God’s Redemption Plan Echoed

We often hear in today’s modern Christian culture that the Old Testament (OT) is irrelevant. But I want us to see how relevant the OT is in our Christian walk as we see God’s redemption plan unfold in Jesus Christ from the OT narrative to the New Testament (NT) narrative.

My hope is that Christians will begin to see a symbolic prophecy of Christ throughout the OT, often referred to as typology or prophecy in a type—almost every major person in the OT is a symbol or type of Christ. We will delve into an example that we may all know too well…Joseph. The events that befell him, would also befall on Jesus in a very similar fashion. 

Joseph as a Type of Christ

The narrative of Joseph is just one of many other narratives in the OT that illustrates God’s redemption plan, as well as showing Joseph as a type of Christ. I want to call out these three (though there are more) events to illustrate how Christ is shown in Joseph’s narrative:

 1.  Special Love Shown from his father

2. Betrayal Bestowed Upon Joseph

3. Savior to God’s Chosen People and Gentiles

 Special Love Shown from his father

• Genesis 37:3 reads, “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors.” Joseph was loved and favored by Jacob—so much that it was obvious to the rest of Jacob’s son.

• This special love Jacob had moved him to make a robe of many colors for Joseph. Now, making a robe between 1700 – 1600 B.C was not easy.

•  Joseph’s robe was most likely linen which is made from the flax plant. Jacob personally made the robe by spinning the fibers from the stem of the plant, weaving and sewing it until it was completed. Due to the nature of the robe being of many colors, Jacob would have had to dye pieces of the linen according to the colors he wanted. The only way they would have gotten color during their time was through plant-based dye.

• This process undergoes the boiling of the plant to extract the color, then adding the linen into the boiling water. In order to ensure the color showed, the linen had to stay in the water for weeks with occasional stirring to make sure the color did not set in one place.

• The robe Jacob made Joseph wasn’t just any robe, it was special—even those who were rich did not undergo the procedure and kept with a plain robe.

• The robe was a manifest of Jacob’s special love towards Joseph. When Joseph’s robe was brought back to Jacob and told that a fierce animal had devoured Joseph, “Jacob tore his garments” and “mourned for his son many days”—saying, “I shall go down to Sheol with my son, mourning.”

• This creates more of an emphasis of how much Jacob loved Joseph, that he would go down to Sheol just to be with Joseph.

• Genesis 45:27, we see Jacob’s spirit being revived as he comes to believe that Joseph truly is alive. Though old in his age, he went on the journey to Egypt just so he could see Joseph before he died. That is the special love that would go out of its way to personally create something out of the ordinary—that would rather die with whom they love—that could only be revived when knowing and seeing whom they love.

Let that sink in and reflect on how this is an event that shows Joseph as a type of Christ. What is it about this event that is like that of Christ?

Betrayal Bestowed Upon Joseph

• The seed of betrayal began shortly within the first few verses of Genesis 37. “But his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him (v. 4).”

• The culmination of their betrayal was when they plotted to kill Joseph at Dothan (a plain north of Samaria). V. 20-21, “Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We can say that a vicious animal has devoured him. Then we shall see what becomes of his dreams!” The hatred and bitterness seen here in unspeakable—to murder their youngest brother whom they grew up with.

• When Joseph arrived, the brothers stripped him of his robe that Jacob made him. The term “stripped” in the Hebrew, pashat, isn’t just simply removing the robe from Joseph. It illustrates that there was violence in the act of the brothers stripping Joseph from his robe. The definition of pashat is, “make an invasion of—deploy hostile array).

• Pashat was also used several times in 1 Samuel, depicting how the Philistines, and even David and his men raided cities and peoples (1 Samuel 23:27, 1 Samuel 27:8, 1 Samuel 28:10; 1 Samuel 30:1; 1 Samuel 30:14). These raids weren’t friendly, they were violent. The purpose of the raids was to conquer and take what as there per their own will, or per the will of God.

• So, when the brothers stripped Joseph of his robe, you can imagine it as if it was a gang jumping on one person—kicking, hitting, shoving, spitting, and mocking.

• Joseph had just walked from his home which is in the valley of Hebron, to Shechem, then to Dothan to find his brothers. Shechem to Dothan is 12 miles alone. It is an understatement to say that Joseph was already tired, hungry and thirsty by the time he found his brothers.

• After the violence, Joseph was thrown into a pit that was empty with no water. The only reason “no water” was detailed was to emphasize that Joseph was parched from the violence he had experienced.

• Now let’s picture this—a badly beaten Joseph thrown into a pit in a fetal position, in which he is sold for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites to be sold in Egypt. What a day it was for Joseph; a day of ultimate betrayal from his own.

• Don’t forget where the brothers were at the time as well. They were in Dothan which is north of Samaria. Going from north of Samaria to Egypt takes an estimated 10 days; that is 471 miles away. This is a journey that would’ve been hard for any person…and with Joseph’s state, the journey was more than likely an even more of a struggle.

Savior to God’s Chosen People and Gentiles

In chapter 41, Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream—seven years of the great plenty, and following that, seven years of a severe famine.

Due to Joseph’s gift, he rose to power to help prepare Egypt for the severe famine. As it states in Genesis 47-49, “During the seven plentiful years the earth produced abundantly, and he gathered up all the food for seven years, which occurred in the land of Egypt, and put the food in the cities. He put it in every city the food from the fields around it. And Joseph stored up grand in great abundance, like sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.”

The famine occurred not just in Egypt, but in all the earth as v. 56-57 states. This severe famine that took over all the earth occurred around 1700 B.C.

Research shows that Cheng Tang, a Chinese Emperor, recorded a seven-year famine from 1704-1697 B.C. This directly connects to the possible dates of the severe famine in Joseph’s narrative. We also see that the Olmec civilization migrated to the Yucatan Peninsula in 17000 B.C, where they invented plumbing and showed a need to conserve water in a land that typically does not lack water.

• In South America, another civilization was around 1700 B.C in modern day Bolivia. This was a high-volume migration which supports the great famine because high volume migrations occur only when new sources of food are needed.

• Lastly, we see the general layout of the Egyptian pyramids being copied in different parts of the world: Mesoamerican pyramids in South and Central America, and pyramids in Teotihuacan, Mexico.

This brings us to see the full picture that when v. 57 says, “Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe all over the earth. All the earth came to Egypt during the seven-year famine.”

• It was God who gave the dream to Pharaoh for Joseph to interpret so he could preserve the seed of Abraham. This was God keeping his promise—where God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations and would have many descendants. (Genesis 17:4-8).

• God had planned for Joseph to be the one to save not just His chosen people, but also those who were not his, the Gentiles, who were scattered over all the earth. Joseph’s life echoed the redemption plan that would be ultimately fulfilled through the personhood of Christ. 

God’s Redemption Plan Seen in the Narrative of Joseph

Christ is seen in Joseph’s narrative. He is in Joseph’s narrative. He is Joseph’s narrative. In the New Testament, we see how it unfolds in the life of Christ as it would become the good news that would redeem all who believe in Christ Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Now, let’s take a look at Christ’s life using the narrative of Joseph in the Old Testament.

Special Love Shown from his Father

• I want us to brush over these few versus:

  • Matthew 3:17, “and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”

  • John 3:35, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands”

  • Isaiah 42:1, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.”

• Not only in Matthew 3:17 do we see God being fully pleased with his son Jesus Christ. But God’s own special love was bestowed upon Jesus throughout the Gospel narrative.

• Throughout the Bible we can see the relationship between God the Father, and God the Son. He was there in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

•  John 1:1 affirms this saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

• Jesus existed for all eternity already with God in perfect unity and relation.

• The Father looks at his Son and he enjoys and delights in Jesus. The relationship continues even when Christ is in his flesh—they continue the perfect unity of Father and Son.

• Everywhere Christ went, His Father was. Everything that belonged to the Father, it belonged to Christ. This special love was a deep form for Agape (Greek for unconditional love).

• Just like Jacob’s anguish over Joseph’s supposed death, this great and perfect love that God the Father had for His Son put him to anguish as He motioned to crush his own Son for the sake of the world.

  • Isaiah 53:11, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge the righteous one, my servant, makes many to be accounted righteous and he shall bear their iniquities.”

• Can you imagine your child being crushed? Your sweet child whom you nurtured, whom you deeply loved and shared life with. God was in anguish—let’s not think that God was just satisfied with His Son’s death. Because that’s what we see or hear when people talk about how God gave up His Son for the sins of others.

• Isaiah 53 is the prophecy of what God would undergo as he prepared for the fulfillment of the redemption plan.

• Isaiah 53 is God’s heart poured out for us to see—it is how He felt; “out of the anguish of his soul!”

• Me-a-mal is the Hebrew word used here. Me-a-mal is only used once in the whole bible and is a masculine verb. The general meaning when taking the “Amal” is to be in one's suffering and sorrow.

• God is acting out His suffering and sorrow as He sees His Son being crushed. This kind of anguish happens towards those whom we deeply love.

This is a type of prophecy where we see Joseph as a type of Christ in the way that they received a special love from their fathers.

Betrayal Bestowed Upon Christ

• Christ’s whole life led up to the point of his betrayal. But I’m not just going to talk about the betrayal of Judas, but also his own people—the Jews (John 1:11).

• His own people, God’s chosen people—the descendants of Abraham—rejected Christ. Scripture reads in John 10:33, “The Jews answered Jesus, we’re going to stone you to death, not for any good things you’ve done, but for dishonoring God. You claim to be God, although you’re only a man.”

• Joseph was betrayed and rejected by his own as well (his brothers).

• Now moving into the betrayal of Judas—we see in Matthew 26:15 that he betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, whereas Joseph is betrayed for twenty pieces of silver.

The betrayal of both Jesus and Joseph were beaten and mocked for who they said they were—in which their own kind could not and would not accept. 

Savior to God’s Chosen People and Gentiles

• Lastly, Jesus came to save not just God’s Chosen people—Abraham’s descendants, but also the Gentiles. We saw how God used Joseph to save and preserve Abraham’s seed, but also people for all over the earth.

• It has always been God’s plan for Jesus to save His Chosen people and the Gentiles—whether it was from a physical famine, or a spiritual famine. “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also (Romans 3:29),” and “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16).”

• Due to Christ’s death on the cross, “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Acts 2:21).”

God is the God of mercy—there is no merit with ethnicity because we are all sinners. God’s saving of all the earth and Abraham’s descendants in Joseph’s narrative was an echo of His grander plan to save the sinners from a spiritual famine that would bring eternal death—through Christ Jesus our Savior.

 Conclusion – Christ in All

We see Christ in the narrative of Joseph not because Christ was to be like Joseph, but because it was God’s plan to lay down the tracks for the glory of Christ to be known fully in His redemption plan. We see, it is not just in the New Testament where we can only find Christ. If we open our eyes, and if we have done our due diligence to study the New Testament, we will see that the Old Testament is a foreshadow of our Christ. Christ was prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. When you ignore the Old Testament, you dismiss the glory God meant for us to saturate—you dismiss the fullness of who Christ is.

If we are to know Christ in the fullness of who He is, we must not ignore the Old Testament. Christ is richly engraved in the Old Testament. He was in the beginning of the Word of God when God created in the Heavens in the Earth. He is at the climax of the Word of God when He comes in flesh to die for our sins. He is at the end of the Word of God to establish a new Kingdom for us.

With that said, the Old Testament is relevant and needed now more than ever for us to see Christ for who he truly is. Only through the deep knowledge of Christ Jesus will we be convinced of the Gospel to continue the good race to bear fruit within ourselves and the world. May we seek Christ in all the Bible and not just the New Testament.

CY