Genesis 50:19-20:

How can God be God if individuals are truly free to make their own choices? It would appear that sooner or later these two free agents would collide and one would need to give way to the other.

This passage has comforted many and helped them better understand how the principles of divine sovereignty, human freedom and individual responsibility relate to each other. It affirms that divine sovereignty and human freedom operate in ways that are sometimes surprising.

God hates all sin with a perfect and unremitting hatred. However, it is his prerogative to allow good to come out of the evil others devise. Indeed, no sin can be committed without his knowledge or against his holy will. In this sense, sinners are often just as much the ministers of his providential workings as are his saints.

When because of jealousy and deep hatred Joseph's half brothers sold Joseph into slavery, God by his own mysterious working sent him to Egypt, not only to save that pagan nation (proof of common grace available to all by virtue of the decrees of creation) but to save the very people who had sold him into those horrible circumstances. By so doing, Joseph attained the position his brothers were attempting to undermine. And ultimately God was glorified.

Accordingly, Joseph was taught to acknowledge and revere God's providence in his circumstances. He taught his brothers to share these same truths. They and we are to view God's hand not only in his goodness and mercy to us, but in our afflictions and trials as well.

Sinners cannot undo their actions or prevent the natural consequences of sin from producing its usual miserable effects, but there are innumerable occasions to thank a gracious Lord for counteracting and mitigating the otherwisedevastating effects of such evil. God can and does work all things for good to those who love him and who are called according to his purposes to be transformed into his Son's image (Rom 8:28-29).

This does not mean that the nature of sin is altered and that believers never experience pain caused by sin. Poison does not cease to be poison just because it can sometimes be used medicinally.

However, this text claims that God need not worry that his purposes will be countermandated by society's sinful actions. Nor will God have to limit the freedoms which all individuals have, both believers and unbelievers, in order to preserve his sovereignty. He can cope with it, and he does succeed. The result is that God remains God and individuals remain responsible, blameworthy and culpable for all their acts.

There is both a directive will and a permissive will in the divine purpose. Men and women may be culpable and blameworthy for an act such as crucifying the Lord of glory, but as a permitted act it can still come under the total plan of God. As Acts 2:23 states, "This man [Jesus] was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross." If that is true for Christ's crucifixion, then it is no less true in the case of Joseph and all similarly besieged men and women today.