Dear Sir,
Your feature article by Dr John Peet (en December 18) ‘The baby who shouldn’t have been born’ raised my eyebrows as it was obviously about Jesus Messiah and with 300 prophecies about his birth, he should have been born! I read on intrigued.
As well I might. Dr Peet makes a number of sweeping statements which do not appear to be supported by Scripture. For example, referring to Jesus being the legal heir to the throne of David, being adopted by Joseph, ‘no Jew disputed this title’. By the time Matthew wrote his gospel, it was widely reported that Jesus was the son of the carpenter (Matthew 13.55; John 6.42). If he was, then he could not be Messiah, as Joseph was descended from Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) and God had said that no descendant of his would ever sit on the throne of David. Was God’s promise to David thrown by this? Luke shows Mary’s genealogy and Jesus is born of Mary, not Joseph. Jesus is born of David’s line from Nathan and so can be Messiah.
Dr Peet tries a different point of view, by suggesting that God’s promise was related to David and not Jehoiachin and that a curse passed through ten generations and Joseph was beyond that limit. He refers to the curses in Deuteronomy 23.2-3 lasting ten generations. I would suggest that those curses were to specific situations and not general to all curses. God knew what he was saying about Jehoiachin and it was final. Dr Peet acknowledges this by saying that whilst Jehoiachin’s sin ‘appeared to frustrate the promises of God, God is greater and cannot be frustrated in the fulfilment of his Word’. Amen to that. God, who knows everything in advance, knew there would be a problem with David’s line through Solomon, so he had already provided another line through Nathan and a virgin girl in the course of time.
Matthew’s genealogy was written to prove that if Jesus was the son of Joseph he could not be Messiah. He continues with the story of the virgin birth and of Jesus life, death and resurrection followed by his ascension and the promise of the Holy Spirit to equip us for the work of the gospel until he returns.
Yours sincerely
