The Scarlet Thread in the Phone Book: Text: 1 Chronicles 2:1-4
Introduction: God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines
We come now to the genealogies of 1 Chronicles. For many modern Christians, this is the part of the Bible where good intentions come to die. We resolve to read through the whole counsel of God, we start strong in Genesis, power through Exodus, and then we hit the lists. The long, seemingly endless lists of names. It can feel like reading an ancient phone book. But we must disabuse ourselves of this notion immediately. The genealogies are not inspired filler. They are not a tedious appendix. They are the skeletal structure upon which the entire story of redemption is built. They are God's declaration that His salvation is not a myth, not a philosophy, but a historical fact, grounded in real space and time, with real people, real families, and real, messy lives.
The Chronicler is writing to a post-exilic community. They have returned to a ruined city, a mere shadow of its former glory. They are asking questions of identity. Who are we? Does God still have a plan for us? Has the promise to David failed? And the Chronicler answers them by starting at the beginning, with Adam, and tracing the line. He is reminding them that they are part of a story, a story that God has been writing since the foundation of the world. These lists are their family tree, and they prove that God has not forgotten His covenant promises. He is a God who keeps His word through generations.
And what we find in these lists is not a sanitized, airbrushed history of heroes. What we find is a testament to the staggering grace of God. God does not need perfect people to accomplish His perfect will. In fact, it is His glory to weave the scarlet thread of redemption through the most tangled and knotted family histories imaginable. He delights in writing straight with crooked lines. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the line of Judah, the royal line, the line from which our Lord came. This is not just a list of names; it is a sermon on sovereign grace.
The Text
These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. The sons of Judah were Er, Onan, and Shelah; these three were born to him by Bath-shua the Canaanitess. And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of Yahweh, so He put him to death. Tamar his daughter-in-law bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all.
(1 Chronicles 2:1-4 LSB)
The Chosen and the Passed Over (v. 1-2)
The Chronicler begins with the foundational twelve tribes.
"These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher." (1 Chronicles 2:1-2)
This is the roster of the covenant people. But even here, in this simple list, a profound theological drama is unfolding. The first name is Reuben. As the firstborn, Reuben should have had the preeminence. The birthright, the double portion, and the leadership of the family should have been his. But as we know from Genesis, Reuben was unstable as water. He defiled his father's bed, a grievous sin that disqualified him from his position (Gen. 49:4). Simeon and Levi, the next in line, disqualified themselves through their murderous rage at Shechem (Gen. 49:5-7).
So the scepter, the right of kingship, passes over the first three sons and lands, by God's sovereign decree, on the fourth son: Judah. This is a pattern we see throughout Scripture. God consistently rejects the wisdom of the world, which honors the first and the strongest. He chooses Jacob over Esau, David over his older brothers, the younger son in the parable of the prodigal. God's election is not based on birth order or human merit. He is not bound by our customs or expectations. He chooses whom He will choose, in order to show that the blessing is entirely of grace, not of works, lest any man should boast.
The Chronicler is reminding the returned exiles of this very fact. Their hope is not in their own strength or pedigree, but in the God who sovereignly chose Judah, and who promised an everlasting kingdom to Judah's descendant, David. That promise still stands, even in the rubble of Jerusalem, because it was never based on the faithfulness of men, but on the faithfulness of God.
A Line of Scoundrels and Grace (v. 3)
As soon as the focus shifts to Judah, the royal line, we are immediately confronted with sin, judgment, and failure.
"The sons of Judah were Er, Onan, and Shelah; these three were born to him by Bath-shua the Canaanitess. And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of Yahweh, so He put him to death." (1 Chronicles 2:3 LSB)
The Chronicler does not whitewash the record. He wants us to see this. The very first thing we learn about the chosen line of Judah is that it is shot through with sin. Judah marries a Canaanite woman, a direct violation of the patriarchal command to not be unequally yoked. This union produces three sons, and the firstborn, Er, is so wicked that God strikes him dead. The text doesn't give us the details of his evil, and it doesn't need to. "Evil in the sight of Yahweh" is sufficient. God saw it, and He judged it with summary execution.
The story gets worse in Genesis 38. The second son, Onan, refuses to perform his duty as a kinsman-redeemer for his brother's widow, Tamar. He selfishly uses her for his own pleasure while ensuring she will not conceive an heir that would carry his brother's name. This too was evil in the sight of the Lord, and God put him to death as well. So, the first two heirs of the royal line are executed by God for their wickedness. This is not a promising start. If salvation depended on the moral fiber of the men in this line, the whole plan would have collapsed right here. But it doesn't. This is a story about God's promise, not man's performance.
The Scandal of Redemption (v. 4)
If the line of Judah begins with sin and judgment, it is advanced through scandal and what the world would call disgrace.
"Tamar his daughter-in-law bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all." (1 Chronicles 2:4 LSB)
The Chronicler's summary is terse, but every Jew reading this would have known the sordid story from Genesis 38. After his first two sons were killed, Judah failed to give his third son, Shelah, to Tamar, fearing he would die as well. He sent her away, effectively denying her justice, a place in the family, and the possibility of raising up an heir. So Tamar took matters into her own hands. She disguised herself as a prostitute, seduced her father-in-law Judah, and conceived twins by him.
This is a five-alarm fire of a family scandal. It involves deception, incest, and prostitution. By every human standard, this is a disqualifying event. This is the kind of story you hide, the kind of ancestor you erase from the family tree. But God puts it right here, in the inspired record. He doesn't just include it; He highlights it. Matthew, in his genealogy of Jesus, makes a point of naming only four women from the Old Testament, and Tamar is the first one (Matthew 1:3). Why? Because this story is the gospel in miniature.
Judah, who had failed in his duty, is confronted with his sin and confesses, "She is more righteous than I" (Gen. 38:26). In his moment of failure and hypocrisy, grace breaks in. And from this broken, sinful, scandalous union comes Perez, the very man through whom the line to King David and ultimately to the Lord Jesus Christ would continue. God did not just salvage the line in spite of this mess; He advanced His redemptive purpose directly through it.
Conclusion: The Lion from the Wreckage
So what is the Chronicler telling his audience, and what is he telling us? He is telling us that our God is a God who brings life out of death. He is telling us that our hope is not in our own righteousness, but in His. He is telling us that the line of the Messiah is a line of sinners saved by grace, so that no one can boast.
The world looks for heroes with flawless resumes. God chooses a line that includes a man who sold his brother into slavery, slept with his daughter-in-law, and had two sons executed by divine judgment. Why? To make it clear that salvation belongs to the Lord. The glory of the house of David is not the glory of David, but the glory of the God who chose David.
And the glory of the Church is not our glory, but the glory of Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the one who was born of this messy, scandalous, grace-drenched line. He entered into our broken history to redeem it. He took our sin and shame upon Himself, and He gives us His perfect righteousness in return. When you look at your own family, at your own life, and you see the sin, the failure, and the wreckage, do not despair. Look at the genealogy of your Savior. He is not ashamed to call sinners His brothers. His grace is greater than all our sin, and His purpose cannot be thwarted by our foolishness. This is the message of the genealogies. They are not a dry list of names. They are the ironclad, historical proof of a sovereign God who saves sinners for His own glory.