Christianity Plain and Simple

Questions About the Birth of Christ

There are  two questions asked about the birth of Christ that I would like to address today, seeing it is the Christmas season.

Matthew and Luke both record the birth of Christ. The first because Matthew shows the side of Jesus Christ which is the king, and the line of a king is very important. The second is because Luke shows the side of Jesus Christ which is a human, and it shows Christ relation to Adam, the father of all humans.

The first question is why does Jesus Christ have two lines? For example, if you read the book of Matthew, it says that Joseph was begotten from Jacob and gives a list of fathers, but if you read Luke, it says Joseph was the son of Heli with a slightly different line. Why is this?

The first line is Joseph's biological father. He was begotten, or literally physically came, from Jacob. The second line though is the line of Mary. Joseph was not the biological son of Heli, but the son in law of Heli. The reason we know this is because there are other people mentioned in this line who are not biological sons of other men, but merely "adopted" such as Adam being the son of God. The reason the men are traced and not the mothers though is because the line needed to be traced to David, as David was the one who the promise of the Messiah was to come through.

Another question often asked is how can Jesus be the Messiah and future king of Israel, because in the line of Joseph, there is the man, Jeconiah. The reason they ask this is because God told Jeconiah that none of his descendants would sit on the throne as punishment for his wickedness.

The answer to this is that Jesus Christ is not the son of Joseph, but of Mary, physically. So since Mary does not have Jeconiah in her line, it does not matter that Joseph does. Jesus is not the son of Joseph, but as the Bible says, is called the son of Joseph.

I wanted to answer these two questions, as they are common ones I have heard, and at times the first of these two had also puzzled me.

Merry Christmas to all, and may you the Lord bless each and every one of you with His light! If any of you have any questions or want to know how you too can be a child of God and know the Lord, just send me a DM.