It is very striking how the thoughts of God’s heart, which were before the foundation of the world, come out in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ as a man. It is striking too that in the New Testament God passes over the history of the first Adam with a brief notice of what it has been and what God has done with him, while connecting what God is, and His eternal thoughts and purposes, with Christ.
Now in Proverbs 8:22-3122The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. 23I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. 24When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. 25Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: 26While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. 27When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: 28When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: 29When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: 30Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; 31Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. (Proverbs 8:22‑31), we find a passage of exceeding beauty which tells us of the thoughts which were in God’s heart, and His purposes in connection with His Son, before the world was. Before all things which had a beginning, even “from everlasting,” the Son was there. He is presented here as “wisdom,” and Christ is the “wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). He was rejoicing always before Him — rejoicing in the habitable parts of His earth before it came into being by the Son — and His good pleasure (or delight) was in the sons of men. The heart of God has had, and has, its eternal satisfaction conceived, made good, revealed, and accomplished in Jesus and, more wondrous still, to God’s glory by us.
Good Pleasure in Man — Jesus
In Bethlehem of Judea, nearly two thousand years ago, the glory of Jehovah shone out from heaven on the darkness which really and morally enveloped the earth. The hosts of heaven joined the angel of the Lord, and proclaimed with bursts of praise, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men” (Luke 2:1414Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:14) JND). When the world had come forth from God in creation, and “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God [angels] shouted for joy” (Job 38:77When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7)); now its Creator had become a man. Adam, the head of creation, had fallen, and his history was past. Another Adam appeared, the “last,” and God’s glory now has its highest expression, for His Son has become a babe. Peace was proposed to the ruined earth, and it was refused, but still God has His “glory” in the highest, and His “good pleasure” is now to have its fruition.
Thirty years pass on and a lonely Man, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead bodily was pleased to dwell, passed along His lowly path of obedience. He had patiently waited God’s time, and He recognizes that God is now at work in men. His delight (or “good pleasure”) was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work; and so He says, “My goodness extendeth not to Thee; to the saints that are on the earth, and to the excellent [Thou hast said], In them is all My delight” (Psa. 16:2-32O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee; 3But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight. (Psalm 16:2‑3) JND). The lines had fallen unto Him in pleasant places indeed; His goodly heritage was filling His heart in the foretaste of God’s good pleasure or delight being fulfilled. The instant He is there according to God’s thought, the heaven is opened on Him, and the Father’s voice is heard proclaiming, “Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I have found My delight [or good pleasure]” (Matt. 3:1717And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 3:17) JND).
Time passes on, and after confronting the devil, and binding the strong man in obedience, He comes forth to serve in obedience still, but with a power that could remove every ill that had entered the world and brought men into misery. He feeds the hungry, heals the sick, raises the dead, cleanses the lepers, drives out Satan from man; but it brought God too near to men for them to enjoy their own wills and their own ways; they beseech Him to depart from their midst.
Then He goes to the mount of transfiguration and, while transfigured before His wondering disciples, the Father’s voice is again heard, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I have found My delight [or good pleasure”] (Matt. 17:55While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. (Matthew 17:5) JND). Men have refused Him, but God’s heart has not changed in Him. Thus a rejected Christ receives His Father’s heart’s expression, “In Thee I have good pleasure.”
The Cross, Death
and Resurrection
He leaves the mountain and turns to meet the cross and shame which awaited Him at the end of His pathway, but in all this He was alone. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die, or He would abide alone; and so He passes down to the cross, meets His people’s need as to their sins, Satan’s power of death, and the judgment of God. He takes up our sins and bears them as His own, and blots them out forever. He meets and destroys Satan’s power of death, by death, and bears the judgment and all the demands of God’s righteousness as to sin. He dies and rises again; tells His disciples that His Father is now their Father, and His God their God, and ascends as man to glory.
Then come out all those wonderful counsels and purposes of God’s heart. The orbit of the “good pleasure” of God is described, and His people are blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Prov. 8), “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:3-63Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:3‑6)). The circle is complete, and we are brought into all these delights of God’s eternal purposes, and the thoughts of His heart which were before the foundation of the world!
The Fruition
Thus we have the eternal bosom revealing this “good pleasure” which was there before the world was made (Prov. 8). Now the “good pleasure of His will” is brought to fruition, and we are set in its fullest expression in heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1).
But there is an age to come in which the preface of this eternal purpose is seen — the millennial glory. And still the “good pleasure” is expressed. He unfolds to us “the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself” to gather all things in heaven and earth in one in Christ; and in Him we also have obtained this inheritance in the age to come, where we shall reign with Him until He puts down all authority and power. Then He gives up the kingdom after the perfection of His administration, and becomes, in the eternal age, in the new heavens and the new earth, the Son, subject as man to His Father, and we with Him in that scene where God’s delights are fully expressed and fulfilled according to His good pleasure in the sons of men forever.
The Will to Do
His Good Pleasure
But between this calling into the orbit of the good pleasure of God and its fruition in the ages to come, is God to have no “good pleasure”? We turn to Philippians 2:1212Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12) and we find a feeble people always obedient when the church had apostolic care, but now when it was gone, much more in its absence; and God was working in them “to will and to do of His good pleasure” still.
If there was a broad line of light seen before God’s eye in Jesus’ path on earth, a tiny streak of light is found in the path of those who have, with broken wills and hearts subject to Him, sought and found in the footprints of Jesus the “good pleasure” expressed in doing the will of His Father, and have yielded themselves to Him.
What can we say then, beloved, to these things? Shall we not say, “Amen” to the Apostle’s prayer in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12? “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power: that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Adapted from F. G. Patterson, Words of Truth