This week I’ll be posting some on the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. I began yesterday with some thoughts on the genealogy in Matthew, and today it’s all about virgins, the Spirit, and angels. And, of course, Joseph.
That’s right. Joseph. The great announcement to Mary? We’ll need to go to Luke for that. Matthew is concerned more with the dad, running the genealogy in chapter 1 through “Joseph, who was engaged to Mary, through whom came Jesus who is called the Messiah.”
In v. 18, after the genealogy, Matthew reiterates the “generations”/”genesis” language of verse 1: the “generation” of the Messiah was like this (v. 18). And the first thing we learn is that the baby is “of the holy Spirit,” not “of Joseph.”
The circumstances of Messiah’s birth are thus socially sketchy. I mean, come on, we all know how that happens. And so does Joseph. But an angel comes to him and transforms his interpretive grid. And here we start to fill in what sort of Christ this is going to be.
First, it is surely no accident that Joseph is greeted as “son of David.” That’s a distant ancestor, but with significant resonance. This is the son of the great king, a man who is about to have a son himself.
The angel names the baby: he will be Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. It will take the rest of the book to discover what this means, but Jesus is coming to perform a certain function–his “exile ending” ministry will save people from the guilt? the power? the presence? the effects? the doing? of their sins.
Probably all of these. Much like the theme of “love” takes us beyond the manger to the cross, the theme of “salvation” takes us through Jesus’ kingdom-proclaiming and kingdom-bringing ministry and probably even into the sending of the eleven to carry Jesus’ mission to the ends of the earth.
Matthew, as we said last time, is concerned with “fulfillment.” And here we see the first glimpse of what this might mean. The story we’ve just heard: a virgin birth, a coming savior, a son of David–all this takes place to fulfill the prophet’s words, “Behold! A virgin will conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel,” which is translated, “God is with us.”
Scholars will tell you that “virgin” in Isaiah’s prophecy meant young girl, not “one who had not had sexual relations with a man.” And they’re right. Scholars will tell you that Isaiah’s prophecy had to have been fulfilled within about 12-16 years to fit the context of Isaiah 7. And they’re right.
But Matthew sees Jesus “fulfilling” the story of Israel by taking it on and living it out in surprising ways–ways you could not imagine if you were simply reading the Bible forwards from Genesis through Revelation. Here “virgin” comes to mean something else, and the prophecy is transformed.
And the verse sets us on a trajectory. What for Matthew is likely a citation that affirms God is with his people in the sense of being faithful to “visit” them with salvation, becomes in later reflection a literal birth of God in human flesh.
But for Matthew, we have first and foremost a king, a savior king, one new-created by the spirit of God in the womb of a virgin in order to be God’s instrument to save. Israel’s long promised salvation is at the door. God is with us.
A friend asked me the other day, “How come the Bible lists Joseph in Matthew’s geneology, when he didn’t have anything really to do with it?” Would you mind providing a decent answer to this question.
Well, I don’t know how decent my answer is. Just to make matters worse, it seems Luke does the same thing.
It seems that Matthew is following the standard Jewish practice of tracing genealogy by patrilineal descent. You know whose family you’re part of by who your daddy is. Even when Matthew lists women, he does so as the spouses of the man through whom descent is reckoned.
I think that, in that way of looking at the world, Jesus is Joseph’s son by virtue of being a son in Joseph’s house. To backtrack a little bit, perhaps that “house” idea is even more important than physical descent.
Some thoughts, perhaps one day developing into a “decent answer”…
Building off of what Daniel has already said, I am inclined to see the inclusion of Joseph as an apologetic for Jesus’ ‘messiahship.’ That is, Joseph is included (and highlighted in Matthew’s birth narrative!) because he is Jesus’ physical connection to the Davidic line. A virgin conception would seemingly preclude Jesus from rightfully claiming this royal lineage.
Regarding the naming of Jesus in Matthew 1:28-25 David Garland writes:
“This section reveals how Jesus, who was not the biological son of Joseph because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, became Joseph’s legal son and was grafted into David’s line. The object then is not to spotlight the virginal conception so much as to narrate how Jesus is the son of David in spite of the virginal conception.”
R.T. France concurs:
“These verses will explain, therefore, how Jesus came to be formally adopted and named by Joseph, despite his own natural inclinations, and thus to become officially ‘son of David’; the angel’s address to Joseph as ‘son of David’ in v. 20 will highlight the issue.”
Hope this helps!
In to weigh in on the current topic at hand:
In the Roman empire, to be adopted as a son was considered tantmount to participating in the actual bloodline descent. In fact, (and probably both Mt and Lk have this in mind), Augustus Caesar was adopted by Julius Caesar and was thereafter considered descended from him to the point that Caesar’s divinization gave Augustus the status of a son of the gods. (It didn’t hurt that Julius had also sometimes traced his lineage back to Venus.) Anyway, everyone seemed to take for granted that adoption was the same as blood descent. So Jesus is also “son of David.”
I think you are right on target here, Daniel, on a number of levels. First, I think the Matthean theme of Jesus as a Davidic king is certainly and obviously in the mix here, as many scholars have noted.
What is not clear is just what you’ve put your finger on in the middle of the post (without quite coming out and saying it): so what does this kingship have to do with the two significant names this son is given–Jesus and Emmanuel?
In other words, what do kingship, salvation from sin, and the presence of God among us all rolled up in the person of Jesus have to do with eachother and with the purpose of Jesus’ coming?
I think the answer has everything to do with Matthew’s understanding of the coming Kingdom of Heaven/God. His vision is highly apocalyptic–but *holistically* so. The Kingdom that is coming in and through Jesus is not one dimentional–it doesn’t just deal with saving people from their sins or overthrowing the powers that rule this world or bringing people back into God’s presence. It is all those things and more (including perfect Torah observance, btw).
Soteriology for Matthew is less about paying off debts or taking punishments than it is about the entire restructuring of the universe.
Great comments, Judy. So not to put your Matthew in a box or anything, but would you say that something along the lines of a Christus Victor soteriology is what we find in Matthew?
And as for perfect Torah observance, hmph… well… so long as you mean some sort of christologically reconfigured, Torah given by Christ rather than Moses Torah, then maybe we can talk…
Well, no matter what, we can always talk; in some cases it just might be a little louder conversation than in others.
Re: Mt’s soteriology: yes and no. As you might guess given my theological predispositions, I’m a bigger fan of the Christus Victor model than many people (especially given the other traditional options).
Still, I think that, while that is part of Mt’s conception, the full picture is, as I indicated above, both more complex and more pluriform. Since the typical C.V. atonement model takes Satanic rulership as the primary problem to be solved (or that *has been* solved) by Jesus person and work, you have to ask, “Does Mt see the work of the devil as what is primarily wrong in the world.” I think ultimately the answer is no–it is one of the problems, but only one and not, so far as I can tell, one that is obviously more at the fore than others.
[I haven't yet read your newly posted next installment, but given the title, it looks like we are going to disagree on this.
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Thank you, everyone, for your comments. Very fascinating and quite to the point.