Reflections on Scripture: Joseph the Christ
Ever heard of universalism? Well if you have, then I'm sure you've heard some bad stuff about it. I've heard the term used as a slur, strangely enough I accepted it as such, not really understanding the little details. Universalism is simply the belief that all will be "saved" (whatever your definition of "saved"). Of course such a claim is extraordinary, especially considering the state of the world today, the religious divisions, the ideologies and so on. But I've come to respect the position. Now let me make it clear that I do not ascribe to just any universalism like a "nebulous" concept, however reading the Christian universalist position of Fr. Aidan Kimmel and David Bentley Hart has made me open to it.
Reading through Genesis we get to Joseph's story, it reads kinda like a drama, a favoured son is envied by his brothers, they try to get rid of him, only to have their mistake haunting them later on. Sounds like Joseph's story, or does it? There's a twist at the ending, where they meet their missing brother, only this time he's the Vizier of the world's premier empire in the position to exact his revenge. But, he doesn't exact revenge, he instead forgives. I've read that story so many times that I missed something so striking. Where is the Justice? Where is the punishment for their actions? Why doesn't he demand that they pay for their crimes?
But then Joseph says: "Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt." (Gen 45:4-8)
Can you see the Justice of God? Slow to anger but quick to Mercy? If you say God overlooked Justice to show Mercy then you're not seeing this right, because here Justice is being portrayed as Mercy, it's a picture of Christ being shown here.
This small family story of Mercy is the same story of Mercy for the whole of Egypt: They imprisoned him, yet he saves them. Justice is not death for Death, but Life for Death, the death penalty described in Noah's authority of Judgement (Gen 9:6) is not death for death but giving Life for taking life, it is a type of Christ.
This ties to the universalism of the first paragraph, if we're willing to see it, we can see a Christ conditioned Universalism in Joseph's story, a story of Justice in Mercy for all men. I'm not claiming that it says that explicitly, I'm just saying the story, like many others in scripture, hints at it. We'd do well to consider it.