Let's begin at verse 8 of Genesis
48. This is where, as you know, Jacob
had already adopted Joseph's son, Manasseh and Ephraim. These were legal adoption. And he said, I'll make him mine
just like Reuben and just like Simeon. So Joseph, who had the
right of the firstborn, through Joseph it was given to Manasseh
and Ephraim. or the blessing. And of course
we're gonna see in this passage how Ephraim receives the blessing
of the firstborn. But in verse eight it says in
Israel, that's Jacob, he always has two names and I always point
out how we can identify with that. We're sinners saved by
grace. Jacob's who are Israel. Sinners
who have prevailed with God through Christ. And that's how we prevail
with God, we plead Christ, we plead his blood, his righteousness
as our only ground of salvation. We're like that old publican,
God have mercy on me the sinner. And so Israel beheld Joseph's
sons and said, who are these? Now you understand his eyesight
was dim, he couldn't see here. In verse nine it says, Joseph
said unto his father, they are my sons whom God hath given me
in this place. Now Joseph is not denying that
Jacob had adopted these boys, he's just identifying him for
his father. And so these are my sons whom
God hath given me in this place in Egypt. And he said, bring
them, Jacob said, bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will
bless them. And that's the fruit of God's
grace. What we see there is when a person
physically and legally adopts a child, then it's up to that
person after all legal hindrances and all that was required has
been accomplished, all legal hindrances removed, then the
blessing has to be bestowed. That child is to be taken into
the family. brought into the family and given
all the rights and all the privileges and all the blessings of being
in the family. And we looked at this last week
in Galatians chapter four. We have kind of like a summation
of that concerning our adoption, our spiritual adoption by the
Lord God in Christ. You see, God adopted us into
his family when he chose us before the foundation of the world.
and He made us His, His children. And Christ, we were given to
Christ as our surety, all of our sins having been imputed
to Christ and all of the conditions of our salvation laid upon Christ,
who would remove all the obstacles of sin by His death on the cross
and would bring about every blessing and benefit of salvation by all
that He accomplished for us. And so in Galatians chapter four,
where it says in verse four, it says, but when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman,
made under the law. And you might notice here now,
now Joseph is a type of Christ in all of this. because it was
through Joseph that Manasseh and Ephraim received the blessing.
Well, it's through Christ that we, the adopted sons of God,
received the blessings of salvation, all grace here and all glory
hereafter. And Christ was made of a woman,
that's his sinless humanity, made under the law, that's our
salvation, according to the law and justice of God, conditioned
on Christ. He became accountable. for our
sins, and he did this, verse five, to redeem them that were
under the law, to pay the price, the redemption price, that we
might receive the adoption of sons. Now that's not to say that's
when God adopted us, but that's when we received that adoption,
and here's the explanation of it, look at verse six, and because
you are sons, and this is the generic children of God, Because
we are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. And he says, wherefore thou art
no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. That's a summation. of what's
happening here as Jacob adopts Joseph's two sons legally and
makes them his own, gives them his name, makes them part of
his family, and now he's gonna bring them into the family. He's
going to bless them with the blessing that he's given. So
think about that, that's a type, that's a picture of our adoption. And then we're coming to our
being blessed. We have to, if God has adopted
us, by His grace through Christ. If God has chosen us and if Christ
has died for us, we must receive the blessing. There's no such
thing as God choosing someone and Christ dying for someone
and them perishing in their sins. That doesn't happen. That's not
scriptural. That's not the gospel. If God
chose us, if He adopted us, if Christ removed all the obstacles
by His death on the cross and provided all blessings by the
righteousness that God has imputed to us in Christ, then we're gonna
receive the blessing. The Holy Spirit's gonna come.
He's gonna give us, we're gonna be born again. He's gonna regenerate
us. He's gonna give us a new heart
where we cry, Abba, Father. That's descriptive of a new relationship
with God, God being my Father. He's both a righteous judge as
well as a loving Father. And so that's the picture. We'll
look at verse 10. It says, now the eyes of Israel
were dim for age so that he could not see. And he brought them
near unto him. And he kissed them and embraced
them. And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy
face. And lo, God has shown me also thy seed. In other words,
he didn't think he'd see Joseph again after the other brothers
sold him into slavery. He thought Joseph was dead. And
he said, now here I am looking at you and looking at grandsons
who he's adopted into his family. Verse 12, and Joseph brought
them out from between his knees and he bowed himself with his
face to the earth. And Joseph took them before Ephraim.
Now Joseph is the mediator here, you might say. Just like Christ
is the one mediator between God and sinners, God and men, the
man Christ Jesus. So you see, Joseph is bringing
them to him. That's what Christ does for us.
He paid our debt, dying for our sins. He gave us his righteousness. We're justified in him before
God. And he's the one who sends his
spirit to bring us unto God. He brings us there. And so we
come to God through Christ. You see, that's what people don't
understand today, even many who claim to be Christian. Without
Christ, There's no approach to God that's acceptable. Without
Christ, there's no salvation. Without Christ, there's no love
from God. If you talk about love from God
apart from Christ and apart from God's justice being satisfied
by Christ, that's just empty love. It's no good. It's a lie. It's what it is. And so it says
in verse 13, Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand
toward Israel's left hand. Now you understand that he's
bringing these boys to be blessed by Israel, by Jacob. Now Ephraim
is the youngest. Manasseh is the oldest. So in
Joseph's mind, what's going to happen? Manasseh is going to
receive the firstborn blessing. That's indicated by Jacob laying
his right hand upon Manasseh's head. Ephraim, in Joseph's mind
now, is going to receive the blessing. He's gonna receive
a blessing, but not the firstborn, and we're gonna talk about that
in just a minute. And so he puts Ephraim where Jacob would put
his left hand on him. So he says, Israel's left hand
and Manasseh in his left hand, that's Joseph's left hand, which
toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near unto him. So
you see what's going on here. He's placing these boys the way
he thinks according to the law of the firstborn. And it says
in verse 14, and Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it
not upon Manasseh's head, but on Ephraim's head. You see that? Who was the younger? And he put
out his left hand upon Manasseh's head, guiding his hands wittingly. In other words, this guy knew
what he was doing. knowingly, with understanding,
that's what the word wittingly, in other words, this was no accident.
So what you have there is the crossed hand blessing, as somebody
said. And Jacob knew what he was doing,
for Manasseh was the firstborn. So he's showing there that according
to the normal way of doing things, in this family, Manasseh would
have received the right hand, the firstborn, and Ephraim left.
But no, it's different. And so what's going on here? Well, first of all, this is the
same, basically, that happened with Jacob and his brother Esau. Why was this happening? Was God
breaking his law? No. No, God didn't break the
law. God is sovereign. It's not that
God is above the law, he is the law. But this is not one of the
moral precepts that always stand in existence. This is a law that
is totally under the volition, not of man, but of a sovereign
God. And he did this once before,
and Jacob can understand this very well. Look at Romans chapter
nine, verse 10. Here's the same, now what is
this all about now? Why did he say I'm gonna bless
Ephraim with the firstborn and I'm gonna bless Manasseh with
just the regular blessing of a son? Well, you remember it
says, when it talked about in verse nine of Romans nine, for
this word of promise, talking about the promise of God, salvation
at this time will I come and Sarah shall have a son that's
Abraham and Sarah and not only this but when Rebecca also had
conceived by one even by our father Isaac now this is the
mother and father of Jacob and Esau verse 11 for the children
being not yet born neither having done any good or evil that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that call." So what do we see working? The sovereignty
of God. God makes the choice. God does
as he wills in his wisdom, in his mercy, in his grace. And
it said in verse 12, it was said unto her, the elder, that is
in this case Esau, shall serve the younger, which was Jacob.
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
I've received Jacob, I've accepted Jacob, not based on anything
that Jacob did or would do or tried to do or decided. This
is before the children did any good or evil. In other words,
God determined in his sovereignty that he was going to give Jacob
what Jacob did not deserve or earn. And he decided in his sovereignty
that Esau was going to get what he deserved. That's why we pray,
Lord, do not, please don't give me what I deserve and what I've
earned. I need mercy. And so he says
in verse 14, what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid, for he sayeth to
Moses, I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy. and I will
have compassion on whom I will have compassion. And here's the
bottom line of the whole thing here now, verse 16. So then it's
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. And that's the glory of God.
So if you go back here to chapter 48 of Genesis, that's what's
working here. This is God's sovereign purpose,
to do as he pleases with his own. And, you know, I mentioned
this last week. You say, well, is there any other,
you know, when you look at this, Ephraim. What does Ephraim mean? It means fruitful. Ephraim looks
to the future. What does the name Manasseh mean?
It means forgotten, forgetting. And I think about that because
Ephraim sort of represents faith in Christ. Looking to Christ. Paul said, I forget those things
which are behind and press forward to the mark of the high calling
of Christ Jesus. That's our life. We live and
walk and act by faith, looking unto Jesus, the author and the
completer of our faith. Manassas sort of represents our
repentance, our dead works which we leave behind. We forget them. God does not charge them to our
account. You see, you can look at, you
can think about that. God has imputed our sins to Christ and
he has put them away. He's done away with them. He's
removed our sins from us as far as the East is from the West.
And God says he'll remember them no more. That means he will not
hold them against us. He will not keep a legal record
of those. When we appear before God at
judgment, we appear before him as righteous in Christ, based
on his righteousness imputed, and our sins will not even come
into play. That's what the scripture says.
Now for unbelievers who stand before God without Christ, that's
all that'll be seen, is their sins. So think about this. It's not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth. Now go back to verse 15 of Genesis
48. He says, and he blessed Joseph
and said God. Now he blessed Joseph because
it was through Joseph that the boys were gonna be blessed. And
we can see a parallel there to our being blessed in Christ.
We're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. The reason that we receive the
blessings and all the benefits of salvation is because of Christ.
And Christ is the savior of his people. Well, the reason these
two boys were receiving this blessing was because of Joseph,
who was the savior of his people. You remember, he tells them later
on, he says, God sent me here to save much people alive. Now,
Joseph, again, is a type of Christ. And so he said, he blessed Joseph
and said, God, before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, did
walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day. See, he's attributing all of
his blessings, all of his existence to God. And that word fed is
an interesting word. You know what it's translated
in other places? For example, in Psalm 23, one,
it's translated shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. What
he's saying, God who shepherded me all my life. Christ saves,
Christ is the good shepherd, he's the great shepherd, he's
the chief shepherd, he saves us. The good shepherd gives his
life for the sheep, he keeps us, he feeds us, he sustains
us, and he'll bring us to glory. And then here's the basis of
it, verse 16. The angel. The messenger which redeemed
me from all evil blessed the lads. Now who's the angel that
redeemed us from all evil? That's Christ. He's not talking
about an angelic being. There's no angelic, none of the
angelic beings redeemed us. And it's been well established
in the very beginning that the redemption price is what? Blood. Blood has to be shed. So he's
speaking of Christ. Think about this, this is Jacob.
How many years before Christ come that he's talking about,
in the past tense, the angel which redeemed me from all evil.
You say, how can he speak of redemption? Now redemption takes
place in time at the cross. That's when Christ redeemed his
people. So how could Jacob or any other saint of God speak
of that redemption, which is well into the future for him,
as if it had already happened? Now you know the answer to that.
Because God said it and that settled it. It's a sure thing. There's no possibility that Christ
would not come in time, as we read in Galatians 4, be made
of a woman, be made under the law, and redeem them that were
under the law. So that which has not yet happened
in God's sovereign mind and reality, it's a done deal. It's a done
deal. And that's amazing. King David expressed that on
his deathbed. God has made a covenant with
me that is ordered in all things and sure. This is all my salvation
and all my hope, all my desire. So Jacob says, the angel which
redeemed me from all evil. He speaks of redemption. Well,
I tell you, every son of Jacob, that's what we speak of in. We're
gonna sing a song in our main, Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim. Jacob looked forward to the certainty
of that redemption. We look backward to the certainty
of that having already been accomplished. And so he says, that angel which
redeemed me from all evil, all evil, think about that, Jacob,
had seen a lot of evil. Let me give you a comparison
here I put in your lesson. Look back at Genesis 47 and verse
nine. Look at verse eight first. This
is when after Joseph sent for Jacob and all the family to come
down into Egypt, and Joseph introduced his father Jacob to Pharaoh.
And it says in verse eight, and Pharaoh said unto Jacob, how
old are you? And Jacob said, look at verse
nine, Jacob said unto Pharaoh, the days of the years of my pilgrimage
are 130 years. Now we know that Jacob is about
147 when he's dying, so he spent 17 years there in Egypt. He said, the days of my pilgrimage
are 130 years, few and evil. have the days of the years of
my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of
the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." Few
and evil. But now over here in Genesis
48 and verse 16, what's he talking about? The angel, which redeemed
me from all evil. What's the difference? Over in
Genesis 47, where he's talking to Pharaoh, he's talking about
himself. It's about him. Here in Genesis
48, verse 16, he's talking about Christ. It's all about him. So when I get to talking about
myself, what am I gonna say? I'm just
a sinner. Had a lot of trouble, I've had
some good times in my, I had a lot of trouble. I'm like, what
was it that Job stated? In Job 14 one, man that is born
of woman is a few days and full of trouble. You see, viewing life from the
human point of view, that's all it is, days of evil and days
of trouble, peppered maybe with a few times of laughter and joy.
But on the whole, you know the book of Ecclesiastes talks about
that a lot. The vanity of vanities. You know
what that's talking about, it's talking about life lived to its
fullest without God. It's still vanity of vanities.
But viewing our lives from God's point of view, according to the
word of God, it's all about Christ. He's our hope. He's our assurance. Joy and peace in believing, in
looking to Christ and resting in him, looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith. So that our assurance, our comfort,
our peace does not come from looking within ourselves. It
comes from looking out of ourselves to Christ. Keep your eyes focused
on him. I'm gonna talk about that a little
bit in the message. Look at verse 17 now. This is Genesis 48. When
Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head
of Ephraim, it displeased him. And what he's saying, Joseph,
in his mind, he said, well, this is not the right thing to do.
And he held up his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head
unto Manasseh's head. And Joseph said unto his father,
not so, my father, for this is the firstborn, put thy right
hand upon his head, Manasseh's. And his father refused and said,
I know it, my son, I know it. I know that Manasseh's the firstborn
and I know it. He also shall become a people
and he also shall be great. He's gonna receive a blessing.
But truly, his younger brother shall be greater than he. and
his seed shall become a multitude of nations. And verse 20 says,
he blessed them in that day, saying, in thee shall Israel
bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh. And
he said, Ephraim before Manasseh. So Jacob knowingly blessed the
younger with the firstborn. And as I said, what does Ephraim
mean? It means caused to be fruitful. The fruitful picture of fruit
of God's grace that comes to us through Christ. I'm the vine,
you're the branches, Christ said. We don't produce fruit, did you
know that? I used to hear a lot of preachers
talking about we're fruit producers and fruit inspectors and all
that. No, we're not. We bear fruit
from the vine who produces it. Christ is the vine. Manasseh
pointing to the past, which is our repentance of dead works
and idolatry. God says there's sins and iniquities
I will remember no more. And there's the blessing. Look
at verse 21. And Israel said unto Joseph, behold, I die, but
God shall be with you and bring you again unto the land of your
fathers. Now, don't miss this. When he
talks about the land of your fathers, what is he talking about?
He's talking about the promised land. The land that was promised
to Abraham. Renewed in Isaac and then in
Jacob, now in Joseph. And so this connects all of this
blessing with the promise that God gave to Abraham of a land
of which he would gather his people and keep them there until
a particular God-appointed time. And what was that time? The time
of the coming of the Messiah. And you know, that's the mainstay
of the promise that God gave to Abraham. And look at verse
22. He said, moreover, I've given to thee one portion above thy
brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with
my sword and with my bow. Now, first of all, you say, well,
now Joseph died in Egypt, but you remember what his request
was? When you leave to go back, take my bones back. And then
in Joshua's time, When they went over the river and into the promised
land, they took Joseph's bones and they buried him there. And
that's where it was set up according to the promise of God. And the
birthright having been given to Ephraim, that was all according
to God's sovereign plan. And we see that all through the
scripture. God meant for, you know, and
this birthright, let me just say a word about that before
I close. The law of the firstborn birthright was more than just
money and lands and all that, that included that. But all the
sons got money and land, you know. Jacob and Esau, remember
back then? Esau had plenty of physical money
and land and all of that. So that wasn't the issue. The
law of the firstborn was the spiritual head of the family.
In other words, the firstborn was to be the spiritual head
of the family and to be the patriarch, that's the word I'm
looking for. He was to be the leader in the
truth, not just in caring for his family physically, but in
teaching them the truth of the promise of the gospel and showing
them the reality of God's promise to send the Messiah into the
world. And so like, for example, Esau despised his birthright. What that meant is that Esau
had absolutely no interest in those spiritual things. All Esau
cared about was the things of the world. That was the problem. And so Jacob had received that. Now Ephraim had received it.
And this giving Joseph a portion above, giving it to his sons
basically, that was God's token of his faithfulness to his promise.
This is going to take place. And I'll tell you why. It's all
conditioned on God's faithfulness and promise to do what he promised
to accomplish and to do.