Transformed by God's Sovereign Grace
"So it was not you who sent me here, but God" (Gen 45:8)
Both Joseph and Judah experience God's transforming grace through the tragedy of betrayal -- not because they have to, but because they choose by faith to submit to God and trust him. Judah, who devises the plan to sell Joseph into slavery (37:26), experiences his share of suffering after the betrayal -- losing two sons who the Bible says are so wicked the Lord takes their lives (38:7). His own life is immoral and brings dishonor to his family. Yet, he repents and years later offers his own life in place of his brother's. Joseph lives as an alien and stranger in Egypt for years, suffering many hardships and injustices, before being reunited with his brothers. Yet when he is tempted to seek revenge he chooses instead by faith to relent, testifying to his confidence in God's plan to use their intended evil for his good and to sustain their family (45:7).
Two very different men with different roles in the family and in God's story -- yet they both learn to surrender fleshly striving and submit to God's sovereign grace. We see the beauty of this transformation in Judah when he returns from Egypt and pleads with his Father to choose life instead of death by allowing Benjamin to return with them. He sacrificially offers his own life as a pledge for his brother's safety (43:9). And when he is confronted with the possibility of Benjamin's death, Judah boldly goes before Joseph, pleading for his brother's life for the sake of his Father and following through on his promise, "Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers" (44:33).
God uses Judah's transformed life of humility, commitment to truth and the desire to honor his Father as an instrument of righteousness to soften Joseph's heart and bring him to repentance (Rom 12:21). Instead of doing what felt right, Joseph chooses by faith to submit to God's plan and return good for evil. In place of declaring his victim status, he testifies to the greater reality of God's goodness in all of his suffering, "And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors" (45:7). By faith, he realizes that it was God, and not his brothers, who sent him to Egypt and honored him there - making him "a father to Pharaoh...lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt" (45:8).
I'm reminded today to relinquish my right to understand and to get justice, trading it for the greater portion of the God's sovereign grace and his assurance that he will work all things together for my good and his glory -- as I trust in him (Rom 8:28).
