Jesus’ “legal” earthly father’s family tree is listed in Matthew 1. Mary’s ancestors are listed in Luke 3:23-38 but Mary is omitted; her husband’s name is substituted in its place because women’s names often were not listed in Bible genealogies.
Luke 3:23 begins this way: “[Jesus] was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli.” Mary is actually the child of Heli. Joseph’s father was “Jacob.”
Luke traces Mary’s lineage to Adam because Luke wrote to reach Gentiles. Matthew traced Jesus’ lineage to Abraham; Matthew wrote to Jewish people who saw Abraham as their important ancestor.
A QUESTION about JESUS
Jewish tribal assignment was determined through a child’s father. Jesus’ legal father, Joseph, hailed from the tribe of Judah. Mary was from Judah. Both of Jesus’ earthly parents’ ancestries included King David.
Why didn’t Jesus’ “legal” parents come from the tribe of Levi? Didn’t men of that tribe serve as priests? Isn’t Jesus our High Priest?
Writer Juli Camarin says this: “Christ’s priesthood was not patterned after the Levitical institution, it was the other way around; they [the Levites] were patterned after Christ’s eternal position as High Priest. The office of priest as held by the Levites is patterned after what takes place in the heavenly sanctuary ( Hebrews 8:5 ).”
Camarin continues, “It is amazing that God kept the Levitical priesthood and Jesus’ eternal priesthood in completely separate lines. He did this to show us that the law could never make us perfect so we would never rely on it for a means of justification. … Being justified can only come through faith in Christ. … Jesus came in the order and with the rank of Melchizedek. Not only was Melchizedek the High Priest of the Most High God, he was also a King.”
WHAT WAS MARY’S PART?
“Mary the mother of Jesus was godly and blessed, but she was not without sin. Jesus ‘had no sin’ (2 Cor. 5:21). Nothing of the sort is ever said of Mary or anyone else. Jesus Christ is fully human, but he is also fully God. He is the Lamb of God, ‘without blemish or defect,’ a title and description no other person can claim” (from GotQuestions.org).
Jesus is called the Second Adam (and the Last Adam — 1 Cor. 15:45). The First Adam was without sin when created as a son of God.
Jesus “came in the likeness of human flesh.” He did not inherit a sin nature as all other human beings do. Because God was his Father, he lived only in the likeness of sinful flesh. “Jesus inherited the flesh from his mother, Mary, but not the sin from Joseph” (GotQuestions.org).
Did Jesus have Mary’s DNA or was Mary just a surrogate mother for Jesus? One source says Jesus grew in Mary’s womb but was not from the egg of Mary because the curse of death is passed through human DNA, causing all of us to be born spiritually dead and doomed to die physical death. Did Jesus need to avoid only the original sin of his earthly father — or did he need to bypass the sinful nature of both earthly parents?
“The simple answer is that only God ultimately knows how the Holy Spirit caused Mary to become pregnant,” says neverthirsty.org. “In Luke 1:35 we are told the Holy Spirit would come upon Mary and conception would occur. So, did the Holy Spirit cause Mary’s egg to begin the creative process? Her mitochondrial DNA would have been all that Jesus needed. This would be consistent with the prophecy in Genesis 3:15 which refers to her seed. Also, Galatians 3:16 states that the ‘seed’ in Genesis 22:12-18 refers to Jesus Christ. This strongly suggests that Jesus did have Mary’s DNA. The Holy Spirit simply causes the creative process to begin and cell division follows. Yet, we do not know what actually happened because Scripture is silent.
From GotQuestions.org: “To help bolster their teaching that Mary was sinless, the Roman Catholic Church invented the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (formally accepted as Catholic dogma in 1854). According to this false teaching, Mary was, from her very conception in her mother’s womb, ‘preserved free from all stain of original sin.’ That is, Mary had no sinful nature. This doctrine is neither biblical nor necessary. The virgin-born Christ Jesus was free from the stain of original sin, but it was not necessary for His mother to be.”
The Bible relates that Mary was normal and needed salvation. In Mary’s prayer in Luke 1, she says, “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
