Christ followers understand that Christ redeemed us with his blood when he died on the cross. As is written in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Yet redemption is not just a New Testament concept. The foreshadow of redemption is found as early as the Genesis account of Joseph as a type and shadow of Christ. The last Torah portion reading in Genesis is titled “Vayichi,” which is Hebrew for “He Lived.” The first chapter of Genesis began with God creating life and the final chapter provides us with an object lesson about the promise of redemption. Our chapter is never final because we live.
In Genesis 50 we see that Joseph’s brothers apparently had not truly believed that Joseph had forgiven them for selling him into slavery. After Jacob’s death, they devised a plan to tell Joseph that Jacob had given an order for Joseph to forgive his brothers and not hold their crime against them. There is nothing recorded in scripture that Jacob even knew of his son’s betrayal of Joseph. When Joseph heard this he wept and said to his brothers in Genesis 50:19, “Don’t be afraid! Am I in the place of God? You meant to do me harm, but God meant it for good—so that it would come about as it is today, with many people’s lives being saved.” Joseph not only had forgiven his brothers, but had also redeemed them because of their repentance. What a beautiful picture of Christ Jesus— His forgiveness and redemption of his brethren!
The book of Genesis ends with, “So Joseph died at the age of 110, and they embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt (50:26).” Joseph had also made his brothers vow to take his bones to the Promised Land, “God will surely remember you and bring you up and out of this land which he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (50:24).” The story doesn’t end here, but continues through the Exodus of Israel, as the family had become a nation during the 400 years of enslavement to Egypt. God remembered them as Joseph had said, and the Israelites brought his bones back to the land, and buried them in Joseph’s inherited allotment in Shechem. Shechem was the very place the story of Joseph began–it was where Jacob had sent him to check on his brothers, and they sold him into slavery.
This is still not the end of the story! Both Jacob and Joseph believed they would live on in the land of Israel–not just at the resurrection at the end of days—but through the lives of their descendants. Israel’s story is not yet finished, they like Jacob and Joseph hope for the fulfillment of God’s promise and blessing on their people and land. The greatest of these being the coming of the Messiah. Essentially a never-ending story, one of future hope in God’s redemption which is eternal. 1 John 2:6 says, “This is the promise that He made to us—eternal life.” Just as Jacob’s and Joseph’s stories are ongoing, so are ours. Each of us has a story yet to be fulfilled in eternity, and this life is only the beginning.
