JOSEPH - REVEALED!
(Genesis 45)

"But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance." (v7)

Joseph has aroused the consciences of his brothers, exposed their sin and led them to repentance. And Chapter 44 closed with Judah's heroic offer to submit to life-long servitude so that his youngest brother should go free and his father's heart should not be broken. Truly the hearts of the wicked brothers have changed.

And the results of their repentance are immediate. Joseph discloses his identity. He tells his brothers not to be angry with themselves for selling him into slavery because through that event God sent Joseph to Egypt in order to prepare for the famine and save lives. Joseph unequivocally forgives the brothers. And he tells them that five more years of famine are to come. They are therefore to go and fetch their father and families and come and live with him in Egypt where he will be able to provide for them. Joseph then weeps over his brothers and kisses them. They are reconciled. Pharaoh confirms Joseph's command to his brothers and they return. Once Jacob has got over the shock of hearing that Joseph is alive, he is overjoyed at the prospect of seeing him again.

Chapter 45 displays to us the results of repentance. Joseph's brothers came to know this seemingly harsh, mysterious ruler of all Egypt, this saviour of the world. He turned out to be their brother - risen, as it were, from the dead. In the same way, repentance enables us to know our risen Saviour. It brings us into an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Joseph's first act on being recognized was to lift the crushing burden of guilt from his brothers' shoulders. Without a hint of recrimination or bitterness, Joseph freely pardons them, thus opening the way for reconciliation and the saving of their lives. The brothers find their situation supremely elevated. They are promised a new home with their saviour - a place of provision and plenty. Such is the exact experience of the penitent Christian believer: repentance leads to revelation (knowing one's Saviour), forgiveness, reconciliation and salvation - a promised home in Heaven.

But Joseph speaks with a theological insight that has more to teach us. Five times he asserts the providential rule of God, explaining to his brothers that God was working out his pre-ordained purposes through their wicked action. The providence of God - his control and use of all events to further his global saving purposes - is the presupposition and underlying assumption of all Scripture. And it accounts for Joseph's magnanimity in so freely forgiving his brothers. God's purposes are achieved through good and ill. Christians have no right to nurse grievances and harbour resentments against those who offend them. God is working out his purposes through those things. Who are we to complain? God calls believers to show the gracious magnanimity of Joseph towards those who offend them.

But of deeper significance is Joseph's reference to "...a remnant on earth... to save your lives by a great deliverance." (v7). "Remnant" describes the life-line (or genealogy) of hope for the world that began with Abraham and ended with Jesus Christ. Joseph's action in saving his own family is preserving that life-line ("remnant") in order that the "great deliverance" performed by Jesus Christ should take place. In this Joseph looks ahead to the Cross - the Great Deliverance now freely offered throughout the world to all who will repent.

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