ESTHER PREACHES THE NEW COVENANT.

“Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, ‘Indeed, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows because he tried to lay his hand on the Jews. You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews, as you please, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring; for whatever is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring no one can revoke.’ So the king’s scribes were called at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day; and it was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded, to the Jews, the satraps, the governors, and the princes of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all, to every province in its own script, to every people in their own language, and to the Jews in their own script and language. And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus, sealed it with the king’s signet ring, and sent letters by couriers on horseback, riding on royal horses bred from swift steeds. By these letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather together and protect their lives—to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province that would assault them, both little children and women, and to plunder their possessions, on one day in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar” (Esther 8:7-12).

According to Jesus, every book of the Old Testament speaks of Him. He told the Jews, “You search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of Me.” Coming from the lips of Jesus we cannot write this off as literary flourish. No, Christ meant exactly what he said. He appears in every nook and cranny of the Old Testament. That means that Christ and His gospel are clearly seen in the book of Esther.

This may seem surprising that in a book that is historical and never mentions God by name there would be a subtle but clear picture of the gospel tucked away in its pages. The tension in the book is set up early. We find that the Law of the Medes and the Persians can never be abrogated. That is told the reader in the very first chapter when Queen Vashti refuses to come before the king and so the king makes a decree that the queen may no longer come before the king. The law is irreversible. To the Bible student this should immediately remind us of the law of God. In Matthew 5:17-18, Jesus speaks of the law in this way, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” Like the law of the Medes and Persians the Law of God can never be abrogated. It is always in effect until its terms are fulfilled. No one can escape it. When even one little precept of the law is broken it seeks the death of the one who broke it. Only death satisfies the broken law.

Well, the irrevocable nature of law comes into play in the Esther narrative. In chapter 3, Haman, the pompous and vengeful right hand man of king Ahasuerus, decides to annihilate the Jews because of the perceived insolence of a Jew named Mordecai. Haman tricks the king into a signing a decree - an unchangeable decree - that says on a certain day in the month of Adar all Jews in the Persian empire are to be slaughtered.

The clock is now ticking. Every Jew in the great Persian Empire has inscribed on their calendar a date with death. The tone of the book is ominous.

Ominous too is the future of all humanity, who like the Jews in Esther, are under a covenant of death. Paul speaks about it in Romans 3:19. He says, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.” Every human is held accountable to keep the law of God and so every human is guilty. And the sentence is death cannot be changed. “Guilty All,” is the heading posted on humanity’s website. Despair has now becomes the human condition. So what can we do? And the depressingly sad answer? ……nothing.

So that’s the end of the story and we all go to hell, so let’s eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

But wait, the story of Esther goes on and gives us hope. Her story ended well and that is intended to teach us that ours will end well too. But still we are left with a huge conundrum. How do we get around a law that cannot be altered? Oh, and in case I forgot to mention it, even God can’t get round it.

That’s where we come to chapter 8 quoted above. Mordecai who has now become the chief advisor to the king comes up with another plan. He cannot negate the first law but he can make another law that gives the Jews the right and resources to defend themselves. The king signs such a law. Now this second law, or covenant, does not abrogate the first law. The initial decree is still in effect; the Jews are still targeted for annihilation later in the year. What the second decree does is to give the Jews a way of combating the effects of the first decree. We all know how the story ends. The Jews are able to arm themselves on the appointed day and they fight like heros and effect a great victory which will be for all time commemorated as a holiday. This speaks loudly and clearly of the salvation wrought in Jesus Christ.

All God’s people are under the Law of God that cannot be changed and requires perfection. Unfortunately many Christians think that if they do pretty good or are ‘filled with the Spirit’ they can fulfill the ancient law. Nope. Sorry. The law condemns us all and it cannot be changed or softened. In order to save His people, therefore, God must invoke a new law, or new covenant, that will disarm the effects of the first covenant. Only in this second covenant, only one person fights. Like David before Goliath, He represents His people. His name is Jesus. His role is to fulfill law by obeying it perfectly and dying under it because His constituency is sinners. To say it another way, Jesus fights the damning effect of the first law and implements the grace of the second. Paul writes in Galatians 3:13, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).

Beloved have you ever considered what it cost God to counteract the irreversible curse of the first covenant? He couldn’t just say, “Okay, let’s clear the slate, everyone is forgiven and we’ll start this over again.” God is perfectly just and cannot dishonor His law by allowing trespasses to go unpunished. What He can do - and did - is to establish a second covenant that will legally disarm the first. This second covenant is what God did with His Son, Jesus Christ. He brought Jesus into the world and placed Him under the same law that everyone else was under. Jesus did not defeat death by bearing arms, but by lifting up His arms in death. Jesus fought the forces of death by dying. And when He died he condemned the condemning power of the law; in death He defeated death. Paul said it this way in Romans,

“For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.”

And how do we know this covenant of death had been satisfied? Jesus was raised up from the dead three days later. His life proved that death was defeated. The second covenant had swallowed up the first. And all who had Jesus as their covenant head could finally live freely and without fear under this glorious covenant of life. Now only an infinitely wise God could come up with a plan like that, a plan that Esther foreshadows 600 years before it actually comes into play. What a marvelous gospel we have. Amen.