Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2409
“And lo, a voice came from Heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:17.
A CERTAIN divine, who had taken this verse as his text, spoke upon it under these three heads. “First,” he said, “here is a great pulpit—the voice was from Heaven. Secondly, here is a great Preacher—it was the Father who spoke as only God can speak. And, thirdly, here is a great sermon—‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’”
I do not think that I could arrange my thoughts better than under these three divisions, that is to say, if I intended to preach at any length from the whole passage that I have taken as my text. It is from Heaven that this voice comes. It is the voice of the Father, Himself, that speaks. And what the voice says is worthy to be treasured in the hearts of us all. “This—this Man who has just come up dripping from the River Jordan, upon whom the Spirit, like a dove, descended and rested—this is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
But, on this occasion I am going to say, first, that the Father was well pleased with Christ. Secondly, I want to ask the question, are we well pleased with Him? And then to answer, on behalf of many of you, “Yes, that we are! For we also can say of the Lord Jesus that with Him we are, indeed, well pleased.”
I. The first division is in the text itself—THE FATHER WAS WELL PLEASED WITH HIS BELOVED SON.
I find that the translation would be even more accurate if the passage read, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I was well pleased.” Let us begin, then, with that thought—the Father had been well pleased with His Son. The past, rather than the present, though not to the exclusion of the present, seems to be intended in the Greek word here used—“This is My beloved Son, in whom I was well pleased.” That is to say, “Before He was born here among men, before His first infant cry was heard at Bethlehem, before He was obedient to His parents at Nazareth, before He toiled in the carpenter’s shop, before He had reached the prime of His Manhood and was able to come forth and to be dedicated to His sacred ministry in the waters of Baptism—before that—I was well pleased with Him.”
Yes, and we must go further back than that, for He “was” before He was here! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” In those far-distant ages when the worlds were made, when matter and mind were spoken into existence by the creative Word of God, the Father took counsel with His beloved and equal Son—Jesus Christ as well as the Father was Infinite Wisdom—He balanced the clouds, weighed the hills, appointed the throbs of the tide and kindled the light of the sun! He was the Father’s Well-Beloved before the earth was! Yes, and in those primeval days, when as yet there was nothing but God—if your imagination can get back to the time when our great sun and the moon and stars slept in the mind of God like unborn forests in an acorn cup—in that eternity when there was no time, no day, no space, nor anything but God, the All-in-All, you will realize that even then the Only-Begotten was with the Father and in Him the Father was well pleased, for as God is eternal in His being, He is eternal in the trinity of His Person! The Triune Jehovah is the theme of praise both on earth and in Heaven! As we have often sung—
“Holy, Holy, Holy Thee, One Jeho vah e vermore, Father, Son, and Spirit! We, Dust and ashes, would adore! Lightly by the world esteemed,
From that world by You redeemed, Sing we here, with glad accord, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord! Holy, Holy, Holy! All Hea ven’s triumphant choir shall sing When the ransomed nations fall At the footstool of their King! Then shall saints and seraphim, Harps and voices, swell one hymn, Round the throne with full accord, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord.”
We cannot fully comprehend the great doctrine of the Divine Filiation and the less we pry into it, the better. But certain it is that the Sonship of Christ does not imply any second position in order of time. As the Father was always the Father, so the Son was always the Son. Before all worlds and time, itself, He was with the Father, co-equal and co-eternal with Him. Now, dear Friends, a love which has endured forever—which, even now, is eternal—since it had no beginning and can have no end, this is a mighty love, indeed! And it helps to make us wonder all the more that God should so love the world as to give His only-begotten Son, freighted with such love as this, to come down here and live, and die, that He might save a guilty race that had only just begun—an infant race of a few thousand years. It will forever be a marvel that the Father would have been willing to sacrifice the Eternal and Ever-Blessed for the sake of such worthless creatures as these! Let your minds and hearts adoringly dwell, then, on that first view of the text, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I was well pleased.”