David’s genealogy is found in the Book of Ruth; he belonged to the tribe of Judah: his ancestor Nahshon was leader of the whole tribe of Judah and Nahshon became the brother-in-law of Aaron the high priest. Aaron married Nahshon’s sister, and through this lineage is found the bloodline of Joseph, husband of Mary, mother of Jesus.
..Look for yourself and you’ll see that only two of the Gospel writers (Matthew 1 & Luke 3) give us a lineage for Jesus, and both only talk about His ancestry on His father’s side by saying “Joseph was the son of…” No one talks about who Mary’s father was. Her parents remain conspicuously unidentified. And yet you will often here Jesus referred to as “the Lion of Judah”—a title which refers to the fact that He descended from the tribe of Judah. Well, if He did, there’s certainly no evidence of it.
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. (Matt. 1:5-6)
A nice neat genealogy would say, “Jacob was the father of Joseph, who was the father of Jesus.” But no one can say this and be truthful, because Joseph is not really Jesus’ father. So this is how Matthew awkwardly ends his genealogy:
“…and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.” (Matt. 1:16)
In Revelation 5:5, God gives John a vision in which he sees men in Heaven referring to Jesus the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Root of David. Such titles are based on the way God has taught the Jews to perceive His Son, even though these titles really don’t make logical sense. According to the rules of Jewish genealogies, Jesus has no earthly ancestry because He had no earthly father. But there He is in Revelation, calling Himself the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and laying claim to bloodlines that He didn’t actually have. God is wild. He bends and breaks the rules whenever He feels like it. Sometimes He uses our false human assumptions to His advantage, and other times He uses our false assumptions to teach us shocking lessons about His technical truths. It is very true that God never leaves us—but try telling that to a Christian who is being bombarded with strong sensual evidence of His absence. Our senses and perceptions are very important to us. We rely on them to tell us what truth really is. Yet as we mature in the faith, God will teach us that we must look to Him to define truth for us. Sometimes the statements He makes will feel supported by our sensual experiences; other times they will not. Sometimes His claims will feel logically sound—like the claim that Jesus paid the price for our sins. But other times He will say things that completely baffle us—like Him saying He loves us so much He considered us worth sacrificing His Son for.
GOD is unpredictably wild. To stay close to Him, we must be always willing to change course and accept whole new revisions of truth. One minute Yahweh claimed to be the only God in existence (Isaiah 45:5), the next minute He introduces us to a second God, Jesus, who is equal to Him in every way. One minute animal sacrifices are enough to secure atonement. The next minute salvation can only come through faith in Christ. God is wild. Whenever we think we’ve finally got Him all figured out, we’d better think again.
