The Great Unfolding: How Jesus Fulfils God’s Ancient Promises.

Have you ever picked up a book and felt like you started in the middle? The characters have histories you don’t know, and events are unfolding based on a backstory you missed. For many, opening the New Testament can feel like this. A man named Jesus of Nazareth appears, and the world is never the same. But where did He come from? Was His arrival a sudden, unexpected event, or was it the long-awaited climax of a story that began thousands of years before?

The Gospel of Matthew answers this with a resounding declaration: Jesus did not appear in a vacuum. He is the stunning fulfilment of a story God began telling in the very first pages of the Old Testament. This post, the second in the series “The King and His Kingdom,” explores how Matthew builds a powerful bridge between the Old and New Testaments. We will see that Jesus is the ultimate answer to the hopes, the laws, and the prophecies of God’s ancient people. He is not the start of a new story, but the glorious chapter for which the entire world had been waiting.

A Royal Tapestry Woven Through Time.

Matthew begins his Gospel not with a miracle or a sermon, but with a list of names. The genealogy in Matthew 1:1–17 can seem dense, perhaps even skippable. Yet, in this careful tracing of ancestry, Matthew is making one of the most profound claims in history. He opens with, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” In one sentence, he connects Jesus to the two most significant figures in Israel’s history.

This is not just a family tree; it is a royal and covenantal lineage. By linking Jesus to Abraham, Matthew asserts that Jesus is the ultimate heir to the covenant promise God made to Abraham—that through his offspring, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. By linking Jesus to David, Matthew declares that Jesus is the long-awaited King, the rightful heir to the throne of Israel, the Messiah who would reign forever.

The forty-two generations listed are a testament to God’s faithfulness through centuries of victory, failure, exile, and silence. Each name is a stitch in a divine tapestry, a story of God preserving a specific lineage for a singular purpose. This list demonstrates that Jesus’s arrival wasn’t an accident of history. It was a divine appointment, meticulously planned and sovereignly guided from the very beginning. This unbroken line is the first and most foundational plank in the bridge between the Testaments, establishing Jesus not as a rogue teacher, but as the legitimate, long-promised King.

Whispers of Prophecy, Now a Resounding Voice.

If the genealogy is the structural foundation of the bridge, the fulfilment of prophecy is its unbreakable support. Throughout the opening chapters of his Gospel, Matthew repeatedly uses a powerful phrase: “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.” He is showing his readers that the key events of Jesus’s birth and early life were not random. They were, in fact, the echoes of ancient prophetic words coming to pass with breathtaking accuracy.

Consider the evidence Matthew presents. The miraculous conception of Jesus is shown to be the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel” (Matthew 1:22–23). When the wise men seek the newborn king, the scribes know exactly where to direct them, quoting the prophet Micah: “in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet” (Matthew 2:4–5).

The pattern continues with astonishing consistency. The family’s flight to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath is not merely a desperate act of survival; it is the fulfilment of Hosea’s words, “Out of Egypt I called My Son” (Matthew 2:15). Even the horrific tragedy of the slaughter of innocent children in Bethlehem was foreseen, as Matthew notes, “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet” (Matthew 2:17). Finally, the family’s decision to settle in the obscure town of Nazareth brings to pass what was “spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’” (Matthew 2:23).

These are not isolated coincidences. Matthew is building an irrefutable case. He is demonstrating that God was so intimately involved in the details of the Messiah’s arrival that He announced the specifics centuries in advance through His chosen messengers. The entire Old Testament, in this light, becomes a map pointing to one specific person, in one specific place, at one specific time.

Not to Abolish, but to Complete.

Lest anyone misunderstand His purpose, Jesus Himself addresses His relationship to the Old Testament in one of the most important passages in all of Scripture. In the Sermon on the Mount, He declares, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17).

This statement is the key that unlocks the unity of the entire Bible. Jesus did not come to discard the Old Testament as something outdated or irrelevant. He came to be its very substance and goal. The moral law given to Moses revealed God’s holy character and the perfect standard of righteousness—a standard no one could perfectly keep. Jesus came and lived that perfect, sinless life, fulfilling the law’s demands in His own person. The sacrificial system, with its intricate rituals, pointed to the need for atonement for sin. Jesus became the ultimate and final sacrifice, fulfilling the purpose of every animal ever offered on the altar.

The Prophets spoke of a coming King, a suffering servant, a righteous judge, and a merciful saviour. Jesus embodies all of these roles. He is the true and better King David, the prophet greater than Moses, the priest in the order of Melchizedek. He doesn’t erase the old story; He is its intended meaning. He makes sense of it all. He goes on to say that true righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20), a righteousness that is impossible on our own but is made possible through Him—the very fulfilment of the Law.

One Story, One King.

From the first verse of his Gospel, Matthew masterfully demonstrates that the story of Jesus is the story of God’s faithfulness. The genealogy establishes His legal right to the throne. The fulfilled prophecies confirm His divine identity. His own words proclaim His ultimate purpose. Jesus is the bridge that connects God’s ancient promises with their glorious reality.

For the believer, this truth provides an unshakable foundation for faith. Our hope is not in a recently invented philosophy, but in a God who makes promises and keeps them across the span of human history. It allows us to see the Bible not as a collection of disconnected books, but as one beautiful, cohesive, and perfect story of redemption, culminating in Christ.

For the seeker, this presents a compelling truth. The Christian faith is deeply rooted in history and prophecy. The claims about Jesus are not made in a vacuum; they are presented as the intentional, sovereignly orchestrated climax of a story God set in motion at the dawn of time. He is the answer to the questions the Old Testament raises, the hope it looks forward to, and the King it promises. He is the great unfolding of God’s perfect plan.

Coming Soon.

Part 3: The Global Rescue Plan.