The Gospel According to Joseph: The Gospel and Transformation

Continuing our way through the story of Joseph, Jacob, and Judah brings us to Ge. 43-44, which is one of the high points of this narrative, at least when it comes to the theme of gospel-change working in our lives. In the previous sermon, we saw Jacob and Joseph's brothers' consciences being pricked and awakened by God; yet we didn't actually see any transformation of their hearts. In Ge. 43-44, we see God use the tools of providence and guilt to transform Jacob and the brothers' hearts. It's a wonderful development in the plot of this story, and you can hear the sermon here or read the transcript here.

As we have stated in the past posts in this series, we are also learning the questions that we can ask of any OT text to help us to see how Jesus may be on the page of Scripture. In this passage, we do not learn a new question but reuse one we have already learned: What does this passage reveal about the redeeming nature of God? And, when we see an aspect of God's redeeming nature, we can see Jesus there, for He brings together all those aspects in His work of redemption. In this sermon, we also get introduced to another way of seeing Christ in these Old Testament stories: types. A "type" is a theological term for an OT person, place, or object that God ordained to serve as a predictive pattern for Christ and what He does for us, and we see Judah as a type of Christ at the end of ch. 44. If you want to learn how, you can hear the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that this sermon will show you Jesus clearly and Him only and that it will be a blessing to your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor