What does all this mean?

Genesis 44; Job 10; Mark 14; Romans 14

The sons of Israel are in a pickle. They brought their little brother Benjamin with them back to Egypt for more food, just as Joseph ordered. They still had no idea who Joseph really was, only that they were in trouble. This ‘Egyptian’ ruler found his silver cup in Benjamin’s bags, and now threatened to keep him as a servant. Judah, who once sold his youngest brother (Joseph) into slavery is pleading for Benjamin, his remaining younger brother. He tells Pharaoh that his father will die if Benjamin is not allowed to go back to him and offers himself as substitute.

And when our father said, ‘Go again, buy us a little food,’ we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down. For we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, “Surely he has been torn to pieces,” and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol . . .  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. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.” (Genesis 44:25–34)

This is Joseph’s last test. He sees the change of heart in his brothers and is now ready to tell them who he really is and take care of them.

Besides being a favorite Bible story, this one clearly points to Jesus. Judah offers his life in substitution for another. He was likely motivated by a guilty conscience and genuine shame. What he did not realize that in a couple thousand years, his descendant, in no way prompted by shame but only by obedience to his heavenly Father and by love for guilty sinners, would offer himself as a substitute for everyone.

Like Judah, Job did not realize the future sacrifice for sinners either. He moaned in his misery and said:

Are your days as the days of man, or your years as a man’s years, that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin, although you know that I am not guilty, and there is none to deliver out of your hand? (Job 10:5–7, italics mine)

Perhaps he knew God was not like that, yet he still could not understand the pickle he was in. Why would his Creator abandon him to such misery? He told God that he would rather die than suffer like this without explanation.

Little did Job realize that decades later, the Deliverer would come. He would also suffer and God would put Him to death. He was betrayed and denied by His friends, also innocent of any crime — but unlike Job, He had never sinned at all; He was dying for the sin of all humanity. Nor was He ignorant of what was happening:

And Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” (Mark 14:27–28)

Like Judah, yet unlike Job, Jesus was willing to take the place of suffering. He prayed in anguish, sweating blood, but saying, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36) Then, unlike Judah, yet like Job, He was falsely accused and condemned to suffer the cup of God’s wrath.

The pattern is set in Genesis and exemplified through the Old Testament. A NT passage says that those who experienced these things knew all of it was for those who would live later. They also knew that glory was to follow, but the ultimate outcome was a mystery to them, held in wonder to the point that even the angels longed to get a better glimpse.

The song, “Jesus Paid it All” has a stanza that says: “Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow, And when before the throne I stand in him complete, Jesus died my soul to save, My lips shall still repeat . . . .”

I get the first part, but that phrase, “I stand in him complete” leaves me in awe. Like the saints and angels of old, I long for a clearer glimpse — because of my Redeemer’s great salvation I long to see Him and fully understand the marvel of being made complete.