God Was Perfectly Satisfied in Jesus

God could no more rest in anything here, than Noah's dove could find a rest for her feet amidst the wrath and destruction that deluged the world. But Jesus comes in and here—on this earth where honor to God was lacking—He glorified God. When God's eye rested upon Jesus, He was perfectly satisfied. Till that moment God had not seen anything in this earth of which He could say, as of itself, in this "I am well pleased." He had gone on, it is true, dealing with man in love and grace, but He could find nothing wherein to rest. "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one," etc., was what God saw when He looked down from heaven. But when Jesus was searched throughout, nothing was found but perfect love and perfect devotedness to God. Even when He was forsaken of God, He still justifies Him—"Thou art holy." Had it ended there, had it been only Christ's own perfectness, all the result would have been to show out the more clearly our sinfulness and ruin by the contrast. But according to "counsel of peace," He gave Himself. Peace Was ever His; it was for us that He "made peace through the blood of His cross," and thus is He, unto God, "a sweet savor" of rest for us.
Our peace is established in what He did, and "counsel of peace" is between God and Jesus. Jesus has accomplished that which God purposed towards us. For this it was needful that He should bear our sins, and this He did as the sin offering. He was made "sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
In the sacrifices, when the offerer laid his hand upon the head of the victim, there was in that act the complete identification of himself with the victim. Now there are two great characters in the sacrifice of Christ. The one is that of the burnt offering; the other is that of the sin offering. We lay our hands on Him as the burnt offering, thus identifying ourselves with Him. "Accepted in the beloved," all His perfectness, all His "sweet savor" unto God is ours. But then as to the sin offering, it is just the reverse with the hand laid upon the victim; it became identified with my sins, charged with my guilt.
Well, beloved, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus had this double character. He has completely accomplished the purpose of God, all that which was in "counsel of peace." This "counsel of peace" was not between me and God, though I have, as the fruit of it, the enjoyment of the peace. I had not to do with it in any sense. It was between them both. All is done, and Jesus, both the accomplisher and the accomplishment, in proof that all is finished, has sat down on the throne of God.