JOSEPH: FAITHS WAITING.
[ See Joseph The
Overcomer, by D. M.
Panton: and also, - Joseph,
by F. B. Mayer. ]
By faith, Joseph, at the close of his life, made [prophetic] mention of the Exodus
of the Children of
concerning his own bones (Hebrews
11: 22).
That is
all, after his long and eventful
life. After all his sorrows and
afflictions (Amos 6: 6), and self-denials and sufferings; after all his
triumphs and glory in
What is the one thing that is thus singled out?
Not Gods foreknowledge in sending the dreams in his youth;
not His grace, manifested, foreshowing his destiny; not His wondrous power in
overruling all the enmity of his brethren; not the marvellous acts of God in ruling and overruling the
events of his life; not mysterious ways, by which the evil designs of his brethren were made to accomplish and carry out
the good things God had purposed; not all his exaltation and glory in Egypt which
God had bestowed upon him; but one simple act, his dying act, in remembering
and making mention of one thing which GOD HAD SAID.
This was the greatest thing in Josephs eventful life. God had spoken; Joseph had heard the words he
had uttered; Joseph believed what he had heard; faith came by hearing, and it
was by faith that he remembered that word, and made mention of it.
The Holy Spirit, here, does not direct our attention to all
those things which we delight to dwell upon; all the types foreshadowing the
humiliation, rejection, sufferings, death, exaltation, and glory of the true
Joseph; but to one simple act of faith; greater, more blessed, and more
precious than all the acts of his eventful life.
It is the course and close of this life which is here indicated
by the word used for his dying. It is
not the word used of Jacob, in the preceding verse. There, it looks forward to a death which is
about to take place, for the word is (apothneskon), about to die and become a corpse. Here, it is (teleuton), a word that
looks backward to a life about to end and close up all the past dealings of God with him.
The word used of Jacob looks forward to, and has respect to
the corruption which was to come in, through, and after his death.
The word used of Joseph looks backward, and has respect to the
ending of his long life which had been full of mercies and crowned with
blessings.
At such a moment his thoughts are filled, not with the many
wonders which God had wrought, but with one thing God had said.
Joseph had been highly exalted in
The archers had sorely grieved him,
and shot at him and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God
of Jacob (Gen. 49: 23, 24).
God had highly exalted him. He
had delivered him from the pit, and brought him forth from prison, and made him
ruler over all the land. But none of
these things moved him from what he had beard and
believed. All the wonderful works which
God had done were not to be compared to the one thing which He had said.
So Joseph rests on his memories; and his thoughts dwell on
what God had spoken concerning things yet to come.
And what was it that Joseph had heard?
The answer takes us back to some words which God had spoken to
Abraham some 200 years before.
In Gen. 15: 13, 14, Jehovah said unto Abram Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger
in a land that is not theirs (and shall serve
them; and they shall afflict them) 400 years. And also that nation whom they shall serve, will I judge; and afterward
shall they come out with great substance.
These words were handed down, and were surely believed by
Isaac and Jacob. They were passed on to
Joseph; and, when he heard them, he believed what God had said.
So far as human sight was concerned, only some of those words
had proved to be true; for his people were indeed strangers in
a strange land. But, up to the present, there had been no
servitude and no affliction. As far as
sight could go, there was no sign of it.
And, had Joseph walked by sight, he must surely have become an
unbeliever. For, judging by the things which are seen (Heb.
11: 3,
A.V.), the fulfilment of what he had heard seemed not only most unlikely, but
impossible.
He himself was next to the throne; and his brethren dwelt in the
land of peace and plenty.
True, he had been sold for a servant;
and his feet they hurt with fetters. The
great Archer himself had shot at him and wounded him. His brethren had been used to put him in the
pit; the Ishmaelites had sold him into bondage; Potiphars wife had been used
to cast him into prison; the chief butler had been used to keep him there:
Until
the time that His word came,
The word of Jehovah
tried him.
In spite of all the designs of the enemy,
The
king sent and loosed him;
The ruler of the
people let him go free;
He made him lord of
his house,
And ruler of all
his substance,
To bind his princes
at his pleasure,
And teach his
servants wisdom.
(Psalm 105: 19-22).
To sight, and judging by the outward
appearance, what sign was there of the possibility of any servitude and
affliction?
There was none.
There was nothing but Jehovahs word,
KNOW OF A SURETY.
Joseph knew of a surety because he walked by faith, and believed God.
How else could he have known anything
about the departure of the children of
More than two hundred years had passed
away since God had spoken of it to Abraham, and more than one hundred years had
yet to run.
Joseph knew of a surety that the Exodus would take place 400
years after the birth of Isaac (thy seed, Gen. 15: 13; Acts 7: 6), and 430 years after the
promise (Gal. 3: 17; Ex. 12: 40).
See how he emphasises the certainty of his faith, twice over, when his life was drawing to a close. He used the beautiful Figure of Speech called
Polyitoton by
which the same verb is repeated in a different inflection, in visiting
He will visit you. This is beautifully rendered God will SURELY visit
you. Joseph was in no doubt
about it.
His words are:-
I die:
and God will SURELY
visit you, and bring you out of this land unto a
land which He sware to Abraham, to Isaac,
and to Jacob.
And Joseph
took an oath of the children of
Note how the words ye shall entirely depend on Gods will.
Apart from the fact that God had promised,
Josephs assurance would have been merely the expression of a pious
opinion. He could only have said, I think. But
he said I know.
In Josephs heart were things hoped
for. The ground on which his hope* was
based was on what he had heard. If he had heard from
man that his people would have a mighty deliverance from
[* NOTE. Keep in mind: We do not hope for eternal life - the free gift
of God (Rom. 6: 23, R.V.)! That life is
a present
possession to all who have been, and are, justified by faith in
Christ Jesus. It will be enjoyed after
the thousand years should be finished
(Rev. 20:
4, R.V.). Our hope,
as regenerate believers, is that we will be judged, on the undisclosed standard
of our personal righteousness (Matt. 5: 20), if accounted
worthy to attain (i.e., gain by
effort a Dictionary definition.) to that age
(Luke 20: 35),
to be with Christ in His Millennial Kingdom, - before
a new heaven and a new
earth will be created. For the first heaven and first
earth passed away (Rev. 21: 1)! He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches. To him
that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of
the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of
God (Rev. 2: 7, R.V.).]
It was not a vague, general promise which he had heard from
God, but a definite assurance based on Jehovahs oath.
On such safe ground as this he could surely take an oath of
his brethren.
Note the repetition of the word TO; individualising the
patriarchs, and specialising the promises made to each.
To Abraham:
to THEE.
To Isaac:
to THEE.
To Jacob: to THEE.
Thus giving each one the blessed
certainty of an individual oath that he, in his own person, should POSSESS the LAND which God had sworn to give him.
As not one of these three ever did possess it, or receive the
promise in his own person, it is certain that they must be raised from the
dead, in order to do so; otherwise, Jehovahs oath would be broken,* and
His promise would fall to the ground.
[* See Acts
7: 5. cf. Acts 5: 30-32, R.V.]
This is why the Lord Jesus quoted the words of Jehovah to
Moses at the bush for the express purpose of proving the doctrine of resurrection.
When the Sadducees, which say that there is no
resurrection,
asked Him, concerning the woman who had married seven husbands, In the
resurrection whose wife shall she he of the seven? He replied In the resurrection they neither
marry, nor are given in marriage.
Having answered their question as to the particular point
raised, the Lord goes on to establish the general fact, and He adds But, as touching the
resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that
which was spoken UNTO YOU by God,
saying,
I am the God of Abraham,
And the God of Isaac,
And the God of Jacob?
God is not the God of dead people, but of the
living (Matt. 22: 23-32).
The obvious conclusion of the argument being that, in order to
possess the LAND and realise the promise and oath of
God, they must of necessity live again to Him in [and after their] resurrection;
inasmuch as God is not the God of the dead.
If they were alive at the time when the Lord spoke, how would
that prove the doctrine of the resurrection?
If Gods not the God of dead people, but of living persons;
and, if this was said as touching the dead that they rise (Mark 12: 26). Is it not clear that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
must rise, in order that God may be their God?
When it is said that the Old Testament saints knew nothing or
little about a future life in resurrection, it is because the word life and live are not properly understood.
When it was declared in Lev. 18: 5, concerning the commandments, which if a man do, he shall live
in (or rather, by) them, it means live again in resurrection or eternal
life.
When it says the just shall live by faith, it cannot mean merely go on living in this life; for
the unjust go on doing that, without faith. It cannot mean live bodily or walk
righteously; for many who do this do not necessarily live long lives; but it
means shall live again in resurrection life.
Hence the Chaldee paraphrase renders it shall live
by them to life eternal. Or, according
to Solomon Jarchi, live in
the world that is to come.
Examine the many other passages where the word live is used
in this sense (Lev. 18:
5; Ezek. 20: 11, 13, 21; Neh. 9: 29; Hab. 2: 4; Rom. 1: 37; 10: 5; Gal. 3: 12; Heb. 10: 38.) The
Verb to live is used in this sense more often
than is generally thought. Compare Isa. 26: 19; 38: 16; 55: 3; Ezek. 18: 19; 33: 19; 37: 3, 5, 6, 14; Hos.
6: 2; Amos. 5: 4, &c.
The spiritual authorities of the
Thus, in the Gospel, eternal life by faith (i.e., on faith-principle) is set in contrast with eternal [i.e., Age-lasting ] life by works.*
[* See Heb.
5: 9,
where the Greek word adjective aionian,
describing the salvation to all those who OBEY him,
erroneously translated eternal
in this context! If that were true, then Christ died for nothing! See footnote for the proper use of the word aionian.]
God is not the God of dead people, but
of those of whom He was the God when alive, and He will be their God when they
live again in resurrection life.
When Joseph rested his faith on the oath God had made to his
fathers, and gave commandment concerning his bones
that they should be carried up out of Egypt to that land which God had
promised, it was in the sure and certain hope of resurrection; and that he would wake up in the LAND which
God had promised.
This promise it was which he, remembered: this blessed hope it was of which he made mention.
It is often the case that, when we have an alternative
rendering suggested in the margin, both are true and that both, taken together,
do not exhaust the fulness of the Divine meaning.
So here, in Heb. 11: 22, Joseph by faith made mention of the Exodus, or, as in the margin, remembered it.
What he remembered was Jehovahs word to his fathers; and he not only
remembered it, but he made mention of it.
Both were facts, and both will he manifested in all who possess Josephs faith.
We do not read that God had spoken directly to Joseph, as He
had to Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham, but what he had heard was what had been spoken to others,
and handed down and passed on to him. In
Gen. 48:
21, 22, we read:
And
Joseph believed what he heard. Yes! He believed he would possess that one portion which
What simple faith! Oh!
to possess like precious faith as to what we have heard and has been handed down to us, not
by the teachings of Babylon, or the errors of Rome, or by the traditions of
men, but by the inspiration of God in
the Scriptures of truth.
We, too, who believe God, have a blessed promise of a portion above our brethren: of a going up to our inheritance over the hill-country of
the Amorites: of being called on high (Phil.
3: 14): of experiencing that wondrous change
(Phil. 3:
20-21),
and that fashioning like unto the glorious body of the Lord Jesus
Christ our Saviour.
Do we remember this? Do we make mention of it? Are we reaching forth unto those things which
are before? Are we pressing toward the
goal, toward the prize of our calling on
high, by God, in
Christ Jesus?
Oh! that we, as many as are thus
initiated (for this is the meaning of the word perfect in Phil. 3: 15; compare
1 Cor. 2: 6), may be
of this mind! And if ye be
differently minded in any matter, God will
reveal even this
[as well as those other matters] unto you.
May He thus reveal more and more to us of this thrice blessed hope,
and may we, in our turn, not only remember it, but make mention of it, for the comfort of our own
hearts, and the [millennial] blessing of many others.
-------
FOOTNOTE
AIONIOS
Although he [Christ] was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and once made perfect, he
became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey
him (Hebrews 5: 9. N.I.V.).
Please write me a description of yesterdays weather in New
Testament Greek says Stuart Allen, and after
Ive read it I will listen to your argument.
The Bible is the most abused book in the world. In the hands of both scholars and laymen it
has suffered the indignity of being used to support all manner of dogmas,
beliefs and fancies. Common sense, which
has normally been exercised in the interpretation of other books, seems to have
been completely abandoned ... and liberties have been taken which in other
spheres would have been condemned outright (B. Sherring).
The Bible is not a collection of verses put together without
being related to one another. Something
precedes every verse and something follows it.
If we recognize the flow of thought leading up to a verse and away from
it, we can know with some conviction the flow of thought within it. This should be obvious, but it is surprising
how often the obvious is often missed. To interpret without regard to the context
is to interpret at random; to interpret contrary to the context is to teach
falsehood for truth (Companion to the Bible, Barrows).
The
word eternal in the English text is
misleading. Those for whom Christ is the
source
of salvation (Christians) already
possess eternal salvation; and, beyond that, this salvation was not acquired
through obedience to Christ, as in the text.
Rather, it was acquired through believing on the Lord Jesus Christ (John 3: 16).
Obedience
to Christ, resulting from suffering, can come into view only following
belief, never before. Only the
saved have passed from death unto life and are
in a position to suffer and subsequently obey.
The unsaved are still dead in trespasses and
sins (John 5: 24; Eph. 2: 1).
1. ETERNAL.
The
Greek language, from which our English versions have been translated, does not
contain a word for eternal. A person using the Greek language thinks in
the sense of ages; and the way this language
is normally used in the New Testament to express eternal,
apart from textual considerations, is through the use of the Greek words eis
tous aionas ton aionon,
meaning, unto [or, with
respect to] the ages of the ages (ref. Heb. 13: 21; 1 Pet. 4: 11; Rev. 1: 6; 4: 9, 10 for
several examples of places where these words are used, translated forever and ever in most versions).
Another
less frequent used way to express eternal in
the Greek New Testament, apart from textual considerations, is through the use
of the shortened form of the preceding - eis tous aionas, meaning unto [or, with respect to]
the ages (ref. Rom.
9: 5; 11: 36; 2 Cor. 11: 31; Heb. 13: 8 for
several examples of places where these words are used, translated forever in most versions).
The
word from the Greek text translated eternal in
Heb. 5: 9 is aionios. This is the adjective equivalent of the noun aion,
referred to in the preceding paragraph in its plural form to express eternal. Aion
means an aeon [ the word aeon is derived from aion] or an era, usually understood throughout the Greek New
Testament as an age.
Aionios, the adjective equivalent of aion, is used seventy-one
times in the Greek New Testament and has
been indiscriminately translated eternal or everlasting in almost every instance in the various English versions. This word though should be understood about
thirty of these seventy-one times in the sense of age-lasting
rather than eternal; and the occurrence in Heb. 5: 9 forms a case in point.
Several
good examples of other places where aionios should be translated and
understood as age-lasting are Gal. 6: 8; 1 Tim. 6: 12; Titus 1: 2; 3: 7. These passages have to do with running the
present race of the faith in view of one day realizing an inheritance
in the kingdom, which is the hope set before Christians.
On
the other hand, aionios can be understood in the sense of eternal if the
text so indicates. Several good
examples of places where aionios should be translated and
understood are John 3: 15, 16, 36. These
passages have to do with the life derived through faith in Christ because of
His finished work at
Textual
considerations must always be taken into account when properly translating and
understanding aionios, for this is a word which can be used to imply either age-lasting or eternal;
and it is used both ways numerous times
in the New Testament. Textual
considerations in Heb. 5: 9 leave no
room to question exactly how aionios should be understood and
translated in this verse. Life during the coming age, occupying a
position as co-heir with Christ in that coming day, is what the Book of
Hebrews is about.
2. SUFFERING, REIGNING.
Suffering
with or on behalf of Christ must precede reigning with Christ. The latter cannot be realized apart from the
former. Such suffering is inseparably
linked with obedience; and the text clearly states that Christ is the source of
that future salvation unto all them that
[presently] obey him, in the same respect that Christ
is the source of presently possessed eternal salvation for all those who have
(in the past) believed on Him.
1 Peter 1: 11, relative to the saving of the soul
(vv. 9, 10), states, Searching
what, or what manner of time the Spirit of
Christ which was in them did signify when it [He] testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ [lit., the sufferings with respect to Christ] , and the glory that should follow.
The
thought, contextually, is not at all that of Christ suffering. Rather, the thought has to do with Christians
suffering with respect to Christs sufferings, subsequently realizing the salvation of their souls through having
part in the glory which is to follow the sufferings.
This
is the underlying thought behind the whole book of 1
Peter, expressed in so many words by the writer in 4: 12, 13: Beloved, think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as
though some strange thing happened to you: But
rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of
Christs sufferings; that, when his glory
shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with
exceeding joy.
This
is the eternal [age-lasting
] glory to which Christians have been called
and in which Christians will be established after they have suffered a while, with obedience to Christ emanating from the
sufferings (1 Peter 5: 10). - A. L. Chitwood.