Genealogical Facts You Can Bank On

Credibility is usually challenged whenever truth is accompanied by information that seems outrageous or just plain impossible. For example, many in today’s society accept evolution as a theory over creation by a higher power as a fact. Personally I can comprehend a Creator as a cause for all of creation but to accept evolution over time as a viable alternative theory, now that takes faith. Are unexplained mutations, natural selection, genetic drift and general disorder all simultaneously progressing towards a sustained progress of order as we observe our present creation today? I think not. I rather prefer to live in “Realville” and am awed in the fact that I have a record containing the origins of creation available at my fingertips……and so do you.

Today, as sites like ancestry.com make evident, genealogies can reveal amazing truths about people and ages long since past. What’s really cool to me is that the heritage of our ancestors helps lend credibility and provides the proof many seek regarding the origins of creation. For example, the very thorough record of the genealogies of Jesus Christ found in the New Testament writings of Matthew and Luke contains a historical record of a list of real people who lived real lives. Yet like any genealogy, for it to have any significance the first person on the list has to be just as historical, or real, as the most recent on the list. Remember this the next time you happen to read the account of creation or of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin and their subsequent banishment from Eden or the extraordinary ark Noah built to survive the great flood. As surely as Jesus Christ is the one historical person who impacted the world for all eternity, these events and the people who endured them are just as historical.

Scripture itself specifically indicates the importance of these genealogies in Romans 5:13 & 14: “For until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.” Notice that Adam, the same who was in the Garden of Eden, is the first person on this list. Interestingly, Luke traces the line of Christ through his mother, Mary all the back to Adam. That is why 3:23 reads “Jesus… being the son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Eli…” Likewise, Matthew traces the line of Christ through Joseph even though this was not biologically the case. There are also many places in the Old Testament including the book of Chronicles from which these genealogies are also listed.

Even though Adam’s sin was accredited to all, and therefore all were made sinners, there is great hope: “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.” Romans 5:19. This passage neatly sums up my intended point: In Adam we all died. In Christ, we can all live.

These are genealogical facts you can bank your eternal destiny on. Remember this the next time you read some of those old Bible stories and wonder if they really happened. They did!
 

James