In the forty-eighth chapter of Genesis, which relates the
story of Jacob's blessing the sons of Joseph, we are given a
remarkable foreview of the cross and its meaning. When
Joseph brought his sons for their grandfather's blessing, he
placed Manasseh, the older, opposite Jacob's right hand, with
Ephraim opposite the left. However, instead of stretching his
hands out in parallel fashion and putting his right hand on
Manasseh's head, he placed his right hand on Ephraim's head
and the left on Manasseh's. When Joseph protested that
Manasseh was the older and should receive the greater or right
hand blessing, Jacob assured him that he was not making a
mistake - that the younger would be more blessed of God than
the older. Jacob's switching of the blessings resulted in his
crossing his hands, or making a cross with his arms. As we
consider the effect that Jacob's cross had on the lives of his grandsons
we are reminded of some things which were accomplished when
a greater Father bestowed a blessing on his sons - also through
the medium of a cross.
Thinking, then, of the cross of blessing, we note that the
cross gave the second-born precedence or preference over the
first-born. So it is in our Christian experience - it is the
second-born nature in the believer that is pleasing and
acceptable to God. The flesh may share, to a degree, in the
blessings which God bestows upon his people, but nothing of
a permanent nature is done for it. God does not repair it,
patch it up, or try to improve it. God's rejection of the
first-born nature and his acceptance of the second-born nature
are illustrated in numerous ways in the O.T. The stories of
Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Saul and
David, all illustrate the principle that he taketh away the first.
that he might establish the second.
Next, we may note that the cross is the medium of our
blessings. In Eph. 1:3, God is said to have blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in Christ; but it is through the medium of his
cross, i.e., his sacrificial death, that we are able to enter into
his merit and receive and enjoy these blessings. Ephraim and
Manasseh received a blessing from Jacob because of their
relationship to his son. He was not passing out blessings to all
of the children of Egypt, but merely to those who were related
to his son. So, God's blessings are ours because of our
relationship to his Son, the greater Joseph, and this
relationship is grounded upon his cross.
We see further that the cross makes us acceptable in the family of the Father. Jacob said to Joseph:
" ... thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are mine; as
Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine."
Gen. 48:5.
Thus, he adopted Joseph's two sons into his own family, making
them to share equally with his other sons, thereby making of
Joseph a double tribe (or rather two separate tribes). Just as
Ephraim and Manasseh were adopted into Jacob's family
because of their relationship to Joseph, the son of Jacob's love,
so the Father has adopted into his family those who are related
to the greater Joseph, and has made them accepted in the
Beloved.
Finally we see that the cross puts Ephraim ahead of
Manasseh. The name Manasseh means causing to forget, and in
bestowing this name upon his firstborn, Joseph said:
" ... For God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my
father's house."
Gen. 41:51.
It is plain that Joseph did not mean to say that he had forgotten
in an absolute sense either his life as a slave or his early life in
his father's house; but rather that God had so richly blessed
him that neither the joys of the one nor the anguish of the
other had any power now to bring forth any feeling from his
breast. Both the joys of his childhood and the sufferings of his
slavery were swallowed up in the greater joys of his exaltations.
So it is with the Christian; God has made him to forget his
previous life in that the joys as well as the griefs of it are
swallowed up in the joy of being exalted in Christ. But even
more important than the Manasseh aspect of our Christian
experience should be the Ephraim experience. Ephraim in
Hebrew means doubly fruitful, and as Ephraim was placed
ahead of Manasseh so we should regard fruitfulness as of more
importance than the fact that God has richly blessed us so as to
make us forget our toil and all our father's house.
John H Mattox