The King Has Come Pt. VIII | Matthew 1:1-17

September 21st, 2025

What comes next as we continue in this genealogy?  What is revealed in these next names?  We know that the genealogy in Matthew shows us the Promised King coming forward; yet, these names represent God’s character and they bring forth the way in which He works in the world. As we turn the corner and move from Judah to Perez, whose name means to "break through", and the names that follow, we begin to see, to experience what happens when God breaks through time and space and offers the salvation of Christ to people.  We move from the cosmic to the intimate, experiential view of salvation.

With the decrees of God set in eternity past, He broke into creation with a divine plan and agenda to redeem His people.  In His plan, God helps us to understand His character and to experience His love.  “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jeremiah 31:3).  This experience of salvation is what informs our eternal worship of God.  In God’s extending mercy and grace, we understand the depth of His glory in the salvation we experience.  “...In order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:23).  This glorious manifestation of the glory of God through His mercy and grace is why Peter tells us the angels look unto us with awe.  We have something the angels do not fully understand, yet they watch it play out as God calls and saves His church to Himself.  What the angels long to understand, we experience.

As redeemed humanity, we have the distinct privilege to draw near to God and call Him ‘Father”.  By breaking through time and space, God fulfills His promise of salvation for His elect…Perez through David.  This is what we see.  These names are not just names, but a picture of God’s character, realities of the salvation brought by God through the Messiah, God’s glory on display for all eternity. 

Today, let us give thanks to God for this genealogy captured through Matthew, for God’s faithfulness in Christ towards us.  May God continue to enlighten us to the truth and to the realities that His word brings forth that we might live in accordance with His will.

Salvation is Proclaimed by Election

Salvation is proclaimed by God in eternity past.  This is God’s sovereign hand and act in real time, as we experience salvation.  In his first public sermon after the ascension of Christ, Peter gives the proclamation of the Gospel during Pentecost.  He reveals that it was God working through the people of Israel to make His will known.  The rejection of Christ by them was guided by the hand of God.  “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23).

For the first time in the New Testament, we are introduced to “foreknowledge” (prognosis), which carries the idea of “knowing beforehand”.  Anchored in the minds of the writers of the New Testament is a Hebraic understanding they were bringing forward in the truth understood about Scripture.  The Hebrew background is very important in understanding foreknowledge.  In Hebrew, the corresponding word (yada) has a broad Semitic range that includes an intellectual knowledge, but broadens beyond that to relational, covenantal and intimate knowledge.  (Consider Genesis 4:1, Exodus 33:17 and Amos 3:2).  “To know” someone is to set covenantal love upon them and to enter into relationship with them.  The New Testament writers build off this foundation in using “foreknowledge”.

With this foundation, we can then begin to understand, “Those whom He foreknew He also predestined….” (Romans 8:29).  Here, Paul narrowly defines the elect to be those people on whom God set His intimate love beforehand.  John Murray, in his book, “Redemption Accomplished and Applied”, states that “Foreknow is not a simple intellectual anticipation.  It is sovereign, distinguishing love.  It means ‘to know with a special affection, to set upon in love’ ”.  In Scripture, foreknowledge gives way to election.  When speaking to the believers scattered in Asia Minor, who were undergoing persecution and difficulties, Peter desired to encourage them to be grounded in the hope they have in Christ.  He did so by beginning his letter, “...to those who are elect…according to the foreknowledge of God the Father….” (1 Peter 1:1-2).

In other places in the New Testament, we see this same word, “elect” (eklektos), used of Jesus (Luke 9:35, Isaiah 42:1), of angels (1 Timothy 5:21) and of believers (Colossians 3:12).  In the Old Testament, we find it in reference to Israel, “Jacob my servant, Israel my chosen” (Isaiah  45:4).  The word carries with it the idea of privilege, but with purpose, that being to demonstrate who God is through our holiness, which we find in Isaiah 42:1.  Again, referring to 1 Peter 1:1, we find that believers are “elect exiles”, both chosen and scattered, privileged and yet (purposefully!) suffering, as a part of God’s sovereign plan.

In God’s gracious choice of His people (in Christ!), made before the foundation of the world, rooted in this love, this foreknowledge, God chooses according to His covenantal love, a promise made to Himself in eternity past, so that people in the present world would have this eternal, future hope.  This is why James very clearly teaches that there are no works a person might do that could be considered righteous that would in any way factor into the electing mercy of God.  “I will show you my faith by my works”, which demonstrates that it is God working in me.

For what reason might God work this way in His creation?  What is His purpose?

• We begin by seeing that it is to display His glory through grace!  “He chose us…to the praise of his glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:4).

• We see that it is to show God’s sovereign initiative in our lives working out salvation in real time.  “In order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works” (Romans 9:11).  Just like mercy, election is a movement of God towards people.  We only respond because He has chosen us.

• It is to give believers assurance and security (Romans 8:28-29).  God preserves those He has chosen.

• It is to motivate to holiness and obedience those who have responded to the Gospel in repentance and faith.  Election is not about external status, but a call to an inward focus on holiness (1 Peter 1:2).

• It is to stir humility within the heart, knowing that salvation is by God’s mercy, that it excludes boasting, fueling gratitude, which stirs us to worship.  The honest testimony carries with it the questions, “why me, why should I, what does it have to do with me?”.  God interrupts our corrupted, evil lives with His mercy and sweeps us downstream with His grace.  “God chose what is weak…so that no one may boast in his presence” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).

God elects so that His name will be praised!  This is why He sets His love on people.

For the believer, election is a glorious reality that daily brings hope and peace through the assurance of God’s love.  Salvation occurs because of God’s sovereign love.  Salvation given to the one who turns to God in repentance and faith cannot be removed.  We are neither saved because of what we do nor are we not saved because of what we did not do.  We have hope because our salvation rests in God’s eternal plan.

Because our salvation rests with God, we have security in our trials and suffering because the sufferings we endure have purpose, they are a part of God’s eternal plan, set in His eternal mind into eternity future.  In our sufferings, our struggles, God’s purpose is being worked out in real time in our lives, but also in eternity.  We can have peace in our suffering knowing that God’s choice holds us firm, granting us perspective (James 1:2), drawing us into intimate fellowship (Philippians).  Because we have certainty God will finish what he started (Philippians 1:6), we live with a certainty of our ultimate salvation, knowing God will preserve His elect (John 10:28-29).  There is no fear in losing what God has secured!

Our identity and our worth are rooted in God, not ourselves, our achievements, our status or our strength.  Our worth is settled, united, hemmed in our unity with Christ, knowing the inheritance we have with Him.  We are valuable in God’s eyes because as He sees us, He sees the imputed righteousness of Christ…He sees His Son!  He sees divine worth!  We do not need to build our confidence on shifting circumstances or in being concerned with what other people think.  We must stay true to the truth of Scripture, walking in holiness, accomplishing the purpose of God, knowing that our value is fixed in Christ.

Election gives us motivation for holiness and obedience, as it is not static.  From 1 Peter 1:2 and Ephesians 1:4, we find that Scripture links election with sanctification, obedience and perseverance.  God does not leave us unchanged: He transforms us.  As we are being transformed into the image of Christ, we know that our security is fast, that our love is sure.  Our struggle in striving for holiness is met with God’s enabling grace through the Helper, God’s Holy Spirit.

If you are a believer, then you should have ultimate rest because God has elected you.  His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  Your salvation is not fragile.  There is no wondering, no striving after it.  Just rest.  “Abide in me”, says Christ, because you have a secured promise.  You are beloved, kept and destined for glory.  There is no sin, no trial, no temptation that can separate us from the love of God.  Nothing can take away your title.  Death is not the end because you are chosen.  Romans 8:18-39 confirms our sure and certain hope, it confirms all things, including all sufferings, work for the good of the elect, it confirms nothing “...in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8: 39).  He did this because He foreknew us and predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son (8:29).  This is what informed Paul’s worship and it is what should inform the worship of every believer.  Election is a glorious reality!

How does any of this apply to Matthew 1, to Perez and Zerah?  From Genesis 38-27-30, we are introduced to these twins of Tamar, by Judah, her father-in-law.  Although Zerah’s hand comes forth first from the womb, Perez “breaks through” and is the first born.  Thus, the name, “Perez”, which means to “break through”.  Against human explanation, through God’s sovereign, electing love, Perez becomes the ancestor in the Messianic line (Ruth 4:18-32, Matthew 1:3).  Perez was predetermined, foreknown by God, to be in the position of inheritance for the King to come from his line.  Just like Israel (Amos 3:2), just like the church (Romans 8:29), Perez was not chosen by human worth, but by God’s prior love.  By every standard of human merit, this family was disqualified.  Yet God foreknew and elected this line by His good pleasure (Genesis 49:10).  Decreed in eternity past, God used Perez to bring about the Christ.  With His will, God breaks through time and space to bring forth his chosen Son who calls His chosen people.

Zerah was marked as the firstborn, but, unexpectedly, Perez breaks through and takes the place of honor.  God overturned the natural order.  Settled in eternity is God’s mercy and grace.  Working through the sin of Tamar and Judah, God broke through time and space to carry forward the line of the promised Christ through Perez until the ultimate Breaker comes forth to call His people.  “He who opens the breach (the breaker) goes up before them….” (Micah 2:13), this being a reference to God’s Christ. The life of Christ is foreshadowed through Perez.  Just as the breakthrough of Perez determined the line to David and Christ, so Christ’s resurrection breaks through and secures a new birth, regeneration (1 Peter 1:3).

Distinguished from conversion, which is our response done in repentance and faith, regeneration (“born again”) happens outside of conversion.  In His foreknowing, God’s electing love breaks forth in this regeneration, causing conversion.  Clearly, regeneration is a work of God.  The elect are swept up into the grace of God, through His mercy, as He regenerates the person who is going to then respond in repentance and faith.  Because someone is hard against God, having no reason to respond to Him, God must soften the heart that leads to the response, to see the significance of the sin that separates the heart from God and the reality of the Gospel, of Christ’s perfect life lived and of the need for Christ’s sacrifice before God, to fully believe and acknowledge all that is required in repentance and faith in Christ.  God’s Spirit makes all of this known to the sinner, His elect.    Regeneration is monergistic…it is a complete work of God and man contributes nothing!  God’s Spirit gives life (John 3:5-8).  It is by the working of the wind, the Spirit of God, which gives way to the act of one placing their faith in Christ.

Regeneration is a decisive, instantaneous act of God.  It is not a process. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  The old has passed away, the new has come.  It is the abiding result of a decisive act.  We see the same truth in Ephesians 2:4-5, “But God…made us alive together with Christ….”  

Not only is regeneration monergistic and instantaneous, it is also necessary…it must happen.  Without it, no one can enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3,7), where we see that, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”  It is not a renovation, but a regeneration, a radical and supernatural breaking through, a reordering of creation.  This is the connection to Perez, God’s reordering of what was expected.  This is the connection to God’s elect.  With our physical birth, we are born into death without hope of life or of any thought of inheritance until Christ breaks through and regenerates us, miraculously reordering what was anticipated (that is death, being born into sin!).

Pause here and ask yourself an honest question: have you experienced God’s breaking through in your own life?  Have you experienced the regenerating power of the Spirit?  Do you have definitive knowledge in your heart?  Does your heart cry out to Him, “Abba, Father”?  God’s Spirit compels you to do this, overwhelmed by the love He has granted you in Christ!  Christianity is not about trying harder, but about receiving new life.  God made you alive when you were dead (Ephesians 2:4-5), being born again by the Spirit (John 3:3-8), becoming a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), having a new heart and new desires by God’s power (Ezekiel 36:26), living by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave Himself for you (Galatians 2:20).                                  

Perez breaks forth, which foreshadows God’s coming reordering and regeneration in the Promised King.  Christ breaks through the darkness, bringing light to you, so that you will respond to His call.  For those who have been regenerated, let us give thanks to God for His breakthrough and the reordering of our lives, for coming to dwell among us, the Word becoming flesh, for breaking our strong wills by His Spirit’s regenerating power.  May the truth of what God has done take us to deep and sincere humility, causing our worship to intensify within our hearts.    

Selah

• If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, what difference does it make to know that God specifically chose you, that you were “elected”?

• God chooses a people so that His name will be praised (to the world).  Does the life you live reflect the purpose for which you have been chosen? Is God’s character on display in your life?

• The honest testimony of a believer, knowing God has chosen him, should lead the heart to a place of quiet humility, which explodes in deep praise and a life fully lived in worship.  If you are a believer, is this where you find yourself today?  

• Do you have definitive knowledge (assurance!) in your heart that you have truly experienced God’s breaking through in your own life?  Does your heart cry out to God, “Abba, Father”?  Will you now come to Jesus, receive life and enter into His eternal rest for your soul?