All this is shown out in Joseph's history. "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;) even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast and of the womb; the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren." (Gen. xlix. 22-26.)
These verses beautifully exhibit to our view "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." "The archers" have done their work; but God was stronger than they. The true Joseph has been shot at and grievously wounded in the house of his friends; but "the arms of his hands have been made strong" in the power of resurrection, and faith now knows him as the basis of all God's purposes of blessing and glory in reference to the Church, Israel, and the whole creation. When we look at Joseph in the pit and in the prison, and look at him afterwards as ruler over all the land of Egypt, we see the difference between the thoughts of God and the thoughts of men; and so when we look at the cross, and at "the throne of the majesty in the heavens," we see the same thing.
Nothing ever brought out the real state of man's heart toward God but the coming of Christ. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." (John xv. 22.) It is not that they would not have been sinners. No: but "they had not had sin." So he says in another place, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin." (John ix. 41.) God came near to man in the person of his Son, and man was able to say, "this is the heir;" but yet he said, "come, let us kill him." Hence "they have no cloak for their sin." Those who say they see have no excuse. _Confessed blindness_ is not at all the difficulty, but _professed sight_. This is a truly solemn principle for a professing age like the present. The permanence of sin is connected with the mere profession to see. A man who is blind and knows it, can have his eyes opened; but what can be done for one who thinks he sees, when he really does not?