This week’s Parashah (Torah Portion) is extraordinary, because it sets the scene for the inevitability of adoption into the family of God by faith alone.
The Torah Portion for this past Shabbat (17 December 2022) is “Vayeshev” (Genesis 37:1 – 40:23). That is Hebrew for “and he sat” or in context “and he settled”. Jacob settled in the land of his fathers Abraham and Isaac, the land of Canaan, which was to become known as todays’ State of Israel.
However, I am going to skip that first chapter, the one that tells us how Joseph’s brothers betrayed him, stripped him of his multi-coloured striped garment, came close to killing him, cast him in a deep hole and left him to be sold as a slave to Midianite traders who were passing by. We know the rest of the story.
Moving on to the next Chapter is what I will be focusing on in this commentary. Chapter 38 of Genesis tells about the man Judah, the father of the Jewish people. So Judah is my great-great…great grandfather. Unfortunately, there is not too much to boast about him. Judah did some rather shameful things, the implications of which I will discuss and get rather “spiritual” about those implications. The amazing thing here is that Judah is not only my great, great… grandfather, but he is also Jesus’ great…great grandfather. Hold on, Jesus was not of human ancestry, he came from God. Yes, that is true, but technically, Judah, yes the guy who I am ashamed to say is my great, great… grandfather WAS Jesus’s great-great…. grandfather too and I will discuss why.
Let’s give Judah the credit though. He did (see chapter 37 of Genesis) persuade his brothers to sell their young seventeen-year-old brother Joseph instead of killing him, which is what they really wanted to do because they were so envious of him. So my great-great…. grandfather Judah was willing to sell his own flesh and blood for money. That sounds familiar though. Didn’t my people (the Jewish High priests, Mathew 26:14-15) also put a price tag (thirty shekels of silver) on Jesus to hand him over to the gentiles to do with him whatever they wished? And how similar too, just as they stripped Joseph, their father’s favourite son of his beautiful striped garment, they also stripped Jesus, our Heavenly Father’s favourite son of his clothing.
So my great-great… grandfather Judah sold his father’s most loved son for money, just as his descendants sold God’s only Son for money. Can you see that I don’t have much good to say about him? The fact remains, Judah is still my great-great… grandfather and in spite of everything, our merciful God had a wonderful plan and destiny for him and his descendants too, because God’s purpose and calling are irrevocable. So if you think that I am arrogant about belonging to the same race that our Lord and Saviour Jesus belonged to, think again. I am no more worthy of God’s salvation than any other person on the face of this good Earth. If you are reading this and think that you are unworthy of God’s salvation, please think again. No one is worthy of God’s salvation, not me and not my great-great… grandfather Judah, not even the great-great… “grandfather” of Jesus is worthy, as this week’s Parashah clearly spells it out. What makes us worthy is our faith in God, a faith that will ultimately lead to us to being refined and made perfect by God Himself; a faith that will bring us into a path of obedience to our Heavenly Father, because as another author on this blog, Ashley Saville Watson says, God=Love=Obedience (See “Intradynasty-Articles” in the menu) or click on this link:
Anyway, to get back to this commentary on the life of my great-great… grandfather Judah: We see in Genesis chapter 38 that Judah begins his adult life with a mess. Instead of going to look for a wife of good heritage (North West Mesopotamia) as his fathers Abraham, on behalf of Isaac (Genesis 24:3-4) and Jacob did, Judah settled for one of the ladies of the land of Canaan, a daughter of a Canaanite, the Canaanites being the same people that God had later ordered the sons of Israel coming out of Egypt to eradicate on entering the land of Canaan.
None of this turned out to be a success for Judah, because his first and second born were both slain by God for their wickedness and disobedience. To make matters worse, Judah then goes and falls for his deceased son’s mutual widow’s (Tamar) ruse as a prostitute, a matter which he dearly wanted to conceal. This resulted in Tamar conceiving and giving birth to twins, Peretz (means to break out) and Zerach (means to shine like the morning sun). Not only so, but one of these boys, Peretz, would “break through” to become the great-great… grandfather (technically speaking, please bear with me) of our Lord and Saviour Jesus. If you think that I am not making sense, then read Mathew 1:3 where you will see that Peretz (spelled in English as “Perez”) is in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. From Peretz came the kings of Israel before its division into a northern and southern kingdom and all of the kings of Judah, most importantly King David, because Jesus is the Root and the Offspring of David (Revelation 22:16).
To cut a long story short, my great-great… grandfather Judah, in spite of his blunders, became the father of kings and the father of the King of Kings, Jesus the Saviour of the world.
Of course, we know that this was not achieved by natural means, but by an act of faith. You see, none of our human endeavours could ever result in anything good without faith in God and in the Son of God. If it were not for Joseph, the husband of Jesus’ mother Mary, Jesus would never had earned the title of “Offspring of David”, neither would my great-great… grandfather Judah have earned the privilege of being the great-great… grandfather of Jesus.
It was Joseph, the husband of Mary (Jesus’ mother) who chose, because of his own faith in God, to take Mary home as his wife, in spite of the fact that he knew full well that he had no part in the conception of Jesus (Mathew 1:24). It was Joseph, the husband of Mary who chose to believe the words of the angel of the Lord who had appeared to him in a dream, that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Just as Mary had faith in God that her first born son Jesus would be conceived by the Holy Spirit, so did her husband Joseph have faith in God. This Joseph, the husband of Mary, was a descendent of Judah (Mathew 1:16)
So it was through the faith that Joseph the husband of Mary had in God that Jesus the Messiah could be reckoned as his own son, the son of his great-great… grandfather Judah, the son of David King of Israel.
Just as Abraham, through his faith (Genesis 15:6), was reckoned by God to be righteous and worthy of being the source of blessing to the whole world and the one whose seed (Jesus) would be a blessing to the whole world (Genesis 22:18), Joseph the husband of Mary had faith by which God’s promises would be fulfilled. Abraham had to earn the right to a place in the genealogy of Jesus Christ through his faith and through his obedience that came by his faith, just as his descendant Joseph the husband of Mary had to earn the right to a place in the genealogy of Jesus Christ through his faith and through his obedience that came through his faith.
Through faith alone and through the obedience that comes from faith alone, the promise that the Messiah would descend from Abraham was fulfilled.
You too, whether you are Jew or Gentile, natural descendent of Abraham or not, can enter fully into the blessed promises of God and his salvation and eternal life, through faith and through the obedience that comes through that faith.
If Jesus your Saviour had to be adopted into the household of Abraham, Judah and Joseph husband of Mary through Joseph’s decision and action prompted by faith, how much more do you and I have to enter through adoption by faith into the household of God and into the household of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Good Olive Tree (Romans 11:24)
God has determined that there is no way into His household except by faith.
