Gen. 47:2525And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants. (Genesis 47:25) affords a harvest for thought in three sentences: it gives the summary of a saint's life—"They said, Thou hast saved our lives," "let us find grace," "we will be Pharaoh's servants." Life—grace—service!
Apart from Joseph, they were as good as dead. Joseph was life to them, and they were preserved, for God sent him "to preserve life" (Gen. 45:55Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. (Genesis 45:5)). Life is the first thing here; it is the first necessity for all to follow. Faith, as to life, was the first little bit of fruit for God to see after sin, and by sin death had been introduced upon the scene by our first parents. "Adam called his wife's name Eve [living); because she was the mother of all living"; and the very next verse records, inferentially, how God shed blood, thus providing a righteous ground on which to answer that faith which He had inspired in His fallen creature's heart. Fallen, ruined, and banished from the garden of delight—the scene of the days of his innocence—life is preserved in the death of another.
How thankful may we be, who have learned our deep necessity to be "born again," that Christ is our life—the eternal life—the gift of God.
To "find grace" was the next thing they desired. This was very blessed! The people belonged to Joseph—he had bought them. But to be his by right, and his in grace, were two different matters, though the grace accorded to them for their comfort would in no wise forfeit his title to them. We can understand their feelings, whose hearts doubtless turned with deepest gratitude to the one who had been so used in blessing to them. To know him only as their benefactor who had saved their lives, would have been terms far too cold to meet the emotions of their gratified hearts. He had dealt in righteousness with them, returning to them for their money and cattle and lands and bodies the bread and seed they needed, saving their lives. But they wanted more—his favor! God has acted thus to us: Christ was delivered for our offenses, raised again for our justification, thus forever settling the claims of righteousness. But by Him also we have access into this grace wherein we stand. Oh, what should we be without this standing in grace! Even the Egyptians required it before Joseph, and I doubt not he accorded it to them; and the relation between him and the people he was over, was not only established in righteousness, but enjoyed in grace. It is the cold, heartless invention of humanity that acts the benefactor and maintains the benefactor gait toward the object of it. None could have acted in greater measure toward us as benefactor than the One who has righteously brought us to Himself, and then set us in the closest intimacy and relationship that love could suggest, or grace provide.
We are exhorted by the Apostle to "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Doubtless the preserved of Joseph from famine and death, found also in him a constant friend—"grace to help in time of need." How foolish if they did not avail themselves of such a friend and such a privilege; how ten times more foolish we who, having a much, by far, better place and title to be at it, are so often found away, weaving our own plans and getting entangled in their meshes, disowning the grace, denying the truth, and reaping in shame the results of our folly.
The next thing they spoke of was service: "We will be Pharaoh's servants." The order was perfect; not service first—serving in order to become Joseph's, or gain his favor—but serving because they were his. They found unconditional grace, and volunteered their service for the debt they owed, for the grace that had first served them. The terms too were theirs, not Joseph's—the expression of their thankful hearts. What a contrast we find in the relation between Joseph and the Egyptians, and the Egyptians and the Israelites, Joseph's brethren, in after days. The grace of the one calls forth the ready service of those under his control; while the arbitrary, cruel, and exacting bondage of the other makes its subjects groan and wrestle for deliverance from the thing the others sought—service. The service of grace is perfect freedom; it is of the Spirit, and "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Service, so-called, which is not this, is not really service at all, but the fruitless toil of will, or the restlessness of nature, or_ legality of spirit, or an opiate for an uneasy conscience, which it may often for the moment prove, blunting its sting, and drowning its voice, and abiding meanwhile the chief barrier to restoration of communion, and to the path of real service and fruitfulness to God.
In chapter 48 we get the only point in Jacob's history of which Paul makes mention. In dying, faith makes Jacob a blesser- he "blessed both the sons of Joseph." He had the agreeable surprise of seeing Joseph's seed when, as he admitted, he had not even thought to see Joseph's face. Jacob was in the act of blessing others and, as is surely ever the effect of such a service, it shed a ray of sunshine over everything; and the story of his days being "few and evil" is changed for the following acknowledgment of good, and benediction on his grandsons: "He blessed Joseph, and said, God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed [or shepherded) me all my life long unto this day, The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." There is nothing like occupation with good, and the abundance of the grace that surrounds us, and the blessing of others, to gladden our hearts and lighten our burdens and quicken our steps as we pass through the valley of the shadow of death. "It is more blessed to give than to receive"; it was Jacob's happiest moment, to judge by his language.
In chapter 49 we get the interesting account of what should befall the sons of Jacob in the last days, as he tells it to them when gathered around him. It is a prophetic stream of time of Israel's history from its apostate state before our Lord's first coming to His return, when He who was rejected by His brethren will sway His blessed scepter over them and the Gentile world—"the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords."
Jacob then gave commandment as to the place of his burial. Canaan was the only fitting place for this, for those whose hopes were for the earth, to be realized in their seed, though they themselves were heavenly. Thus Jacob died, "and Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him." Long were the days of mourning, and long indeed the train of mourners that accompanied Joseph and his brethren to the funeral—all Pharaoh's servants, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the
land of Egypt, all the house of Joseph and his brethren, and his father's house, all except the little ones. There went up also chariots and horsemen, "and it was a very great company." And at the threshing-floor of Atad "they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation." Yes, it was true—"Jacob have I loved"! It was not his ways that had won the love, or obtained the favor in Egypt or anywhere. It was the sovereignty of God in grace, and Joseph the means to its greatest display.
"And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him." This is another time we read of Joseph weeping. He wept when he saw his brethren at their first interview with him; he wept again when he saw Benjamin on their return to him, and again when he made himself known to them. On all these occasions, though there was sorrow mingled with the tears of joy, a heart full of thankfulness and praise was the source, doubtless, from which they sprang. But this time it was unmingled sorrow, and the outflow of a pained heart and grieved spirit. They mistrusted him; he was not really known by those who should have known him best. His fidelity was doubted by these unfaithful ones for whose reconciliation, and far more, he had suffered years of shame and pain and sorrow. But where was the source of this last wound for his tender, loving, and compassionate heart? If what they said was true, it was in the unbelieving Jacob. It may have been a lie; at any rate, he got the credit of it here; they said their action, base and cruel, was at his command. So if the story of his sons to Joseph was a lie, it was easy to be believed; if true, not wondered at. And so it ever is; the saint, however high the ground he takes, if walking badly, may expect to be credited with much, not true, that is very bad; and what is true and bad readily received without doubt or question; and all the good, whether much or little, is choked by the true or false report of evil, which not only easily obtains, but ever multiplies where it obtains, to almost the entire extinction of all credited good.
Joseph told them not to fear. Once they knew nothing of fear; now it was of a wrong sort—they put him in the place of God, and he reproved them for it, and told them they had thought evil against him, but "God meant it unto good." How different this to the language of his father—"All these things are against me"! Joseph got to the other side of the clouds that God, not accident or misfortune, had brought across his path, and discovered the mercy, love, and goodness that were there. Surely his language was:
"With mercy and with judgment
My web of time He wove,
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were lustered with His love."
All had appeared ill, very ill! The bud had indeed had a bitter taste, but "much people" were saved alive by it, so Joseph was satisfied, and the bloom was sweet; "God meant it unto good." Joseph satisfied them too, saying, "Fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them." How often would we, in such a case, so seek to speak as to make so grievous an offender as one who had drawn forth tears of pain, feel bitterly the indignity put upon us, or misjudgment of our motives. Not so Joseph! he reproved at the reproach of supplanting God by another, though that other be himself, and overcame the evil of their false judgment of him with good. He bared his heart by speaking kindly with his tongue, and dispensing the blessings of his hands, covering, yet reproving, their iniquity.
At dying, Joseph's faith was still in blessed exercise; and though all seemed exceedingly well in Egypt—had almost in reverence of the Egyptians, and with all the plenty of the best part of the land—much, very much more was needed before the full answer to the promises of God would be realized. Boundless stores of far richer grace were still laid up for the heirs of promise, and faith could be satisfied with nothing less than this—the full development of promises partially fulfilled. The land of Canaan, rich with its teeming full-ripe fruits, and royal display, is Israel's hope; and the faith of those
whose portion this is, alone rests there.
The Christian's portion is heavenly, and a Person there, and to win Him is the only true destination of Christian desire, and to "know Him" his present gain. When God has promised, faith alone is satisfied with the attainment in fullest consummation of the promise made, though it also yields patience to wait His time for its enjoyment. Thus it was with Joseph, who declared when about to die, "God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which He sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." This was not said in the days of Joseph's low estate in Egypt, but in the day of honor and prosperity; and it is that which makes it so precious, and in the sight of God, surely, of great price; it is the faith that only counts as really gain, and the fruition of all hope, what God has promised and bestows.