Joseph: The Last King

Dr. Randy White

In my last article, I wrote about John the Baptist, the last Priest. Just as I argued that John was not randomly chosen among righteous men, in this current article I want to challenge the perception that Joseph was selected by God as a random candidate among the righteous. Though no one would say it as irreverently, it’s as if we think that God looks down from heaven and says, “I know how I’m going to send my son; I’m going to send him born of a virgin. But I need the boy to have a dad also. There is an eligible bachelor! He’s righteous and fits all the criteria. Joseph, I select you! You’ve got the job, congratulations!”The first introduction we have of Joseph is in the 1^st chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Anyone who begins reading this chapter realizes that the selection of Joseph doesn’t seem random at all. Matthew begins his gospel in such an odd way. If you or I ever write a book, no one will ever recommend that we begin the book by giving a genealogy. It doesn’t seem like a recipe for a New York Times bestseller! The introduction of Joseph, and ultimately of Jesus, is unveiled with what has become the world’s most famous family tree. Most Americans can’t even make it through just a few names without skipping to the end.But, if we don’t skip over it, we find something interesting when we get to verse 11, where we are told that Josiah becomes the father of Jeconiah, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. Remember good King Josiah? He’s the one who became king when he was 8 years old.  He was righteous in the Lord’s sight, and made some rather sweeping reforms. Of course, after Josiah’s death, Jeconiah became the king, and then the genealogy continues, telling us that Jeconiah became the father of Shealtiel.  But, Shealtiel never became king, because the deportation to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar led to the abolishment of the Davidic monarchy in Israel. The verses following Matthew 1:11 tell us who would have been king had the monarchy remained. Though you’ve read it dozens of times, perhaps you never realized that this genealogy tells us that the poor carpenter out of Nazareth was the rightful heir to the throne.  However, there are three problems that keep Jesus from being on the throne.Why the Son of Joseph Cannot be KingThere are three reasons Jesus, as a son of Joseph, would have been challenged in His kingship.  First, of course, was Joseph himself.  Until Joseph was dead, the son of Joseph would not have been the rightful occupant of the throne.   While it sounds intriguing to believe that Joseph’s assumed death by the time of Jesus’ public ministry was a necessity so that Jesus could reign as King, there are really stronger problems than this one.  After all, Joseph would eventually die.The second problem is Joseph’s other children.  There is some evidence upon which one can build a case that the half-brothers of Jesus were actually older brothers from a previous wife. I doubt we will ever be able to solve this case, but it is a plausible theory.  If true, it would explain the animosity that these brothers had against Jesus prior to his resurrection.  It would also be true to the typology of Joseph in the Old Testament.  But, for the purposes of this article, it would present a competitor to the throne that would hold more legal right to the throne than Jesus.  A declaration by Joseph could overcome this problem (as happened many times prior), but it would bring animosity from the older brothers.  Even if they’re not older, the fact that Joseph was not the biological dad would bring Jesus his own “birth-certificate” challenge like the one held by our own President!These two problems are really just curiosity problems.  The third is what I call a “pesky prophecy problem” that would prohibit Jesus, as the son of Joseph, from sitting on the throne. Before we continue, I need to undo a perception that you might have. The perception is that Matthew gives this genealogy in order to say that Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne, but if that is true, then Matthew is ignoring a pesky prophecy problem.  Here is the problem: “’As I live,’ declares the LORD, ‘even though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim King of Judah were a signet ring on My right hand, yet I would pull you off’” (Jeremiah 22:24).Now who is Coniah? He is Jeconiah. Remember in Matthew 1 where Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel? This Coniah is the same guy.  What happens to him?  Jeremiah continues to give God’s declaration, “…yet I would pull you off; and I will give you over into the hand of those who are seeking your life, yes, into the hand of those whom you dread, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. I will hurl you, and your mother, who bore you into another country where you were not born, and there you will die” (Jeremiah 22:24-26).Now that prophecy was fulfilled, wasn’t it? Coniah was taken from the throne hurled into Babylon where he wasn’t born and there he died. Not only this, but Jeremiah 22:30 says, “’for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.‘"Did you catch that? No man who is a descendant of Coniah will ever sit on the throne of David.This creates a problem if you are going to come with the assumption that Matthew is reciting the genealogy to create a legal framework for Jesus to inherit the throne.  If you make that assumption, someone who knows their Bible will say, “Wait a minute look right there in verse 12 and you’ve got Jeconiah, and Jesus, as a descendant of Jeconiah, so Jesus cannot be the Messiah. He cannot be the one that sits on the throne.”  In fact, we know that in Jesus’ time there were those who look at Jesus and hear this claim that He is the King of Israel, and what is their response?  “Isn’t he Joseph’s son?”  They are not crying out that he is just a poor carpenter, but they are saying  he is Joseph’s son, Jacob’s grandson, Matthan’s great-grandson…all the way back to Coniah.  And if no descendant of Coniah can sit on the throne, then this disqualifies Jesus!So Matthew is not giving the genealogy to justify Jesus as King of Israel, he is telling how Jesus can be the King of Israel in spite of the connection to Joseph.  Matthew 1:16 says, “Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.”  Matthew’s focus is not on Joseph, but on Mary!Outside of the birth, and flight to Egypt, we never hear of Joseph again. I think that Matthew is saying just the opposite of what many have thought. Matthew is actually telling us how Jesus can be the King even being the son of Joseph, because Joseph is simply  the husband of Mary, and Mary is the one you need to focus on. In fact, in the Gospel of Luke, scripture gives Mary’s genealogy, and fulfills the criteria for inheriting the throne of David, namely, being in the line of David, but not in the line of Jeconiah. In Luke’s gospel, you find out that Mary has a separate line all the way back to the son of David.So what is Joseph’s Role?So if a son of Joseph cannot be heir to the throne, why was Joseph selected?  It is the same reason God chose John the Baptist, because he is the last in the line.  John the Baptist is the one that anoints or transfers the authority to the new priestly order, and Joseph is presented as the one that would have had the crown. Joseph takes the crown and, by his adoption of Jesus, he passes the crown to a new line, a line which is not within the prophetic curse that says that no son of Coniah will ever sit on the throne. Joseph gives the throne while John gives the priestly role and now we have our Priest and our King who had been anointed by the proper authority. Jesus did not highjack the priesthood from the line of Aaron, nor did he highjack the kingdom from the line of Jeconiah.  On both cases the role was given to Him, by the last Priest and the last King.Implications If true that John is the last Priest, and Joseph the last King of the old order, there are at least two implications.  First, God’s Word should be studied with greater precision. We come upon God’s Word, and I think we see John the Baptist and his dad Zachariah of the division of Abijah, and we just skip over the detail. His mom is from Aaron? Let’s skip over that. Let’s get to the meat of the story, right? That’s the American way! We don’t want all the details, spare me the details and give me the bottom line. I am convinced that many of us in modern-day American Christianity just want the big picture, leaving out the detail. Yet the real meat of the Word is in the detail. .  So one implication is that God’s Word has to be studied with greater precision, and I hope you’ll do that. It’s not a race through the Bible, dig into the Bible, and eat the meat of the Word.The second implication is that God’s work should be done with greater fidelity. The work that God was doing in bringing forward a Man that is the Messiah was done with an infinite degree of fidelity to the previous Word of God. There is a line of kings and a line of priests, and we have to deal with these with fidelity to what has already been spoken.  God accomplishes this fidelity through John the Baptist and Joseph.  What about God’s work today? I am afraid that we sometimes do God’s work without much fidelity to His Word. We don’t know the details of his Word, we say, “Let’s just ignore all the details and let’s just get the work of God done. Praise God!” And we’ve come to the point where, while the world would say, “If it feels good let’s do it,” the Church says, “If it brings people in let’s do it!”  We don’t worry about being faithful to the details of His Word, often because we haven’t studied the details of the Word.   For example, in today’s world if someone “slips through the cracks” of the Church and they disappear and are not faithful anymore, we begin to say, “What has the Church done wrong? I guess we didn’t minister to them sufficiently l!”  Then we rush over to them and say, “Please, what did we do wrong? Did we say something wrong, did we sing the wrong song? Did we have the wrong temperature? Did I not shake your hand?”   From there, we create programs that make sure EVERYONE is spoken to, their hand shaken, their favorite song sung, and the temperature and length of the service meets their busy schedule.  A couple of generations ago, however, the Church would have spoken to them about commitment, not how the Church has to be better in meeting their needs!  If there was a visit from the Pastor or from the Deacons or from the Sunday School teacher, it wouldn’t have been, “Oh please what didn’t we do?”  It would have been, “Hey listen, you signed a commitment, you are in a covenant agreement, where have you been?”  We need to go back and look to the details of God’s work, and ask what is it about God’s work that we need to do in a higher degree of fidelity to His Word. It’s not always a popular way to do things, by the way, but it is the right way to do things!___To listen to the radio b