The story of Jesus is presented in four different Gospels, each capturing His life from an individual writer’s unique perspective. It’s been said that Matthew presents Jesus as the King who comes to reign and rule; Mark portrays the Servant who comes to serve and suffer; Luke describes the Son of Man who comes to share and sympathize; and John introduces the Son of God who comes to reveal and redeem. Most of the Gospels also present genealogies that highlight who Jesus is.

Matthew traced Jesus’ heredity from David to Abraham, presenting Jesus’ right to the throne as a direct descendant of David, their greatest king, and Abraham, the founding father of the Jewish nation (Matthew 1:1-19).

The absence of a genealogy in the Gospel of Mark, which portrayed Jesus as a servant (Mark 10:45), is telling. Perhaps the lineage of a servant is humbly put aside.

Luke cited verifiable historical events and people (Luke 1:1-4, 2:1-2). Jesus’ genealogy in this book is deliberately given only after He was a full-grown man—traced all the way back to Adam. It identifies Jesus as part of the human race, as fully man (Luke 3:23-38).John gave us a very different genealogy—the divine revelation of Jesus as the Son of God. He delved into eternity past and affirmed the deity of Jesus, revealing that He is the second person of the Godhead (John 1:1-5). So Jesus was also fully God, who entered human history as a man (John 1:14).

John himself explained: “But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in Him you will have life by the power of His name” (John 20:31).