The Scandal of Redemption
Following on the mention of Mary in the family tree for Jesus,
in Matthew 1:18-25, we have Matthew’s record of Jesus’ birth. But Matthew is not merely giving us a
conventional birth announcement. There
is an astounding transparency of inconvenient details that surely must be
true. What publicity minded church would
publish this sort of scandalous information about the purported Redeemer of
Israel?
The normal
procedure at this time and place was such that following the arrangement of the
betrothal (engagement), a couple was considered legally married but the bride
normally continued to live with her parents for a year while the husband
prepared a home. They did not have
intimacy during that time and the lack of pregnancy at the end of this time
demonstrated her chastity. If a scandal
did occur, the match would be called off via a legal divorce although there was
the potential for deadly legal penalties.
This is just
the scandalous situation that Joseph and Mary are caught up in. But Matthew tells us that God had
intervened. Mary was pregnant “through
the Holy Spirit.” Joseph apparently
believed something very wrong ad taken place but notice that he did not want
her to be publicly shamed so he planned to “quietly” divorce her. Now for a second time in Matthew’s record,
the Lord intervened and an “angel of the Lord” explained to Joseph in a dream
before he could follow through on divorce.
Apparently,
no outsider was privy to the situation so it could be kept in the immediate
family at that time, yet it did add to the tension in what could have been a
very dangerous and scandalous situation concerning the birth of the redeemer of
Israel.
The Prophecy of Redemption
Matthew signifies this scandal as a sign given to Israel once
before. The traditional treatment is
that this is the ‘fulfillment’ of Isaiah’s prophecy—meaning that Isaiah
predicted the virgin birth. But it is
much deeper than that.
In Isaiah 7
and 8, Uzziah’s grandson Ahaz was on the throne of Judah and Pekah the wicked
king of Israel had made an alliance with Syria to attack Judah. And the Lord promised that Assyria would
carry both Israel and Syria away into captivity. It would also nearly prove the undoing of
Judah as well. Isaiah gave a sign from
the Lord in Isaiah 7:14 that speaks of a maiden giving birth to a son who would
be called “Emmanuel” and would be eating curds and honey before he was old
enough to know right and wrong. (Curds
and honey would mean the land had been abandoned and no longer cultivated but
only grazed on by cattle.) This was to be
God’s sign to Ahaz that He would be “with” Israel even though disaster lay
ahead and their cousins in Israel would be carried off into exile.
So now Jesus
is the same kind of sign. Disaster is
coming for Israel but God is in it and will be with “us.” The sign in Isaiah’s day was the birth and
life of Emmanuel. And now in Matthew’s
day it is the virgin birth that proves that God is with us even in the coming
disaster.
It is
interesting that the Greek translation of Isaiah specifies that the maiden was
not just a young maiden of marriageable age (almah) as the Hebrew text affirms but was specifically a virgin (parthenos). This seems to be the translation that Matthew
refers to here. A detail that may have
been obscure to Isaiah is clarified by the Greek translation – the Bible that
everyone used at that time.
While
Emmanuel of Isaiah’s day was apparently only a sign, this Emmanuel would also
save His people from their sins. They
cannot save themselves as was also true of the people of Isaiah’s day and now
the new Emmanuel Himself would not only be with them as God, He would also be
the means of their salvation from sins.
This will not take place without tremendous opposition.
© 2018 Eric Thimell
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