Trust in God’s Promises?

TORAH

Gen. 41:1-44:17

HAFTORAH

2 Kings 3:15-4:1

B’RIT HADASHAH

Acts 7:9-16 (11-12)

Gen. 42:1-38

The theme of this comment is Jacob’s lack of trust in the providence and promises (but also the corrections to reestablish justice and order) of God. See also Gen. 37:23-28 for the triggering act for which God would later exact payment. God will bless His people, but will also curse His chosen nation, as well as individuals, for their injustices. He often uses apparently evil circumstances (as seen from the purely human perspective) to chastise but also often uses the very same circumstances to bring about ultimate good (Rom. 8:28).

Compare Jacob’s response to negative circumstances with that of Job, who lost all his children, all his possessions and even his health. Job too was perplexed; he could not understand why God would allow the catastrophes to happen to him, nevertheless the Bible says, “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (Job 1:20-22). While he could not understand, still he did not despair. He accepted God’s apparent chastisement with acceptance born of an inner trust, the same trust experienced and modeled by Abraham on the mountain of sacrifice.

Jacob—even though God confirmed with him the earlier promises made to Abraham and Isaac—still could not bring himself to trust God. All his life he had tried to shape events by relying on his own native intelligence and efforts, even going so far as to wrestle with God’s angel at Bethel. Nevertheless, even this “close encounter” did not convince him to “let go and let God.” He resorted primarily to craftiness and deceptive stealth all his life. (At the end of his life, though, Jacob finally did come to have trust in God through the blessing he gave his grandchildren, the two sons of Joseph—read Heb. 11:21; Gen. 48:16.)

Because of Jacob’s lack of trust, God would have been justified in rejecting him and his children outright and permanently. But God did not do that. Instead, he chastised Jacob for his lack of trust by means of Joseph’s deceit, recounted in our current passage. God used Joseph to chastise his own family for their iniquities, including their deplorable treatment of Joseph. (Even Rueben—who was a righteous man by the standard of the world—had to undergo the trial of chastisement. He was not spared any more than those brothers of his who were quite ready to kill Joseph because of their jealousy.)

But Joseph was also the instrument chosen by God to ultimately be a blessing to Jacob’s family as well as the Gentile nations. God brought the famine on the land so that these other events would unfold within, and because of, His sovereign grace. And had it not been so—if God had chosen not to exert such sovereign control (hypothetically speaking of course)—who is to say if there would ever have been a King David, a Joseph and Mary, a Saviour or an evangelizing apostle?

All the events, all the persons with their quirks and foibles, all the unfolding of this history was (and still is) merely an expression of God’s hidden but sovereign will to carry out His ultimate plan of redemption.

Nor does this plan deny the free agency of the human will. To quote the Rabbi Akiva, “All is foreseen, choice is granted, and the world is judged in kindness.”

It is one of the great mysteries of the Bible that God is presented as utterly sovereign (omnipotent and omniscient) but at the same time unwilling to take away the freedom of the will with which He imbued us at our creation, notwithstanding that at the same time our wills—unaided—are corrupt. We are spiritually dead because of our sin.  What a marvelous paradox!

So what can we learn from this part of Joseph’s story? How can we appropriate the message—knowing that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16)?

When we read this story, it’s a little like looking at fish in an aquarium. We see the filters and heaters, the lights and other necessary elements of aquarium maintenance. The fish however are ignorant of these things. They are ignorant of the necessity of all the contrivances and all the activities of the aquarist—including the provision of food—to maintain the healthy lives of all the fish.

So it is with us. Our lives are too often lived as though God does not exist, or if He does, He seems to have no concern for us or our welfare and is at best a mere observer of the human condition. Consequently, we try to compensate by trying to provide for all our needs by ourselves. We deny hope—which is really the assurance of things not seen, that is, God and His perfect love for those who love Him—by which we may accept all things as manifestations of God’s perfect will.

How willing and able are we to cast our bread upon the waters—in the firm expectation that we will be given even greater abundance through the grace of our God, King of the universe?

This world has such a hold on us!

AMEN