The Promised One

12/18/2021

A Picture of Jesus

This reflection explores the picture of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel. It focusses on the infancy narratives, with all but the last devotion looking at passages from the first two chapters. These two chapters introduce key elements about Jesus’ identity. 

After a genealogy there are five narrative sections, each showing how Jesus fulfils Old Testament prophecy. We will see below that the ‘fulfilment’ happens in different ways. These are not mechanical fulfilments of detached predictions of the future. Instead, they are deeper fulfilments of the ongoing promises of God to his people. These promises are expressed in the Old Testament and reach their climax in Messiah Jesus, God-with-us, the true King.1  As we move through these sections introducing a man that we know so well, I hope that you are challenged anew by the question: ‘who is this man?’

Read the Christmas Reflection here: