Jesus was the son of Joseph but he still traces his ancestry back to Abraham and King David according to the Gospel of Matthew. Joseph adopted Jesus as his son so that he thus became the son of David since Joseph was a son of David. Jesus was really born of the Holy Spirit so he is the son of God, but he is also the son of Joseph and hence a son of David.

The second objection to Jesus’s Messiahship comes from those who claim that his ancestors were stripped of their kingship. Jehoiachin (Jeremiah 22:24), who is also called Jechoniah, lost favor with God and was sent into the Babylonian exile. God said he was taking his signet ring away from him. But this objection doesn’t hold water because Zerrubabbel, the grandson of Jechoniah, was given the signet ring back again by God himself. So Jesus was really the son of David through Jehoiachin and Jerrubabbel and can hence be the Messiah.

It really doesn’t matter that Jehoiachin was stripped of his kingship because Jesus is still thought to be a son of David because he descends from Jehoiachin through Joseph. But as a son of David, he is the Messiah because his life fulfills the prophecies regarding the Messiah. In Micah 5:1, we are told that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem and in Isaiah 7:14 we are told he will be born of a virgin. Both of these things happened.

The Bethlehem saga also reveals two more prophecies for Matthew. When Herod sends his troops to kill all the baby boys in Bethlehem because he wants to kill the Messiah the Magi told him was born there, Matthew sees this as a fulfillment of the prophecy in Jeremiah where it says that Rachel will grieve her children and refuse to be comforted because the children no longer exist. But Matthew also sees the fulfillment of the Hosea prophecy that God will call his son out of Egypt in Jesus’ flight to Egypt.

The fulfillment of two additional prophecies during Jesus’ baptism rounds out this proof of Jesus’ Messiahship for Matthew. Matthew finds that John the Baptist is the voice crying out in the wilderness saying: “Prepare the way of the Lord!” that we find in Isaiah 40:3. And he finds that Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah 42:1 when a voice from heaven declares of Jesus during his baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

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