Is Jesus God?

When people claim that Matthew 1:1–16 “denies” Yahusha’s divinity, they’re usually working from the idea that a genealogy automatically rules out someone being divine. But that idea doesn’t come from the text itself. It’s a philosophical assumption someone’s bringing into the passage.

Let’s just look at what Matthew is actually doing.

The genealogy starts in verse 1: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” 

Matthew is establishing Yahusha’s legal right to the throne. He’s tying Him directly to Abraham and David to show He fulfills the covenant promises. This is about legitimate kingship, not about explaining how divine or human He is on a metaphysical level.

Now pay close attention to verse 16: 

“And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” 

Notice how the wording suddenly changes. Up to this point, every line says “X begat Y.” But when Matthew gets to Mary, he doesn’t say “Joseph begat Jesus.” Instead he says Jesus was born “of whom” (pointing back to Mary). In the Greek, that relative pronoun is feminine singular. Matthew very deliberately avoids saying Joseph was the biological father.

So in one move, Matthew does two things: 

1. He gives Yahusha a full legal Davidic lineage through Joseph. 

2. He quietly protects the virgin birth by breaking the normal “begat” pattern.

That’s not denying a miraculous conception. It’s actually setting the stage for it.

Then, just a few verses later, Matthew spells it out clearly in 1:18–23: 

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.” 

And in verse 23 he quotes Isaiah: 

“Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

The same writer who gave the genealogy also says this child is “God with us.” There’s no contradiction inside the chapter. The genealogy shows legal kingship through David. The birth story shows divine origin through the Holy Spirit.

So the real question underneath all this is: Can someone be fully human and fully divine at the same time?

Scripture doesn’t shy away from that tension. It presents it straight on. 

John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” 

John 1:14: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” 

Philippians 2:6–7 describes Him as already existing “in the form of God,” yet He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.

The Bible never treats being human as proof against being divine. It presents the incarnation as God humbly entering His own creation. If Yahuah can form a body from dust in Genesis, He can certainly enter a human body. Saying He can’t just because it involves history actually limits His power.

Some people say the genealogy proves Yahusha is only a man because He comes from David’s line. But look at Isaiah 9:6: 

“For unto us a child is born… and his name shall be called… The mighty God, The everlasting Father.” 

A child is born in time, yet He carries eternal divine titles.

Micah 5:2 says the ruler from Bethlehem has “goings forth… from everlasting.” 

Born in history. Existing from eternity.

The text doesn’t try to flatten that paradox. It simply holds on to it.

(And just to clear up one side point: the “immaculate conception” in later Catholic teaching is about Mary being conceived without original sin. That’s not what Matthew 1 is talking about. Matthew is focused on Yahusha being conceived by the Holy Spirit, not on Mary’s own conception.)

If someone says Matthew denies the virgin birth, the chapter itself proves them wrong. If someone says Matthew denies divinity, the same chapter calls the child “Emmanuel, God with us.”

The genealogy secures His place as the promised Davidic king. The birth narrative shows divine action in His conception. Together they present a Messiah who is both a rightful heir in history and divinely sent.

Here’s where some critics make a philosophical leap: they assume divinity has to look distant, abstract, untouchable. But that’s not how the Scriptures work. Yahuah walks in the garden in Genesis 3. He shows up to Abraham in Genesis 18. He comes down on Sinai in Exodus 19. The idea that God could appear in human flesh isn’t foreign to the Tanakh at all.

The real question isn’t whether Matthew denies divinity. It’s whether we’re willing to let Scripture keep its complexity instead of forcing it into neat modern categories.

Matthew doesn’t deny that the Messiah is divine. He shows that the promised son of David is also “God with us.” He roots the eternal in a real family tree. 

That’s not a denial of divinity. That’s the incarnation written right into the genealogy.

Conclusion:

In the end, what’s really at stake here isn’t just a theological debate or a question of how to read Matthew’s genealogy. It’s about the identity of the One who came to save us, and what happens when we refuse to see Him for who He truly is.

Yahusha Himself drew the line very clearly. In John 8:24 He said:

“Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”

That “I am” isn’t casual language. It’s the same divine name Yahuah revealed to Moses at the burning bush. Yahusha is claiming to be the eternal God who has now stepped into history as a man. To deny His divinity is to deny the very thing that makes His death and resurrection powerful enough to forgive sins. If He is only a good man, a righteous teacher, or even a specially chosen prophet, then His blood has no more power to atone than anyone else’s. We’re still left carrying our own guilt.

The danger is real and eternal. When people reduce Yahusha to a mere human descendant of David; however noble or covenantally legitimate, they strip away the only bridge God has provided between sinful humanity and a holy God. They leave themselves without a Savior who is big enough to bear the infinite weight of sin. They end up trusting in a version of the Messiah who cannot actually save. Scripture doesn’t present this as a minor interpretive disagreement. It presents it as a matter of life and death. Believe that He is who He claimed to be, the Word made flesh, God with us, the Mighty God born as a child, and you have the promise of forgiveness, reconciliation, and eternal life. Refuse that truth, and the Bible says plainly that you remain in your sins, cut off from the life only He can give.

Matthew didn’t write his Gospel to confuse us or to hide the truth. He wrote it to reveal it: the promised King is also the eternal God, come in the flesh to rescue us. To accept the genealogy without accepting the virgin birth and the “God with us” declaration is to miss the whole point. It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. And everything hangs on getting that right.

So the question for every one of us is simple, yet it carries infinite weight: Do we believe that He is? Because unless we do, the warning stands, we will die in our sins. But if we do believe, then the same genealogy that roots Him in history also anchors our hope in eternity. That’s not a contradiction to be explained away. That’s the good news worth staking your life on.