The Book of Esther is remarkable inasmuch as God's Name does not appear in it. Yet the spiritual mind can readily discern the hand of God behind all that is recorded. God's judgment had fallen upon His people because of their sins: the ten tribes had first been carried into captivity by the Assyrians, then the two tribes, after God's patience was exhausted, were carried away captive by Nebuchadnezzar. The events recorded in Esther were in the reign of Ahasuerus, a Persian monarch with wide dominions, and the scattered Jews were within his realms.
Although God had ordered the scattering of His people, He had not forsaken them, and His eye watched over them even when they had little idea of His providential care. There have been many attempts made by Satan to destroy God's earthly people, but He has preserved them, though often allowing them in His government to suffer for their sins. His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will surely be fulfilled, and to this end, for the honour of His own, great Name, God will preserve a remnant of Israel until the whole nation is found as the centre of all His ways on earth during Christ's millennial reign.
In this Book, where there is a very determined bid by Satan, through the instrumentality of Haman, the Agagite, to destroy the Jews, it is instructive and delightful to trace the working of God's providence for the salvation of His people. The vanity of Vashti the queen, the beauty of Esther, the malignity of Haman, the conspiracy of two of the king's servants are all used of God to bring into prominence Mordecai, a type of the Lord Jesus as the Saviour of His people.
God speaks to the Gentile monarch by keeping sleep from him, and as he reads his book of records, he finds that the worthy deed of Mordecai, in preserving his life from would-be assassins, had not been rewarded: and this leads to the exaltation and honour of Mordecai, and foretells the fall of Haman, the adversary of the Jews. The exaltation of Mordecai procures the salvation of the Jews, as did also the intercession of Esther with the King.
The last verse of this remarkable little book, which is so full of instruction for God's people in all generations, gives us a lovely picture of Mordecai, which brings before us the One of Whom he is a type, "For Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed."
Like Joseph in Egypt, Mordecai was exalted to a position next to the king, and both indicate the high place into which Christ the Son of God has entered as Man at God's right hand in heaven. Little did Haman imagine when plotting the death of Mordecai that God had marked him out for such a place of glory in the kingdom of Persia; and little did Satan realise when he used men to crucify and slay the Son of God, that God, in His counsels, had marked out the One Whom men would slay as the "Man of His right hand."
Haman, too, was the unwilling instrument of spreading abroad the delight that the king had in Mordecai, having to set him, clothed in royal apparel, upon the king's horse, and hearing the proclamation, "Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour." And was it not the very plot of Satan to get rid of Christ that brought about his own defeat, and was the means of Christ being exalted on high? The very instrument of death, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman erected to destroy Mordecai, was used for his own destruction. So it was with Satan, for it was by death that Christ annulled him that had the power of death, even the devil, to "deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2:14-15).
What glory has been brought to God, and to the Lord Jesus Christ, by His death and resurrection. Coming out of death, "having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them" (Col. 2:15); and He has "ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things" (Eph. 4:10). The exalted place that Mordecai filled was but a faint shadow of the place filled by the One Who is about to fill the whole universe with His glory, for He is about to come "in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels" (Luke 9:26). Until then, He is sitting on His Father's throne, waiting till His foes are made the footstool of His feet, when He shall reign over all the earth, and as Son of Man over the vast universe of bliss.
It was among the dispersion of the Jews, the two tribes, that Mordecai was; and when the Lord came to earth, it was to a recovered remnant of the same two tribes that He came. But the Jews were most bitter in their opposition to the Son of God while He was among them. This is very clearly seen in the Gospel of John. In John 6 they murmur at Him, "because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven" (John 6:41). In John 7 "no man spake openly of Him for fear of the Jews" (John 7:13). In John 8 they refuse His divinity, saying, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" (John 8:57), and take up stones to stone Him (John 8:59).
How very different it will be in the coming day, when the Lord preserves a remnant from the judgments poured upon the land, and brings them through the refining fire into His kingdom. In that day, He will say to them, "It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God" (Zech. 13:9). Like Thomas, the remnant will say, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28; Zech. 12:10). How very different the attitude of the Jews will be when the Lord comes the second time: He will indeed be "great among" them, and confessed as their Lord and their God.
In the days of His humiliation, it was written concerning Jesus, "For neither did His brethren believe in Him" (John 7:5). When the Lord came out of death, and took His place on high, it would seem that His brethren had been converted, for the eleven apostles "all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren" (Acts 1:14).
But the Lord, as risen from the dead, has another company of "brethren", even those to whom He sent the message by Mary Magdalene, "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20:17). His brethren, while on earth, were those born of Mary; but this new company of brethren are those to whom He refers when He said, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24). This is a spiritual generation, having the life of Christ, and thus suitable to be associated with Him, so that "He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:11).
With Mordecai, it was when he became great that he sought the wealth of his people, and those that are associated with the Lord Jesus are made rich by Him Who is risen from the dead; but it was before He came into the world that the Lord Jesus sought to make His people rich. This is spoken of by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the saints at Corinth, "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich" (2 Cor. 8:9).
None can tell the greatness of the riches possessed by the Son of God, the Creator of the universe; nor can any fathom the depths of His poverty. We know that He was poor in coming into the world, when He had a stable for His birthplace, and a manger for His crib; and we know that the Son of Man had nowhere to lay His head; but we can never know how deep His poverty when He entered into all the awful judgments of the cross, meeting God's holy wrath against sin, and bearing the guilt of our sins.
But, in resurrection, He has entered into possession of riches that no other man ever possessed, "the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8), and all that He has acquired through His death He is going to share with those He has redeemed, even as it is written, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32). Already enriched by the riches of God's grace, we wait for the coming of the One Who died for us, when all that God has prepared for us in association with His own Son will be possessed, as "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."
At the close of Psalm 21, it is written, "A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation" (verse 30). Messiah was cut off in the midst of His days, "and had nothing," but He shall have a generation of His own in the coming day among His people Israel, as this Psalm declares. Moreover, in Isaiah 53, the prophet asks regarding the Man of sorrows, "Who shall declare His generation? for He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken" (Isaiah 53:8). The answer to this question is given in the same chapter, "When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand" (verse Isaiah 53:10).
From these Scriptures we learn that, having passed through death, the Lord Jesus will have His own generation, His own seed. It is the new generation that springs from Christ dead and risen, according to His own word, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24). The beginning of this great harvest is found in John 20, where the Lord appears in the midst of His disciples, whom He can speak of as his brethren, but also who are now in a new relationship with His Father; but He can also say of them, "Behold I, and the children that God hath given me." To this favoured company, in John 20, the Lord, in coming into their midst, said, "Peace be unto you" (John 20:19).
The company that forms the church is clearly in view in the Scriptures quoted, but His seed, according to Psalm 21 and Isaiah 53, also includes the remnant of Israel in a coming day. If the church is foreshadowed in the first appearing of the Lord in John 20, the remnant is portrayed in those to whom the Lord appears the second time, when Thomas is with them, and to whom the Lord says, "Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed." So will it be when the remnant sees the Lord in the coming day; they will believe. But to this company the Lord also says, "Peace be unto you." He speaks peace to those now blessed as His seed, the fruit of His death; and He will speak peace, as the Prince of peace, to His people in the day of His coming and kingdom.