The scene is familiar, perhaps too familiar. The Son of God pays a visit to John the Baptist. This is same John the Baptist who has just said that he was not worthy to even attend to Jesus’ feet as a slave (Mk. 1.7). John begrudgingly obliges the Lord Jesus and does in fact baptize him.
It is from here that the heavens open, or more literally, tear apart (this same word is used to explain what happened to the veil in the temple as well as the rocks -Mt. 27.51). And it is here that the Father allows all of those present, and us by way of the Scripture, to hear the type of intertrinitarian affection that has inhabited eternity.
Mark 1.11: And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
The Father is speaking and he is talking to the Son. What does he declare? Among other things he declares his own unique, special, glorious, prevailing, intimate, divine delight in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is both instructive and refreshing to your soul to just sit back and meditate upon this scene: “You Jesus, and You alone are my special and unique Son…it is with and in you that I am right now, and forevermore will be well pleased, delighted and utterly blessed!”
This verbal affection of the Lord Jesus is of course not news to the Savior, he is well aware of this intimacy with his Father; instead the special revelation is for us to consider and marvel at his glory.
So why is the Father’s posture one of ongoing, uninterrupted delight in Jesus? Let me give you some fodder here, and this is by now means exhaustive, for no finite man could ever plumb the depths of this infinite reservoir of divine beauty and glory.
The Father delights in Jesus because of:
His Incarnation—that is his becoming a man (Phil. 2.5-11)
His perfect obedience (Jn. 6.37; 8.29)
His fulfillment of the Law (Matt. 5.17)
His patience with sinners (the gospels)
His firm grip on Scripture (again, the gospels)
His humility (Phil 2.5-11)
His sinlessness (Heb. 4.17)
His love for the broken (Mk. 1.40-45)
His defeat of the devil (1 Jn. 3.8)
His defeat of death (1 Cor. 15.54-58)
His willingness to die for the sheep (Jn. 10.17)
His wrath absorbing, sin atoning, glory vindicating death (Is. 53.10)
His God-centered resolve for the glory of God (Jn. 12.27-28)
His powerful resurrection (Acts 17.30-31; Rom. 1.4)
His ability to keep his sheep (Jn. 6.37)
His second coming (Rev. 19)
His powerful rule over all things (1 Cor. 15.24-27)
His restoration of all things (1 Cor. 15)
His successful rescue and redemption of a sinner like me (Gal. 2.20)
Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Feel free to pile on with glory soaked adoration for this awesome (in the true sense of the word) Savior.