FORMATION IN VIEW OF GLORY
Esther 2: 5-11; 4: 12-17; 5: 1, 2; 8: 3, 4
In reading these passages, I had the thought of underlining the importance of the present moment, the exercises that belong to it being a means of our formation in the hands of the Lord in view of glory.
When we were led to the Lord at the beginning, our own needs occupied our minds; later, we apprehended that we were the objects of divine purpose. The purpose of God is that we should have part in a company where He can display His nature as far as it is revealed.
A divine Person has come in the form of a man to express what God is. By means of death, Christ has acquired the assembly, His body, for Himself, so that it should be able to express God before the world, as He has expressed Him. Thus, we read that the holy city comes down having the glory of God, that is to say, having it in a real way. It is never seen, however, apart from Christ; but always with bridal affection towards Him. So it is found to be represented “as a bride adorned for her husband”, and as “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”.
The thought of having the glory of God ought not to be an abstract or obscure idea to our souls; it should on the contrary have a present and practical effect on our lives. “Hereby we have known love, that he has laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”, 1 John 3: 16. Thus we learn what God is in His nature (the expression of the love of God is His glory); being made partakers of the divine nature, we find occasions among the brethren for its practical development in us. Being formed in the divine nature, the assembly can be moved to manifest it.
The history of Esther can be taken to illustrate the way in which this formation is brought about.
The name of God is not found mentioned in the book of Esther; but His work goes on secretly and the results come to light at the right time. Vashti had been set aside by the king for having refused to contribute by her beauty to the glory of the king. The assembly has been acquired for the glory of God and for the heart of Christ, not to keep her glory to herself; if she fails to answer to these thoughts, God will make sure that there is an answer in some remnant of the saints.
We are led under the control and influence of the Lord individually, as Esther was under the influence of Mordecai. In Romans 6, it is said that we are identified with Christ “in the likeness of his death”. This is in our baptism, for baptism takes this form, it represents death. Everything begins for us with His death. In dying, Christ has gone out of this world which is a system of sin, a system of self-will. He has died so that we may die to the whole system and its principles, so that we should live to God in Christ Jesus. The way in which it is practically accomplished is that we come to it first in our mind; we hold ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus; then chapters 7 and 8 show us how we can realise this in practice. Desiring to be for God, we have the tendency to put ourselves unknowingly under the law (Rom 7: 1, 4); then we learn how death becomes a means of deliverance from law: “ye also have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ”. This shows how He has come in as Man and serves us in love to set us free by His death from the principle of law; so that the simple principle of the Christian’s life consists in being “to another”. That encourages us to present our difficulties to the Lord, He Himself would serve us as husband. Thus set free from legality, we will begin to bear fruit to God. The Spirit sustains us on this line and He becomes for us the power of life.
Esther had been brought by death into direct relation with Mordecai, “when her father and her mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter”, chap 2: 7. It is good to understand that the Lord is interested in our education, so that we should learn to be subject to Him.
Obedience to the Lord is a principle we must maintain from one end to the other of our history; otherwise, it will not be possible to know spiritual prosperity: Esther continued to be subject to Mordecai even when she became queen.
“And Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women’s house, to know how Esther did, and what should become of her”, chap 2: 11: what a picture of the personal interest which the Lord unceasingly takes in each of us; He is concerned about us every day. Do we learn to number our days? Have we regulated our daily affairs with the Lord before the night? The Lord would point out our failures and our weaknesses, and their root; He would show us how He has gone as far as death to bear the judgment due to our sins and to take away the man in whom the root is. The soul will thus be exercised to say like the Samaritan woman, “Come, see a man who told me all things that I had ever done”. We learn to appreciate Him; our hearts become attached to Him more and more each day.
Not only are we shown the evil that is in us, not only are we set free, learning to judge it and to walk in the Spirit; but more, to be agreeable to God, we need what the oil of myrrh and spices represent. The Spirit occupies us with Christ Himself, with His suffering love and the varied features of His moral excellence which are the source of God’s delight, so that the fruits of the Spirit are manifest in us. It is not a matter here of our acceptance in Christ, which has been perfect from the beginning, but of this formation in ourselves by which we are made truly agreeable to God.
Individual exercises accepted with the Lord contribute to this formation. One sees typically the divine approval of one who is so formed in the royal crown put on Esther’s head.
Mordecai discovering the plot against Ahasuerus in chapter 2 represents the Lord always guarding the rights of God, whatever comes in; if we seek on our side to maintain God’s rights, we are assured of having the Lord’s moral approval. He reveals to us the true character of what goes on in the world (also perhaps among the saints) and how God’s rights are affronted; we learn to draw near to Him in prayer on every matter which may be of interest to Him.
The exaltation of the wicked Haman and its results often have their counterpart in local matters. God sometimes allows evil to gain ground among the saints to take forward His work in their souls; the promotion of Haman led to the development of love in Esther, and then the defeat of Haman and the exaltation of Mordecai.
The attitude of Mordecai, sitting in the king’s gate, speaks to us of what is of the Lord continually watching what is due to God; and just as Mordecai would not bow down to Haman, the Lord will never yield an inch of ground to the enemy. To know this is a great encouragement and good support for all those who, in the presence of certain evil influences, of local difficulties, seek to maintain what is right in God’s sight.
Haman’s plot had in view the extermination of the people, typical of the destruction of what spoke of Christ under God’s eye. Esther had to face up to this plot. Mordecai did not tell her to do it. There was only one law and this law applied to the queen as to every other, chap 4: 11. In her resolution, Esther is prepared to lay down her life. To undertake the saints’ matters in love, when young, and by these secret exercises before God, allows the movements of the enemy to be faced. This necessitates many sacrifices, putting natural considerations aside, and even to lay down one’s life for the brethren. Look at Paul’s exercises in Colossians 2: 1; Galatians 4: 19; 2 Corinthians 2: 4 and other scriptures.
Esther appeared wearing “the royal apparel”, and touching the golden sceptre that the king held out to her indicates typically that she was in accord with the divine requirements; she reaches to a type of the divine nature as it is seen in Christ, while she was ready to lay down her life for the brethren. If we are formed thus, as Christ who has laid down His life, we will have power with God, we will obtain the attention of His ear, and He will act in favour of His own.
Forbearance is needed towards the adversaries; Esther does not expose Haman as soon as possible, but she gives him an opportunity in inviting him to the first banquet of wine. Grace acts like this: the favourable delay was given to him so that he could repent; but he was not able to grasp the opportunity.
When the formation is complete in the saints, then God acts. He waits for this formation before acting to put away the evil (2 Cor 10: 6), but when He begins, His movements are rapid.
Esther’s exercises do not stop at the hanging of Haman; she had to appear again before the king because the effects of the evil influence of Haman continued after his death, chap 8: 3, 4.
By means of such exercises, God develops His work in the souls of the saints. If matters are evil in a meeting, this will need to produce exercises which will promote the formation in us of the divine nature. The final outcome of this will be seen in the day to come when the holy city will be manifest, “having the glory of God”.
Notes of a word in Coventry
6th December 1934
Translated from the French magazine, ‘Ondées’, 1935
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