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Counting to Christ and the End of Exile (Matthew 1:17) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed thinking. Taking a closer look at sources,
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  you send us really digging into the theological structure that
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  might be hiding, you know, just beneath the surface.
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  Today we're tackling a bit of scripture that let's be honest,
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  most people probably skim through Matthew chapter 1 and
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  specifically we're zoning in on verse 17, that little summary
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  sentence right after the long list of Jesus ancestors.
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  I bet our listener like me has probably powered through those
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  16 verses of begats at some point.
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  And you see, verse 17 is just what the bookkeepers note at the
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  end, right? Just tallying up the names you
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  just waded through seems like simple accounting.
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  But what want us to suggest today is that Matthew 1.13 is
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  way more than that. Structurally, it's like the
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  theological headline for the whole story Matthew's about to
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  tell. It doesn't just count history,
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  it actually turns history into a kind of map.
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  Map of redemptive time. That's a great way to put it, a
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  map. We're looking at verse 17 not as
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  some kind of a Bendex, but as the, let's say, interpretive
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  capstone on top of that list of names.
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  And it's also a hermeneutical key.
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  It unlocks the theological setup for the whole birth narrative
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  that follows. See, Matthew is giving us this
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  highly stylized arrangement of Israel's story.
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  He breaks time down into 3 symmetrical sections and he does
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  this. It seems to show us that history
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  isn't just random stuff happening.
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  It's a ruled procession. It's marching somewhere
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  specific, and the verse itself tells us the destination very
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  clearly. It culminates unto the Christ.
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  OK, so our mission for this deep dive is pretty clear.
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  Then we need to unpack the architecture of this verse.
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  Why this structure? Why the number 14 repeated like
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  that? What's the big crisis sitting
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  right in the middle of this historical map?
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  And how does this whole structured history actually
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  preach God's Providence, which, for listeners familiar with the
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  Westminster Confession, connect straight to the teaching in
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  chapter 5? Right, let's get into it.
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  So let's unpack this architecture you mentioned.
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  Matthew isn't just giving us a, you know, straightforward list
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  of names first to last, He's framing it.
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  It's like a carefully balanced structure with three parts a try
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  call on. He's taking centuries of history
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  and compressing it into 3 distinct equal periods.
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  That's right. He organizes the whole sweep of
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  salvation history from Abraham all the way to the Messiah into
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  these three specific epochs or spans of time.
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  The structure is built around clear boundary markers.
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  So the first era that covers the age of promise and foundation,
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  it runs from Abraham to David. This is when the covenants get
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  established, the nation forms, and it all leads up to that
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  golden age of the Kingdom under David.
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  Then we get to the middle section.
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  The second era. This is the age of kingship.
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  And then, well, collapse. It goes from David to the
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  deportation to Babylon. So this covers the time of the
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  United monarchy, then the divided Kingdom, and it's
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  increasingly marked by disobedience, by covenant
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  failure. Right, things start falling
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  apart. And then finally, the third era.
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  This one often feels a bit hazy in Old Testament history,
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  doesn't it? It's the age of waiting and
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  fulfillment, from the deportation to Babylon to the
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  Christ. And what's really striking is
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  how uniform Matthew makes this. He doesn't just give the total
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  number at the very end, he actually repeats the result for
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  each section. Each one ends with the same
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  phrase 14 generations. Yes, exactly that.
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  The repetition is obviously intentional.
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  It's a rhetorical technique. There's a technical term for
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  repeating the same phrase at the end of successive clauses called
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  epistrophe, and Matthew uses it here almost like a hammer
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  hitting an anvil. Boom boom boom, 14/14/14.
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  It forces you to notice the rhythm, the cadence.
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  It's meant to etch that pattern into your memory, so the
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  symmetry is just undeniable. Which brings us right to the
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  main question. Why 14?
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  Why that number? If Matthew was just listing
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  names, he'd use whatever number came up.
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  But the source material we looked at is very clear.
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  The number 14 isn't random, it's a Davidic signature.
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  Now, for anyone listening who hasn't come across this idea
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  before, it depends on something called gematria.
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  Can you break down that connection?
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  David's name and 14? Simply sure.
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  It comes down to an ancient Jewish practice, Gematria.
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  Letters in the Hebrew alphabet also stood for numbers.
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  It was a known way of finding deeper meaning in texts.
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  OK, so if you take the three consonants in David's Hebrew
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  name, that's daleth. Wah daleth the letter Dale
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  that's worth 4. The letter wah is worth 6.
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  So you have Dale with four plus wah 6 plus another Dale with
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  four. Add them up. 4 + 6 + 4 is 14.
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  Got it. Right, so the number is
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  literally embedded in the name itself.
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  So this wasn't just some kind of ancient number game, it was a
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  way of making a theological statement using the letters
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  themselves. It was, and this gives us the
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  main theological effect of this symmetry.
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  By repeating 14 three times, Matthew creates this rhythm that
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  just stamps David all over Israel's history.
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  He turns the whole list as one source, put it into something
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  like a royal banner. It acts like a memory aid
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  refrain telling the reader see this structure.
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  Think David and if you think David.
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  You think Messiah, the promised king from David's line?
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  Correct. So the architecture itself
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  becomes a statement of faith about who Jesus is, his royal
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  status. And this measured structure, the
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  symmetry, speaks volumes about God control over time, doesn't
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  it? His sovereignty it.
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  Connects straight to the doctrine of Providence, that
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  perfect symmetry, the measured, stylized pattern of three equal
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  sections. That's Matthew's primary way of
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  signaling that history isn't chaotic, it's measured and
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  governed by God's design. This structure preaches the
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  certainty of God's wise rule. Just like WCFV says that the
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  means and the ends were ordered together towards a specific
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  promised outcome and that outcome is the Messiah.
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  Matthew is basically telling us God was ruling over the rise of
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  the Kingdom in the first section, He was ruling over its
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  collapse and judgement in the 2nd, and he was ruling over that
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  long quiet waiting period in the 3rd.
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  All of it was part of the plan or did bring about the arrival
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  of the Christ. The structure tells us, you
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  know, no matter how messy things look on the ground, God's count
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  is always right. But that very structural
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  tightness, that perfection, leads to the big question people
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  always raise. What about historical accuracy?
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  I mean, to get this perfect 14/14/14 pattern, Matthew
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  clearly had to select names, right?
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  He had to condense the list. It can look a bit like he's,
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  well, fudging the numbers. This is a fairpoint and we need
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  to think about the kind of writing this is.
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  Matthew definitely did select names.
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  Our notes call it telescoping names, but we argue this isn't
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  an error, it's a recognized way of writing these lists back
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  then. This kind of compression is
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  actually pretty standard in biblical genealogies.
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  You see similar things in, say, the genealogy in Ruth chapter 4
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  or in First Chronicles 3. Matthew's using an accepted
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  covenantal way of listing ancestors.
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  OK, but wait, if he has to leave out what, 3 or 4 actual
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  historical kings just to hit his target number of 14, isn't that
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  well? Isn't that manipulating the
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  facts? How do we see that as OK without
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  just dismissing the history? We see it as OK by understanding
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  Matthews goal. His main concern isn't to give
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  us a complete exhaustive civil register like a modern census
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  taker might. His aim is theological design
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  and structure. He's carefully curating the
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  royal line, the line that passes down the legal right to David's
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  throne. And to do that, sometimes these
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  lists focus on the big turning points of the key covenant
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  figures, and they might skip over kings whose reigns were
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  maybe less significant theologically, or maybe even
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  seen as cut off from the main promise.
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  So he's selecting for a reason for teaching.
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  Right. For didactic purposes, he wants
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  to teach you something about God's timing and God's plan
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  centered on David's line. Let's get specific then, which
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  names that he have to admit to make the numbers work,
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  especially in that middle section, the age of kingship.
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  Right, to keep that middle panel symmetrical, running from David
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  down to the Babylonian deportation, Matthew did have to
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  telescope. The most well known omission is
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  the gap between King Joram and King Uzziah.
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  You check the historical record like in Kings or Chronicles.
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  There are actually 3 kings between them, Ahaziah, Joash and
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  Amaziah. 3 Kings skipped over. Is there maybe a theological
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  reason why those 3 might be left out?
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  Was there something specific about that group?
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  Well, there's a pretty strong possibility, yes.
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  It fits with Old Testament patterns of judgement.
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  Joram the king listed right before the gap.
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  He married a Thalia, and the Thalia was the daughter of Ahab
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  and Jezebel, infamous for their wickedness of the Northern
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  Kingdom. So this marriage brought the
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  corruption of Ahab's house right into the Davidic line in Judah.
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  OK, that's not good. Not good at all.
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  And the three kings who followed Ahaziah, Joash, and Messiah were
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  all linked to this compromised wicked line stemming from
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  Oathalia. So by leaving them out, Matthew
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  might be making a theological point that God's judgement
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  effectively cut off that particularly corrupt branch from
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  the official royal line, even though history, you know,
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  continued chronologically. The count then picks up again
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  with Isaiah marking. Maybe a reset or a more
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  acceptable phase. Interesting.
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  And there was one more omission needed, wasn't there?
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  Yes, later on Matthew also leaves out King Jehoiakim who
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  reigned between Josiah and Jaconia right before the exile.
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  And again, Jehoiakim was known as a particularly bad king.
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  His actions, really hurried, belong to Judah's final
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  destruction. So these omissions aren't random
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  cuts, they seem targeted. They seem targeted, and they're
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  necessary to keep the spans at 14 each.
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  The omissions prioritize the theological design, the
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  structure, over listing every single person chronologically.
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  Matthew sacrifices completeness in one sense, to make sure the
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  story marked by that Davidic number leads the reader straight
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  to the Christ. All right, so we got the
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  symmetry, the three outbox, all pointing towards David.
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  Now we really need to zoom in on the pivot point, the absolute
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  center of this whole structure, and that is the Babylonian
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  deportation. Matthew gives this event huge
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  architectural weight. Think of it like the keystone in
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  an arch. It holds everything together.
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  He doesn't just mention it once in verse 17, he names it twice.
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  It's the end point of the second era, from David to the
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  deportation, and it's a starting point of the third era, from the
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  deportation to the Christ. Naming it twice like that really
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  focuses your attention on the exile.
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  This is the crisis moment. This is the ultimate covenant
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  rupture. And let's look at the specific
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  Greek word Matthew uses here for deportation.
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  It's metoacia, or Edo Kappa epsilon Sigma I alpha.
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  The note suggests this wasn't just any word for exile.
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  It was a very deliberate, theologically loaded choice.
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  It highlights dislocation, not just captivity.
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  That's right, he could have used a different word like
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  aichmalusia. That word means captivity or
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  bondage, and it focuses more on being physically held prisoner
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  by another nation. OK, so Aichmalusia is about
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  chains basically. What does Mitwakisia bring out
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  instead? Mckenwakisia is more about
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  relocation, resettlement, or maybe best dislodgement.
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  By choosing this word, Matthew stresses the covenant
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  dislocation. The crisis isn't just about
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  geography or foreign rule. It's about their relationship
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  with God and their relationship to the Promised Land.
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  Dislodgement, like being kicked out of your home.
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  Precisely. The people were driven out of
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  the land of promise, and you connect that back to the law,
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  back to the Pentateuch. This is the direct fulfillment
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  of the curses listed in the covenant.
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  Think Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28 through 30.
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  Deuteronomy 28 lays out blessings for obedience and
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  curses for disobedience. And what's the ultimate curse
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  for breaking the covenant? Expulsion from the land being
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  scattered among the nations. So the deportation wasn't just a
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  military defeat or a political disaster.
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  It was in effect God serving Israel an eviction nocus because
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  they broke the covenant terms. You can certainly see it that
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  way. The theologic weight is huge
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  because it concerns Israel's failure on a national scale.
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  Exile. This metoy Keisha, signals a
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  serious estrangement from God's presence.
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  They lost the place where God's glory dwelled.
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  They lost the rest promised in the land.
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  Think about it this way. If the covenant made Israel like
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  God's tenants living in his land, the mid to Ikesia is the
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  final judgement confirming they'd broken the lease
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  agreement through repeated willful sin, and now they were
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  being evicted. The root problem is the
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  relational distance from God that sin always creates.
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  It drove the covenant people away from God's house, so to
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  speak. And that distance, that rupture,
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  explains why the genealogy, which was so perfectly
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  structured around the Davidic 14, just grinds to a halt at
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  this point. It's the moment the whole
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  Covenant project seems judged and shattered because of their
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  unfaithfulness. The nation's story basically
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  hits a wall here until something totally new can start.
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  And that tension is actually built into the structure through
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  the hinge name Jaconia. This king, Jaconia, also known
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  as Jehoia Cantor Konaya, he's the critical transition figure.
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  See, to make the numbers work, Jaconia gets counted twice in
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  the genealogy. He's counted the end of epoch 2.
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  He was the last sort of legitimate king before the main
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  exile happened, and then he's counted again at the start of
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  epoch 3 as the first representative figure of the
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  line in exile. Counting him twice is necessary
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  to maintain that 14/14/14 symmetry that Matthew is so
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  carefully constructing. And Jaconia himself, his
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  personal fate, really sums up that whole covenant curse, that
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  sense of finality in the middle Acutia.
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  We know from Jeremiah the prophet, chapter 22, verse 30
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  specifically, that God pronounced a really severe curse
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  on him. Jeremiah said that none of
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  Jaconia's physical descendants would ever prosper sitting on
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  David's throne, ruling in Judah again.
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  That's right, a devastating curse.
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  Which seems to create a massive problem for Matthew's whole
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  argument, doesn't it? If Jesus is the Davidic king,
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  the fulfillment of this whole 14/14/14 structure, how can he
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  descend from Jaconia's cursed line?
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  This looks like a theological dead end.
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  It does look like a trap, and this is where Matthew has to
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  show God's Providence working in a very specific way.
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  He needs to secure Jesus's legal right to the throne, passed down
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  through Jaconia's line, while also steering clear of that
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  prophetic curse on Jaconia's actual offspring.
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  And the structure itself signals the solution.
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  The line does run through check and threw his descended Joseph,
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  who becomes Jesus's legal father.
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  But the final step, the fulfillment, requires a break in
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  the biological chain. Jesus gets his legal Davidic
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  sonship through Joseph. That gives him the royal title,
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  the throne, right? It confirms he is the legal heir
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  of this measured 14/14/14 history.
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  But he avoids the curse. He avoids the curse precisely
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  because he is not Joseph's physical offspring.
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  The Virgin conception, which Matthew introduces immediately
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  after finishing the genealogy in verse 18, is the divine solution
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  to the Jaconia problem. So counting Jaconia twice isn't
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  just a numbers game, it's a deliberate technique.
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  It frames the exile perfectly and highlights the need for
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  divine intervention. The story of Restoration Epoch 3
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  has to begin right where the story of Judgement Epoch 2 ended
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  with Jaconia. It carries forward the legal
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  title but signals that God has to do something new to overcome
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  the curse and complete the line. OK, so we've walked through the
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  three epochs, we've seen the Davidic signature in the number
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  14, and we've looked at the central crisis, the Metokeesia,
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  that covenant dislocation symbolized by the exile and
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  zirconia. Now all of this careful
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  structuring, all this theological architecture, it's
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  all pointing towards one goal, the Tillos unto the Christ.
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  Yes, the destination is key. It's very intentional that the
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  word Christu, Christ, is the very last word in the Greek
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  sentence of verse 17. It sits in that final climactic
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  spot. The structure itself is saying
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  all this history, all the counting, the long wait after
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  exile, it all flows towards and finds its resolution in the
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  Messiah. And the use of the definite
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  article to Christu makes it clear this isn't just a name,
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  it's a title. It means the anointed 1 the
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  Messiah. The grammar itself feels like a
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  crowning statement at the end of this historical survey.
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  Right? And this climax is where the
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  major threads of God's promises. What the Westminster Confession
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  speaks about is the convergence of covenants.
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  WCF 7 all come together in this one person, Jesus.
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  Let's breakdown that convergence.
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  The first connection is obvious from the numbers we've been
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  talking about a the Davidic fulfillment kingship.
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  Absolutely. The whole 14/14/14 structure.
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  That Davidic signature is primarily designed to confirm
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  Jesus as the rightful heir to David's throne.
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  Remember the promise in seventh Samuel 7?
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  God promised David an everlasting house, an
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  everlasting throne. Jesus is presented as the
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  fulfillment of that royal oath. The genealogy acts like the
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  legal preamble showing the throne line was preserved and
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  counted by God even through judgement.
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  And this loops back to Joseph's role, which is crucial but not
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  biological. His role is absolutely vital
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  here. The sources point out that
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  Joseph, by being Mary's legal husband and then by officially
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  naming the child Jesus, is the one who confers the legal title,
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  the throne, right onto Jesus. That's how the curse on
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  Jaconia's physical line is bypassed.
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  While the legal claim to the throne remains valid, Joseph
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  acts as the bridge carrying the legitimacy of that 14/14/14
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  structure forward. Which then sets up maybe
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  Matthew's most brilliant literary and theological move,
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  the grammatical seizura, the break in the pattern right of
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  verse 16, the third epoch, the post exile section.
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  Just can't in the same way the others did.
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  You can't for 41 names before this.
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  Matthew uses that steady rhythm, the active verb iganosan,
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  meaning X fathered Y. It's like a drum beat of human
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  procreation. But then right before, before
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  Jesus, the formula breaks. It shatters, really.
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  The Greek text shifts dramatically.
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  Instead of the act of ignos and fathered, it switches to the
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  passive verb ignoda was born. And critically, it adds the
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  phrase exhis, which means of whom?
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  But it's feminine, singular, referring only to Mary.
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  Of whom Mary was born Jesus. Joseph isn't the subject of the
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  verb there. No.
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  He's mentioned right before as Mary's husband, but the grammar
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  carefully excludes him from the act of generation.
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  This sudden break in the established pattern is Matthew's
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  way of shouting subtly that this final birth isn't just another
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  link in the human chain. It required a new act of God.
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  The passive voice was born, and the specific reference to Mary
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  alone, of whom signaled divine paternity.
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  It points directly to the virgin conception.
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  So in one grammatical shift, Matthew achieves 2 things that
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  seem almost contradictory. He confirms the divine origin of
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  Jesus through the virgin birth, breaking the normal pattern, but
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  he also maintains the legal Davidic lineage through Joseph,
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  fulfilling the 14/14/14 structure.
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  That's quite something. It's a remarkable demonstration
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  of Providence. Ordering means and ends
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  together. As the confession puts it, WCFE.
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  Both the legal line and the divine intervention were
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  necessary. OK, so that covers the Davidic
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  kingship. What about the second stream of
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  promise that converges here be the Abrahamic fulfillment,
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  blessing and mission. The genealogy started way back
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  with Abraham, not just David. That there must be a reason for
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  that too. Yes, starting with Abraham is
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  crucial. It keeps the original scope of
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  God's plan in view that nations in view horizon from Genesis
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  12.3, the promise that through Abraham's offspring, all the
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  families, all the people of the earth would find blessing.
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  So Jesus isn't just the Davidic king for Israel, He's also the
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  ultimate seed of Abraham through whom that universal blessing is
• 18:54
  now going to flow out to the whole world.
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  And you see this Abrahamic dimension reach its fulfillment
• 18:59
  right at the end of Matthew's Gospel, don't you?
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  In the Great Commission Matthew 28.8820, the risen enthroned
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  Lord, who now has all authority, sends his people, who have been
• 19:10
  forgiven and restored from their own exile of sin, out to make
• 19:14
  disciples of all nations. The structure starting with
• 19:17
  Abraham and ending with Christ the King guarantees that the
• 19:20
  kingdoms reach is global. And, you know, thinking back
• 19:22
  through the list itself, the inclusion of those specific
• 19:25
  women, Tamar Rahab Ruth Bathsheba, referred to as the
• 19:28
  wife of Uriah, they weren't just Israelites.
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  And their stories involved, well, scandal or difficult
• 19:34
  circumstances. Does that foreshadow this global
• 19:37
  reach too? I think it certainly can be read
• 19:39
  that way. Their presence in the official
• 19:41
  royal line signals that God's grace operates even through
• 19:44
  messy human situations and reaches beyond typical
• 19:47
  boundaries. It shows that outsider status or
• 19:49
  moral ambiguity doesn't disqualify people from God's
• 19:52
  plan. In fact, grace seems to work
• 19:54
  right through it. It prepares the way for a
• 19:56
  Messiah whose grace will extended Gentiles to sinners, to
• 19:59
  all kinds of outsiders. The precedent is set within his
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  own family tree. OK, so if the Metho Ikeisha, the
• 20:05
  exile meant covenant dislocation, being driven away
• 20:09
  from God's presence, then the arrival of Christ, the
• 20:12
  fulfillment, must mean the opposite.
• 20:15
  It must mean the complete and permanent reversal of that
• 20:18
  curse. It has to the fulfillment must
• 20:21
  undo the breach. And this brings us squarely to
• 20:24
  the resolution Matthew provides immediately following the
• 20:27
  genealogy, a manual and atonement.
• 20:30
  Right after establishing Jesus lineage and divine origin,
• 20:33
  Matthew quotes Isaiah. Behold, the virgin shall
• 20:36
  conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name
• 20:39
  Emmanuel, which means God with us.
• 20:41
  That's Matthew 1.23, God with us.
• 20:43
  It's the direct opposite, the positive inverse of being
• 20:45
  expelled from God's presence. If exile meant distance from
• 20:48
  God, removal from the land where he dwelled, then Emmanuel means
• 20:52
  that covenant presence is now restored permanently in the
• 20:55
  person of this King. The curse of distance is
• 20:57
  cancelled because God himself is drawn near.
• 20:59
  But just having God nearby isn't quite enough.
• 21:01
  Is it the reason they were exiled in the 1st place?
• 21:03
  Their sin? Their breaking of the covenant?
• 21:05
  That still needs to be dealt with.
• 21:06
  That's the absolutely critical peace.
• 21:09
  Presence requires purity, and Matthew stated Jesus's mission
• 21:13
  very clearly even before the Emanuel quote back in verse 21.
• 21:16
  The Angel tells Joseph that this child will save his people from
• 21:19
  their sins. Sin and guilt cause the
• 21:21
  mitoacasia. Only forgiveness can truly end
• 21:24
  the state of exile, and this is where the whole theological
• 21:27
  structure lands on the necessity of exile ending atonement.
• 21:31
  Thinking again about the confession, WCFXI on
• 21:34
  justification and XV on repentance, Jesus himself
• 21:38
  interprets his own death in these terms.
• 21:40
  At the Last Supper. In Matthew's account, Jesus says
• 21:43
  his blood is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out
• 21:45
  for many for the forgiveness of sins.
• 21:47
  Matthew 26.28. Forgiveness of sins.
• 21:49
  That's the key phrase. Let's use that debt analogy
• 21:52
  again. Maybe that helps make the
• 21:53
  connection clear. OK.
• 21:55
  Think of the Babylonian deportation as the massive death
• 21:57
  sentence, the consequence of breaking the covenant that
• 22:00
  resulted in the people losing the land and being sent away.
• 22:03
  It's a legal judgement. When Jesus sheds his blood for
• 22:07
  the forgiveness of sins. That forgiveness acts as the
• 22:10
  legal cancellation of the covenant breach.
• 22:12
  It's the payment that satisfies the debt.
• 22:14
  So his death pays off the sin debt that caused the exile in
• 22:18
  the first place. In essence, yes, Jesus acts as
• 22:21
  the Redeemer who pays the price. You could almost see it like him
• 22:24
  signing the release papers, maybe like a jubilee release
• 22:27
  that cancels the dead of sin and he signs it with his own blood.
• 22:30
  This forgiveness restores the broken fellowship, it makes the
• 22:33
  Emmanuel presence possible and permanent, and it completely
• 22:36
  reverses the effects of the MiTo Akisha.
• 22:38
  The exile is over, not just geographically, but spiritually
• 22:41
  and legally. So it all comes together in
• 22:43
  Christ as the mediator thinking WCF 8.
• 22:47
  He's the king who fulfills the Davidic promise, but he's also
• 22:50
  the one who fulfills the Abrahamic mission to bless the
• 22:52
  nations. And he secures all these
• 22:55
  promises by stepping into that history marked by exile and
• 22:58
  curse, bearing the curse himself through his death, and thereby
• 23:02
  bringing his people home legally reconciled and spiritually
• 23:05
  renewed. That's the argument Matthew is
• 23:07
  building. The whole measured history
• 23:08
  promise leading to the throne, the throne leading to the curse
• 23:11
  of exile, and the exile leading eventually to fulfillment in
• 23:14
  Christ. It's a demonstration.
• 23:16
  It shows that God's plan wasn't derailed by human sin or the
• 23:19
  catastrophe of exile. It confirms God's wise and
• 23:22
  sovereign rule, guiding everything step by step,
• 23:25
  generation by generation, directly and purposefully to the
• 23:28
  Christ. Hashtags tag outroof.
• 23:30
  Well, this deep dive into just one verse, Matthew 1.17, really
• 23:34
  shows that this genealogy is so much more than just a list of
• 23:37
  names to skip over. It's like a carefully written
• 23:39
  liturgy of hope. It teaches us about the
• 23:41
  certainty of God's Providence that we should hold onto.
• 23:43
  I think the big take away is seeing that confession built
• 23:46
  right into the structure that pattern. 14/14/14 It's Matthew
• 23:49
  declaring history is measured by God.
• 23:51
  History is directed with deliberate divine intention
• 23:54
  straight towards the Christ. The math itself is a statement
• 23:57
  of faith. God ordered every step, every
• 23:59
  generation, all the means and all the ends to meet in the
• 24:02
  Messiah. And there's real pastoral
• 24:04
  comfort in that structure, too, isn't there?
• 24:06
  We mentioned those women in the list, Tamar Rahab, Ruth
• 24:09
  Bathsheba, their inclusion. Women who are Gentiles or
• 24:13
  involved in morally complex situations preaches a strong
• 24:16
  message about scandalous grace. It shows that things like
• 24:19
  scandal or being an outsider, they don't stop God's grace.
• 24:23
  If anything, grace seems to work right through them.
• 24:25
  It demonstrates that the Messiah's own lineage carried
• 24:28
  the marks of human sin and failure precisely so that He
• 24:32
  could come and heal all of us who are marked by sin and live
• 24:34
  as exiles offering grace. The whole structure really is
• 24:38
  designed to stabilize our faith, isn't it?
• 24:40
  Like WCFEFV suggests about Providence, even when history
• 24:43
  looks dark or when God's plan seems hidden or delayed, we're
• 24:46
  called to trust in His measured, sovereign and hand guiding
• 24:49
  things. And that brings us to maybe a
• 24:51
  final thought to ponder. Think about that third epic, the
• 24:55
  period after the exile from the deportation to Christ.
• 24:59
  Many of the names Matthew lists there are pretty obscure.
• 25:01
  We don't know much about them from the Old Testament record.
• 25:04
  They live during a long, quiet period of waiting, maybe seemed
• 25:08
  insignificant from a human perspective.
• 25:10
  Yet Matthew counted them meticulously. 14 generations
• 25:13
  worth. Perhaps that very obscurity,
• 25:16
  that long silence, actually served to heighten the
• 25:19
  anticipation for Christ's arrival as the true goal.
• 25:22
  So maybe Matthew's arithmetic gives us a clue for our own
• 25:24
  lives, for the life of the church.
• 25:26
  Just like that seemingly quiet post exilic period.
• 25:30
  There might be times in our lives or in church history that
• 25:32
  feel obscure, maybe unproductive, like a long period
• 25:35
  of waiting. Thank you WCF 7th on
• 25:37
  perseverance. But Matthew's structure
• 25:39
  reassures us. Those times are still measured.
• 25:41
  They are still counted by God. They're secured by our enthroned
• 25:44
  king. He governs her days, even the
• 25:46
  quiet ones, and he will bring his plan, his count, to its
• 25:49
  completion and everlasting rest. Matthews careful numbering is
• 25:53
  like a signal to us. Keep persevering.
• 25:56
  Trust that the same God who measured Israel's history so
• 25:58
  precisely is just as precisely governing your life right here,
• 26:02
  right now.