Christmas Story - Day 1 - Who was Jesus' father?

No. Christ did not have a human father. Gabriel said to Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35). Interestingly, the man who wrote this gospel was a medical doctor.

The report given by Matthew confirms this. When Joseph found out that Mary was expecting a child he wanted to put her away in secret. But the angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him not to do so, and not to fear, because “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost”. Who could think of a clearer way to put it?

Any final doubt is removed by the words stating that Jospeh “knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.” (Mt. 1:25).

نه. مسیح یک پدر انسانی نداشت. جبرییل به مریم گفت: "روح القدس بر تو خواهد آمد و قدرت اعلاء تو را محاصره خواهد کرد؛ در نتیجه نیز آنچه که از تو به دنیا می آید، پسر خداست" (لوقا 1:35) جالب است بدانیم که مردی که این انجیل را نوشته یک پزشک بوده است. انجیل متی این را تایید می کند. هنگامی که یوسف متوجه شد که مریم در انتظار یک کودک است، می خواست او را پنهانی ترک کند. اما فرشته ی خداوند به او ظاهر شد و به او گفت که این کار را انجام نده و از آن نترس، زیرا «آنچه در اوست، از روح القدس است». چه کسی می توانست به روش واضحتری برای بیان آن فکر کند؟ و در نهایت بوسیله کلام خدا، شک و تردید یوسف از بین رفت. "اما با او همبستر نشد تا او پسر خود را به دنیا آورد، و یوسف او را عیسی نامید". (متی 1:25)

Mary was betrothed to Joseph. Her posterity was consequently legally that of Joseph, as to the rights of inheritance; but the child she carried in her womb was of divine origin, conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost. The angel of Jehovah is sent, as the instrument of providence, to satisfy the tender conscience and upright heart of Joseph, by communicating to him that that which Mary had conceived was of the Holy Ghost.

We may remark here, that the angel on this occasion addresses Joseph as "son of David." The Holy Ghost thus draws our attention to the relationship of Joseph (the reputed father of Jesus) to David, Mary being called his wife. The angel gives at the same time the name of Jesus (that is, Jehovah the Saviour) to the child that should be born. He applies this name to the deliverance of Israel from the condition into which sin had plunged them *. All these circumstances happened, in order to fulfil that which Jehovah had said by the mouth of His prophet, "Behold a [the] virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."

We open the New Testament and find on the first page of it the story told in simple language and in about 250 words. It is a subject on which the imagination might have run riot, as it did in the numerous fables and legends that gathered about it as spirituality declined and superstition advanced in the early centuries of the Christian era; but in this God-breathed account of it, the imaginations of man's mind are excluded, and every sentence of the story bears the Divine imprimatur. "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying. Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take to thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS; for He shall save His people from their sins."

But let us look for a little at the remaining view given us of our Lord Jesus in this chapter. Joseph is made very prominent. The genealogy itself is that of Joseph, not of Mary. On the other hand, Mary is the principal figure of the two in Luke, and there it is, I believe, her genealogy. Why is this? It was of necessity, for a Jew, that Jesus should be the heir of Joseph. The reason is that Joseph was the direct lineal descendant of the royal branch of David's house. There were two lines that came down unbroken to those days — the house of Solomon and the house of Nathan. Mary was the representative of Nathan's family, as Joseph was of Solomon's. If Mary had been mentioned without her connection with her husband, there would not have been a legal right to the throne of David. It was necessary that the Messiah should be born, not merely of a virgin, nor of a virgin daughter of David, but of one legally united to Joseph, i.e., in the eye of the law, really his wife. This is carefully recorded here for the special instruction of Israel; for an intelligent Jew would at once have asked that question, and everything must be fenced round with holy jealousy. Let people calumniate as they might, Mary must be espoused to Joseph; else the Lord Jesus would not have a proper title to the throne of David, and therefore the stress here is not laid upon Mary but upon Joseph, because the law would have always maintained the claim of Joseph. On the other hand, had Joseph been the real father, there could have been no Saviour at all. As it is, the wonder of divine wisdom shines most conspicuously, making Him legally the son of Joseph, really the son of Mary, who in the truth of His nature is the Son of God. And all three met and merged in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He must be the undisputed heir of Joseph according to the law, and Joseph was espoused to Mary. The child must be born before Joseph ever lived with Mary as his wife, and this we are carefully shown here.

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ* was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream," etc. (vers. 18-20). Here the angel appears to Joseph in a dream. In Luke the angel appears to Mary. It is thus in Matthew because Joseph was the important person in the eye of the law; and yet the Messiah must not be, in point of fact, the son of Joseph. All the wit of man could not have understood these ways beforehand; all his power could not have arranged the circumstances. If the law demanded that Jesus should be the heir of Joseph, the prophet demanded that he should not be the son of Joseph, but of a virgin. God humbling Himself was the need of man; man exalted was the counsel of God. How was this, and far more, to be united and reconciled in one person? Jehovah Jesus is the answer. "The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost" (ver. 20).

The genealogy in Luke is placed between the account of Christ’s baptism and His entry upon His public career. In Matthew we have the descent of Christ from Abraham and David down to Joseph, His reputed father, to prove His legal right to the throne of David; in Luke we have His ascent through His mother up to Adam, “which was of God,” in order to demonstrate His natural right to the throne, and His manhood, for Luke’s Gospel presents Christ as the blessed Man down here doing God’s will and blessing man.

Note, too, the exactitude of the language used. In Matthew 1:16, we read, “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” It is careful not to claim Joseph’s paternity for the blessed Lord.

In spite of Solomon's grievous failure, God's mercy did not depart from him as it did from Saul, whose kingdom abruptly ended with his death (v.15). Solomon's kingdom continued through his descendants, and Matthew 1:6-7 shows him in the lineage of the Messiah, though this was only officially, not actually, for Joseph was not the actual father of the Lord Jesus, but only officially so, as Matthew 1:16 says, "Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ."

On the other hand Jesus had no sin. Although perfectly man, every thought, feeling, and inward motion was holy in Jesus: not only not a flaw in His ways was ever seen, but not a stain in His nature. Whatever men reason or dream, He was as pure humanly as divinely; and this may serve to show us the all-importance of holding fast what men call orthodoxy as to His person. I shall yield to none in jealousy for it, and loyally maintain that it is of the substance and essence of the faith of God's elect that we should confess the immaculate purity of His humanity just as much as the reality of His assumption of our nature. Assuredly He did take the proper manhood of His mother, but He never took manhood in the state of His mother, but as the body prepared for Him by the Holy Ghost, who expelled every taint of otherwise transmitted evil. In His mother that nature was under the taint of sin; she was fallen, as were all others naturally begotten and born in Adam's line. In Him it was not so; and in order that it should not be so, we learn in God's word that He was not begotten in a merely natural generation, which would have perpetuated the corruption of the nature and have linked Jesus with the fall; but by the power of the Holy Ghost He and He alone was born of woman without a human father. Consequently as the Son was necessarily pure, as pure as the Father, in His own proper divine nature, so also in the human nature which He thus received from His mother: both the divine and the human were found for ever afterwards joined in that one and the same person — the Word made flesh.

The Lord was sinless, though born of a Virgin, who needed a Saviour, as we have seen; He had no sinful father, but the Holy Ghost’s power came upon Mary so that it could be said to her, “That HOLY thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

The genealogy here is that of Jesus as the legal son of Joseph; but the change of wording in verse 16 must be noted, "the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ" as compared with "Jacob begat," etc. Thus Joseph is excluded as the actual father. But if Jesus had not been Joseph's son, according to Jewish law, Joseph would have barred his succession to the throne. Yet if actually his son He could not have been the virgin's son, or Emmanuel — God with us — according to that which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, (Isa. 7:14), nor could He have been the Son of God. But how He was legally, yet not actually, Joseph's son, is unfolded to us according to the wisdom of God in verses 18-25.

Joseph was the representative of the royal line of the house of Judah at the time of the birth of Jesus — a poor man, a carpenter by trade. That his lineage given here was distinct from the natural line of father to son will be seen by comparing it with that which is also given us as Joseph's in Luke. The line of descent from David through Solomon came to an end by the sentence of God on the childless Jehoiachin (Jer. 22:24, 30; Jer. 36:30) who is therefore omitted in verse 11. Josiah begat Eliakim whose name was changed by Necho to Jehoiakim; he begat Jechoniah, called also Jehoiachin and Coniah (in whom the line was cut off). Jechoniah was not then literally the father of Salathiel. Matthew gives the succession, not the strict birth. The heir to David's throne must now be sought in the line of another of David's sons, as we see by turning to Luke 3:27, where we learn that Salathiel's actual father was Neri, who was the descendant of Nathan (ver. 31), son of David (see 1 Chr. 3:5). This was according to the principle laid down in Numbers 27:11.