9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into
Egypt; but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions and
gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler
over Egypt and over all his household. 11 Now there came a famine throughout
all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food.
12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers
on their first visit. 13 And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to
his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. 14 And Joseph sent
and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all.
15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, 16 and they
were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a
sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. (Acts 7:9-16 (ESV)
Stephen moves on to a second example showing how it is the
witnesses to God who are persecuted by the majority of Israel, but how God always uses them to
save the people. Jesus will be the final crown of this work as Stephen shows
all of these men as types. Now he turns
his attention to Joseph, who was sold into slavery by the patriarchs, but who
was then able to use this for good and save his brothers. So too Joseph is a
type, a model in which the early church could see the work of Christ
foreshadowed in the history of Israel. It is this sort of thing Jesus means
when he says, “You search the scriptures because in them you think you have
eternal life, but they are these who speak of me.” (John 5:39)
The twelve tribes of Israel are named after Joseph and his
brothers. It is for this reason that they are called the patriarchs. Stephen
shows that even the partriarchs themselves were guilty of persecuting God’s
chosen. Even here, at the beginning of their nation’s history the majority of
Israel are unbelievers who don’t understand the word of God. Who think
they can thwart God’s plans with their
own evil intentions, but God even uses their evil to bring about his plan of
salvation, and uses there sinfulness to accomplish his purpose and their
salvation. Just so, now, they follow in the footsteps of their fathers, and God
has used their sinfulness to bring about their salvation.
I think we Christians can learn something from this. Too often
we let our sin shame us. We feel weak and unworthy of the love of God. And
these things we are, but it doesn’t stop God from loving us. There are times
that we wake up in life to see the blood on our hands. We are horrified at what
we have done. And rightly so. The patriarchs had no cause to shrug their
shoulders and think that since God had used their evil deeds for good, they had
no guilt. At the same time, Joseph having seen the work of God and how God used
their evil to do him good, was in a position that made him willing to forgive,
which is always God’s will.
Finally, that is the essence of Christianity though. Often
we look at those who seem to have it together, who hold to some straight and
narrow path, who never seem to have family troubles, run ins with the police,
who live exemplary lives as being the epitome of the Christian faith and what
it is all about. We look up to them and try to live our lives the same way.
Really, no one wants all that sort of trouble. On the other hand, I’m convinced
there isn’t anyone who actually succeeds at that sort of thing. We are all
sinners and all weak. We realize this I think to a certain extant. We come to
grips with it. In our minds though we start classifying our sins, and we think
we are good to go because the sins that we hide are not as bad as all of that.
Then they catch up to us and catastrophe hits. We find ourselves doing things much
worse than we ever imagined we could be doing. It’s all over and done before it
even registers with us.
And then we are at a tricky cross roads. Our pride, you
would think it is shattered at this point. You just had an abortion, or you
paid for your lover to have one so your wife wouldn’t find out. You realize you
are as sinful as all those people out there, those faceless people you railed
against with statistics. Now you are the
statistic! How could this be? And your pride kicks in to drive you further into
despair. You want to quit going to church, because you can’t keep up the
appearance of being a Christian anymore. But it is precisely then stripped of
the appearance of being a Christian that God gives to you forgiveness, and
focuses you on the cross, so you can stop trying to appear Christian, and be
one. It is at times like these that your righteousness has gotten in the way of
God’s righteousness. So he strips you of it. He strips you of your
righteousness so you can no longer wear it over his. You can no longer hide his
righteousness underneath yours, but now his is exposed in you, his
righteousness that is the forgiveness of sins and nothing more. His
righteousness is his blood that has washed away your sins, and stripped you of
your righteousness.
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