What race was Jesus?

Likewise, it is emphasised that Mordecai was a Jew. It is striking how often this circumstance is repeated (3:6; 5:13, 6:10; 8:7; 9:29, 31; 10:3. Christ was – as He Himself stated – the salvation “out of the Jews” (John 4:22). He was the Son of David, the Son of Abraham (Mt. 1:1). He had come, as far as His natural descent through Mary is concerned, out of Israel (Rom. 9:5).

Christ was – as He Himself stated – the salvation “out of the Jews” (John 4:22). He had come, according to flesh, out of Israel (Rom. 9:5). And Christ will be accepted by the multitude of His brethren. They will be His “willing people”: “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in holy splendour” (Ps. 110:3).

It is very clear that the Spirit of God in Luke's Gospel traces the Lord's genealogy up to Adam; that is to say, He shows the Lord to be a true, real Man. It is, then, Christ's connection with the human family which is set forth here. A single sentence in one of the epistles (Galatians 4:4) gives both this and His Jewish connection "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." This presents His connection with the human family. It is saying that He was truly and really a Man. "Made under the law;" that is to say, He was truly and really a Jew. He was pleased not only to become a Man, but also, as is said elsewhere, to take "on Him the seed of Abraham;" i.e., the Blessed One took the position and circumstances, but not the state. How blessed to meditate on the grace of such words as "The Word became flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled] among us." John 1:14.

Now, the passage before us tonight does not set forth His connection with the nation of Israel, but His connection with the whole human family. And mark, that last verse — "Which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God" — means this, that He who was truly Man, He who was pleased to become such here — "the Word became flesh" — demonstrated and proved plainly and distinctly that though Man He was the Son of God.

Verse 4. He owns their full national privileges. “Who are Israelites; to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.”

What privileges! The adopted nation, with whom God had dwelt in the tabernacle. These privileges were never given to any other nation. The eternal God had become incarnate, taking flesh from that nation. All this is fully allowed. He who is over all, God blessed for ever, as to the flesh, the body, He was born of Mary, of the seed royal of that nation.

From Israel the Christ has come forth, who will yet rule with a rod of iron. In Romans 9:1-5, where the Apostle enumerates Israel's privileges and favours from God, he says last of all, "And of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen." Could Israel but see it, no greater honour has ever been hers than the wonderful fact that God's Anointed has come forth from her midst.

In verse 14 we read that "our Lord sprang out of Judah", the kingly line — not the priestly line of Levi. This clearly shows the need of a king being priest, as we have at the beginning of this chapter. Only a king could fill that order of priesthood. Therefore God brought in Melchisedec before He brought in kingship, knowing that the Son would be King and Priest.

The fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the head of the tribe bearing his name, which signifies 'praise.' It was Judah who advised the selling of Joseph rather than taking his life: so his descendants, the Jews, delivered the Lord into the hands of the Gentiles. He sinned in the matter of Tamar his daughter-in-law; was ready enough to have her punished till it was shown that he also was guilty. Thus is traced the terribly corrupt history of the family of whom according to election Christ was to be born. Though not the eldest son he began to take a chief place in the family. He was able to persuade his father to let Benjamin be taken into Egypt, and when appeals were to be made to Joseph it was Judah who made them. When Jacob blessed his sons, the predictions show that in Judah was centred the royal line. The sceptre should not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh came, etc. Gen. 49:8-12. From Judah sprang David and a long succession of kings. Christ as born of the tribe of Judah, is referred to as "the Lion of the tribe of Juda." Rev. 5:5. In Luke 3:33; Heb. 7:14; Rev. 5:5; Rev. 7:5, the name is given as JUDA: and in Matt. 1:2-3, it is JUDAS.

Now let us cast our eyes upon this passage of very special interest in the fourth chapter without in any way attempting to go back over the story. The woman introduced the question of worship. It seems to me extremely unlikely that to a woman still in spirit dead and far from Him, such immense disclosures and basic teaching about the true worship would have been made. There must have been, it seems to me, in those seconds perhaps, the reception of that water that Jesus could give springing up into everlasting life. She said: "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain." The king of Assyria had deported the whole population of the northern kingdom of Israel and the Samaritans were the direct descendants of those who took their place. They had thought it wise to placate the god of that country, and so they began to imitate the worship of the Jews. They had the five books of Moses in a version which is still called the Samaritan Pentateuch. This was the Samaritan worship and it was a spurious worship of the God of Israel. Now the Lord Jesus Christ says here, considering Himself for the moment as a Jew, He says, "we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." There was a contrast between what was all the time an entirely spurious worship and something which was instituted by God to be the worship of the real God who made all things and had revealed Himself to His people as the God of Israel. But of course at a stroke the Lord Jesus Christ puts clean out of court these two kinds of worship that belonged to a place. He substituted the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth and said, "the Father seeketh such to worship Him."

Look at that genealogy a moment, at the names of the women in it. There are but four, and every one of them is the name of a Gentile. They are not "mothers in Israel" in the ordinary sense. There you have first, Tamar. She is a Gentile, and alas! her sin is what is prominently brought before us; most shameful history, that one would blush to read in public even. Then we have Rahab, the poor woman of Jericho, another Gentile and one whose character is far, far too faulty for introduction into what would be called respectable society. Then you have Ruth who is a Moabitess, another Gentile. Then you have Bathsheba, as to whom there may be some question, and yet Uriah her husband was a Hittite. But as to the other three, there is no question that they were Gentile women.

The story is so familiar that we do not need to repeat it in this brief introduction. Ruth the Moabitess is the chief character in the story. She who was cursed by the law becomes married to Boaz and as we learn from the ending, Ruth is the great-grandmother of David. Her name appears therefore in the first chapter of the New Testament in the list of ancestors of Him, who is David's son and David's Lord. She is the third Gentile woman in the genealogy of our Lord. The two Canaanitish women, Tamar and Rahab, precede her. The promises made to Abraham that the Gentiles were to receive blessing through his seed are confirmed through the history of these Gentile women among the ancestors of David and our Lord.