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Matthew 1:3a
In Genesis 38 is the story of how Perez and his twin brother came to be. It is quite shocking to grasp this group of people including the firstborn of Judah, Er, his younger brothers, Onan and Shelah, along with his Canaanite wife Shua. Er did despicable things in the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD “killed” him (Genesis 38:7, NKJV). The Bible does not tell us why God killed him, but it does tell us that Judah had chosen a wife for him before he died. Because Er had no offspring, Judah commanded his second-born son Onan to marry the wife of Er and produce an offspring for the family line, however, the Bible tells us in Genesis 38:9 that Onan knew that the offspring would be considered his brothers and the inheritance would not be his, so he refused to produce an offspring for his brother, and God killed him. This left only one son of Judah to produce an offspring for the older brother, Er. But the youngest son, Shelah, was not yet old enough to produce offspring so Judah promised him to Tamar as a husband when he would become old enough to marry. When Shelah became old enough to marry, Judah, for unknown reasons, does not give her to Tamar to be her husband, so Tamar decided to take matters into her own hands.
Judah’s wife, whom we are reminded of that she is the daughter of a Canaanite, died. As Judah traveled to Timnah to shear his sheep, he saw a harlot (Genesis 38:15) and stopped to visit her, not knowing that it was his daughter-in-law in disguise. This would produce two offspring, twins, being named Perez and Zerah. We should also notice that these two offspring, of which Perez would be the one noted in the genealogy of Jesus, were born out of wedlock. This can be studied more in depth in Genesis 38.
This is the genealogy of Jesus as related to Perez, the son of Judah.
We might ask, “Why do we have such startling information?” as to the genealogy of Jesus, our perfect Savior. Our thinking would lead us to believe that the genealogy of Jesus should be full of “perfect” people. I believe that this information is a prerequisite to the great plan of God for salvation in and through Christ Jesus. The main storyline of the Old Testament is to show us that we all are imperfect – we have flaws that keep us from being worthy of God. No one, including the human ancestors of Jesus were worthy of God; if there was ever one who was worthy of God, there would have been no reason to send a Savior to redeem humanity back to God – we would be able to redeem ourselves. But that’s not the case. I believe that God wants us to know that if He chose the imperfect to lead us to Christ Jesus, then we too, being imperfect can also be used by Him to bring glory to Him. We are none too lost to cry out to God for His forgiveness; we are none to lost to receive His forgiveness; we are none to lost to begin a new life through putting our faith in Him – that God sent us a Savior to pay for our sins in that we are incapable of doing so ourselves and would be lost forever without Him.
We should never believe that we are too “bad” for God to pour out His love for us and redeem us back to Him by forgiving our sins and giving us new life. But in love, He cannot force us to ask Him, that we must come to terms with and find the sincerity of heart as He calls us to Him, and ask. He will not say no to a sincere heart that makes a declaration to put one’s faith in Him.
Dear LORD,
There are many shocking things in the Bible that our finite minds cannot fully understand. But this leads us to faith – believing without physically seeing – that You love us so much in all our sins that You would send Your One and only Son to save us from sin. Please open our eyes that we may see Your great love for us in Christ Jesus and ask of Your forgiveness with a sincere heart in repentance – to turn from our evil ways to the new forgiven life that You have for us if we will put our faith in Christ Jesus – that we may bring glory to You through our lives – in Christ. In Jesus name I pray, amen.