CHRIST ACCORDED HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE

Genesis 45:1-5,9,14,15,20,24-28; Hebrews 2:5-18

At the occasion on Lord’s day morning, a brother referred in worship to the vision Joseph had of his sheaf remaining standing whilst those of his brethren all bowed to his. I wondered if we could be encouraged afresh by looking into the way that Joseph is a type of Christ. In the passages read, there is a suggestion of what blessings flow when Christ has His rightful place amongst His brethren. Joseph had two testimonies that were given to him and which were rejected by his brethren. The first was in relation to the favour that he had found with his father, the pleasure that his father had in him, which would be seen in the vest that he wore (Gen.37:3,4). The second was in relation to this vision that he shared with his brethren, that his sheaf would remain standing and the others would bow down to him (vv.5-8). His brethren refused that testimony, conveying to us the reality that the flesh is always set against Christ. Ishmael being set against Isaac is another example of the flesh being set against what is of Christ (Gen.21:9).

What affected me in considering this was that God patiently, and in His wisdom, works with a view to Joseph having his rightful place amongst his brethren. In this chapter we see something of the blessing that flows from that. Joseph here would speak to us of the risen Christ. Joseph had been in suffering, he had been, typically, in death, and now he speaks to us of a risen Christ. I was affected by the fact that he says to his brethren, “I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt”. That would remind us that he had been rejected, and of the suffering that he had been through. Then the answer and the blessing come to his people when Joseph, representing Christ as risen, is contemplated and taken account of and given his rightful place – when he is supreme. You see the blessing that flows to Joseph’s brethren when he is acknowledged thus.

I would encourage us to embrace Christ as risen and supreme in our midst. There is great blessing as we take account of Him. One of the features of Christ risen is that He is the One to whom God has committed everything, into whose hands He has placed everything. We could have read a lot more as to Joseph’s history. We find in chapter 41 the place that he was given in Pharaoh’s kingdom: he was made second only to Pharaoh. Then there is this wonderful title that he is given – that he is Saviour of the world, Sustainer of life and Revealer of secrets (see note to v.45). That speaks of the place that God has given Christ, and how He has placed everything into His hands. The day is coming when everything will be put in subjection to Him (1 Cor.15:27).

Blessing comes for the believer, and for the believing company, when we come under Christ’s influence and under His sway. It is the sway of love, the sway of grace. We see the patience with which Joseph works with his brethren. He does not disown or reject them, but he works patiently with them so that they are ready to take account of him and to give him his true place in their midst. It is not at the very beginning that he reveals himself: he tries them first. Then a moment comes when his affections, his love, must be revealed. It shows the love that underlay his movements and his operations with his brethren. The moment is right for him to reveal himself to them, and the effect is that they all come under his influence. They were already, I suppose, in his control and in his hand, but then they realise who he is.

The touches in the passage we read are lovely; we often refer to them. “Come near to me, I pray you”: it suggests his love for them, and that Joseph wanted to be known in nearness – not at a distance, but in nearness, where he is at liberty to make himself known to his own. Transferring this thought to Christ and believers, we know something of that, we prove it. How thankful we are for the experience of the Lord’s presence and of His movements. Joseph also had in mind further results from making himself known, beyond the immediate circle of his brethren. There is a wonderful suggestion of communion with him: they talked with him and were in liberty with him.

I wondered whether some of the touches that we have as to the Lord in Hebrews 2 are enhanced by considering them in the light of what we find in Joseph. My thought was as to how it behoved Christ “in all things to be made like to his brethren”. Thinking of Joseph, he worked with his brethren in view of securing the place of supremacy amongst them. He desired to enjoy communion and nearness with them, and to talk with them. It is in such an area that he is supreme. When it says, “Put every man out from me! And no man stood with him”, clearly no Egyptian was to be there: Joseph was to be alone with his brethren. That suggests the way that Christ would have His rightful place, a place of supremacy, where He is the centre and the sole object for His brethren. Blessing then flows out, and what a word that is, “let not your eye regret your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt shall be yours”. Joseph knew what was in their hearts. He knew how they might be attached to their possessions and what they had been occupied with before in their lives. But if Christ has supremacy in our hearts, if the sway of grace of a risen Christ operates in our hearts, we are led away from what would detain us otherwise. Then Joseph says, “Do not quarrel on the way”. How well he knew them! But now he has authority among them. They would never have accepted that word of exhortation before, but Joseph operated with his brethren in skill and wisdom given by God to bring about conditions in which his supremacy is accepted, where he would indeed stand in their midst.

There is another wonderful touch, the further result with Jacob. He had become discouraged with his circumstances. It was a difficult day, it was a day of dearth, of famine, and the famine was felt. It would have been a humbling thing for Jacob and his family to have to go down to Egypt for food. He had been used to getting things done his own way, and to look after himself and his own; but now he had become dependent on the people who had been his enemies. What a difficult thing it was for him. But everything changes when he has a view of a risen Christ, as it were; he hears of the glories of Joseph. Jacob is revived: what a wonderful touch that is, “And the spirit of Jacob their father revived”. What he was not prepared to do before becomes acceptable to him. He is ready to move: “Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him”. How thankful we are that a view and impressions of Christ risen, and a living link with Him, revive the heart of the believer and give strength for every situation. Christ is able to draw out the affections of every one; how we need to look to Him.

Hebrews further demonstrates that. Where we began to read there is a view of the place that Christ has been given. “What is man, that thou rememberest him, or son of man that thou visitest him?”. It then speaks of the place of glory that He has. He is to become the Centre for us. It is not yet the time when all things are subjected to Him, but we are to be subject to Him. We come under the sway of His love and grace. He leads us into the enjoyment of what is life. What a thought that is, and again we see this in Joseph when he says to his brethren that God had sent him before them to Egypt to preserve life and to save them alive. ‘Preserver of life’ is one of Joseph’s titles. That is what the Lord Jesus does. He has “brought to light life” (2 Tim.1:10), and not only has He brought it to light, but He sustains and maintains it. He is the One who does that, and He continues to do that. He continues to serve that there might be life, and life is found in Him.

How precious these thoughts are as we ponder them. It says of Christ that He was “crowned with glory and honour; so that by the grace of God he should taste death for every thing”. Joseph wanted to bring his brethren into a relationship of liberty with himself, and we have that thought conveyed in Hebrews. It says, “that … he … might set free all those who through fear of death through the whole of their life were subject to bondage”. What bondage Joseph’s brethren were in. Think of the difficulty of the relationships with one another, but as soon as Joseph has his place, as soon as Christ risen is accepted as supreme, every relationship falls into its rightful place; everything becomes ordered, and things prosper spiritually under His hand. What a blessing that is; what thoughts God has in mind: “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings”.

I love the way that the writer to the Hebrews twines together these two lines: on the one hand the blessings into which we are brought, and on the other the sufferings endured by the Lord Jesus to secure these blessings. You find that continually through this chapter. These two sides come together, and they are to affect us, to impress us with the glory of what God desires to bring us into, what is available to us, but at the same time we see the wonderful expression of love in the depths to which the Lord Jesus went to secure these blessings for us.

God begins by showing us what He has in mind for us. Joseph began by giving his brethren a view of who he was and the glory and authority that he had in Egypt, and how it was known all around that the land had prospered. Things prosper spiritually under the leadership of the Lord Jesus, the headship of Christ. We see that suggested in what happened under Joseph in Egypt. We are given a view of what we are to be brought into, a wonderful place: “in bringing many sons to glory”. It is a place of nearness, a place of relationships, and of life of another kind – life eternal in character. This is what God would have us to enjoy now.

The passage in Hebrews goes on to what the Lord does among His brethren: “I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”. How much it must have affected the brethren of Joseph that he did not disown them, that he did not turn them away but still wanted to be in their midst despite everything that they had done. How affecting to them, and how that must have touched their hearts. We are to be touched by divine affections. Romans 5 would convey that to us, that “God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us” (v.8). How precious a thought that is for our hearts: that Christ desires the company of His brethren and has this in mind: “in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”.

Again we are given this reassuring touch, “that through death he might annul him who has the might of death”. We are not left without resource in the face of death. I wish I had a greater appreciation of the fact that the Lord has annulled death (2 Tim.1:10). It would free us in our spirits and in our minds from every contrary influence. The influence of sin, the influence of the flesh, the influence of the world, all these things that we know only too well: He has annulled them all in annulling death and all its power. Liberty would flow from holding a risen Christ in supremacy in our hearts. As coming under His influence, we are set free from every other influence to be under His own touch and His sway, that of grace. How precious it is when He has that place with us as the One who is supreme, who is the King. It involves us coming under the sway of His grace, the sway of His love, and as coming under His influence He sets us free.

A further precious thought is that He continues to be available to us. What grace He shows as the High Priest. “Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like to his brethren”: how affecting an expression that is of how He came into manhood and bore everything that lay upon the whole race of man. He took on everything that we might be free. “It behoved him ... to be made like to his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God”. How we have proved the Lord Jesus in this way; the fact that He has come into our very circumstances enables Him to be “a merciful and faithful high priest”. That is a result of His coming into manhood, it was so that He would be able to sympathise fully with us. Then it says – what a word it is – “in that himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to help those that are being tempted”. What blessings come from Him; how He is available to us as the High Priest. He is always serving: although He has gone into the glory, He is still serving. We can always find the needed help in Him.

I trust we are drawn to Christ presented in this way. How precious the types are to us, for they depict glories of the Lord Jesus, they illustrate truths as to Him. These types are always consistent with what comes to light in the New Testament, for God’s own thoughts were being made known, through the types, at the very beginning. All through the Old Testament these types present God’s thoughts, and you find the full revelation of them in the New. How important to have a view of the spiritual blessings and wealth that result when the risen and exalted Christ is truly appreciated and given His place of supremacy amongst His own.

May we be drawn to Him afresh, for His name’s sake.

Sylvain Perret