Weekly Bible Commentary: Matthew 1

By Wes Woodard

Matthew 1 – “The Conception and birth of Jesus”

The conception of Jesus was like no other. The text says that before Mary and Joseph came together (sexually) Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit! This troubled Joseph. But, as he pondered what to do, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him not to be afraid to marry Mary….., “for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit and will be a Son and you shall call Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. And Joseph awoke from sleep and did as the angel had told him. But kept her a virgin until she had given birth to The Child.” It is amazing the difference between God, the Father’s reason for giving His Son and what the Jewish people wanted in the Messiah! God wished for their spiritual deliverance (salvation) from their sins while they wanted physical deliverance from the Romans! This reminds me of what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 11:25: “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery… that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; This hardening began when the Jewish people rejected Jesus after His first offering of Himself, as their Messiah, and continues now. However, this rejection is only temporal. After the Church Age, Jesus Christ will return and at that time the Jewish people will receive Him as their Messiah.