Matthew chapter 1: Focus on the names . . . at the end

Even starting to read the Bible from the beginning of the New Testament is difficult, since the first chapter of Matthew starts with a long genealogy. If you are a beginning Bible reader, zip through it. To sum up: Jesus is descended from Abraham, from Ruth, from David, from a line of kings. This is not unimportant information at all, but without a lot of familiarity with the Old Testament, it means nothing to you. (That should set off a mental alarm though: Hmmm, apparently, the original readers of Matthew’s story of Jesus must have been very familiar with the Old Testament . . .)

Now here’s where it should get interesting to you. In addition to the names that proceed Jesus are, starting in verse 18, several names of Jesus. Look for the verses in Matthew 1 that mention the following points:

• Jesus was born to a virgin. His birth was supernatural. This allowed him to be fully God as well as fully man. Therefore, you could refer to him as Immanuel, which means “God with us.”
• Secondly, he would be named Jesus, which means “Yahweh/Jehovah is salvation.” He would not save us merely from hurt feelings or illness or oppression by other humans. Jesus would save us from sins. This means that sin is a dangerous thing, a thing that necessitates rescue.
• Thirdly, Jesus would hold the title of the Christ or the Messiah (one is a Greek word, the other is Hebrew for the same thing), which means “the anointed one,” chosen by God to lead and save.

So we discover three names (actually one proper name, one descriptive name, and one title) given to God the Son.

Application: What do we learn about God that he would send us someone with those three names? What does it mean for you? What does it mean for the world around you?