Genesis 50:20—“God meant it for good … to save much people alive”

 

But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive (Gen. 50:20).

 

COMMON GRACE ARGUMENT:

“God caused the wisdom of Joseph to benefit not just His elect in Egypt, but rather the whole world (the reprobate included). Surely He brought this about because He loves everyone (the reprobate too!) and is not willing that any of them perish …?”

(I)

Robert C. Harbach (1914-1996)

[Source: Studies in the Book of Genesis (RFPA, 2001), p. 899]

They not only intended evil, but did evil. But God’s intention was controlling all. “God meant it for good” to Jacob, to Joseph, and to the Church brought down to Egypt for its temporary preservation there. Why? To save many people physically alive, such as, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the neighboring nations. Is all this to be explained in terms of a particular grace to the Church and a general or common grace, not only to the hungry multitudes of Egypt, but also to the other peoples of the world?

Is this evidence of a general disposition of love to even the reprobate? No, nothing of the sort; but rather the world exists for the sake of the Church.

That is, reprobation serves election, the tares are preserved for the sake of the wheat. The chaff or hull has its organic use to protect the kernel. The reprobate shell exists for the sake of the elect seed. God gave good things, not grace, to Egypt, that that nation might be well equipped to provide abundantly for the welfare of Israel, the people of His grace.

 

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(II) 

John Calvin (1509-1564)

 [Source: Comm. on Gen. 50:20; emphasis added] 

[Whatever] poison Satan produces, God turns it into medicine for his elect. And although in this place God is said to have “meant it unto good”  [Gen. 50:20], because contrary to expectation, he had educed a joyful issue out of beginnings fraught with death: yet, with perfect rectitude and justice, he turns the food of reprobates into poison, their light into darkness, their table into a snare [Ps. 69:22], and, in short, their life into death. If human minds cannot reach these depths, let them rather suppliantly adore the mysteries they do not comprehend, than, as vessels of clay, proudly exalt themselves against their Maker [cf. Rom. 9:20-21].

 

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(III) 

More to come! (DV)