God’s “to-do” List

There were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.   Matthew 1:17, NIV

The New Testament opens by reminding us of the people to whom God made his greatest promises. Matthew arranged the genealogy of Jesus into three groups of fourteen generations—beginning, respectively, with David, Abraham, and the Exile.

Jesus is called “the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1, NIV). Two thousand years before Jesus was born, God promised that his blessing would flow through Abraham to every nation: “I will bless you. . . . All the families on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3).

Abraham wondered how this could be since he had no children, but God stepped in and gave Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age. Isaac’s birth was a miracle, but God’s blessing to the world did not come through him. So the promise to Abraham remained on God’s to-do list.

Jesus is also called “the son of David” (Matthew 1:1, NIV). God told David about a son who would build a house for his name, and he promised to establish that son’s throne and kingdom forever: “I will be his father, and he will be my son” (2 Samuel 7:14).

David’s son, Solomon, built a magnificent Temple for the glory of God, but Solomon did not fulfill God’s promise. His Temple was eventually destroyed, and his kingdom certainly did not last forever. So this whole business of building a permanent house and establishing a throne was added to God’s to-do list.

When God’s people faced their darkest hour in exile, God promised to make a new covenant with them and write his instructions on their hearts (see Jeremiah 31:33) so they would live according to his law—not out of obligation, but out of an inner desire to follow God. These promises were made six hundred years before Jesus’ incarnation, but they remained on God’s to-do list.

Despite all that God had done for his people throughout the Old Testament story, God’s greatest promises were still unfulfilled at the beginning of the New Testament. God wants us to know that the fulfillment of all he has promised to do was initiated in the coming of Jesus Christ.

For further reading, see Hebrews 1