14.2 Rebekah and Esther
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The love stories of Rebekah and Esther are parallel in their representation of truth to us. For that reason, I want to look at them together, at least in part. But let’s position these love stories.
God desires to win the heart of His Beloved for Himself. Love must have a lover. For that reason He fashioned the universe and created us in His image and likeness, that He might live through us. Jesus’ winning the heart of His Bride for Himself is the central essence of the entire Bible. The process of bringing forth life out from union with His Bride is the structure upon which the entire Bible is written.
A Heavenly Woman. The love stories of the Bible play a far more important role in the revelation of God than we have ever allowed.
The vision of a heavenly woman clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ bringing forth His life in the earth, a child seized into God and into His throne has been my guiding star for over forty years. That vision is the very seed of God in me out from which everything I have written has come.
We want to know, however, is where do you and I fit into these love stories. Are we the Lover or the Loved? Does Rebekah represent us or does Isaac? The answer is both, 100%.
A Flexible Application. As we go through these love stories, that is, including Ruth and the Shulamite as well, let’s be flexible in our understanding, and allow the metaphor of the story to speak both sides to us.
We are the Bride, most definitely. But we are also the friends of the Bridegroom. And, beyond all mystery, the Bridegroom Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, receives His Bride to Himself in, as, and through you and me. We are also, in a very specific way, the Lover of the Bride out from God’s fifth signature upon us as we are as Christ to His Church. But in the same thought, we know also that we are first the Bride, the one who caught Jesus’ eye, His Beloved.
Eliezer and Hegai. Rebekah’s story is found in Genesis 24. Please take the time to read the whole chapter. I will not place it all here. Esther’s story is found in Esther 2. Please take the time to read that as well.
The reason we look at these two stories together is that in each one of them, the person who serves as the go-between is our present focus, and in both stories, this person is named. Eliezer and Hegai. – The Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who is sent from Father to win the heart of the Bride for the hand of His Son. It is the Holy Spirit, sent from the King, who teaches the Bride to make herself beautiful to win the love of the King.
The Role of the Holy Spirit. If we want to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church, we must see that same Holy Spirit through these two love stories together, through Eliezer and Hegai. For these stories place you and me into another role, the role of those through whom, in part, the Holy Spirit accomplishes the purpose for which He was sent.
I say, “in part,” because the Holy Spirit accomplishes the purposes of His sending, regardless of our involvement or not. Yet for the Church to be prepared for her husband, these functions of the Holy Spirit must become her normal daily life. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2).
Adorned. Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, inside and out. We understand this, that we are talking of nothing other than our present union with Christ, yet we are speaking of that union in fullness, in every direction God intends. Union with Christ is not something we would ever be able to do; union with Christ is what Jesus Himself is always doing.
Yet Jesus comes into union with us only through our faith. My job – and the Holy Spirit’s job – is to stir up faith. And we see Eliezer and Hegai accomplishing this very task in their respective love stories. How does the Holy Spirit continuously stir up faith in us that Jesus might be to us all that we are?
Beauty and Elegance. My wife has always taken considerably more time to “adorn herself” before going out in public than I do. What takes me a couple of minutes takes her twenty or more – and I am always glad for her looking her best, once we are on our way, because her beauty and elegance, her gentle classiness, makes me complete.
The woman is the completion of the man.
Consider Esther. To be in the king’s harem was a life-long and binding reality. Every other woman, in this contest to win the king’s heart, would spend the rest of their lives in the halls of the harem and never be with a real man again.
The Others. Esther was different from all the others. Each one of the other women knew exactly how to adorn themselves, how to enhance their best features, the clothes that would make them the most striking. Every other woman outdid herself in making herself desirable to the king.
Before a young woman’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace (Esther 2:12-13 – NIV).
Esther Was Different. “Anything she wanted.” – But Esther was different. When the turn came for Esther… to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested (Esther 2:15 – NIV).
The question is why? What was different about Esther? None of them had yet met the king during their preparation. The king was an unknown figure, an eastern potentate who held the power of life and death over millions of subjects. The king could order anyone executed and he did so regularly. The king was frightening. Yet Esther did not think of him in that way, she knew only of a man for whom she had compassion, a man whose heart yearned for love.
Winning His Heart. Esther certainly knew how to make herself look beautiful, what she did not know was what the king himself liked. Because Esther thought about the king as a man with a heart of desire, she wanted to make herself pleasing to him. So Esther went to the one person inside the harem who did know the king – who he was and what he liked or didn’t like – the eunuch, Hegai. “Hegai, what do you suggest for me to wear?”
And Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her.
This is a simple story, but with profound implications for us. We are betrothed to a fearsome potentate, what does He like in a woman?
Prepare Yourself. Every believer in Jesus is given the Bible and access to the Spirit and is instructed to prepare themselves to meet their Maker. Most imagine that they know exactly how to do such a thing. Some of us know that we do not know – yet we stand before Him face to face with nothing to hide behind.
There are a few believers in Jesus who, knowing they do not know what makes a woman beautiful to Him, turn to the one who does, the Holy Spirit shed abroad in our hearts. And they ask the Spirit to suggest what they should wear, how they should adorn themselves, what perfumes to splash on their skin – in order to make Jesus “go weak at the knees” when He sees them.
He Will Glorify Me. And the Holy Spirit “suggests” to us, “Here are the jewels that the Master loves, let me place them upon you.” Spiritual gifts – the fruit of the Spirit – spiritual ministries. I speak in tongues because I trust the Holy Spirit that this gift of Himself prepares me to know my full union with Christ.
But the Holy Spirit is a eunuch, as Jesus said. I still have many things to say to you… However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak… He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you (John 16:12-15).
Eliezer’s Task. The Holy Spirit makes known to us what we receive from Jesus.
When Rebekah came out of the city to draw water for her family, she saw Eliezer by the well with his camels. She gave water to Eliezer and then to his camels because of the respect and compassion in her heart. When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring… and two gold bracelets… then I put the ring in her nose and the bracelets on her arms (Genesis 24:22&47).
It was Eliezer’s task, not only to find a bride for Isaac, but to adorn her with his master’s jewels and to bring her safely across the desert to her waiting husband. – Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah (Genesis 24:67 – NIV).
A Nervous Husband. Isaac, waiting expectantly for the return of Eliezer with this unknown person who would be his wife, was undoubtedly nervous for many weeks. The inference of the story is that when Isaac saw Rebekah, he saw one like his own mother, yet young and beautiful. It is very likely that the jewels given to Rebekah by Eliezer had been worn by Sarah.
And I saw a woman clothed with the sun – put on the Lord Jesus Christ. – Sacrifice and offering I did not desire – I don’t want your money, that is, your performance, but your heart.
How does the Spirit make us beautiful for Jesus?
Looking for Faith. The first thing the Spirit looks for is willingness of heart. So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?” “I will go,” she said.
The second thing is utter trust that the Spirit knows where He is taking us and how it is we win the heart of our Husband. Then Rebekah and her attendants got ready and mounted the camels and went back with the man (NIV).
But most of all, faith, Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted… – Faith which energeoes through love. Here is the BIG question in the heart of our “nervous” Isaac, When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith in the earth?
Beauty, NOT Penance. Here is the Father’s instruction to the Holy Spirit. If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my Son back there (Genesis 24:8 – NIV). What, exactly, does that mean?
So Christ having been given as a gift once to carry the sins of many, He will appear a second time without sin to those eagerly expecting Him inside salvation (Hebrews 9:28 - JSV). – One sacrifice for sins forever (Hebrews 10:12). The word does not say that we are “waiting for salvation”; it says we are waiting INSIDE salvation, inside the Holy Spirit.
Preparation is for beauty, not penance.
The Spirit Makes Us Beautiful. This is one of the great crimes of Nicene Christianity, for they place penance upon the Church, when God says, “I have forgotten sin” (Hebrews 10:17-18). In essence, they are “bringing Jesus back” again and again, rather than preparing the Church in beauty by the Holy Spirit for the Heart of our Beloved.
The work of the Holy Spirit in the Church is not about “dealing with sin,” but rather, preparing us for Christ entering through our faith, that we might be beautiful to Him.
Our focus, however, is not on the love between Jesus and His Bride, but rather, on the work of the Holy Spirit in making us together beautiful and glorious, one with Jesus in all our interactions together.