Esther As a Model Of The Spiritual Life Chapter 1 of 10
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God is not mentioned anywhere in this book. It is about the Jewish people and a queen named Esther. So why is it even in the Bible?
It reads like a regular movie story. There is a central character, Ahasuerus, the protagonist Mordecai with his adopted daughter Esther, the antagonist, Haman, and his helpers, his wife, and sons.
We need to allegorize this story to understand it. It is the same way we interpret our dreams. Places, people, and things all represent something else.
Getting Truth from Allegories
To avoid getting into false teaching, we need to take known truth from the New Testament and then see those truths in the pictures shown. We do not create new doctrines from pictures. The entire story of Esther is a picture of our spiritual life from beginning to end.
God has made us with three parts to our being - spirit, soul and body. Each of these as pictured in Esther are shown by the following characters:
1. The Kingdom of Ahaseurus - the human body
2. King Ahaseurus himself - the human soul
3. Queen Vashti - the human spirit without Christ
4. Mordecai - the Lord Jesus or the Holy Spirit
5. Queen Esther - the human spirit reborn in Christ
These are the first stars in this movie. More will come later.
Ahasuerus' Party
He invites everybody in the Kingdom to come to his party and they go on for ages. This is a picture of living a life in the flesh, outside of Christ where the body dominates. There is unlimited pleasure without restriction.
This needs to change so we can come to Christ. But first we need to come to a place where we realise that something is wrong.
Ahaseurus decides to call for the queen so he can show her off. But she refuses to come. This creates a problem and something has to be done about it.
The Allegory So Far
A life outside of Christ totally emphasizes the desires of the body. The body passions are given full license and these are allowed to run our lives. Then there comes a time when the person realizes,
"There is a part of me that is not satisfied here. I need more than this. There is something deep down inside of me that is wrong."
It is the first event that takes place in the life of an unbeliever, before they are even ready to begin entering into the spiritual life and coming to know the Lord as their Savior.
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