21st December 2025

It is not uncommon for Christians to say that Jesus had no human father, and usually what they mean is that Jesus had no biological or natural father because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. While it is true that Jesus did not have a biological human father, it is not true to say he had no human father. From the perspective of the ancient world, Joseph was as much the father of Jesus as Mary was his mother. While the natural biological link did carry weight in the ancient world, sonship was not a given: it awaited the father’s legal recognition. Some Greek and Roman fathers withheld this acknowledgement, especially if the child was a girl, and the child was accordingly abandoned in a remote place – a practice called ‘infant exposure’. Those children who were not recognised as sons or daughters were included in the group called the ‘fatherless’.

As Joseph deliberated quietly annulling his marriage to Mary, Jesus was at this moment at risk of becoming one of the fatherless himself. The angel’s visit to Joseph is a critical moment in salvation history. The angel was not merely explaining the situation to Joseph and advocating the innocence of Mary, but was also commissioning Joseph to be Jesus’s human father. One way a father recognised a child was by naming. Both Mary and Joseph were instructed to ‘call his name Jesus’ (Mary in Luke 1:31 and Joseph in Matthew 1:21), indicating that naming was a joint responsibility, and both parents were to be agreed before the name was made public.

Joseph was then recognised as Jesus’s father and the emphasis was on the fact that he was of the house and lineage of David. This is hugely significant because Jesus received his Davidic heritage from Joseph, not Mary. We know virtually nothing of Mary’s genealogy, but it is clear that Joseph is from the line of David (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:27). Jesus’s Davidic lineage was one of the earliest affirmations of Christianity. When Paul wrote in the late 50s AD to the church at Rome, he includes in an early creedal formula that ‘as to his earthly life [Jesus] was a descendant of David’ (Romans1:3) and he confirms to Timothy that this fact is intrinsic to the gospel: ‘Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…’ (2 Timothy 2:8). As a result, the lineage of Jesus formed an important part of the preaching of Paul (Acts 13:17-37), and Peter (Acts 2:24-36).

All of this is important because, in Jesus, and especially at his resurrection, God fulfilled the promise he made to David: “when your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son.” (2 Samuel 7:12-14). Consequently, the testimony given to the church at the end of the Bible includes the fact that Jesus is the ‘…Root and the Offspring of David…’ (Revelation 22:16). 

Little is known of Joseph throughout the Bible, but the fact that he followed the angel’s command and became Jesus’s human father from the line of David, fulfilled prophecy and was key for the early church, helping them understand and interpret Jesus’s miraculous resurrection as a messianic event. 

Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead 
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA

Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm

Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:  
wordoflife@gracecom.church