Matthew’s Opening Sentence Changes Everything

I was reading the opening line of Matthew’s Gospel recently when Matthew’s brilliance as a writer struck me.

“This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

Matthew could have written, “the son of Abraham, the son of David,” since Abraham came first genealogically. Instead, he deliberately puts David first.

Why?

Because Matthew is introducing two great covenant promises that converge in Jesus.

David points us to the King of Israel. Abraham points us to God’s promise of blessing to the nations.

The promise to David is that one of his descendants would reign forever. The promise to Abraham was that God would make him into a great nation—and that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3). Later God expands that promise, declaring Abraham would become “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:5).

Right from the first sentence, Matthew tells us that Jesus fulfills both promises. He is Israel’s promised King, and through Him salvation will reach the nations.

The Pattern in Matthew

That theme doesn’t disappear. It runs through the entire Gospel.

The Magi arrive from the east to worship the one “born king of the Jews” (Matthew 2:2). Gentiles are already being drawn to Israel’s Messiah. And Matthew closes with the Great Commission, sending Jewish disciples to make disciples of all nations. Let me ask you something: if Jesus was King of the Jews in Matthew 2, is He not still King today?

Luke’s Witness

Luke tells the same story.

When Simeon holds the infant Messiah, his prophetic words echo Isaiah 42 and 49, where God speaks of the Messiah’s mission in strikingly similar terms: “a covenant for the people (am, singular) and a light to the nations (goyim, plural)” (Isaiah 42:6), and again, “to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

Simeon declares Jesus to be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). Notice the pattern. The salvation of the nations never replaces the glory of Israel. The two belong together.

Young Miriam, pregnant with Yeshua, understood this perfectly. Filled with the Holy Spirit, she prophesied:

“He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.” (Luke 1:54–55)

Was Mary confused? Did she fail to realize that the Jewish people supposedly wouldn’t matter by the end of her life? Of course not. With Israel’s Messiah in her womb, she proclaimed God’s faithfulness to Israel, to Abraham, and to God’s covenant promises.

Then comes Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. After his own supernatural encounter with God, he prophesies:

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David...” (Luke 1:68–69)

and adds:

“...to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” (Luke 1:77)

These aren’t casual devotional musings. They’re Spirit-inspired prophetic declarations that God chose to preserve in Scripture. Matthew and Luke record them on purpose because they matter for us right now. They’re not filler, and they’re certainly not fluff — they are promises God fully intends to fulfill.

Even the angel Gabriel connects the Messiah to both David and Abraham, naming Jacob—Abraham’s grandson—as the one whose descendants the Messiah will rule forever:

“The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:32–33)

The New Testament begins by reaffirming God’s covenant faithfulness—not canceling it.

Where Replacement Goes Off the Rails

This is one of the great weaknesses of both replacement theology and fulfillment theology. They often minimize or reinterpret hundreds of passages throughout both Testaments by appealing primarily to a handful of difficult texts such as Galatians 3:16, Galatians 3:28, and Romans 9:6. Those passages deserve careful study—and I’ve written extensively on each—but they should never be interpreted in a way that overturns the overwhelming biblical testimony regarding God’s ongoing purposes for Israel.

Partners, Not Competitors

The New Testament presents no contradiction. God remains faithful to His covenant promises to the physical descendants of Abraham, and at the very same time He opens the door of salvation to every nation through Israel’s Messiah.

These truths are not competitors. They are partners, running side by side.

As I argue in When Kingdoms Collide, they ultimately converge at the end of the age when “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah” (Revelation 11:15). To be clear, God’s covenant with Abraham is not salvific—it is not, in itself, a covenant of salvation. No Jew—or Gentile—is saved apart from Yeshua the Messiah.

But God’s covenant faithfulness is still on display. Paul anticipates a future turning of Israel to her Messiah, declaring that “all Israel will be saved” after “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Romans 11:25–27). Just as Israel stewarded the Messiah to His death and resurrection—just as Anna and Simeon, in their prayers for His coming, released a blessing that would reach the nations—so now it will be the nations’ turn to give God no rest until He makes Jerusalem the praise of all the earth (Isaiah 62:6-7). And let’s be clear: Jerusalem will never be the praise of all the earth until the inhabitants of Israel recognize Yeshua as the Messiah.

Israel and the Nations

By contrast, any theology that claims God has cast off Israel forever — that He has somehow broken a covenant He explicitly swore would last forever (Genesis 13:15; Jeremiah 31:35–37) — runs straight against what God Himself has said. His stated plan is not only for the gospel to go to the ends of the earth, but for that very global outpouring to help spark salvation among the Jewish people (Romans 11:12, 15, 25–26).

The story has never been Israel or the nations.

It has always been Israel and the nations.

It will be through the prayers of the Ecclesia that revival is birthed in Israel. Israel gave birth to the Church. Now the Church will birth an awakening among the Jewish people, in the throes of the intercession.