The life of Joseph is full of wonderful lessons for believers in all ages. It has powerful lessons on God’s providence. As we look back over Joseph’s life, we can see what he could not see. As he lived through these experiences he was in the dark about much of what was happening to him, and he was at times perplexed. We however see it from the vantage point of fulfilled prophecy; we can observe the workings of God in his life in minute detail. We know that nothing was by chance, and we watch as it moves towards the goal that God intended. We see what surprising events guided his life to its goal. Joseph knew something of this, because of his dreams, but he had to live out his life by faith, and we, as it were, can observe it by sight in retrospect.
His life has powerful lessons on predestination. His God given dreams reveal future events. When he tells his brothers what he has dreamed, they hate him for it. Their plan first to kill him and then to sell him into slavery, is an attempt to prevent those dreams ever coming to pass: ‘Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams’ (Genesis 37:20). But God used their cruel actions to bring about the very thing they were trying to prevent. God’s purposes must come to pass whatever any do to work against them.
Above all his life pictures the work of Jesus Christ as Saviour of the world. In the way he relates to his brothers we are given a remarkable insight into Christ dealing with his elect people in bringing them to faith. The brothers are convicted, awakened, brought to acknowledge their sin, and made ready to forsake sin. Joseph shows himself to his brothers, as Christ discloses himself to the soul. Joseph is reconciled with his brothers, as Christ reconciles us to himself and to God. Joseph provides bountifully for his family as Christ gives us the treasures of darkness, and the hidden riches of secret places. Joseph is free from all regret or resentment over the pathway he has trodden, even the hardship of prison and slavery. Christ dismisses any thought of what it has cost him to redeem us from hell. It is an astonishing narrative.