JOSEPH'S SATISFACTION AND FRUITFULNESS IN A STRANGE LAND
JOSEPH’S SATISFACTION AND FRUITFULNESS IN A STRANGE LAND
Genesis 41; Psalm 105: 16 - 22
There are few histories or accounts of individuals which are of greater interest than that of Joseph. But it is not for its intrinsic interest that the Spirit of God records the history, but because it delineates in a remarkable way the truth with regard to Christ. The passage in Psalm 105 gives us the Spirit’s commentary upon the history of Joseph. The psalm itself is a summing up of the history of Israel, of the goodness of God to them, a goodness that they will recognise in a coming day; at the same time you get the commentary of the Holy Spirit upon the course of certain individuals, and especially of Joseph, for the course of Joseph serves to portray the connection of Christ with Israel. I purpose, if God will, taking that up further on, more especially in connection with Joseph in the land of Egypt, and with the characteristic names which he gives his children. I think there is interest even in a detail of that kind. The names of his children are characteristic of his experience in the land of Egypt.
We saw in Genesis the circumstances which brought Joseph into Egypt, but in the commentary in the Psalms we find that he was sent down into Egypt of God. In the history in Genesis he was sold by his brethren to the Ishmaelites, and they brought him into Egypt; but the fact was God sent him thither. God had regard to the seed of Abraham, and sent Joseph down into Egypt that he might preserve their life in famine.
Now we see that Joseph passes through the experience of death to his brethren. His feet were hurt with fetters, the iron entered into his soul; that is experimental. He went through the painful experience of death to his kindred. But he comes out in Egypt in another character,
[p. 13] no longer as the dreamer, but as an interpreter of dreams. In the time of his dreams, though he relates them he does not interpret them. His brethren and his father are quick enough to give them their interpretation, but he did not himself interpret them. Now we do not get any record of dreams given to him in Egypt, but he is an interpreter, and what occurred in Egypt was in accordance with his interpretation. “The word of the Lord tried him”; it had to be seen whether his interpretation would hold, whether he had the word of the Lord, and that was the beginning and source of his exaltation. The circumstances are well known: he interpreted the dreams of the chief butler and of the chief baker, and though he is long forgotten, he is eventually remembered and brought to the king. The word of the Lord tried him; then the king sent and loosed him. It appears to me that an interpreter is greater than a dreamer. A dreamer speaks of dark communications, but an interpreter makes communications plain. Joseph is no longer a dreamer, but an interpreter.
Now we come to his exaltation. All is step by step (verses 20, 21); “he made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance”, etc. In the land of Canaan he had been one of twelve brethren, not at all a man of distinction, but God meant to give him distinction in Egypt, so the king exalted him; he was to be second to the king; there was to be no one greater than Joseph in the kingdom. Authority was conferred upon him; Pharaoh gave him a name, and power to “bind his princes at his pleasure, and teach his senators wisdom”. All were to bow the knee to Joseph; he was to have unlimited authority.
Then in Egypt Joseph forms a new link, and that is a most important point in his history. A wife was given to him in the land of his stranger-hood, and children are born to him, and the names given them record the experience of Joseph in Egypt. One name expressed that “God ... hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house”, and the other indicated that he was fruitful in the time of his affliction.
I drop now the history of Joseph. I took it up only because it portrays the history of Christ in connection with Israel, and I think too with the church. You will find the history in detail fulfilled in Christ. God sent Him, so to speak, before His brethren. He came after the flesh, but it was God who sent Him. And what would be the hope of Israel in the future if God had not sent a Man before them? Christ did not come as of His own will, but as divinely sent, and in the interests of God’s people; and God has now exalted Him “with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins”, to turn away “ungodliness from Jacob”. God well knew the moral famine that would come to pass in regard to Israel, and sent a Man before them. He had to taste, as a servant, the bitterness of man’s rejection of Him; if I might use the expression, ‘the iron entered into his soul’. Every class of people is viewed as responsible for the death of Christ; the Jew, of course, first, but in measure also the gentile. You find that in the beginning of Acts, in Peter’s quotation from Psalm 2. All agreed in the death of Christ; but the peculiar bitterness was that He was rejected of His own people: “He came to his own, and his own received him not”. He had ministered to them in the name of Jehovah, but He was rejected, and it was to Him a bitter experience. When the Lord entered Jerusalem for the last time He wept over it, and said, “If thou hadst known, ... at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes”. Jeremiah, Paul, and many another servant of God, felt their rejection by the people of God, and many an expression found in such a book as the Lamentations of Jeremiah could be taken up by the Lord.
But all this was up to a point. “Until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him”. Christ [p. 15] had ever borne testimony to that which man could not accept, but would deride; He bore testimony to who He was; He witnessed a good confession; it was His unvarying testimony not only that He was going to suffer, but that He would rise again. He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”, and again, “Before Abraham was, I AM”. He bore testimony to the truth, according to the will of God, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. He spoke that which He heard from the Father, and the word of the Lord tried Him, until His word came. Well, I believe that “His word” was resurrection — resurrection was the great sign. He had to stand by the word He spoke; and He was raised up. Then in the beginning of the Acts the witness was, “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death”. That was the burden of the testimony there; and the gifts and powers of the Holy Spirit were testimony to the exaltation of Christ. The apostles were witnesses and the Holy Spirit; and the raising up of the lame man at the beautiful gate of the temple attested the word of Christ. All His word was fulfilled; He had borne witness that He would sit at the right hand of God, and Stephen looks up into heaven and sees the Son of man at the right hand of God. The word of the Lord tried Him, but His word came. We, too, are tested by the word of the Lord, but we have assurance that it is the word of God. “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever”. We are tested by the word of God, but if we stand to the word it will vindicate us; you see this in the case of Joseph and in the Lord Himself: “Until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him”.
But Christ was not simply set at liberty in resurrection. If you turn to Philippians 2: 9 - 11, you find three great [p. 16] points: first, exaltation; secondly, that a name is given to Him; and thirdly, authority is conferred on Him — universal authority. This recalls to us the history of Joseph. Joseph was highly exalted in Egypt, he is second to none, except the king himself, and he gets a name. Now a name is given to Jesus — and name expresses renown — authority and renown are given to Christ, and the word is, as in the case of Joseph, “bow the knee”; “That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. You may trace the history of Christ in that of Joseph. He went into death, but He is set free; He is brought out into a large place, and set “far above all heavens” — all heavens cannot reach up to the right hand of God, and Christ is set there. We are in the light of the exaltation of Christ; grace has taught us to bow the knee to Jesus; we believe in Him, and confess and rejoice in Him as Lord. But then every knee is to bow to Him, and every tongue to confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. I believe it is most important to apprehend that every soul has got to do with Christ as Lord. God has been pleased to cause light to shine into this world, and the light has its bearing on everybody; I do not know of a person in all the world who is not entitled to enjoy the light of the sun, and that is the only adequate figure of the wideness of God’s testimony at the present time; “there is nothing hid from the heat thereof” — that is, of the gospel. The testimony of God in this world is of the glory of Christ; He is Lord of all on the ground of redemption, and every knee has to bow to Him. Exercise in regard to the gospel is not limited to those who accept it; there are many who tremble at the word, and take up christianity for a time, and yet do not come to the reality of faith; and what is the reason? Does God hinder them? Why, God would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth; there is nothing in the heart of God against any soul believing. I believe that thousands [p. 17] are exercised about the gospel who never come to believe it. They prefer to hold to something here — it may be some affection in this world, or to their own will — and never really come into the light. But that does not alter the fact, the great fact, that the light which has come into the world is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ — Christ is Lord of all.
But I pass on to speak of the links which are formed in this present time, in which Christ is hidden from His kindred after the flesh. In Joseph’s case his kindred had no knowledge of him; as far as they were concerned he might have been torn in pieces by wild beasts; he was hidden from them for the time being. That figures the position of Christ with regard to Israel at the present time. Christ is dead as to them, they know nothing about Him but His crucifixion; they know that they crucified Him, but they know nothing of Him in resurrection. Now I want to speak a little of links that are formed in that time. In Genesis 41: 45, we see that Pharaoh gave to Joseph a name — and a name that was symbolic in a way. He also obtains a wife. What I understand a wife often to represent in Scripture is a covenant, or system, or order of things. Sarah, as we see in the epistle to the Galatians, is used to set forth a covenant or order of things come in; and Hagar to show the legal covenant; and in the case of Joseph we see him identified with what was entirely outside of all that was natural to him; it would have been more natural to him to have married a wife from the land of his fathers.
Now the principle holds good in regard to Christ. He is identified in heaven with another order of things, represented by the wife of Joseph. A verse from Hebrews 7 will make that plain; the law which “made nothing perfect” is set aside — that is one order of things; but there is “the bringing in of a better hope, ... by the which we draw nigh to God” — that is the order of [p. 18] things with which Christ is identified at the present time. The love of God has opened heaven to us — that is the better hope. We have come unto “mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, the general assembly; and to the church of the firstborn which are written in heaven”; — that is the order of things with which Christ has become identified during the time of His decease as regards Israel, His people down here. It is wonderful to think that God should open heaven to the Jews; everything was closed to them down here, but when that was so God, in His infinite mercy, opened to them the door of heaven, where Christ has entered as Forerunner, and it is with the better hope that He has identified Himself now. When the soul understands that, it is beautiful to think of Christ being identified with the better hope: we see the answer of God’s grace to the wickedness of the Jews. Now, if they would reach Christ, they must go forth to Him “without the camp”, but the door of heaven has been opened to them. The death of Christ speaks not simply of the perverseness of the Jews, but of God’s glory; and on the ground of that the door of heaven has been opened, and souls have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.
But further, a generation has sprung from that link which Christ has formed — from the system and order of things with which He is identified. Our souls identify Him with the better hope. He is the priest of that order of things, and the effect upon us is that we are a new generation, “the children of God, without rebuke”. Was there ever that generation before Christ was here? There were the children of Abraham, and men of faith, but there was not a generation, before Christ, that understood anything about the Father’s love. Such a generation could not come to light until Christ had been down here. Christ brought into the world the love of the [p. 19] Father. He did not take it away with Him, but left here objects of that love, that, as you get in John 17 “the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. Jesus did not leave the world as He found it. In one sense He left it darker than He found it; but He left here those who were the objects of the Father’s love; to “as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God”. They were not here before; but now they are here, a generation of a wholly new order, “blameless and harmless, the children of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world”. That is the character of the generation. How much do we answer to it? how much are we instructed in the love of the Father?
I will tell you the true stature of the christian. It is the measure in which he enjoys the love of the Father; he is not measured in Scripture by his faith, but by his love, and his love is dependent upon his appreciation of the Father’s love. I love only as I am conscious of the Father’s love — and that is our stature as children of God. Thus we are “without rebuke”. The world itself has not improved morally; it is a crooked and perverse nation still; the pulpits of this country are largely used to disseminate error. But we are in the light; for you could not shine as lights in the world except as being in the light; you shine as reflecting light from Christ; in the light of His love we shine, and we hold forth the testimony of life; light marks this generation, and it comes forth in life.
The satisfaction which Joseph had in the soul, given him in Egypt, is illustrative of the satisfaction which Christ has in the generation of which I have spoken, so that Christ can say, “God ... hath made me forget all my toil, and all my Father’s house”. He will rejoin His kindred, as did Joseph, but in the meantime God has made Him to forget His toil in His satisfaction in the generation which has been begotten to Him, in the time [p. 20] of His separation, in the children of God, who are in the enjoyment of the love of the Father. He is fruitful in the time of His affliction; He “shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied”. We are all begotten in the time of Christ’s rejection by His own people; we are in the light of His glory, but at the same time we have to remember that He is disallowed of men. Man’s disallowance of Christ was expressed in death; but the One disallowed is chosen of God, and precious — that is shown in resurrection. If you accept the disallowance, we too are disallowed, and have to “work out” our “own salvation with fear and trembling”; but in apprehending Christ, as “chosen of God and precious”, we are loved of the Father, are the elect of God, holy and beloved. We are partners with Christ in His rejection, but shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. We look for the Bridegroom; the Spirit and the bride say “Come”; and then there is the appeal, “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” — the word of life is held forth in the generation which is the satisfaction of Christ in the time of His rejection. That is what marks the present time, and I think you can thus trace in Christ the history of Joseph.
There is one forcible expression in Psalm 105 “Until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him”. You need to stand firm to the word of the Lord in the midst of a great deal that is contrary to it; the Lord was it, and stood to it amid opposition and ridicule, until His word came. And by the grace of God we must stand to it.
When the world has passed away the word of the Lord endureth for ever. Joseph stood to his word, and got the answer in liberty, exaltation, a new name, and authority; but there is a much greater satisfaction than all this. May God lead us into the sense of it, the satisfaction to the heart of Christ, so that He can say, “God ... hath made me forget all my toil, and all my Father’s house”, and He is fruitful in a strange land.
May God give us to see the reality of this, and the marks of that generation which has, if I may use the expression, sprung from Christ in the time of His decease from His own people. He will be the Saviour to the latter eventually, to give them remission of sins.