Many folks don’t see or understand God’s gift of man’s free moral agency. I remember debating on line with a man who said, if the Bible is true about the power of God, it is wrong about man’s freewill. He clarified by saying, if God can predict the future, saying through the prophet that the nation will become corrupt (cp. Deuteronomy 31:29; 32:28-33), how can the nation become anything but corrupt? If God predicts the thing, but the thing doesn’t happen, as he says, then he isn’t as powerful as he claims. Therefore, if God is powerful enough to see the future, the people cannot do anything but what God says the future is. If they are unable to change, how can they have free will?
The answer, of course, is both surprising and very simple, at least this is how I saw it, when I came to understand what actually happens. God created time, when he created the ages (Hebrews 1:2). In other words, God neither lives in time, nor is he bound by time. Man lives moment by moment, while God lives eternally in the present, and all of time is present with him at once. Our past, our present, and our future are all before him at the same time. He sees and understands the whole man. Man is free to do as he wishes, and at the same time, God is able to cause things to occur that would keep man’s freewill from determining an end that would destroy the Lord’s ultimate purpose for mankind, nor could man be allowed to destroy his will for the individual he is concerned with, such as Joseph.
Therefore, if God has plans for Joseph, his brethren cannot affect the end of God’s purpose by selling Joseph as a slave in Egypt. How so? God brings a grievous famine to the land and gives Joseph the ability to interpret dreams. God gives Pharaoh a dream that troubles him, and he eventually hears about Joseph and has Joseph interpret his dream. When he does, Pharaoh appoints Joseph as his viceroy. Therefore, the Lord brings to pass his purpose for Joseph despite the hatred his brethren hold for him. Man has free will, but, if men oppose the will of God, God is powerful enough to cause his will to occur, instead of that of a man, or even that of a nation (Psalm 127:1-2).
After returning from burying their father in the Land of Canaan, Joseph’s brothers spoke about their fears among themselves. What if Joseph bears a grudge against us and chooses to repay us in full for what we did to him? (Genesis 50:15). They decided to send a messenger to Joseph, with a message from them saying: Jacob had left instructions for them to plead for his mercy for the evil they had done to him, asking for his forgiveness. When Joseph received the message, he wept (Genesis 50:16-17), after which Joseph’s brothers came to him, and falling down before him, they said they would be his willing servants (Genesis 50:16-18).
Now, they had been living with Joseph in Egypt for 17 years (Genesis 47:28), and still they hadn’t understood that he had already forgiven them, that his goodwill toward them and their families was genuine. In other words, they still hadn’t received Joseph’s forgiveness for what they had done, so foreign to them was the idea of mercy and repaying good for evil. On cannot see what one doesn’t believe exists, or what one wouldn’t entertain a thought that it might exist. For seventeen years they lived in fear of this very moment.
After he listened to their pleas for mercy, Joseph spoke kindly to them, telling them not to be afraid, for he was not in the place of God, their Judge. While they meant to do evil, God chose to take the evil and create good, saving many people in the process. As for himself, Joseph told his brethren that he bore them no grudge, and had decided to nourish them and their families. So, his words came as a comfort to them for he spoke with words of kindness, and perhaps for the first time, they understood what the mercy of God felt like! (Genesis 50:19-21).
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