What a blessed passage! what a discerning of the Christ of God set up in counsel ere the world was. (vv. 22-31.)
“I was daily his delight (v. 30). What a secret is there disclosed: that in counsel, before the ages, God found His delight in the place and service of the Son set up in grace for the “Sons of men,” i.e., for sinners. And as the ages unfold themselves, or take their course, this delight of God in Christ, is again and again, and variously expressed.
Take for instance, when the self-confidence of Israel had drawn the Lord to mount Sinai, (the hill of thunder and darkness,) how quickly He returns, so to speak, to Christ; how quickly He leaves the place of law for that of grace, disclosing to Moses the shadows of good things to come; the mystic order and furniture of the tabernacle. And when that tabernacle is reared, when that house is set up which spoke of His grace in Christ-of mercy rejoicing against judgment, with what delight does He enter that house. (See Ex. 40) How the glory so fills it, so appropriates it, as it were entirely to itself, that even Moses cannot enter.
There is something in all that action that bespeaks the depth and perfection of Divine joy at that moment. There is a fervency in the action of the glory taking possession of the tabernacle, that has a fine voice in it, beloved.
He did not seat Himself on the Hill of Law after such a manner. He descended there amid His angels, and darkness and thunder accompanied Him. But there is no expression in all that of personal delight, no token that He was possessing Himself of a loved and desired home. But the tabernacle He makes His own, with a blessed witness that there was His rest forever. Christ, who had been His delight in counsel, ere worlds were, was displayed in that house, was in that house for “the sons of men,” for sinners, and God is therefore entering it with the full witness of personal joy and satisfaction.