Matthew 1:1 Jesus Christ is the Good News

Trying to answer the question, "How is Jesus Christ our All-in-all?

The Text

Matthew 1:1 (CSB) An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham

The Bible is about Jesus Christ. Now, why would we say that? Especially when we crack open the Bible, start at the beginning, Genesis 1 and read straight through all the way to Malachi chapter 4 verse 6 and we never see not word stitched together to form neither 'Jesus' nor 'Christ'. How can the largest part of this book be about Jesus Christ and never mentions the Christ.

The Old Testament, all 39 books, are filled with history, explanation, promises, prophecies, poems, literature, and wise sayings. But at the center, at the core, at the meaning of the passages of the Old Testament was one thing: the gospel--that is, the good news of God.

We read in the beginning in Genesis where God made everything perfect including Adam and Eve, our original parents. However, Satan came to steal, kill, and destroy their lives--and believe me, Satan did that perfect.

Look at the response of the Almighty God. God, well within his rights, could have up and did a reset on creation--which was now falling apart at the seams. He did not. He could have easily killed the serpent, Adam, and Eve--for he promised and explained that if we disobey, we would died. He did not kill them. He could have come down to wage war with flaming swords, head on fire, tattoos on his thigh and cloak dipped in blood to spill out his wrath on Satan and mankind (Revelation 21). He did not come down with wrath.

How did God respond to our sin and the breaking of his good creation and the death of his very good imagebearers?

The Good News: God comes into our lives

Genesis 3:8–15 (CSB)
⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

The Good News: God calls us

⁹ So the LORD God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

The Good News: God shows you the state of your heart and soul

¹⁰ And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

¹¹ Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The Good News: God wants you see what he sees

¹² The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

¹³ So the LORD God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The Good News: God does not blameshift and make excuses like our now sin-filled parents

¹⁴ So the LORD God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.

The Good News: God lays out the consequences of our sin in this world

For women, life will be brutally difficult. Men, life is going to be brutally difficult. You will painfully work and then you will die.

Yet...

The Good News: God promises he will come to make it right

To the serpent:

¹⁵ I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

This is the first instance in the Bible of the preaching of the gospel. Despite our sin, wickedness, and death, God counters all of that with no judgment, no death, no anger, no wrath, no reset--he counters it with the simple preaching of the gospel.

The name, "Jesus" and the title, "Christ", will not appear for over 23,000 verses.

What you will get in those 23,000 verses are promises of Christ. What you will get is foreshadows of him. What you will get is prophecies and preaching and proclamations of the Messiah who is to come.

What you will also get is more of our sin, our wickedness, our worthlessness, our chaos, and our death.

The more you read from Genesis to Exodus through Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, through the Psalms, into Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations--our death because our sin is most apparent.

And maybe, by the time you get the to the Prophets and unto the end of the Old Testament. Especially reading through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel all the way to Malachi. When you see the judgments called upon wicked nations and the people of God being sent into exile. When you keep seeing the gospel proclaimed and the Messiah prophesied and God will make right, but where is he? Every engagement with the Old Testament is like the Apostle Paul asking himself in the Romans 7:24:

Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?

Turn the page. Look at the division between the Old and New Testament. Know that God did not speak for 400 years. But he did not forget his people. He did not go back on his promise. He cannot lie. He is faithful.

Turn the page.

Look down and read the good news: