Isaiah 53:10.
God's pleasure could never be found in sinful man, but when the Lord Jesus came into the world, as a babe, the heavenly host praised God, saying, "Glory to God in the highest … good pleasure in men." God's good pleasure is proclaimed in relation to Christ; it is found in men because Christ, His only-begotten Son had become Man.
The pleasure of the Lord did not prosper in the hand of Adam; whatever pleasure God had in Adam innocent was soon lost through the sin that entered into the world by the first man, and brought ruin and death into the fair creation. How deep the dishonour to the Name of the Loan sin wrought, and what grief to His heart, as He beheld the wickedness of man on the earth, "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually." Instead of pleasure God was deeply grieved, so that He repented of making man on the earth.
Still there was pleasure for God in those who trusted Him, for, if "without faith it is impossible to please Him," there were men of faith, even before the flood. Indeed, it is recorded of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, "Before his translation he has the testimony that he pleased God" (Hebrews 11:5-6). Such as Abel, and later Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Job, David, Daniel, and many other men of faith and piety brought pleasure to the heart of God. They were all failing men, men of like passions with us, but in them there was a response to God which gave Him delight. There were stains upon the lives of some of these men of faith which did not give God pleasure, and these are faithfully recorded for our learning, but God can deal with what dishonours Him in His saints, and even in the discipline of His children God can produce in them that which gives Him pleasure. How God's heart would find joy in the repentance of David, and in the outpourings of his heart to God recorded for us in Psalm 51.
But when we come to the Son of God all is perfection! The pleasure of the Lord is unmingled in Him. Whether we view Him as coming into the world, or in any of the many wonderful scenes brought before us in the Gospels, He yields to God the Father unbroken pleasure. Even for ourselves what joy there is in contemplating Christ in this world Sometimes we sing, "Each thought of Thee doth constant yield unchanging, fresh delight." If His life is this for us, what must it have been for the Father, Who beheld every moment of it, Who knew every thought, desire and feeling of His heart, and Who could enter perfectly into all that His Son was for His will and glory. And what can we say about the death of the Lord Jesus? Was there pleasure there for the heart of God? When we view Him as the true Burnt Offering, and think of the words, "Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour" (Eph. 5:2), we realise that there was deep pleasure to God in the giving up of Himself in love for the carrying out of God's will.
But the pleasure of the Lord is prospering in His hand now where He sits at the right hand of God The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand, and of all that the Father gave to the Son, nothing will be lost, all will be raised up in the last day. It seemed at the cross as if all was over, as if the Son had lost all: but all that the Father gave Him was to be carried over to the risen side of death where it could never be lost; and already there are those associated with Christ on the risen side of death, who have His life, and whom He has brought to the Father. At the present time the Lord Jesus has a great work to do for those who are blessed in Him before the Father's face, and this work is prospering in His hand, a work that is for the pleasure of God. What pleasure there is for the Father as the Son declares the Father's Name to His brethren, and as in the midst of the church He sings praise unto Him.
Very soon there will be the public display before the whole, vast universe that the pleasure of the Lord is prospering in the hand of Christ. According to the counsels of God, Christ will be the Head and centre of the heavens and the earth, and all will be in His hand. He will be the universal administrator in that day, and nothing will be allowed to exist in the world for the dishonour of God as it is today. Men in high places exercise their own wills without the slightest reference to the will of God; it will not be so in the coming day. Every position of authority in this world will be held by those that are loyal to Christ, so that the pleasure of God will be done. In Christ God has One Who has been proved to the utmost, and in every circumstance in which He has been found He has brought constant pleasure to God; and it is to Him that God has entrusted the administration of the world to come. What pleasure there will be for God then; all unrighteousness will be put down; peace will pervade the whole scene; fear will no longer possess the hearts of men, and prosperity will spread throughout the redeemed earth. No doubt it is this that is specially before the Prophet in Isaiah 53. Yet how blessed for us to be occupied with Christ, wherever He is brought before us, to find in Him the One in Whom the pleasure of God is found.