‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’
How must Jesus have felt as He heard those words?
Can you even imagine how it would feel to have those words spoken from the heavens over you by God?
‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’
I feel such longing when I hear these, ‘If only I could hear these spoken over me too!’
The wonderful news is that Jesus came so that we too could be invited into this beautiful relationship with our Father God. This is staggering and unutterably precious. We’ll glimpse at just three facets of this glorious diamond of truth:
First, we see the bright shining of our Father God’s delight in His child, Jesus.
Second, we are called to be plunged, baptised, into this same delighted love of our Father
Third, because of this, we are all formed together into Jesus’ beautiful family, over which our Father speaks:
You are my children, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
We begin with a Father’s delight in Jesus. Here is Fatherhood and sonship in all its glory defined against all stereotypes and caricatures. Here the nature of Father’s heart is revealed, and the nature of true sonship revealed.
When Jesus invites us to call God, ‘Our Father’, He sets the terms, and shows what being a Father, and being a Son, are really meant to be.
Here all misconceptions are shattered - this idea of Fatherhood is not one of aggression, or one of anger, or one of disappointment. Every horrible distortion of the name ‘Father’ is broken apart by the voice of God:
The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic.
And the voice of the Lord shatters apart every lie. For here is what God our Father says to His Son:
‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’
Instead of talking riddles, we see an open, clear, unequivocal affirmation of identity, ‘You are my Son’. Here is a Father who desires His children to know who they are, not leaving Jesus to second-guess by riddles. He says simply, ‘You are my Son’ - and that is settled.
Instead of coldness, we see an open affirmation of love, ‘You are my Son, whom I love’. Here is a Father who openly proclaims His love for His children, rather than hiding it away.
Instead of anger and disappointment, we see a wonderful proclamation, “with you I am well pleased”. Here is a Father who delights in His Son!
Why was Father well-pleased with Jesus?
There are a multitude of reasons, as Jesus is the paradigm of perfect beauty in every way. Yet here in this passage there is a particular focus - and that is God the Father being pleased in who Jesus is. Note this is just at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, so it’s before He did any big public work, before His teaching, before the Cross. And yet before everything still His Father is absolutely adamant, “with you I am well pleased”.
This is a Father who is well-pleased in His Son because of who He is.
The heart of Jesus revealed to be the same heart as the Father. As Jesus Himself proclaims in John 14, “Whoever has seen me has seen The Father”. The idea of Jesus being friendly and God the Father being angry is a grave error - for their heart is exactly the same, one of overflowing love, gentleness and joy in doing good.
What’s more, God the Father’s words are not on their own. He communicates with His Son in more than words, more than a message, but His very own felt presence, His own Spirit - represented here by the beautiful form of a Dove.
So the nature of God’s Spirit is revealed. He is revealed to be firstly the Spirit of His Father. Indeed, by His Spirit, the Father makes His home in a human being, our bodies being called temples.
Jesus, being both fully human and fully God, had His Father’s Spirit in all its fullness. So the Spirit is revealed to also be the Spirit of Christ. That’s why He is said to be the One who can baptise in the Holy Spirit.
So here we see move onto the staggering truth of where we come in. We are called to be plunged by Jesus into this same delighted love of our Father that He has always known.
Jesus baptises in the Holy Spirit. The powerful image here is, just as Jesus was baptised by John by being plunged into the water of the river Jordan, we are called to be plunged, surrounded and immersed on all sides, in the Spirit of God, the Spirit who flows from Father and Son.
So Jesus plunges us into sharing in His sonship - into this same precious Father-Son relationship that is so full of delighted love.
In Romans 8, the Spirit is called the ‘Spirit of adoption’ - which means that to receive the Spirit, to be plunged into this river of Holy Spirit, is to be adopted as a son and daughter of our Father God, into the same love and good pleasure that Jesus knew at His baptism.
As Jesus amazingly proclaims in John 15,
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
The Spirit is the embrace of the Father as His child.
And, in turn, the Spirit is the embrace of Jesus of us as His brother or sister, sharing in His own sonship.
Like water surrounds us on all sides, like a perfect embrace that covers every part of us in the closest possible way, the Holy Spirit embraces us all around when Jesus baptises us into Him.
We are therefore included in the Father’s affirmation:
‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’
But why is He pleased with us? When I hear this, I am not immediately convinced… How can I be pleasing to God when I know how much darkness exists on the inside of me? Do I have to pretend I am not really that bad in order to imagine God being pleased with me? Do I have to radically lower His standards, or hide the worst parts of me?
No - we are free to be absolutely known by our Father God. His heart is perfect. And He will, little by little, make my heart just like His - even if I am still so far from that right now.
Yet in the meanwhile, while I am still so deeply imperfect, what then?
We often define ourselves only by what we do. But there is a reality even more core than our actions - and that is who we are, our deepest and most profound identity. And baptism, Jesus plunging of us into His Spirit of adoption, is a radically identity-transforming work. It is like dying a piece of fabric - once we are immersed in the Spirit, we are forever changed in colour. We are surrounded by, and embraced by the Spirit of adoption, like water all around us, leaving no part of us untouched. And so we enter into the sonship of Jesus, and our identity becomes a child of God.
And so these words are spoken over us, just as they were over Jesus:
You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
You are my daughter, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
He is pleased most fundamentally not with what we have done, but in who we are, in who He has made us to be. Like the perfect Father, He is pleased simply because we are His children! He knows we can do nothing without Him. But He is so pleased we have been made His children forever!
No wonder Jesus says that “there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
This shuts the mouth of our pride and stubborn self-reliance, for we have done nothing to earn this - it is entirely the work of God. Jesus baptises us into this new identity as fellow children of our heavenly Father - we do nothing but let Him plunge us in! And He rejoices in doing this work!
This changes everything, for by this plunging into the Spirit of adoption, we are welcomed into the family of families - the Family of delighted love compared to which all other families are shadows. I’m not talking about a specific church group here, but something far deeper and more profound - the worldwide, time-wide family of all those adopted into Jesus’ sonship.
There is only one Family of Christ. We are all made into a unity so profound that, as 1 Cor. 12:13 proclaims:
For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
This family has the same heart of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the family resemblance. We all have our Father’s eyes. We are made into the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, and we look like Him more every day, as we are transformed into His image!
All social, age, ethnic, gender, and any other division or segregation existing in the human world are eliminated in this wondrous family:
As Galatians 3 boldly says:
26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
He calls us to hear these words spoken over each one of our brothers and sisters:
You are my son, you are my daughter, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
He is clear that we are His child - there is no umming and erring here - He says, “You ARE my son, you ARE my daughter”. Likewise, He calls us to recognise one another’s adoption as children of God and brothers and sisters of us, in a deeper sense than we have natural siblings, because this brotherhood and sisterhood is sharing in the very sonship of the Son of God.
He is clear of His love for us, saying, “You are my son, you are my daughter, whom I love”. And in the same way, He calls us to know and love one another - love means to actually desire relationship, friendship with one another rather than holding each other at arm’s length. This goes against so many aspects of normal human society - it is radical and wonderful!
Then He says over us, based on who He has made us to be, “with you I am well pleased.” He delights in our identity in who He has made us to be! And so He also calls us to delight in one another’s identity. He calls us to be well-pleased with each other, to be glad that we are siblings in Christ forever. This is so much more than we have ever known. All of human society is divided against one another. We can barely imagine anything else. But it’s not meant to be this way!
This is radical, wonderful love. And it’s not a pipe dream. Jesus means to finish His work amongst us. Togetherness is the destiny of every one of His family. Listen to the beautiful vision of our forever home together in Revelation 21:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’
5 He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’
Yes indeed, these words are trustworthy and true! He is making everything new. We are adopted into this beautiful relationship of children of our heavenly Father, embraced by His Spirit of adoption, sharing in the sonship of Jesus Christ. Our home is together with God!
There is no separation in the end. It dawned on me recently the wonderful reality that when God affirms that there will be no more “mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”, this is indeed referring on one hand to physical pain and suffering. But is is also referring to social and emotional pain. Every sense that we cannot connect with other people, every aspect of social anxiety, awkwardness, and inability to really express ourselves or understand others, will be gone forever. This will be the end of all loneliness!
This is the forever home of the family of our heavenly Father! And He is pleased to do this! Jesus proclaims, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”
He will feel about us all,
You are my children, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
So in this place, our final home, there will be perfect recognition of one another as brothers & sisters - no more exclusion, division, segregation, degrading treatment - only true and beautiful friendship.
In this place, there will be perfect knowledge and love of one another. No more social pain or gnawing uncertainty, anxiety, fear, detachment, brokenness - only love, only desire to be with one another, children in our Father’s arms!
And there will be perfect delight in one another’s identity. We will rejoice forever and thank Jesus for every single person. This will be unforced, and spontaneous, as we will share the Father’s heart for every one of His children.
This vision far exceeds anything the world can offer us. So will we take the hand of our Lord Jesus as He calls to plunge us into the Spirit of adoption? And will we hear the words of our Father God?
I invite you to close your eyes right now. Take yourself to beside a river, sparkling in the beautiful light. You wonder where you are, and see a sign saying that this river is called, ‘The River of Delights’.
Then you turn to your right, and, amazed, see Jesus by your side - for He really is that close! He looks so pleased, so happy - you have never seen anyone that delighted in fact. The warmth of His smile feels like golden sunlight on your face, in your chest. He says He’s going to to baptise you in His own Spirit of sonship. He invites you into the warm embrace of being surrounded by His Spirit like fresh, clean, warm water all around your body and soul.
And as you step in with Him, that initial fear you felt melts away as you see the love in His eyes towards you. So you take the plunge. The gentleness with which He holds you is staggering and melts away all opposition and reluctance still in you. And as you come out of that sparkling water, you hear these words:
You are my son, you are my daughter, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
And all around you these words are being spoken over those who are now brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ forever:
You are my children, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
Image from the wonderful artwork of 'Full of Eyes'