14-18 (AMP), it explains it much better than I ever could. Read through it slowly, there is a lot to take in. (Lord Jesus, bless the reading of Your word for it shall not return to us void! Isaiah 55:11)

¹⁴ Therefore, since [these His] children share in flesh and blood [the physical nature of mankind], He Himself in a similar manner also shared in the same [physical nature, but without sin], so that through [experiencing] death He might make powerless (ineffective, impotent) him who had the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵ and [that He] might free all those who through [the haunting] fear of death were held in slavery throughout their lives. ¹⁶ For, as we all know, He (Christ) does…take hold of [the fallen] descendants of Abraham [extending to them His hand of deliverance]. ¹⁷ Therefore, it was essential that He had to be made like His brothers (mankind) in every respect, so that He might [by experience] become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things related to God, to make atonement (propitiation) for the people’s sins [thereby wiping away the sin, satisfying divine justice, and providing a way of reconciliation between God and mankind]. ¹⁸ Because He Himself [in His humanity] has suffered in being tempted, He is able to help and provide immediate assistance to those who are being tempted and exposed to suffering.

Dec 2^nd, 2019, Mon, 8:11 pm