Genesis 37:3

Verse 3 tells us that Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons. This was Jacob's failure. Love in a family should be completely impartial and concerned about the true welfare of every child. Above all this, though, this history reminds us that God's love for His Son must be unique.

In His great grace God has brought His saints into relationship with Him as children and as His sons. He has given us "the Spirit of His Son…crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6). But we must never forget that the Son has His own special place at the Father's side, and it is His alone.

Israel bears witness to this place of distinction by clothing Joseph with a coat of many colours — a public testimony to the delight of the father in his son… The same chapter that tells us, "God so loved the world," also tells us that "the Father loves the Son." A measure is given of the love of God for the world, infinite though it is. But no measure is, or can be, given of the Father's love for the Son… Joseph's coat of many colours, the public testimony of his father's love, has its bright counterpart in the opened heavens of the New Testament. The heavens never open apart from Christ. When they open, they always bear some fresh witness to the Father's delight in the all-varied graces of the Son.

They were worn as marks of distinction — "for the neck as spoil," as Sisera's mother says. She thought he should wear this "spoil of dyed materials" as a special honour, fitting such a mighty conqueror as he was.

The inner garment is the kethoneth, a long tunic worn by men and women, made of wool, cotton, or linen. This was the garment God made of skins for Adam and Eve, and what Jacob made of many colours for Joseph.

God calls the Lord Jesus His well-beloved Son, and has given Him many glories. A robe of many colours is His, but they are the colours of His glories. Not one greater, or more brilliant, than the glory of His humiliation. He laid aside His riches, and became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich.

The many-coloured coat, as we saw earlier, was a mark of renown, or of superior dignity or excellence… The persecutors of the Son of God were not content until they had stripped Him of everything the many-coloured coat of Joseph stood for — His dignity, His moral excellence, His honour. They did this as far as it lay in their power.

Loved and marked out by his father in this way, his heart grew large. He tasted the sweetness of his father's affection, and his own affection came out in return. Nothing produces affection in us so much as the assurance that it exists for us. As it is written, "We love because He first loved us."… But at the same time this exposed him to the envy of those who had proved themselves unworthy of it.

He was the object of his father's love, and the subject of very high destinies. His brothers' hearts were not in communion with these things, so they hated him. They had no fellowship in the father's love… In all this they represent the Jews in Christ's day. "He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him."