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(Continued from
page 129.)
It may be objected, that there
is an incredibility in the thirteen generations,
from the captivity to Christ, as they cover a period
of about 584 years, and furnish nearly 45 years, on
an average, to each generation. The first list of
fourteen, which is in precise accordance with the
sacred record, covers a period of 917 years, and
gives the greater sum of 65 to each name: the
intermediate period of 416 years, furnishes nearly
30 to each name. These are the reckonings of
Christians: the chronology at present current among
the Jews, diminishes the period of the last fourteen
nearly a century, and would, if admissible,
contribute so much to the removal of the imagined
difficulty. The genealogy of Zerubbabel, from Judah,
gives 27 names: while the genealogy of Ezra, from
Levi, extending over the same period, gives only 19
names, (Ezra vii. 1, 5;) yet neither Jew nor
Christian ever thinks that there is any difficulty
in these chronologies. We must not overlook the
fact, which may have an important bearing on this
subject, that in tracing the descent of a royal
title, we may often find it transmitted in one
person, over the period of two natural generations.
David was the reigning king forty years, and
transmitted the kingdom to one of his youngest sons,
who reigned also forty years. Had the French line of
royalty lain in the Orleans family, and the sceptre
been given to Louis Philippe, upon his father’s
death, the kingdom would have belonged to him
considerably more than fifty years, and then, with
one <<200>>natural
generation left out, would have passed to his
grandson, and here it might remain another half
century, and then pass to another grandson. The
point to which I wish to come, is precisely this,
that Matthew’s great object was to trace the descent
of the royal title, or to show how God always
preserved among the .Jews a man who could prove his
right to the sceptre of David, until finally Christ
presented himself in his right.
The Jew himself, who, for
special reasons, will not acknowledge the right of
the last member, may still find in this genealogy
much to interest him, and to strengthen his faith in
the word of God. It is most deeply interesting to
all of us to observe how the royal family, in which
the promise rested, made so many hair-breadth
escapes from being universally put to death, from
being lost in other families, and from losing even
its own consciousness of its origin, and,
notwithstanding, was preserved from age to age. It
was a dark day for the house of David, when
forty-two of the brethren of the king, and, about
the same time, the king himself, Ahaziah, were all
put to death by Jehu; this day was still darker when
Athaliah, the mother of the king, determined, upon
his death, to destroy all the remaining seed royal,
and thought that she had succeeded; yet God
preserved the son of Ahaziah, and gave him a secure
hiding-place for six years in the house of a priest.
It was another almost desperate day for the house of
David, when afflictions, like a flood, came upon the
house of Josiah—when the first royal successor was
taken to Egypt, and there doomed to hopeless exile,
when the second son was taken to Babylon, where he
lay in prison thirty-seven years, and when the
remaining royal son was forced to see all his
children slain, and was also made a blind exile.
Behold the Omniscient watching over the seed of his
anointed David, in the darkness of exile, and of the
Babylonish prison; and mark this testimony of
Matthew, that the rightful heirs of David, with all
their obscurity under the second temple, always
remained known. Behold there seventy heads of the
sons of Ahab lying in baskets, and the whole house
exterminated: see that glittering sword cutting down
scores of the unworthy posterity of David, but, when
it comes just to that point where it would cut the
promise to David, it mysteriously retires: an unseen
hand holds it. Who would not trust this faithful
God?
<<201>>
The incidental evidences of the
descent of Jesus from David, all put together, have
tremendous force. The jealous Herod sought the life,
and the strangers from the east the sight, of the
little royal heir of Judah. The blind man entreated
the mercy of the son of David. The crowds who
conducted Jesus from the Mount of Olives to
Jerusalem, shouted praise to the son of David; and
the same expression was the rapturous theme of the
children at the temple. Jesus had his own kindred
who believed not in him; and any one could have
exposed the deception if it had been practised. The
honest disciples tell us that the Jews objected,
because he called himself the Son of God, and made
himself equal with God; because he did not appear to
come from Bethlehem, where the Messiah was to be
born; because he did not appear to have the
customary reverence either for the Jewish
traditions, or for the Sabbath, or for the temple;
because he did not deliver himself when he was
apprehended; but we have not the least intimation
that his descent from David was ever questioned.
Here the objection meets us,
that our cause expires just at the last point, as we
deny the natural descent of Jesus from Joseph. This,
though not his natural, was his apparent
descent; and Joseph, from the time of his espousing
Mary, was, according to law, her husband and
possessor. There was, at all events, no greater
estrangement between Joseph and Jesus, than there
was between a deceased brother and the heir whom a
surviving brother gave him, according to the Jewish
law. The Christian view gives special and tangible
meaning to the promises of God, in relation to a
future heir of David, that God should be his father;
this possibly hints that there should rise up an
heir in the family of David, who should be the son
of God in a higher sense than that in which David
himself was the son of God. It is a remarkable fact,
that Isaiah points out the Messiah both as the
Branch of God, and as a rod of David’s root: a
tangible reality may be signified in both
expressions. We may well fear that we indulge in
unwarrantable presumption and unbelief, when we
assert of any particular point in the fulfillment of
God’s promises to David, that this is a point in
which God cannot miraculously interpose. God did
wonderfully interpose to give Abraham an heir; and
<<202>>Christians only assert a miracle a little
more independent of natural means.
The conception of Jesus Christ
is not a mere miracle in Christian history, but an
essential point in Christian theology. If all the
human family have fallen, in the first parent, into
a condition of sin and misery, it was essential that
the great Deliverer should not be among the fallen.
As the first Adam, the great representative, and in
that station the destroyer of men, was the son of
God,—so must the second Adam and representative, and
in that representation the Saviour, also be the son
of God. David was to have an heir, who should never
experience the humiliation of David’s confession,
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my
mother conceive me.” (Psalm li. 5.)
I commenced this letter, Mr.
Editor, hoping to go over the genealogy of Luke
also; but the subject has grown excessively on my
hands. My best respects to your correspondent W.
Yours, most respectfully,
M. R. MILLER.
NOTE BY THE
EDITOR.—According to our rule, we permit our former
correspondent “Talmid” to state his objection to the
letter of Mr. Dias, with respect to the discrepancy
of the Evangelists Matthew and Luke, regarding the
genealogy of Joseph, the putative father of Jesus of
Nazareth. We will give Mr. Miller full credit for
what he alleges, grant all he claims; but, to use a
rabbinical phrase, “the difficulty comes back to its
original place:” if Jesus was not the son of Joseph,
he could not be a descendant from David, no matter
how correctly soever the genealogy be traced. The
question is, “Is the Messiah to be a son of David?
Yes, or no?” If “yes,” a divine descent, a
conception by the Holy Ghost, admitting its
existence, is not a lineal descent from David: if
“no,” then is there no occasion to establish, by
genealogical tables, what is perfectly useless. Our
correspondent has, therefore, not answered the
Jewish objections to the conception, birth,
parentage, and lineage of his Messiah, his second
and integral part of the Christian godhead. |
