Faithful Forgiveness

Genesis 50:15-21
Gary Wassermann | Sunday, July 02, 2023
Copyright © 2023, Gary Wassermann

We have recently been considering the theme of covenant.  God makes a covenant with us, and under God we make covenants with one another.  We looked at some of these covenants with one another such as marriage and especially church.  Marriage is a covenant in which two sinners come together.  It is described that way to say that there will be problems.  There will be difficulties.  And yet marriage is “till death do us part.”  If there will be problems in marriage, how about in church when 200 sinners come together, or 500, or Lord willing 2000 sinners come together?  The church covenant is not “till death do us part,” but it is “till God do us part,” and for many of us, that means all of life.  So we are in covenant relationship with hundreds of other sinners, some of whom we have experience with from before we or they came to Christ, and we are to maintain covenant unity perpetually.

Is this even possible?  In view of real sins and real offenses people commit against one another, is it possible to live in love and unity for decades with no end in sight?  The answer from the life of Joseph is a resounding yes.  Joseph models the forgiveness, which we all must practice.  I have three points: conscience and confession, model forgiveness, and the forgiver – who is it that forgives.

Conscience and Confession

First let us look at the brothers in verses 15-18.  Their father died and was buried and now conscience makes cowards of them.  But why?  Why are they so afraid of Joseph?  That is not the unity and the free and open fellowship we hope for.

We would have thought that by this time everything would be smooth sailing and pleasant for the house of Israel.  That certainly is the trajectory from the life of Jacob himself.  The last 17 years of his life was a time of peace and blessing unlike any other in his life.  He heard that his son Joseph was alive, he received God’s blessing and promise once again, and he settled in Goshen, where he was provided for.  There were no dark clouds on the horizon except perhaps for the prophecy that said his descendants would be slaves in Egypt.

The brothers lived in the same pleasant blessing and prosperity.  Not only were they materially prosperous, but they were reconciled with their brother Joseph 17 years ago.  They no longer live under the cloud of their lie, and they have long since changed from the envious, murderous sinners that they used to be.  Joseph embraced them.  He talked with them.  They talked with him.  He settled them in Goshen, and he has faithfully provided for them for the past 17 years.

So why are they deathly afraid?  Certainly Joseph has the power to kill them.  No one would stop him or even question him if he decided to do so.  He was the ruler of Egypt.  But he has never shown anything but goodwill toward them.

Now we can understand their concern from this angle.  Joseph loved his father deeply.  We have seen the evidences of that in our previous studies.  He did not have a comparable regard for his brothers, and we would not expect him to.  And perhaps mistrust grew because Joseph’s duties in the Egyptian court kept him away from regular interactions with his brothers.

We can also understand that there was some historical precent for their anxiety.  Just one generation earlier Esau had done what they feared of Joseph.  Esau held such a grudge against his brother Jacob, so that he planned to kill him as soon as their father Isaac died.  The difference is that Joseph’s brothers repented, and Joseph forgave them.  So there really was no reason coming from Joseph to fear.

But note this: this is the first time they confess to Joseph the evil they had done and ask his forgiveness.  “Forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.”  If they had not fabricated this message outright, it was surely their idea and their initiative to ask their father to endorse it.  As for their own words, “Now please for gives the sins of the servants of the God of your father.”

This had not happened before, at least as far as what is recorded.  In 42:21, they spoke to each other about what they did to their brother, and they recognized with fear and sorrow the evil of it.  Joseph heard all this, but they didn’t know at the time that he was Joseph.  They truly were sorry for what they had done.

They also demonstrated that they were changed men in the matter of the silver cup in Benjamin’s sack.  They stood together, and Judah was ready to lay down his life for the sake of Benjamin and his father.  Their repentance was real.  Joseph forgave them on solid ground, but they never confessed their sin to him and asked his forgiveness.  Given the sequence of events, that was understandable.  By the time Joseph revealed himself, they had already demonstrated their repentance, and Joseph immediately sought to assure them of his love for them.

So Joseph was not waiting for anything more from them, but at the same time they had not gained the grounds for peace they could have had if they had confessed.

Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”  Confession is the way to find mercy, and it is also the way to know that you have received mercy.

Confessing is simple, but we are naturally reluctant and easily turned from confessing as we ought.  The brother did not confess directly until they were scared to death.  So how do you go about it?

The story of the Prodigal Son is one of the greatest stories of repentance in the Bible.  In that story, the son came to his senses, and determined he would go and confess his sin to his father.  He planned out what he would say and he seems to have rehearsed it.

Luke 15:17-19 says, “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!  I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’”  When he arrived, he confessed as he planned, almost in spite of his father’s joy to have him back.  Think through and even rehearse what you plan to say.

Jay Adams, a pioneer of biblical counseling, emphasized the importance of asking forgiveness in resolving sin problems.  He addresses the problem of the offended party not wanting to commit to forgiveness, which was not the case with Joseph, but Jay Adams’ point still applies to the brothers.

Often when a client asks for forgiveness, the other person tries to minimize his problem.  A husband, for instance, says to his wife, “Honey, I’m sorry that I stormed out of the house the other day.”  She replies, “Oh, John, don’t think any more about it; forget it; I don’t care about it.”  When she begins to minimize in that fashion, there is a great temptation for him to allow her to do so and close the matter.  Instead, he must be careful to say something like: “No, I really mean this.  I’ve sinned against God and I’ve injured you.  I don’t want you to look lightly upon what I’ve done.  I really want your forgiveness and I need your help to be a different person in the future.”[1]

It is important to get a genuine decision because sin is big and it should not be minimized.

It is also important because minimizing may be an attempt to avoid facing the possibility of extending genuine forgiveness and thereby rejecting reconciliation.  Only by pressing for an answer to the question, “Will you forgive me?” can he be sure that the issue has been joined and settled.  When he settles a matter with another in this manner, he may go away with peace in his heart, for the matter has been set to rest one way or another.

So confess your sins to one another.  Think through what you will say.  Whatever you lay on the table in confession can be cleared off, but whatever you don’t put out there at worst is not forgiven and at best it can linger in your mind as a question: What if he knew about that?  Maybe he knows and hasn’t forgiven, or maybe he doesn’t and there will be trouble when he finds out.  This takes some wisdom.  You do not need to confess thoughts that are only in your head and never makes it out, but that is not generally our problem.  So confess your sins.

Model Forgiveness

Second let us look at Joseph’s forgiveness.  That is where the spotlight of this section falls and that is the example for us.  God commands all of us in Col 3:13, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Joseph did that.  He could have killed his brothers.  He could have enslaved them.  He could have banished them.  He could have done whatever he wanted, and no one would have said a word against him.  If he wanted the wholehearted support of his subjects in Egypt, he could simply have declared what his brothers had done to him.  He could even have done all this and maintained his place among the people of Israel.  After Jacob died, he was effectively the head of the tribe.  He had received the blessing of the firstborn, and when Jacob died he took charge of the burial.  So he had authority even in Israel, and yet he forgave freely and without constraint.  That is forgiving as the Lord forgave us.

Genesis 50 shows us three aspects of forgiveness: the duration of forgiveness, the extent of forgiveness, and the motive for forgiveness.

1. The duration of forgiveness: forever

Love never fails.  Joseph had forgiven his brothers long ago.  Years before he saw them, he named his first son Manasseh, because God had enabled him to forget all the trouble from his father’s household.  He was not eaten with resentment about it.  He extended that forgiveness when he revealed himself to them in Genesis 45.  Now 17 more years have gone by.  If his forgiveness had been merely an emotional act based on the overwhelming nature of that encounter when he also had the prospect of seeing his father again, he would have had plenty of time in the following years, during the night or whenever his mind wandered back to past things, to think again about what they had done.  He could have built back up anger and resentment in his heart.

He didn’t do that.  He was as wholehearted in his forgiveness now after Jacob died as he was 17 years earlier when he spoke openly for the first time.  This is how God forgives.  Micah 7:19 says God will “hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”  He never dredges them up again.

In our legal system, you cannot be tried twice for the same crime.  Don’t do that in your mind.  When you forgive, you forgive forever.  It may be handy to keep those old sins in the back of your mind to bring them out at an opportune time, but don’t do it.  We rely on God’s forgiveness of us to endure, and it does endure eternally.  Forgiveness is forever.

2. The extent of forgiveness: love.

Forgiveness does not delight in evil.  Love does not delight in evil.  Verse 17 says that when the message came to Joseph, he wept.  It grieved him to see them so terrified.  It grieved him to see that they felt they had to invoke the name of their father to get him to forgive.  It grieved him to see them still not confident that he viewed them as beloved brothers.  He did not stop with just a feeling in his heart, he turned to them.  He spoke to them – this would be no distant relationship.  He spoke kindly to them and reassured them.  He provided for them.  That shows the fullness of his forgiveness.

Suppose he had said, “I will not do anything against them.  That would be wrong.  But that terror that they now feel, well, good.  Now they know what it feels like.  Now they are experiencing something of the pain they caused me.  I will not do anything against them, but I’m glad to see them miserable.”  That is not forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not the absence of revenge.  Forgiveness is the opposite of revenge.  Forgiveness is full reconciliation.  You cannot forgive someone and be content with a frosty relationship with them.  You cannot forgive someone and be content with that person being insecure around you.  Once you forgive, the sin is gone, and you must love freely.

This means there is no, what I will call, “Gehazi forgiveness.”  2 Kings 5 tells the story of Naaman the Syrian general, who came to the prophet Elisha to be healed and cleansed of his leprosy.  Naaman was ready to give ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of clothing in exchange for his healing.  Elisha directed Naaman what to do, and when Naaman did it, he was healed.  So he said to Elisha, “Please accept now a gift from your servant.”  The prophet answered, “As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing.”  After Naaman left, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, said to himself, “My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought.”  You can hear a certain contempt in Gehazi’s words: “this Aramean.”  “This Aramean should be required to pay.  I ought to get something from him.”  So Gehazi went after him and got a little something: two talents of silver and two sets of clothing.

“Gehazi forgiveness” says, “He got off too easy.  Perhaps others have forgiven him, but he should have to pay.  I’m not going to take full revenge, but I’m going to require something from him.  I’m going to see to it that he has some grief after what he did.”  That is not forgiveness.  If God has forgiven him, then you have no right to exact a little something from him.  You must be content to get nothing, just like Elisha.  Look at what happened to Gehazi.  Namaan’s leprosy clung to him and his descendants forever.  You yourself will pay far more than you can ever make the other person pay.

Rather do as Joseph did.  Fellowship with them in all love and sincerity.  Be eager to build them up.  That is forgiveness.

3. The motive of forgiveness: the fear of the Lord.

The Bible gives other motives for forgiveness, but I’m only going to address this one, because it was all that Joseph needed.  Joseph’s response when his brothers came to him was, “Am I in the place of God?”  This was God’s realm.

God created the heavens and the earth from nothing.  He rules his creation.  So Joseph’s great-grandfather Abraham knew that God is the judge of all the earth.  “Will not the judge of all the earth do right?”  That was Abraham’s alarm and plea when God spoke to him about destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.  God is in the judge’s seat over all the earth.  And he is fully competent for the task.  He is omniscient.  He sees all that is done in heaven and on earth.  He not only sees the deeds, but he knows every aspect of the circumstances and every motive of the heart.  He is omnipotent.  He is able to strike down, and he is able to raise up.  He saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and he killed all people on the face of the earth except eight in the great flood.  God is just as much in charge of the earth today as he has been since the beginning of creation.  He sees everything, and he governs and controls this world as he sees fit.

He is also the God of mercy and election.  It was Joseph’s own father Jacob, whom God had chosen before he was born and before he had done anything good or bad.  When Jacob was born, he did a lot of bad things, but still God loved Jacob.  He has the right to do what he pleases with what is his.

It is before this God that Joseph walked and stood even now.  Wherever Joseph went, he knew God’s presence with him.  Stephen preached in Acts 7:9, “Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt.  But God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles.”  Joseph understood what David articulated in Psalm 139:7: “Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?”  And the truth is it is not only I who cannot escape from God’s presence, no one can escape from his presence.  Joseph knew that the brothers were never away from God.  God knew and saw everything they did and said.  If God deemed that they should be punished, he would punish them.

And it is his alone to do that.  He says in Deuteronomy 32:35, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay.”  That means it is not yours.  God does not want your help or participation in any way.  Proverbs 24:17-18 says, “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice,18 or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.”

All of this is as true and relevant today as it was back then.  The fear of God should cause you to forgive.

Now look at these men standing here.  They have done many terrible things, culminating in one very terrible thing – to me!  And yet they live.  They are among the people of God.  There are two possible ways to explain this.

The first is that these men who did these terrible things now live and prosper because no one is really in charge.  In this world it is every man for himself, and they got away with it.  If that is the explanation, I will at least have a chip on my shoulder.  I will certainly not have any sympathy for them.

The second is that these men who did these terrible things now live and prosper because someone is in charge, and that someone is well-pleased to bless and prosper them.  If that is the case, I have no objection.  If I were to hold a grudge, I would be arguing with God.  Not only will I not oppose him; I will actively cooperate with his work.  I too will bless them in whatever way I can.

The fear of the Lord is a tree of life, and the leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations.  Give to God what is God’s, and he will heal you.

Now I want to make one more point about the fear of God.  God is one, and the fear of God is one principle.  It is one motive.  The man who said, “Am I in the place of God?” is the same man who years earlier said no to temptation because he feared God.  “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”  The one motive of the fear of God empowered Joseph both to say no to temptation and to forgive fully.

In ourselves, we are weak against temptation.  We have a powerful and crafty adversary, and he has an advantage, because we are already sinners.  We need something greater than ourselves, something above us, to be able to resist temptation.  We need the word of God, as Jesus said to Satan, “It is written.”  But we also need the fear of God so that we will submit to his word.  We must submit to God in order to resist the devil and have him flee.  Now, in the matter of forgiveness, if you reject the rule of God and hold on to a grudge, you have abandoned the one power that is able to make you stand against temptation.  You are leaving yourself open to every evil attack.  If nothing else, for your own good, fear God and forgive fully.

If at this point you still are unable to forgive, then do this.  Articulate in your mind what it is that the person did against you.  What happened?  If you can’t do that much, stop here.  There has to be some offense even to talk about forgiveness.  But assuming you can, go on to articulate who this person is, and what their relation to you is, especially in how that made it worse.  Articulate any other aggravating circumstances – what else was going on that makes this a worse offense.

Then go to the court of Egypt.  As you arrive, you find that you are in line behind these ten brothers, but Joseph seems to be wrapping up.  You hear him say to them, “So then, don’t be afraid.  I will provide for you and your children.”  He speaks kindly to them.  He embraces them, and they go on their way.  Now you are called up.  Now go to Joseph, because you are going to look him in the eye and tell him all about what was done to you and why it is beyond what you can forgive.

Well at this point, there are two possibilities.  One is that you see Joseph’s face, and you say, “I am ashamed.  I have nothing to complain about and nothing to hold onto.  That person I have been angry at – he is my brother; she is my sister; I will treat them as such.  And Joseph, your God is my God.”

The other possibility is that you persist.  You lay out your case before Joseph looking for him to agree.  I suppose at this point Joseph would say, “My son, my daughter, let me introduce you to the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, because it seems that you don’t know him.  This God is the judge of all the earth, because he created all the earth.  And he is not a distant God.  He appeared to my forefathers, and he walked with them even when they could not see him.  He called my great-grandfather Abraham out of a life of idolatry to walk with him.  Why?  Because of his sheer grace.  God delights in forgiveness and redemption.  He was even willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if only there had been enough witnesses for him there to declare his name.  My grandfather Isaac was to be killed, but God provided a substitute for him.  God shepherded my father away from leaning on his own understanding and made him “Israel.”  This God can be your God too.”  And I can add, this God sent his own Son to die for you, so that you may be saved.  Confess him as your God and join the company of the blessed.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Finally, I want to look at this same point from a different angle.

The Forgiver

Who is it that forgives?  This is an important question when you sin.  This is an important question all the time, because we are all sinners, and no matter how confident you are, you may yet stumble and sin.  I will describe three sorts of people.

We naturally think that the person who sins, the person who sins like us or even worse is the most certain to forgive.  After all, that person has no leg to stand on to look down on us.  And perhaps that person will forgive.  Perhaps that person will forgive without us having to repent.  Maybe.  But maybe not.  The person who sins, the person who falls into sin, evidently did not fear God enough to say no to that sin.  He sought his own interest.  What if it is not in his interest to forgive?  You can’t count on it.

Second, the Pharisee appears to be very strict and very scrupulous and above reproach, but Pharisees do not forgive.  Everything they do is for men to see.  Pharisees don’t fear God.  They love money, and they love the praise of men.  Their goal is to be seen as above others, so they are always on the lookout for faults in other people.  They examine.  They record wrongs.  They condemn without mercy.  You will not find forgiveness with them.

But then finally is the person who lives a holy life out of fear of God.  I said earlier, the Joseph who said to his brother, “Am I in the place of God?” is the same Joseph who had said to Potiphar’s wife, “My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife.  How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”  The temptation came, and Joseph said no.  The same principle of the fear of God empowered Joseph to say no to sin, and it empowered him to forgive his brothers from the heart.  He did not sin like his brothers did.  He did not sin like Judah did in the matter with Tamar.  Joseph stood on the rock.  Therefore, when the matter of the relationship with his brothers came, his brothers who had sinned against him very severely, Joseph stood on that same rock, and was even more clear-minded and unwavering than his brothers with regard to their relationship.

The man who most fears God is the one who will most certainly forgive you when you sin.  He goes about it in the biblical way.  He does not waive God’s requirement of repentance.  But if you go about it in the biblical way, you can count on it.  He will forgive.  He is the man you want to stay near.  He is the one you can depend on.

I want to compare Joseph and Jonathan.  Jonathan is best known for his friendship with David.  In 1 Samuel 18, it says, “Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.”  He “took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.”  Jonathan was willing to do anything for David.  In 1 Samuel 20:4, he said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.”  Later in that same chapter, “Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.”  He wept when he had to part from David.

Now, to be clear, Jonathan was a believer.  Jonathan personally went against the Philistines by faith, knowing that nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.  When David was distressed, Jonathan helped him find strength in the Lord.  But it is Jonathan’s devotion to David that stands out.

Now look at Joseph.  Joseph genuinely loved his brothers.  That should be evident from our text in Genesis 50.  But his duties in the Egyptian court kept him away from them for most of the time after they had reconciled.  So, they did not spend all the time together that either Joseph or the brothers might have hoped for in a close friend.  In Joseph’s case, he loved his brothers, but it is especially Joseph’s fear of God that stands out throughout his life, and we have seen that in our study of Joseph – I don’t have to review it.

Both Joseph and Jonathan were good men, but who was the greatest help to his friend or brother?  At the end of Jonathan’s life, he foolishly stood with his rebellious and God-forsaken father, and he was killed in battle by the Philistines along with his father.  Love for David did not keep him from that, but a stronger fear of God might have.  Joseph, on the other hand, lived and prospered under God’s blessing.  He provided for his brothers.  He reassured them.  He helped them find faith in God to the very end.

Friends, I know we all would like to have a Jonathan, but if I had to choose between a Jonathan and a Joseph, I will choose Joseph every time.  The person who fears God is the person you can count on.  He will be true to his word.  He will forgive faithfully.  And he will avoid many pitfalls because the fear of the Lord will keep him safe.  He is the person you want to stay near.

Find the God-fearing man.  Then don’t keep your distance from him.  Don’t fear or avoid him.  Walk with him as much as circumstances allow.  Stay near him.  Stay faithful to him.

And finally look to the one who feared God more thoroughly and consistently than anyone else ever did.  The Spirit of the fear of the Lord rested on Jesus Christ, and he delighted in the fear of the Lord.  That governed everything he did.  He said in John 8:29, “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”  He loved his Father, and he always did exactly what his Father commanded him.  So he lived a completely sinless life.  He was tempted in every way just as we are, but he never sinned.  And yet all sorts of sinners found him to be the most approachable man they ever knew.  He still is.  He will receive you today.  He is no contemptuous Pharisee.  And he explains why in John 6:37-40.

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.  For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.  For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus Christ forgives permanently.  You can come to him bringing the words that his Father really did speak as a plea that he would extend his mercy to you still, but it is not necessary.  His death on the cross, his forgiving your sin, his raising you up on the last day, all of that he does because of the will of his Father.  The Father commands you to look to him and to believe in him, and the same Father commands him not to drive you away, but to receive you, to give you eternal life, and to raise you up at the last day.  Therefore you are safe in coming to him.  Come to him.  Stay near to him.  Life is in him, and will be safe for eternity.

[1] 1. Jay Edward Adams, Competent to Counsel: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Zondervan Publ. House, 2002), 112-113.