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"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). It is upon a part of that statement that I want to dwell: "it is your Father's good pleasure". There is a very great, a vast, opening out of that fragment in the later part of the New Testament - later, that is, so far as our arrangement is concerned, not later actually in date, for the Gospels were written much about the same time as many of the epistles. But when we turn to such fuller revelation as we have in Paul's letter to the Ephesians we have this: "having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" (Eph. 1:5). "Your Father's good pleasure"; "the good pleasure of his will". And then again: "making known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ" (Eph. 1:9,10). And again, in Philippians 2:13, we have this: "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure". The good pleasure of the Lord is a tremendous thing. "To give you the kingdom"; "foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will"; "making known unto us the mystery of his will" (how great a thing that is!) "according to his good pleasure"; and He is 'working in us to will and to work according to His good pleasure'. And yet it is not the object that is with me for this moment. It is the fact of His good pleasure. We have recently passed through a season of the year in which the old Authorised translation of Luke 2:14 has been very much used: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men". There are different views as to how the original ought to be translated here; the renderings are various. "Men in whom he is well pleased", or His "goodwill toward men". I do not think it matters very much, because the upshot of it all, and the very accompaniments and associations of that great event, all combine to speak of His goodwill. And, after all, was not that the beginning of the Gospel? - and the Gospel is "good news". It is the spirit, the attitude, the mind of God toward us that is the thing of importance - His goodwill. |
