As we read in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul came to the throne of grace with a wise and godly petition as he bowed his knees in prayer to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named:
"...that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
That petition is being answered perpetually! God has said YES to that prayer request down through the centuries. The Father gladly responds when that inspired, apostolic aspiration fills the hearts of His children. May this observation from the sacred record serve by God's grace as a means by which He does that again.
Genesis 43:8,9 – "Then Judah said to Israel his father, "Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. I myself will be surety for him; from my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever." (See also Genesis 44:14-34; 48:8ff)
Let's begin with a bit of the background of this passage. Judah's father Israel is also called Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. The lad mentioned in the passage is Judah's youngest brother Benjamin, the darling of their father. Judah's poignant words are spoken in the midst of the gripping history that centers on yet another brother, Joseph, the second youngest of Jacob's sons. The narrative begins in Genesis 37.
When Judah spoke those words to Jacob, Joseph was in Egypt where he had risen from slavery and prison to a position of great power and authority in Pharaoh's government. When his older brothers came to Egypt to buy grain because of a famine in their own country, Joseph temporarily disguised himself from them, the very ones who had sold him into slavery. It was disguised Joseph, treating his older brothers roughly, who demanded that young Benjamin be taken away from Jacob! But Joseph eventually returned to kindness, and overcame his older brothers' grievous transgression with good. Like Boaz in the book of Ruth, Joseph serves as a foreshadowing of Jesus the great Kinsman Redeemer.
It required an altar and priests, several sacrificial animals, and a man standing ready to illustrate the redeeming work of Christ by way of the Law's Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16. The same principle obtains here. Joseph and the other patriarchal figures of the Bible (themselves sinful people) together depict for us the exacting, exhaustive way in which the Lord Jesus Christ wrought righteous redemption for His people. The fragrance of Christ permeates the whole of Scripture. We might say that the entire canon is "incarnationaly flavored," cf. Luke 24: 27, 32, 44, 46; John 5:39 et. al.
Jacob is part of the foreshadowing, but Jacob had shared with Rebecca in deceiving and manipulating Isaac. Joseph is part of the foreshadowing. But even he, though upright in the matter of Potiphar's wife, is seen cruelly toying with his brothers when they come to Egypt; for a season terrifying them. Judah is part of the foreshadowing, but he is the man who went into a woman he thought to be a prostitute but who turned out to be his own daughter-in-law. Broken vessels all, but God makes Gospel ointment come out of them!