READ Matthew 1. There is no greater guarantee of the genuineness of anything than a genealogy. If one is heir to an inheritance, one must of necessity show his genealogy— that he is the son of such and such a father, deceased. There is no difficulty in doing that; one has only to turn to the “book of generation,” and there it is written, and the identity of the heir being established, the inheritance is righteously his.
So in this “book of the generation of Jesus Christ,” the most important of all such records, in fact the only really important one; it is the greatest guarantee of the genuineness of it all, and dry as these records may at first sight seem, the older we are in the truth, the more we value them, and thank God for them. It may be that there are difficulties,—there are, but they are not great, and the fact that the nation to which this record belongs is with us,— and I do not think that the Jews dispute the genealogy of Jesus,—is sufficient for us, and of course the attestation of all the prophets, and all the records of history, leave with us not the least doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ is he whom God has appointed to be Prophet, Priest, and King: the son of David, and more than that, the Son of God. That latter phase of the matter is increasingly doubted and denied. Under the influence of Trinitarian doctrine on the one hand, and mere fleshly rationalism on the other, the truth has been greatly obscured.
There are those who say, while they would not for a moment deny the possibility of the virgin birth, they cannot see the “ethical necessity” for it; if I mistake not, Sir Oliver Lodge is one of those. The truth has given us to understand the necessity for it, in the wisdom of God. In few words it is this—so stated in fact in the scriptures—that God may be at once just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus; that His majesty may be upheld, and His kindness revealed in the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus Christ, whom He has given to the sons of men,—“the arm of the Lord” revealed, the Son of God revealed, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. So that when we find ourselves confronted by these modern denials, we are saved from the religious confusions, or the mere negations of rationalism.
Let us simply go back on the Word, and ponder how from the beginning God has proposed this. In the very outset, when sin entered, God upheld His majesty by the fulfilment of the sentence upon the transgressors; but, at the same time, He promised a remedy. “I will put enmity,” said God, “between thee, O serpent, and thy seed, and her seed (the seed of the woman). He shall bruise thy head, but thou shalt bruise his heel.” There was the earliest promise of what is here recorded as a matter of initial fulfilment; for it is expressly told us in this chapter we have read (Matt. 1.) that Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman,—“Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”
From that initial promise right through the scriptures runs this doctrine of the virgin birth, — that God would thus, without the intervention of man, give to Israel a Son of God. Very early in Israel’s history that was typically revealed in the giving to Abraham of a child of promise. We are familiar with the circumstances of the birth of Isaac, when Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah a woman of 90; and yet at that time, after so long a waiting period, in which hopes would seem to be disappointed,—after so long a time, Sarah bore a son, of whom it is said by the apostle Paul, that he was “born after the Spirit.” Of course, that expression is used with reference to the actual circumstances that are recorded in Genesis, and does not cover the like of what we read of Jesus Christ; still, there is that divine expression applied to Isaac as a type of Christ. There never would have been an Isaac unless God had interposed, and by the Spirit strengthened Sarah to conceive seed when she was past age. And the matter was a matter of faith, as Paul argues in the epistle to the Hebrews.
So here, in the case of Isaac, is a direct typical foreshadowing of this very matter of which we are reading, concerning the Lord Jesus Christ; and also that offering of Isaac is likewise a typical foreshadowing of what we thus bring to mind this day, —the laying of God’s only begotten Son on the altar of sacrifice. Then in the law likewise, this same feature was brought to mind, in the provision of the altar of unhewn stone. The law was: “If thou wilt build an altar of stone unto me, thou shalt build it of unhewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.” And of the “Stone” it was afterwards said, in the prophet Zechariah (the figure of a stone relating to the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the “tried corner stone”), “Behold I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day,” so that God would provide the altar,—the Lord Jesus Christ, not of man’s begetting, THAT MAN SHOULD NOT BOAST. Supposing for a moment that Joseph had really been the father of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh, would he not have boasted in such a son? Surely, but it was not to be so; there was no boasting according to the flesh. It was the “arm of the Lord that brought salvation,” and boasting was excluded altogether. So it is that flesh is humbled, and we are invited to draw near upon the basis of what God has done for us,—humbling ourselves, confessing our sins, acknowledging that what He said is true: He looked to Israel, and there was no man, none to save Zion of all the sons she had brought up, and so He interposed, and gave to Israel a Deliverer.
The seventh chapter of Isaiah is referred to in this first chapter of Matthew, and we know how vain it is to attempt to escape the meaning of its terms. The Jews have all sorts of fantastical expositions of this chapter, —trying to apply it to Hezekiah, and so forth, but it is all in vain. When, apart from Jesus, was anyone revealed in Israel whose name was Emmanuel? Who, among all Zion’s sons, save he, ever claimed to be God revealed in Israel? Jesus did claim it, and, more than that, he substantiated his claims; the words he spake, the works he wrought, bore testimony. He appealed especially to the works: “Believe,” he said, “for the very works’ sake, if ye will not believe me,” but they would not. Again he said, and none could contradict him, that he was of a higher origin than man, —“I am from above, ye are from beneath.” What mere man could talk like that in Israel? And therefore he said to his disciples, when they stumbled over his hard sayings in the synagogue at Capernaum, when he said he was the antitype of the manna, and the bread he would give for the life of the world was his flesh, and his blood for drink,—the disciples stumbled, and he appealed to them in this way: “What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?” And they did see it. The one question remaining is, In what sense are we to understand his words, “ascend up where he was before”? They afterwards saw him ascend; but at the same time of speaking in Capernaum Jesus expounded the statement. “It is the spirit that quickeneth—or maketh alive—the flesh profiteth nothing. The words which I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
So that in all these things we look back to the very beginning, and forward to the words of Christ himself, and the crowning proof of his divinity, —his resurrection and ascension. We see this purpose of God upheld and illustrated, we even see the reason given to us for it, a reason that the wise of this world cannot perceive. They say that there was no “ethical” value in the virgin birth of Christ, God says the reason is that His majesty may be upheld, boasting excluded from the flesh, and mankind humbled, and invited to approach on the basis of confession of sin, and the recognition of His righteousness revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we ponder the terms of this second chapter, what reality there is underlying it all! “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king,” etc. . . . Now, Bethlehem is with us, I have been there, and seen that Church of the Nativity, that has been a hallowed spot in Christendom, certainly since the third century A.D. Indeed, it is said to be the oldest church in Christendom. The beams of its present ceiling were supplied by one of the early English kings, —I forget which, at the moment, —and down in the vault there is a silver star let into the pavement, to indicate the spot where the Lord was born. It may not be the spot, and there is much ecclesiastical mummery associated with it now, but that does not matter at all: it is the city, which has never been lost sight of, —one of the few undoubted spots.
We turn back to the prophet; what is involved in this prophecy in Micah concerning the birth of Christ at Bethlehem? We ponder these things, and when we consider the literal fulfilment of the words of the prophets in the birth of the Lord, there we rest assured that the rest of the prophecy will likewise be literally fulfilled. Micah had foretold that because of the iniquities of Zion’s prophets, priests and judges, the heads of the house of Israel, Zion should be “plowed as a field,” yet in the last days she should arise, shine, and be the metropolis of the world, so that many nations should come, as Isaiah likewise says, and say, “Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” And in that day there will be a great regathering, as the prophet goes on to say, and Zion, long down-trodden, will arise and thresh the nations that will gather together against her. “But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel: for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples: and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth,” that is, unto Jesus Christ.
So here is the picture; most of these things have never yet been; Zion has indeed been plowed as a field, and remains down-trodden, though the tide is turning, but she has never been such a metropolis, such a threshing-floor for the nations as God has ordained. But yet the very next words, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Juda, yet out of thee shall come a governor,”—that has been fulfilled. Throughout these chapters we read this singularly arresting expression concerning time, “Now,”— “Now why dost thou cry aloud?” “Now gather thyself together in troops.” Well may Peter say that the prophets “searched out what and what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in them did signify”; who but God could have spoken in this way? “Now many nations are gathered together against thee.” We are familiar, are we not (perhaps too familiar), with these cinematograph films, —moving records of the past: now imagine a moving record of the future: man could not do it, but God could, and in literary form He has done it in these pictures. They are not intelligible until the time comes, but when the time comes they become intelligible and so men look at the pictures, and say, Yes, that is what God has said.
And so, as we look at the birth at Bethlehem, it is a historical picture, and the importance of rightly pondering these things is this, that we follow in the same spirit in our day and generation, because just as there was a time for the birth of Christ, a time for the humiliation of Christ, so there is a time for the glory. We look back upon the humiliation,— “Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek,” and they did it, and the siege followed, as he told them it would, and that Jerusalem should be “trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled.” He was “made perfect through sufferings,” and judgment came upon Jerusalem: the times of the Gentiles supervened, in which the invitation of God in the gospel went forth to them, and they were called out of their “highways and hedges.” Now our turn has come. How are we walking in our time, dear brethren and sisters? Are we content to partake in whatever measure God may see fit, of the sufferings of the Christ, in hope of the glory that is to follow?
As we ponder these words, how wonderful they are! “Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.” And he goes on to tell how he shall be the peace, when the Assyrian invades the land in the last days, and how the remnant of Jacob shall do valiantly, as a lion among sheep, and as a dew from the Lord. What figures! Who would dream of it, from the present state of things? And yet Christ came out of Bethlehem, and the other is just as sure to be fulfilled.
And so if we were to ponder these other testimonies: Matthew says, referring to the prophecy of Hosea, that the young child was taken down into Egypt, and was afterwards brought forth, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Well, we go to Egypt, and we see there monuments that bear testimony to Christ, and long before Christ, even to Joseph. A few miles north of Cairo there is almost the only remaining obelisk standing in situ in Egypt, on the site of On, where Joseph was, and the Nile mud that has been washed down the river all these centuries has raised the face of the country perhaps eight or ten feet, but they have excavated the base of this pillar, and you can go and see the pillar of the temple that was there when Joseph was there. A very little way from that, there is a tree called “Mary’s tree,” a sycamore, a monument, as tradition says, of the presence of the young child and his mother in Egypt, in those early days.
But we turn to this prophet again, and there are associations of ideas here. No doubt there is a double intention in that reference in Hosea: no doubt it is historically true that when Israel was a child, God loved him, and brought him out of Egypt,—his national “son,” his “firstborn”; but there is this other beautiful idea covered, and that prophet likewise speaks of the judgments to come upon Israel, of the abiding of the children of Israel many days without a prince, without a priest or teraphim; and “afterwards,” he says, “shall the children of Israel return and fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days,” so that here, as in Micah, we have the same idea; a long period of forsaking, the coming of Christ, a long “time of the Gentiles,” the latter days, and restoration and glory in the kingdom of God, and we have modern testimonies to the truth of these things.
Then again, that apparently obscure reference to Jeremiah’s prophecy, when Herod was cruelly slaying the children at Bethlehem, “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” We look back upon that chapter, and we see the same things in wonderful ways. In the 31st chapter of Jeremiah, God is speaking by the prophet of the restoration of Israel in the latter days. In the 21st verse of chapter 30. he is speaking of the governor of Israel, that Judge of Israel, who should be smitten upon the cheek,—Jesus is here prophetically alluded to,—“Their nobles shall be of themselves, and their Governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me, saith the Lord?”
Now Christ did approach unto God, by resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the majesty on high, and in connection with this it goes on immediately to speak of the whirlwind of the Lord going forth with fury, and coming upon the head of the wicked, “The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have done it, and until he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it. Now we are in “the latter days,” and Christ is at the right hand of God, having engaged his heart to approach, and a whirlwind has arisen, and a mighty earthquake is shaking all nations. All the earth knows and fears; but it knows not the divine purpose in the storm.
What is it? The 31st chapter tells us: “At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.” Verse 8: “Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child, and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the word of the Lord. O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off— (that is what we are doing)—and say, he that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.”
And it is in this connection, a verse or two further on, that we read of this lamentation in Ramah, “Thus saith the Lord: A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the Lord: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.”
Are we to understand from that, that that prophecy is exhausted in the Herodian episode of the massacre of the innocents at Bethlehem? By no means, it is a wider matter, as you perceive. Rachel’s children stand for much more than those babes at Bethlehem at that time; just as the true children of Zion stand for much more than the descendants of Abraham after the flesh. What is involved in this is a national restoration, and more than that, a manifestation of Christ and the true children of Zion in immortal redemption. We know there are some who apply it to the literal resurrection of children, without reference to the hope of Israel. That will not stand; we must control our thoughts by God’s conditions revealed.
Just one word in conclusion,—to realise that these things are not apart from what we are reading of in Matt. 1: and 2.,—in verses 22 and 23 of this 31st chapter of Jeremiah, we read, “How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man, ”—another prophecy of the virgin birth of Christ. “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity; The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness,” and the prophet says, in the 26th verse, in a curious kind of parenthesis, “Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me;” and he will literally awake from the dead, and behold, and sweet will be the vision. Shall we be there? Yes, if we hold fast these precious things which God has given to us!
CC Walker, (1919). The Christadelphian, 56 page 345–349.
