"And Joseph saw his brethren
and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them and spoke roughly
unto them" (Gen. 42:7).

"Joseph made himself
known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud" (Gen. 45:1,2).

We do well to remember that
before Joseph "made himself known" to his brethren, "he made
himself strange unto them." That they might learn the evil of their heart,
he "made himself strange"; that they might learn the love of his
heart, he "made himself known."

Can not many Christians recall a
time in the history of their souls when Christ appeared to make Himself strange
and deal roughly with them as they were left to travel through some dark valley
of soul exercise, there to discover the evil of the flesh within? In such
moments many a dark passage in life’s history will rise up to confront the soul
in all its hideousness and hatefulness, until the cry is wrung from the soul,
"Behold I am vile" (Job 40:4). But even so this is not enough for, as
Job found, there is a deeper lesson to learn; for this we must travel outside
the range of our personal experience until we reach the solemnities of the
cross. There may have been plenty of evil in the lives of Joseph’s brethren,
but if they were to learn the depth of evil in their hearts, they must go back
over 20 years of history to recall their treatment of Joseph when, in the face
of his love as a brother, they hated him, cast him into a pit, and sold him
into Egypt.

So it is with ourselves. Truly we
have to learn that in the flesh is no good thing—that it is irremediably
bad. For this we must go to the cross. As the cross there was the display of
perfect goodness in God and perfect goodness in a Man—the Man Christ Jesus. At
the cross, grace and love and goodness shone out in all their splendor. How did
the flesh act in the presence of perfect goodness? It utterly refused the One
in whom goodness was displayed. It rejected Him, spat in His face, mocked Him
with a crown of thorns, nailed Him to a cross, and cast Him out of the world.
Every one of us was represented at the cross, for every class of man was there,
religious and godless, educated and ignorant, refined and rough. All were
there, and all rejected the Christ of God. Each can say, "There I see my
flesh—myself— brought face to face with perfect goodness, and without
hesitation my flesh—whatever form it takes—declares its utter hatred of
goodness." As one has said, "The sight of a rejected Christ has
discovered myself to myself, the deepest recesses of my heart are laid bare,
and self, horrible self, is there." Learning the flesh experimentally, I
discover its lusts and covetousness, its pride and vanity. In a word, I
discover by bitter experience that the flesh loves evil. But when I come
to the cross I learn a more terrible phase of its character, for there I
discover that the flesh within hates good.

There is a great difference
between learning the character of the flesh experimentally and learning it in
the light of God revealed at the cross. If I only know the flesh as I discover
it in myself, I may be left with the thought that it can be improved. I may
admit that it is vile—that it loves evil—but I may say, "Is it not
possible to improve and reform it?" It is possible to do a great deal for
man in the flesh in the way of cultivation and reformation, but in the end it
is farther from God than ever. This great lesson I learn at the cross. There
Christ was not only the song of the drunkard, but the sober men—
"they who sit in the gate"—spoke against Him (Psa. 69:12). Drunk or
sober, the flesh hates God, and Christ in whom God was expressed. Thus the
cross proves the flesh to be totally, incurably bad. A man who loves sin might
be improved, but a man who hates perfect goodness is beyond improvement. When
we reach this point, we can say with Job, not only "I am vile," but
"I abhor myself." We do not abhor a man, however vile, if he is
endeavoring to overcome his evil; we rather admire such a one. But when a man
is proven to be bad beyond all hope of improvement we rightly abhor him. To
this Job had to come. We, too, in the light of the cross, must reach this point
when we give ourselves up as hopelessly bad.

But when, like Job in his day and
Joseph’s brothers in their day, we have learned the evil of our own hearts,
with what relief we turn from self to Christ. How He delights to set us free by
making Himself known in all the grace of His heart. We may well be appalled as
we discover the evil of our hearts. But Christ reveals to us His heart and
tells us that He loves us, though knowing all the evil of our hearts. He draws
us to Himself and discloses to us the desire of His heart to have us in His
company. He gives us to behold His glory and to hear His voice. Thus the
torments of fear are ended by perfect love—the love that casts out fear (1 John
4:18)—and the soul no longer grieves over the evil within and the future is no
longer dark with dismal forebodings. Instead, in the consciousness of Christ’s
infinite love to us, we can hold sweet communion with Him, after the manner of
Joseph’s brethren who "talked with him" (Gen. 45:15).

(From Joseph:Revealer of
Secrets and Saviour of the World, published by Gospel Folio Press, Grand Rapids , Michigan.)