Peace Delayed

In Jesus on earth, God beheld One in whom He could find pleasure, anticipative pleasure one may say: "I am well pleased." What an answer to anyone who would lower the glory of the Blessed One by insinuating a life of sin-bearing! Sin-bearing involves the displeasure of God, as is solemnly seen at the cross. What a change for the blessed Jesus there. No opened heavens, no Father's voice, but three hours of (to us) impenetrable darkness and abandonment of God. He cried in the daytime but was not heard, in the night season and was not silent. He was alone, forsaken, because bearing sin. But sin-bearing is not seen at Jordan, nor anywhere else during His path till the cross was reached. There and there alone He had to do with sin; there He suffered for our sins.
Not only do we see the Father's delight in Him shown out on the occasion we are considering, but there was the anointing with the Holy Spirit. The meat offering of old was mingled with oil, and the unleavened cake was anointed with oil when made (Lev. 2.) This was a type of Christ begotten by the power of the Spirit and anointed as man on earth by the Spirit as here. He did not need to wait until the accomplishment of His sacrifice before the Spirit could be conferred upon Him. He was owned as Son and the Spirit descended because of the perfection of His Person and of the divine pleasure in Him.
How far otherwise it is with ourselves. We are brought through grace into the place of sons; we are owned as such and the Spirit has been given as the seal of the relationship (Gal. 4.) But the ground is the accomplished work of Christ. The gift of the Spirit to the saints is the expression of divine delight in Christ and His work.