CHRIST IN THE STORY OF JOSEPH

This past Sunday Night in my jail ministry, I had the joy of teaching my group how to see Christ in the Old Testament. Jesus says, in John 5:39, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me". So this tells us that Scripture's metanarritive (or its "big picture") all revolves around only one idea: Jesus Christ!

Now it is very easy to see Christ in the New Testament (NT) because of its clarity. But where some in the modern Evangelical Church gets tripped up, is that many cannot see Christ in the Old Testament (OT) unless some OT passage is referred to in the NT. However, Christ--in the context of this passage--is saying that He is just as broad in the OT as it is in the NT.

A prime example of this point is found in the story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50. In this post, I would like to take you to one passage in the story, Genesis 41. It is here that we see Pharaoh being stressed by two dreams he has had, and he is looking for someone to interpret the dreams for him. The cup bearer, who was once imprisoned, tells Pharaoh about a young man who interpreted one of his dreams while he was in prison. Now to set the tone for where I am going, two nuggets need to be established: One, Joseph was only sent to this prison due to a false accusation (i.e., Potipher's wife lied on him). And two, the prisons in Egypt during this time were underground (in fact, some Bibles like the New American Standard Update calls the prison a "dungeon"). In short, those who were imprisoned in Egypt were looked at as "buried under the ground", thus seen as dead. So Joseph's was put to "death" due to a false accusation.

So, taking the cup bearer's recommendation, Pharaoh summons Joseph from the prison. Thus, he's "called out of the place of death" and, in v. 14 we read, Joseph "shaved himself and was given new clothes". Now this statement is striking because, in Egypt, body hair of any kind is seen as filthy and dirty. So in order to be presented to Pharaoh, Joseph had to get his filthiness removed. And it was only then that he could come into the presence of Pharaoh.

So after this happens, Joseph is brought into the palace of Pharaoh and is told his dream. To which, Joseph interprets and gives a suggestion on how to handle the impending issue. To this, Pharaoh adopts his plan and makes Joseph second in command in all of Egypt. Again, we see some interesting points: In one day, Joseph goes from a prisoner to a royal official in the palace. And the way it happens is that Joseph was able--by the power of God--to solve a problem that would have caused impending death to a nation. So, while a lie was the means by which Joseph was "given over to death", in the overall Sovereign plan of God, He used it to bring Joseph to a place where he would use him to save lives.

Isn't this story an amazing picture of the work of Christ? Because of false accusations against Him, our LORD was put to death. However, in the Father's Sovereign plan, He used the death of Christ to save the lives of His Holy Nation, Spiritual Israel, from the impending death of sin. So Jesus took our sins upon Himself and--as 2 Corinthians 5:21 states--"became sin for us". Afterwards, He was raised from the dead, thus removing our sin and He gloriously stands in the presence of the Father as our Redeemer, Righteous Savior, and LORD.

And as a postscript, after Joseph came into power, he would later call all his family to come to Egypt and they were given the best of everything because of their relationship to Joseph. And equally, because of our relationship to Christ, we are given the rewards of heaven and share in His glory for all eternity.

So as we see, all Scripture does bear witness about our LORD. And throughout the year, I hope to share more Old Testament passages that will show marvelous pictures of His selfless work towards his people.