IS GOD’S GOOD PLEASURE IN MAN NOW?
OR
TAKE HEED UNTO THYSELF
God once found His “good pleasure” in one solitary Man walking this earth! Three times He declared it. There are many men walking the earth today, as there were also then, and scripture speaks of them. It says: “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked”, 1 John 2: 6. How many of us are walking like Christ?
It cannot be either a vague or an unsuited question therefore for any one, Has God His good pleasure now in me as a man? We should ever keep before us that word of exhortation (so suited to these days) given by Paul to Timothy, “Take heed unto thyself”. It is so peculiarly suitable to these days, because it delivers from occupation with other men—both the heterodox and the orthodox—and puts us in immediate relation to God. It seeks for God that in me there should be the display of Christ. The Holy Ghost is down here and dwells in us to that end, that what delights the heart of God may come before Him!
God found His good pleasure in Christ’s testimony to God, as a Man on earth, that is, in what He said and did, and not only in what He was. This is the point I desire to dwell a little on—what Christ did, when, as a result, the good pleasure of God in Him was immediately made known.
Three times God testified of His delight in Christ and in what Christ did as a Man upon the earth: at His birth, at His baptism, and at His transfiguration.
He came to do God’s will, and when He came upon this scene to do the will of God, and was born into it, His language was, “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me”, Heb 10: 5. Heaven’s response was “Good pleasure in man”! He was born, and life was here in Him in the midst of death. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. He took up all the activities of life here amongst men, where death had come in and had reigned. In the midst of it appeared a life wholly pleasing to God, and if by the man Adam came death, by the Man Christ Jesus also came the life. Heaven testified to it and to the activities of life, as seen in Him who thus came, so delighting to the heart of God! Jesus spoke by His everyday life among men, and this was heard and seen in that life—I do always those things that please God.
The next occasion on which we find God testifying to His good pleasure in Christ, is at His baptism. Christ registered, in this act, His testimony amongst men as One fulfilling all righteousness, that there is nothing in the first man fallen for God! That “the axe is” therefore “laid unto the root of the trees”, Luke 3: 9. This was the truth, announced for the first time on earth to and among men, and announced in grace was grateful to the heart of God! Heaven opened, and God declared, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased”, Luke 3: 22!
Now we come to the third occasion. He was transfigured before them, that is, the moment came when what God had always seen in Christ should be declared to men. On this occasion it is not the life moving amidst a scene of death that is before the eye of God. Nor is it the announcement of the total unsuitability of every other kind of man to Him. It is more. It is, I believe, what God saw in Him in the inward perfection of His being here as Man. Jesus has thus to be seen alone. All other men must disappear for God, however renowned. There were displayed in Him, as the beloved Son, all those moral perfections in the power of the Holy Ghost which delight the heart of God now in man, and which will cause Him to delight in man to all eternity! The perfection of man is seen in Christ on the mount of transfiguration—body, soul and spirit. All who are there are, by the voice of heaven, pointed to Him, in whom all this perfection is seen. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”, and it is added, “Hear ye him”, Matt 17: 5!
My reader, is there not something for us to learn in these three declarations, setting forth, I think, what God found not only in the Person but in the testimony of Christ? Has this testimony been set forth in you and in your history and in mine? A new race of man, as a new creation in Christ Jesus (and of which Christ is the Head), is on earth today, and to which you belong if you are a believer. In their persons, that is in what God has made them in Him, they are perfect before Him. “He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified”, Heb 10: 14. But have we as Christians so put on Christ, and so taken up, each in his measure, these three that we are making three distinct announcements among men? 1. There are the activities of that life which is ours. Is it seen? “Lay hold on that which is really life”, 1 Tim 6: 19 NT. 2. The continuous declaration, begun in baptism, that there is no fruit for God in the natural man, notwithstanding all his pretensions. 3. And while waiting the moment of the fashioning of this body to “his body of glory”, are we becoming morally transfigured amongst men, so that what always came before God in perfection in Christ as man is seen in some little and feeble measure in us?
I have no doubt of God’s good pleasure in man today—Christ having become a man. I have no doubt that it takes all the saints on earth today to set forth Christ, and what God saw in Him! But let us not attempt to set aside what is individual—“To him that overcometh” the blessing comes, and there is the fact that God desires to see Christ (that is, the traits of Christ) in each of His saints. And while we admit that the Holy Ghost is here, and will seek to effect this in each of us, may we each covet that, by the power of the Holy Ghost, there may be that which is pleasing to God seen today in one man to His eternal praise. Amen !
From Helps for the Poor of the Flock—vol 8, 1903
