Interpreting Divine Revelation

Introduction

What could God possibly have for Joseph to do in prison? What we’ve seen up to this point in the book of Genesis is that God’s purpose for the covenant people, beginning with Abraham, is that they would walk before him reflecting his character, and as they recieved the blessings of God the world around them would be introduced to the one true God and see his character reflected in his people. Although Joseph had been sold as a slave by his brother into Egypt, God’s success had been with him so that he was doing just this. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until Potiphar’s wife persecutes Joseph’s character until he is thrown in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

But God, in his myterious ways, is faithful to those who trust him. Joseph continued in faith, God continued to give him success. When our story begins, Joseph not only displays the glory of God by interpreting dreams for them but also by showing them care and concern. While this episode would not change Joseph’s life immediately, God would weave it into a plan, just as he was weaving everything else in this story, to climax in a glorious display of his mighty hand to be with those who are his.

The Two Dreams

Once again, dreams make an important appearance in the story of Joseph. Once again, the dreams are in pairs and once again Joseph’s interaction with the dreams displays God’s hand in his life. If you recall from last week, Joseph has been taken from the low place of being a slave in a foreign land to being in charge of his master’s house all because the LORD was with him. God’s blessings to Joseph were being used to bless the nations around him so that they may be led to worship the LORD as well. But with his success came temptation, and when he resisted temptation there came persecution for his righteous behaviour that ended with him in jail under a false assault charge. But as chapter 39 ended we were reminded that the LORD was still with Joseph despite his unfortunate circumstance so that even in prison Joseph succeeded in all that he did to the point of being given the responsibilities of a prison warden.

This is where he meets two men who are put under his charge. Since he was the slave of the captain of the guard, he is in the same prison as Pharaoh's royal prisoners. Because the keeper of the prison was basically treating Joseph like an employee rather than a prisoner, Joseph is put in charge of these two men that are caste into prison by Pharaoh. These men had similar vocations. The cupbearer was the one who would taste the king’s drink to make sure it wasn’t poisoned, making it a position of trust so that Pharoah would often tell secrets and plans to his cupbearer that he wouldn’t tell anyone else. The chief baker had a similar amount of trust from the throne being the one who would bake for the royal table. They were prestigious and wealthy positions, but also very dangerous ones if Pharoah suspected anything was wrong.

This suspicion was likely what ended these men in prison, although we aren’t given any details. We are told that these two men were in there for a while, plenty of time for Joseph to get to know them, before the dreams come. On one night the two have a dream and being in a culture that emphasized divination and dream interpretations, they were distressed that they had no way of knowing what the interpretation of their dreams might be.

This brings up a topic that I think is quite misunderstood among a lot of evangelicals today: does God speak to us through dreams? If these men found meaning in their dreams, and if there was meaning in Joseph’s dreams, should we be looking for meaning in our dreams. There are two reasons why Christians should not be looking to dreams as a normal means of God’s revelations.

First, it’s important to understand the context here. In Egypt and in many parts of the ancient world, dreams were supposedly a way that pagan gods communicated with human beings. These two men likely thought that these dreams had been sent by their pagan deities and they sought interpretation from them. Joseph corrects them on this point in verse 8 by telling them that interpretations do not belong to pagan gods, nor can they be discerned by diviners. The one true God, who is sovereign over all things, is also in control of our dreams. In other words, this whole episode is God showing that he in control of a realm that was thought to be in the control of Egyptian deities and their priests.

Second, this was in a time where written revelation from God was essentially non-existent. God graciously speaks to us in ways that we understand, and in their time God speaking through a dream communicated that the word was indeed of divine origin. While God can and I think in some cases has used dreams to lead people to himself, particularly in the Muslim world, it is typically to those who have no access to his Word and always points to truths already made plain in the written Word of God. In the Bible God has revealed his will to us, the way in which we are to walk and the way to God through Christ. Getting caught up in dreams and their interpretations puts us in danger of practicing divination that is not sanctioned by God, of using dreams to confirm our own will rather than God’s will, and of detracting us from the supernatural experience of knowing and being transformed by the written Word.

But in this case, God chooses to reveal future events to these two prisoners through dreams in order to show two things: first, that he alone is God and in control of all things, including dreams and the interpretations there may be in them. Second, that Joseph is a representative of him, a man who knows God and can make God’s will known to them. This will be important later when Pharoah will likewise be troubled by unexplainable dreams.

The First Dream: A Hopeful Interpretation

So lets take a quick look at these two dreams. The first is of the chief cupbearer who dreams of a vine with three branches. He sees these three branches come to fruition with clusters of ripened grapes. The cupbearer does his job, he takes Pharaoh's cup and, squeezes the juice into it. The interpretation is that three branches represent the three days which will bring fruition in the form of his restoration to his former position. However, a part of the dream that is often ignored is the fact that in the dream the cup-bearer's actions show him to be a just and faithful servant of Pharoah. He takes advantage of the ripe grapes and immediately does what is necessary to best serve his master. This not only tells us that he will be freed, but it also hints that he was innocent of his accusations and is truly a faithful servant.

The Second Dream: A Damning Interpretation

The second dream is not so much of a happy ending. The baker’s dream has three baskets full of baked goods, paralleled with the three branches full of grapes. However, rather than being brought to fruition and used to serve Pharoah, birds come and devour the baked goods. These translates to a three day period ending, not in restoration but in execution. Joseph uses a play on words. The phrase, “lift up your head” is an idiom that means to restore someone. Joseph uses this idiom in a play of words. Instead of lifting up his head, Pharoah will lift up his head right off of his shoulders and hang him where the birds can feast on his flesh. Again, it should be noted that while the cupbearer is eager to take the fruit in his dream to pharoah in order to serve him well, the baker does nothing to protect his master’s goods from the birds. This characterizes him as being an either lazy or else unfaithful servant who was perhaps guilty of what he was charged with. While this isn’t set outright, there’s nothing in the text to suggest that this fate is unjust, especially since the point of the text is largely that God is in control, not only of a dream and its interpretation, but also of the reality the dream reflects. Every other dream in the story of Joseph mirrors things that are directly a result of God’s hand at work, so the assumption is fair that the baker and the cupbearer both got what they deserved, but it’s impossible to know for sure.

The Fulfillment

It is not surprising that three days later, on Pharaoh's birthday, both dreams come true. The cupbearer is restored to the position of serving the king in such a trustworthy way. Apparently, the King was convinced enough that he was innocent of his accused crime to put his life back in his hands. The baker, however, is convicted to the death sentence just like Joseph said. This proves God’s control of dreams, interpretations, and the fulfillment of prophecy. A pagan deity had nothing to do with this.

However, the cupbearer forget’s Joseph’s request in verse 14. Despite the kindness that Joseph had showed him as his prison warden and ministering to him by interpreting his dream, somehow it seems to completely slips his mind for two whole years. Verse 23 ends the text by emphasizing how the chief cupbearer completely forgot about Joseph. While this is where our text ends, this is not the end of the story as I’m sure most of you know. So let’s look a little deeper into the role that Joseph plays and how it glorifies God despite him being forgotten in prison.

Joseph: Deliverer of the Word of God

In this text, Joseph acts as a deliverer of the Word of God to his fellow prisoners, and in this way continues to be a blessing to the world around him. This further establishes God’s role for his people in the world. Why does God leave Christians in a world full of temptation, evil, and sinful people who are intolerant of our worship of the one True God? The answer is that, despite how dark this world is, and how great the rebellion against God’s kingship has been universally so that if God wiped the entire planet away it would be just, God does love this world. God did so love the world, not only to leave his redeemed here to display the glory of the Creator, but to even send his own Divine Son to die so that it could be redeemed. This is all part of God’s great agenda to reconcile the world to himself, and it is done by his people going out into the world, not to become like the world but to be a witness of the glory of God.

We’ve already seen how this is what Joseph did in Potiphar’s house by his honesty and hard work and God confirmed it with his success. When Joseph resisted the temptations of Potiphar’s wife and was wrongfully thrown in prison, God displayed his innocence by continuing to be with him and make him succeed. Up to this point, Joseph’s actions and God’s blessings have been the main channel through which Joseph’s presence has been showing his God to the Egyptians. In this story, its Joseph’s understanding of Divine revelation that shows the world who God is through his human representative in Egypt.

Joseph’s Faithfulness Put him in the Position to Give God’s Word

First, lets look at the position that Joseph had been put in in order to bring the interpreted revelation of God to them. Not only that, but the position he was in was a position of authority and trust that gave him access to these two men that, in any other situation, would probably be too important to talk to a low Hebrew slave like him. Because of his position in the jail as a sort of warden he was able to hear about the dreams and speak into their lives in the first place. This position was a result of his Godly character and the success God had blessed him with.

Our ability to reach the world with God’s Word is effected by our way of life. If Joseph had indeed been guilty of sexual immorality or if he had been angry with God and had not acted faithfully in the situation he was he would not likely have been in the position to give the interpretation to them. Since its clear that God is the one who causes dreams and creates their interpretation, if God had not been with him he would have had no ability to interpret the revelation God had given these men. If God is not with you, you will fail to bring God to the world around you. If God is not with you, you cannot reflect his character. If God is not with you, you cannot interpret God’s Word correctly. Yes, you might be able to correctly come to the intellectual point of any given text, but you will never have the Spirit of God which truly reveals the Word to us, interprets it to our lives, and gives us the power to live in its truth. You cannot truly understand God’s Word if God is not with you.

Joseph’s Declares God to be the Lord of Dreams

Next, Joseph is clear that God is the one who interprets dreams. The way he says this is important. “Do not interpretations belong to God?” before he says, “please tell them to me.” In that statement Joseph his saying two things. He’s saying that God is the Lord of Dreams, as he is the Lord of everything, and that Joseph is one who knows this God and represents him by bringing his interpretations to them.

In the first place, Joseph communicates to the two prisoners a simple truth about who God is: that he is sovereign over all. If dreams are the revelations of the gods, and Joseph’s God holds the keys of interpretation to these dreams, than it is natural to conclude that Joseph’s God is the God of gods. The power of these false deities truly belongs to the one true God, and this was clearly made apparent 400 years later when God made war on Egypt and her gods in the form of 10 Plagues that each demonstrated God’s sovereignty over the spheres that these false gods supposedly held. Joseph’s words imply something about who God is that these two pagans will have a hard time denying when all these things come true.

But the second part of this sentence is of equal importance. What good is a dream without an interpreter? Without a correct interpretation of God’s revelation, it can be construed to say almost anything. Every false teaching has Bible verses to back it up, albeit verses taken out of context or against their intended meaning. Interpretation is just that, finding the intended meaning. Who is equipped to know the intended meaning of a message?

Joseph Acts as a Mediator of God’s Word

The best answer would be: someone who not only knows the author, but was equipped by the author for that very task. Someone who was appointed and sent by him to make the interpretation known. Joseph’s request to hear their dreams is essentially a claim to that kind of position.

The Apostle Paul made a similar claim to this kind of authority to speak on God’s behalf to the church of Corinth,

2 Corinthians 2:17 ESV

For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

Why does Paul think he has the right to speak on God’s behalf?

2 Corinthians 3:4–6 ESV

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

God made him and the other Apostle’s ministers of a new covenant. That is, he gave them the authority in the Great Commission to bring the Word of God to the world. This isn’t done simply by giving everyone a Bible, or else the world is left like these two Egyptians, “we have had dreams,” we have recieved the Scriptures, “and there is no one to interpret them.”

Now, does this mean that the plain meaning of Scripture is not enough? Of course not. I am certainly not saying that we can give people interpretations that cannot be decisively found just be reading the text. In fact, any theological statement that cannot be supported by the actual words and sentences of Scripture is not supported by Scripture. So what exactly do they need our interpretations for? There are a few reasons:

They need to know what it is (the Word of God).

They need to know what it is about (Jesus Christ). This is done through exposition of the texts to show how all the Scriptures point to Christ and the Gospel revealed in his coming.

They need to know what to do with it (repent, believe, be baptised, and observe its instructions which make us more like Jesus).

A believer must be able to do these three things if they are to be like Joseph and act as God’s interpreter to a world that desperately needs the message of this book.

Joseph is honest and truthful with his delivery of God’s Word, whether it is positive or negative

Joseph also shows a decisive faithfulness to the message of the dreams. He does not dwell on the message of judgement for the baker, nor does he nullify it with he joys of his message to the cup bearer. Both messages are presented equally, fearlessly, and honestly. How dangerous it is to let personal bias cloud our interpretation of God’s Word. Whether it be to preach condemnation and ignore the compassion and love of God, or to preach love at the expense of avoiding what may be more uncomfortable doctrines for our hearers. God has given his people the authority to bring his Word to the world and show what it means to know him. We do not have the authority to pick and choose which parts of that message we like and want to focus on. A Gospel without the wrath of God is pointless, and a Gospel without the love of God is powerless. We must speak the whole counsel of God, remembering that we represent him and not ourselves when we give it. So we must stick as close to the text as possible and adopt God’s heart for the lost lest we become lazy and disinterested in the task we have been given. Ours is an amazing and honourable position and God is eager to give us success in the search for the elect still in the world. It is crucial that we remain faithful to the Gospel that we have been instructed to give to the world.

Even when God’s Word is proved true, the world quickly forgets it until God Sovereignly intervenes.

When Joseph’s words prove true, there seems to be hope. Surely, the cupbearer, Pharaoh's most trusted servant, may have a shot at getting Pharoah to release him. Unfortunately, the cupbearer forgets about Joseph. So caught up in the blessings that had been dealt to him by Joseph’s God, he forgets God’s revelation and the one who interpreted it for him. Two years would go by before God he would remember Joseph after a similar set of dreams would trouble Pharoah.

It’s important to realize as those equipped to bring God’s revelation to the world that even after they have heard Scripture, after they have recieved the correct interpretations, after they have understood the Gospel of Jesus Christ, after all their arguments have been refuted and they accept what you are saying as being the truth that the real work of conversion has not necessarily happened. They may, like the cupbearer, forget the Word of God and simply have it snatched from their hearts in the midst of life’s events and pleasures. The cupbearer was so excited to be restored he forgot the revelation of God and the servant of YHWH who interpreted it for him.

What needs to happen is God’s sovereign work in a heart. In Joseph’s situation, two years later God would orchestrate the perfect time for the cupbearer to remember him and his God. This is where prayer comes into the picture as such a crucial part of our ministry bringing the revelation of God to the world. In fact, the most important part of bringing the revelation of God to the world is completely out of our hands because only the Holy Spirit can change a heart. You may have to wait 2 years or more, but you do have access to the one who has the power to change an unbelieving heart. Part of your ministry to your unsaved friends and loved ones is a ministry of intercession in prayer. Prayer that is characterized by a brokenness and desperation, a desire for souls for the glory of Christ.

Ultimately, God would use the events in Joseph’s life to bring glory to himself through his Word and the revelation of Jesus Christ to the world. We must be devoted to that same agenda and be willing to cultivate it. Are you ready to devote yourself to a life of bringing the revelation of God to the world as his representative in order to bring him glory?

Conclusion