Luke 3:38

Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(38) Which was the son of God.—The whole form of the genealogy leads us to apply these words to Adam. Humanity as such, as the result of an immediate creative act, was the offspring of God (Acts 17:28), and the words of the angel (Luke 1:35) imply that it was because the human nature of our Lord originated in a like creative act, that it was entitled, not less than by its union with the Sonship of the Eternal Word, to be called the Son of God. What was true of the second Adam was true also partly, though in different measure, of the first.

Benson Commentary

Luke 3:38. Adam, which was the son of God — Adam, being descended from no human parents, but formed by the power of a divine creating hand, might with peculiar propriety be called the son of God, having, in his original state, received immediately from God, whatever the sons of Adam receive from their parents, sin and misery excepted.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:23-38 Matthew's list of the forefathers of Jesus showed that Christ was the son of Abraham, in whom all the families of the earth are blessed, and heir to the throne of David; but Luke shows that Jesus was the Seed of the woman that should break the serpent's head, and traces the line up to Adam, beginning with Eli, or Heli, the father, not of Joseph, but of Mary. The seeming differences between the two evangelists in these lists of names have been removed by learned men. But our salvation does not depend upon our being able to solve these difficulties, nor is the Divine authority of the Gospels at all weakened by them. The list of names ends thus, Who was the son of Adam, the son of God; that is, the offspring of God by creation. Christ was both the son of Adam and the Son of God, that he might be a proper Mediator between God and the sons of Adam, and might bring the sons of Adam to be, through him, the sons of God. All flesh, as descended from the first Adam, is as grass, and withers as the flower of the field; but he who partakes of the Holy Spirit of life from the Second Adam, has that eternal happiness, which by the gospel is preached unto us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See, on this genealogy, the notes at Matthew 1:1-16.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

38. son of God—Compare Ac 17:28.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Luke 3:24"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Which was the son of Enos,.... Genesis 5:9

which was the son of Seth, Genesis 5:6

which was the son of Adam Genesis 5:3

which was the son of God: not begotten, as all the rest were, by their immediate parents, but created by God, in a supernatural manner, out of the dust of the earth, and quickened with the breath of God: so Adam is, by the Jews (h) called, , "the son of God": though this may be understood of Jesus; the son of Joseph, of Heli, &c. and so on to this clause, "the son of God"; being so as a divine person, to whom the human nature was united, and on that account so called; see Luke 1:35 Thus, as Matthew gives us the regal line of Christ, showing him to be heir to the throne of his father David, Luke gives the natural line of Christ; and as Matthew traces his genealogy down from Abraham, in a descending line, to Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, Luke traces it upwards, in an ascending line, from Mary by Joseph, even up to Adam; to whom the Messiah was first promised, and who was a type of the second Adam, from whom he descended, though not by ordinary generation; nay, even to God himself: Christ, according to his divine nature, was the only begotten of the Father; and as to his human nature, had a body prepared by him, and in the fulness of time was God manifest in the flesh.

(h) Sepher Cosri, orat. 2. Sig. 14. fol. 68. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 3:38. [Τοῦ Ἀδὰμ, of Adam) All the posterity of Adam have a natural tie of connection with Jesus Christ.—V. g.] Luke wisely adds this clause. Adam was the first man. He was not sprung of himself, nor of a father and mother; but from God, not only as the sons of Adam are, but in a way altogether peculiar to his case: for whatever the sons of Adam owe to their parents by the bounty of their Creator, this Adam himself received from God. On this account Luke does not stop short with Adam, but adds that crowning point of the series, the Song of Solomon of God. And here, at last, there is a terminus, beyond which there is none. Luke carries up his genealogy, from the second Adam to the first, in the same way as Moses himself describes “the generations of man,” Genesis 5:1, etc. Man was altogether a creation made by God, not merely as all creatures are, but in a peculiar manner so; Genesis 1:26 [Let us make man in our image]. If the genealogy had stopped at Adam it would have been abrupt, and not completed. As it is, it is carried up from Jesus Christ to God. The birth (descent) of Jesus from Mary is beautifully compared with the descent (origination) of Adam from God. The origination of Jesus from God has some likeness to both, but yet far exceeds both; it is in some measure mediate, or coming through the intervention of the intermediate fathers, but is much rather immediate and direct, as He is the Son of God. All things are of God through Christ: all things are brought back to God through Christ. Scripture, even in what belongs to the origin of the human race, fixes our knowledge on a firm footing, and makes it sufficiently complete: they who despise or ignore it are in utter doubt and error as to the boundaries between the ante-mundane and the post-mundane times.

Luke 3:38