Isaiah 43:5-7 says, "Do not fear, because I am with you; / I will bring your seed from the east,/And gather you from the west./I will say to the north, Give them up,/And to the south, Do not keep them back./Bring My sons from afar, / And My daughters from the end of the earth, / Everyone who is called by My name,/Whom I have created, formed, and even made for My glory." "From the east" means from the river, and "from the west" means from the sea. From the east, west, north, and south, God will bring the scattered Israelites.
In 41:8 Israel is called God's servant. Israel's being God's servant is related to God's desire in His economy to have a corporate expression of Himself for His glory. God wants such a corporate expression so that He may be glorified. This is the reason 43:7 says that God created, formed, and made Israel for His glory. God's glory can be expressed only by a group of people. Israel is God's servant in the sense of fulfilling God's purpose to have a corporate expression for His glory.
Cyrus was also a servant of God. Because Cyrus was used by God and did many things for God, he was God's servant. God needed someone to defeat Babylon, His enemy, which had captured His people and destroyed the temple. Cyrus was used by God to subdue Babylon. Having gained dominion over Babylon, Cyrus, according to God's desire and at the expiration of Israel's seventy years of captivity, then declared the release of Israel from captivity. Cyrus also issued a decree allowing the Jews to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:2-3). In doing these things, Cyrus was surely one with Christ as a servant of Jehovah. These three matters—the defeat of Babylon, the release of Israel, and the decree concerning the rebuilding of the temple—were great matters in the fulfillment of God's economy at that time. These three things are also types, signifying Christ's defeating Satan, releasing us from captivity, and building up the church as the temple.
It is easy for us to realize that Cyrus was one with Christ as God's servant, but it is difficult for us to realize this regarding Israel. We need to see, therefore, that, apart from Israel, Cyrus could not have done anything as God's servant. For instance, Cyrus released the captives, but who were the captives? The captives were the people of Israel, the people who were to be used by God to express Him in a corporate way for His glorification. In this sense, Israel was one with Christ as God's servant. The servant of Jehovah is corporate, and Israel, having been released by Cyrus, was part of this corporate servant.
The point we would emphasize here is that in God's economy Christ is everything. He is the releasing One, typified by Cyrus, and He is also the released One, typified by Israel. Typically speaking, both Cyrus as the releasing one and Israel as the released ones are parts of Christ, who is the reality of everything in God's move, the centrality and the universality of the great wheel of God's move.
Today the church is the testimony of God in the sense of being one with Christ as the testimony of God. It is in being such a testimony that the church serves God. For this reason, all God's elect can be considered servants of God with Christ for the expression of God's glory. The glorification of God is the purpose of our service. The highest service we can render to God is to express His glory.