We all know that revenge never satisfies—so why do we still so often crave it? Quite often, it’s because we want to try to salvage some good out of the situation. As if that’s up to us. We forget that God is a God who turns evil situations out for good. That’s what he did in Joseph’s story, and that’s why Joseph chose to forgive his brothers and not avenge himself. His brothers intended him harm—many translations say “evil”—yet God worked it out for his incredibly good purposes. That’s just what God does.
In fact, we may go as far as to say that this verse in the last chapter of Genesis is the book’s entire theme. Ever since the beginning, God has been taking what men intended for evil and redeeming it for good. Ever since the beginning, in the midst of the faithlessness and violence and adultery and idolatry and deceptions and murderousness of the human race, God has been working through those same men to establish his holy people and advance his grand master plan for their glorious redemption. Evil abounds, but God always worked it out for the ultimate good. Why does Genesis need to show us that? Because that’s still God’s character today. It has been ever since.
Look at the death of Christ, for example! Evil men put the son of God to death, and through it we are saved. Evil abounded all the more then, and even so, at long last, God accomplished his grand master plan for our good! Genesis showed us only the beginning of the story, but that story is not complete until we see Jesus tying it all together, in the here and now.
So what have we to fear? What need have we to get revenge for the evils done to us? What men intend for evil, God intends for our ultimate good. That’s just what he does. We have seen that ultimate good accomplished in Jesus, and we will see it accomplished in full finality when he comes again. We have this certain hope. We have the ability to trust in the Lord amidst everything we suffer. God really is good, all the time. Do we really trust that?
(We apologize for the duplicate email mistakenly sent on Thursday!)
