The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 25

the Son of Ahra11nm." In him was fulfilled the promise mnde to Abrahnm: "In thy Seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." In him was fulfilled tho faithful oath which the Lord had sworn to David: "Of the fruit of thy body will I sot upon thy throne." The book gives us the history of a Person. Christianity presents to us not simply a code of morals, a system of theology, but a Person. The book describes his character, it relates the circumstances of his life upon earth. It is a history, but it is more tha~ a history. "Thy Word is a lamp unt~ mY: feet, and a light unto my path." It sheds a light upon the way that leadeth to Chnst; 1t shows us where to find him. For this history is not like other histories, merely a record of past facts of more or less interest. It is the revelation of a present Saviour. It ha.s not done its work for us unless it is leading us to Christ himself, to a personal knowledgo of the Lord. We may know the Gospel through and through, its language, history,geography, nrchreology, -that knowledge is of deep, absorbing interest; but if we advance no further, we miss the very end for which the Gospel was written. Indeed, it is no Gospel to us, no glad tidings, but only an aucient book, unless by its gui<l.ancc we find Christ. The deepest biblical scholar, if he fails to find Christ, knows Jess of the real meaning of the Gospel than the humbll'st Christian who is living in the foith of the Son of God. It is not the knowledge of the facts c-f the Lord's history, but the living, personal knowledge of himself, that is eternal life. We must learn to abide in him, to live in that fellowship "hich is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Without this spiritual know- ledge the Gospel is written in vain for our salvation: "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The mere external knowledge of the Scripture can only increase the condemnation of .those who have not sought by prayer and the gracious help of God the Holy Ghost to penetrate its inner meaning. 'l'hat inner meaning, revealed to our hearts by the Holy Spirit of God, and brought to bear upon our inward and outward live~, giveth life, because it brings us to him who alone is the Life of men. The promise v,as that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in the Seed of Abraham; not in his history, not in the record of his life and teaching, but in that holy Seed himself, in bis grace, in his abiding presence, in union with him. II. 'I'm: GE1"EALOGY. 1. It begins from ~braham. St. Matthew was writing for the Jews in the first instance. He proves that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah whom tLe Jews expected, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. He was descended from the father of the faithful, born in the covenant, himself admitted by the rite of cir- cumcision into the conditions of the ancient covenant. He fulfilled all righteousness, all the requirements of the Law. He lived as a Jew, he preached to the Jews. "I am not sent," he said," but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But even as he said those words he healed the daughter of the Syro-Pbrenician woman; it was an earnest of the world-wide range of his redemption. He died, "not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." Therefore through him the blessing of Abrnham hath come upon tho Gentiles. As St. Paul teaches us in Gal. iii., "The Scripture preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. .So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." "There is neither Jew nor Greek; for if we be Christ's, then are we .Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Thus the first verse of the First Gospel preaches faith. Christ is the Son .of Abraham. who "believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." They which are of faith arc the children of Abraham; they share the blessing of Abraham. Christ is theirs, and they are Christ's. 2. The genealogies in Genesis descend from ~dam; this ascends to Christ. God made man in the likeness of God. Adam begat sons in his own likeness, after his image. The sting of the serpent infected the race: "Origiual sin is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam." The Spirit of the Lord iudeed strove with man from the beginning; he was not left to die in his sin and misery; the first promise of a Redeemer follows close upon the fin;t sin. God was never without a witness; in Cain and Abel we liave the first sight of the field in which the wheat and the tares grow together unto the harvest. But corruption soon spread widely among the descendants of Adam; 1lll flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. ~H man receded further from tho IJi vir,e origin of the race, the deeper became the taint of sin; the tracrs of the image of Gud grew ever fainter, the poison of the serpent deadlier and more loathsome, H  c11. 1. l-2ii.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING 'l'O ST. MATTHEW