Less attention is paid in these days than used to be paid to an understanding of the Old Testament which identifies many of its characters and institutions as 'types' of Christ. Their features are seen as anticipating, or illustrating features of Christ Himself or His work. As the letter to the Hebrews shows, it has its roots in the New Testament itself. It will be worthwhile in this last study to see in what ways Joseph's character and his work anticipate some aspects of the character and work of our Lord. There are many parallels between the two.
Jesus, like Joseph, grew up in a home where "his brothers did not believe in him."
Jesus at Nazareth, like Joseph in Dothan, was rejected by his own folk and they made an attempt on His life, in His case by aiming to throw Him over a cliff rather than into a pit.
Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, Joseph for twenty.
Jesus and Joseph, both, were taken down to Egypt.
Like Joseph to his companions in prison, Jesus too "preached to spirits in prison!" (I Peter 3:19)
Like Jesus, Joseph was 'highly exalted' by God; he might almost be said, in his time, to have been "given a name above every other name" save that of Pharaoh. (Genesis 41:38, 41,43 and Philippians 2:5, 10,11)
Joseph, like Jesus and the thief on the cross, had a hand in the elevation of a companion who shared his condemnation with him.F. B. Meyer: "Rejected by his brethren (John 7:5), refused by those to whom he was sent (John 1:11), falsely accused and condemned (Matthew 28:18, 26:59-60), thrust into prison (Luke 22:63), rescuing one of his poor associates (Luke 23:43), and called to a throne (Luke 20:41-44) ... it would be possible in almost every particular to substitute the name of Jesus for that of Joseph."
Yet it has to be said that those resemblances between their stories are superficial. One of the reasons typology has fallen out of favour is that it is not at all easy to keep imagination within bounds, fixing attention on only those parallels which are significant, and not merely superficial. The imagination of commentators was prone to run riot and the credibility of typology suffered much in consequence. Old Testament characters and events were treated like tailor's dummies on which you could hang almost any garments of doctrine you pleased; the actual real-life meaning events had for their contemporaries was lost to view, and people grew impatient with the sheer obscurity of the teaching that issued from it. How could the plain man ever hope to understand the Old Testament that way? There was eventually felt to be a great need to bring some discipline, some agreed rules of interpretation, into the whole procedure. Unfortunately there was almost as much variety in the suggested rules of interpretation as in the interpretations themselves, and this way of looking at the Old Testament fell on hard times.
And in a way that has been a pity. It should surely be obvious that Bible characters in the Old Testament are 'types' of Christ, not because of any merely coincidental similarity in circumstances between the two, nor because of any superficial resemblances between the behaviour of the two, but because there is an identity of principle operating in and through those circumstances, a similarity of attitude in their behaviour.
Joseph's story presents a type of salvation because the way evil works, and the way God works in the face of evil to redeem us from it, remains unchanged from age to age. Joseph himself is a type of Christ, not because they both shared similar experiences, like being rejected and being taken to Egypt and being unjustly accused, but because in the face of those circumstances they displayed a like spirit.
We must always aim to understand the Old Testament, first as its contemporaries experienced life the way it is told, and then as its first hearers and readers understood the telling of it. We have to understand it first on its own terms; then we go on to consider the place of its message in the wider revelation of the Bible as a whole; after that, and only after that may we seek to apply that understanding to contemporary life. (A most helpful book in coming to grips with this is H. H. Rowley's splendid study, "The Unity of the Bible" Lutterworth Press.)
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this is the way Joseph worked for reconciliation with his brothers. He used means to awaken their slumbering consciences and bring them to repentance and prepare them for reconciliation with him very like the means the Lord, by His Spirit, uses with us. We have already considered it.
In what other ways may we see a parallel between the ways of Joseph and the ways of Christ?
There is a parallel first between what befell Joseph at the hands of his brothers, and what befell Jesus at the hands of sinners.
Jacob sent his favourite son to Shechem
because he had a care for his delinquent sons. And though Joseph
stood to suffer by 'going all the way' - to Dothan - to seek them
out, he did so because he espoused his father's purpose with a whole
heart.
Jesus too, the Father's beloved Son, was sent into the world because
God had such a care for sinners in it. And Jesus, too, though He
stood to suffer, went 'all the way' in seeking us out because He
espoused His Father's purpose with a whole heart.
The point of contact between the two is the real care in the heart you see in both Joseph and Jesus. No delinquency in our life will deter His purpose to "draw near to us," to seek us out and find us, out of concern for our welfare. Our Lord never wearied of describing Himself as having "been sent by the Father." "I came, not of myself, but the Father sent me." (John 8:42) "God sent forth His Son ... to be the Saviour of the world." (I John 4:14)
Jacob was surely not unaware of the danger into which he was sending his young son when he sent him to Shechem. He knew well enough how the brothers regarded him. He would have had no less a care for Joseph's safety than later he was to display for Benjamin's. But who can estimate what it cost the great Father of all to send His only-begotten Son, who had dwelt in His bosom, to seek out the erring children of this world? God is not passionless as a sphinx, staring with expressionless face and stony eyes over the desert waste of the world, unmoved and unfeeling. If He loves as we love - and unless there be some resemblance between His and ours there is no way we can get a handle at all on what it means that God loves us - then He must suffer distress of heart from the same causes that distress ours. Only His suffering must be the greater by as much as His heart is greater than ours. How must God love us that He should send His Son to seek us?
"God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son."
But the Son did not come merely because He was sent. He embraced the Father's desire for us as His own. Could we have asked Him, as Joseph was asked in the fields of Dothan, "Whom do you seek?" He would have answered as Joseph did, "I seek my brethren." Nor was He content merely to seek them; like Joseph who "went after his brethren until he found them," like the shepherd in the story Jesus Himself told, He "sought them diligently ... until He found them."
He seeks us still. Shall we prepare Him a better welcome than Joseph's brothers did, than Jesus' home town folk of Nazareth did?
Some, like them, "seeing him afar off, even
before he came near to them, conspire against Him to slay Him?" It
happens. The terse language of the Genesis chapters does not dwell on
the venom in the brothers' hearts, nor on the anguish of Joseph's
when they cast him into the pit. But the confession they made
twenty-five years after the event reveals both: "We are truly guilty
concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when
he besought us, and we would not hear." They put the memory of his
anguish out of mind for years and years - paid no heed to it. But it
slumbered in their souls, one day to rise up against them.
Of Jesus they said, "This is the heir, come let us kill Him, and the
inheritance will be ours." They caught Him, and bound Him and led Him
away. They sold Him to the Gentiles. They sat down to watch Him
die.
We may be guilty of the same hardness of heart toward the Lord.
And the anguish of Joseph's soul reminds us of the strong crying and tears wrung from the human heart of Christ by the near approach of His sufferings as the scapegoat of our race.
The comparative innocence of Joseph reminds us of the spotlessness of the Lamb of God who was "without blemish."
We may be unheeding of the travail of His soul for us, as the brothers were of Joseph's. How powerful a constraint upon our souls is it that Jesus wept and died for us? I recall a missionary with the R.B.M.U. in Africa, Miss Carter, telling me years ago that the most affecting feature of the faith of the African women who responded to the Gospel was the strong feeling, laughter mingled with tears, with which they sang, "My Yesu Swami died for me." Do we sing like that?
It probably never entered Joseph's head that fateful day in Dothan that one day he would look back upon it with gratitude to God, perceiving in it a gracious link in a chain of loving providence, or that he should ever say, "Be not grieved, nor angry; God sent me here ahead of you." But he did. And of Jesus too it has been said, "He shall see the fruit of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied."
Joseph was ranked among criminals, "his feet hurt with fetters, his neck put in a collar of iron," as Jesus was "numbered with the transgressors." But the crime of Joseph's brothers fulfilled the saving purpose of their loving God, as those who crucified the Lord of glory fulfilled "the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God."
"Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out."
There is a further parallel between Joseph and Jesus too ... not so easy to grasp, but more profound: both were teachers of wisdom.
In Joseph a picture is sketched of a youth growing to manhood and prominence who brought, not faith only, but wisdom - a quality of perception and understanding - to worldly affairs that was directly attributable to his knowledge of God. The books of Proverbs and the Psalms are full of praise for the healthy rightness of the understanding of life a knowledge of God and His counsel provide. Here are a few:
Ecclesiastes 8:8: "Do not neglect the speech of the wise ... for in it you will learn knowledge, so that you may stand before princes." Both Joseph and Jesus "stood before princes" - Joseph before Pharaoh, Jesus before Caiaphas and Pilate.Proverbs 18:21: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits."
Psalm 19:7 ff: "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;
• the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
• the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
• the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
• the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever;
• the ordinances of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
• Moreover by them is thy servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.Proverbs 16:23: "The mind of the wise makes his speech judicious, and adds persuasiveness to his lips. Pleasant words are like a honey-comb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body."
In order to arrive at such a level of understanding, however, a steep ladder has to be climbed - a ladder of self-discipline, of humility, of diligence and singleness of heart. Joseph is presented to us in the narrative as such a man. Recall stages of his life when his wise and timely speech turned a tide of events.
• There was the reply he gave to Potiphar's wife: "Lo, having me, my master has no concern about anything in the house - has put everything he has in my hand; he is not greater in this house than I; how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" (39:8)
A right understanding armed him against temptation ... as a right understanding armed the Son of God against temptation.• There was the reply he gave to his prison companions when he found them troubled by their dreams: "Joseph said to them, 'Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, I pray you.'" (40:8)
His walk with God made him perceptive ... as the Lord's walk with God made Him; how often we read, "Perceiving their thoughts ..."
Jesus too was able to give men such counsel as saved their souls.
We have only to recall the occasion when a paralytic was let down through the roof to Him in Capernaum to be reminded of both: "Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they questioned within themselves, said to them, 'Why do you question thus in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or 'Rise, take up your pallet and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins' - he said to the paralytic - 'I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.'" (Mark 2:8)
"Does not forgiveness belong to God? Bring him to me..."• There was the occasion when Joseph counselled Pharaoh in the face of the threatening famine: "Let Pharaoh select a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land, and take the fifth part of its produce during the seven plenteous years. Let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming, and lay up grain under the authority of Pharaoh for food in the cities. That food shall be a reserve against the seven years of famine which are to befall the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish through the famine." Pharaoh said to his servants, "Can we find such a man as this, in whom is the Spirit of God?" So to Joseph he said, "Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discreet and wise as you are; you shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command." (41:33 ff)
There is no mistaking the Bible writer's concern to present Joseph as a man of wisdom, in the best tradition of Israel's priests and prophets.
So Jesus in His testimony before Pilate, made the good confession. "To this end was I born, for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice."• Finally we may recall Joseph's words to his brothers on the occasion of his revealing: "I am your brother ... whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. So it was not you who sent me here, but God." (45:4)
There is a man who sees life whole, its glories and its tragedies wrapped up in the one bundle together, and discerns the hand of God in it all. That is wisdom. That is the wisdom - and His the supreme wisdom - of Jesus, who would say, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes; they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day." (Matthew 20:17)
"No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father." (John 10:18)
"For the Son of man came ... to give his life as a ransom for many."
Did ever any so encompass the grimmest of tragedies, the murder of the incarnate Son of God, and the greatest of glories, the redemption of the world, in one overmastering vision of life under the ruling and saving hand of God?
The beauty of the Joseph saga is that it is
such a worldly tale! God is seen to have been in control, yes; but
His rule is entwined in the most profound worldliness. Gerhard von
Rad: "The rule of God (Jesus' phrase for it was 'the Kingdom of
God') for the salvation of men permeates all realms of life; it
includes even man's evil, making the plans of the human heart serve
His divine purpose - without either hindering, or excusing them. The
human heart is therefore the principal realm for God's providential
and redeeming activity."
(Gerhard von Rad,
"Genesis", S.C.M. Old Testmant Library, p. 438)
Shall ours be?
"A man's steps are ordered by the Lord." Indeed. Will He order ours?
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