Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 16 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are reading from Romans 1:3-4:

Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

You know, if you have been following along, that we are taking our time. We are going extremely slow, you could say, but that means we are trying to be very careful to make sure we understand what God is saying here. We are taking extra time because I know this is a difficult doctrine or teaching to a good number of people. Hopefully, among them will be a few that will seriously check these things out.

We are going to continue now. In our last study, we looked at Matthew 3:16-17:

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

We discussed the spiritual meaning of that, and then we saw that there was a similar declaration made by God the Father on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17. It says in Matthew 17:5:

While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

So we spent some time talking about how this is similar and why it is using the same language used in Matthew 3. In Matthew 3, when Jesus came up out of the water, it is pointing to His resurrection from the dead. Going into the river Jordan is a figure of being under the wrath of God or being in death or the grave or hell. When He came up, it was a continuing figure in that parable of resurrection. And following His coming up, there was the Spirit, just as it said in Romans 1 that He was declared to the Son of God with power, and how “power” has to do with the Holy Spirit’s work, which has to do with the energizing work of the Holy Spirit to accomplish salvation and to fulfill the will of God in the lives of those He has saved.

So Christ had died (at the foundation of the world), and the spiritual meaning of the baptism by John was of Him coming up or being resurrected, and the Spirit at that point descended upon Him with power, and the Father making the declaration, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” There is the declaration of sonship and, accompanying that it is the statement that the Father is well pleased.

Likewise, in Matthew 17 on the Mount of Transfiguration, we discussed how Christ was showing forth His resurrected body that He had received at the foundation of the world. He was shining forth and transfigured before them, so that was His resurrected body. And, by the way, that is the only time in the Gospels that we read of Jesus being transfigured in that way and, therefore, it was appropriate for the Father to, once again, make that declaration because Christ had originally received that resurrected body when He came up from the depths of “hell” or “death” at the point of the foundation of the world. He rose up in a new resurrected spiritual body, the body that we will receive that will be like His, according to 1John 3 in the first few verses.

So Christ put off that body to be born of the Virgin Mary and to enter into the human race. Of course, He could not have gone about with a body that was shining with the brilliance of the sun and lead a normal earthly life and perform all the things the Father had sent Him to do. It was necessary to put off that glorious body and take an earthly body, but for that instant on the Mount of Transfiguration, He revealed it. And, again, the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This means that the declaration of God in Matthew 3:16-17 and the declaration of God in Matthew 17:5 are declarations that are in agreement in pinpointing the resurrection of Christ at the foundation of the world. That is the only way He could have that resurrected body to show forth, and then, immediately, He went back to that earthly body on the Mount of Transfiguration. He returned to that body and continued on with His ministry.

In both instances, He is said to be the beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased, and that language is reminiscent of what we read in Ephesians 1 where God is talking about His magnificent salvation program. It says in Ephesians 1:3-5:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

We will come back to this, but for now we will pause to consider. We know and are familiar with these Scriptures. They reveal much of the mystery of God’s salvation program regarding how He saves, whom He saves, and the manner in which He saves, and how it is all of God and He gets all the glory. It is a salvation program of election and predestination. We are familiar with that, and we are also familiar with the statement, “according to the good pleasure of his will.” That is, God chose certain individuals to be adopted or predestinated, as it says in verse 3: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” So when others ask, “Why did God choose Jacob, and not choose Esau?”, you and I and many others have answered, “It was according to the good pleasure of His will. That is all the Bible tells us.” There was no particular reason, and it was not because one had done good and one had done evil. God made the choice before either one had done good or bad. So, basically, we have understood that if it was according to the good pleasure of His will, then God just chose Jacob because He had to choose someone, and He chose him.

However, there is much more to it than that. And, of course, we are not surprised at that, but there is much more. He has adopted us as children into Jesus according to the good pleasure of His will. And the word translated as “good pleasure” is very similar to “well pleased,” as when God said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Actually, if we look up the word translated as “good pleasure,” it is Strong’s #2107. It is one word, a compound word, and if you break it up, it would literally be “good pleasing,” so the translators translated it as “good pleasure.” The word we read in Matthew 3:17 as “well pleased,” is a translation of one Greek word that is also a compound word, #2106. So, “good pleasure” is #2107, and “well pleased” is #2106, and they are derived from the same two words that form this compound word, so they are very much the same when it says, “according to the good pleasure of His will.” It could be read as, “according to the well pleasing of his will.” We would probably have to word it differently so it would not sound so awkward, but it is basically saying the same thing.

God is revealing to us that His acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice and the declaration of Him as His Son and firstborn from the dead was “well pleasing” to Him. That is what we get from the baptism by John in the river Jordan; that is what we get from the Mount of Transfiguration: that declaration that Jesus is His beloved Son in whom God is well pleased, because He was declared to be the Son at His resurrection (as coming up out of water), and as He showed forth His resurrected spiritual body that was seen on the Mount of Transfiguration, and it is teaching us of the Father’s good pleasure at that point, because payment had been made and the sins of all those predestinated unto salvation were paid for in the Person of Christ. They were washed away, and the “baptism” was accomplished by Jesus because He no longer bore those sins as He rose up from the dead. And the people of God had their sins washed away, as far as the East is from the West. They were cast into the sea, as it were, and that is the picture we see in Micah 7. He has thrown our transgressions into the sea because that is the “baptism.” Again, that is the historical parable that Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan portrayed. And this resulted in the whole company of God’s elect being received by the Father “according to his good pleasure.” That is why this declaration is made in Ephesians 1:5:

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Now let us read the next verse in Ephesians 1:6:

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

Do you see that? Verse 5 speaks of God being well pleased (His good pleasure), and verse 6 tells us why: because He has made us accepted in the beloved: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” We see both in Ephesians 1, except the difference is it is not so much hidden, although God always hides truth. But it is more “in plain sight,” if I can use that kind of language, because He is not referring to 33 A. D. He is not speaking of what Jesus did at the cross in 33 A. D., is He? He is referring to “where” or “when” or “at what point” He was well pleased. Well, it told us back in Ephesians 1:4:

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world…

This is referring to eternity past and then it speaks of the good pleasure of His will wherein He made us accepted in the beloved. And, of course, that was the beloved Son, and it had to do with that point in eternity when Christ rose from the dead.

All these passages identify with and are in agreement with Romans 1:4, the passage we are carefully looking at, where Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power…by the resurrection from the dead. It is wonderfully harmonious when we fit together all these elements regarding the firstborn from the dead teaching; He brought His firstbegotten Son into the world; the Son created the world, so He had already died and risen and received this declaration as the Son of God before the world was, and that is what Ephesians 1:3-6 is confirming to us. God is well pleased. It was all accomplished according to His good pleasure.

Why did God save Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David and all the Old Testament saints? It was by the good pleasure of His will. Psalm 51 is the Psalm the Lord moved David to write after he fell into grievous sin with Bathsheba, and we read David’s plea: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Then it says in Psalm 51:16:

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

In the Old Testament, the word for “pleased” or “pleasure” is also translated as “delightest.” I do not know if that is the same word here, but I know the word “please” is translated as “delight” in Isaiah 42:1.

It goes on to say in Psalm 51:17:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

This is telling us that God is not pleased with or delighteth in animal sacrifices, as Hebrews 10 reveals that they never could take away sin. But the sacrifices God delights in are the sacrifices of God. That is what it says, does it not? Whose sacrifice? And when did God make sacrifice? Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It is no coincidence that God stipulated in His Law that lambs were to be killed and sacrificed because they illustrated what Christ had already done at the foundation of the world, so it was the sacrifices of God (the Lord Jesus Christ) that provided salvation for His people. It went on to say in verse 17 that “a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,” and all that is true of the Lord Jesus when He was crushed and when He died as the Father separated from Him and forsook Him when He was bearing our sins. And that all had to happen at the foundation of the world. Then it says in Psalm 51:18:

Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

“Do good in they good pleasure,” and it is the good pleasure mentioned in Ephesians 1, which says we are adopted into the family of God according to the good pleasure of God’s will. So here is a request, and it was true of David and true of all the Old Testament saints before Christ went to the cross (in 33 A. D.). They were saved according to God’s good pleasure.

Why did God have good pleasure? He did not take pleasure in the sacrifices that they were performing. What gave the Father good pleasure? What pleased Him? And exactly what was He well pleased with in doing good in His good pleasure to Zion? And Zion is another names for Jerusalem and, in this case, it would be “Jerusalem above,” that consist only of God’s elect. How is it possible if Christ had not yet gone to the cross to make the atonement?

It went on to say in verse 18: “…build thou the walls of Jerusalem.” And that is Hebrew parallelism, so the “good pleasure unto Zion” is equivalent to building the walls of Jerusalem, which are the “walls of salvation.”

Then it says in Psalm 51:19:

Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

It points to His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased. This pleasure that took place long before Jesus entered the world in history, born of the Virgin, and long before He went to the cross.

We read in Isaiah 53:10:

Yet it pleased JEHOVAH to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of JEHOVAH shall prosper in his hand.

It pleased JEHOVAH to bruise Him. Of course, Isaiah 53 is Messianic, and anyone can see that. When we read that He was despised and rejected of men and He was a man of sorrows, and then it says in Isaiah 53:4:

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

It is written in the “past tense.” He was despised, rejected, carried our sorrows, and He was wounded, was bruised, and even the chastisement of our peace was upon Him (past tense). It pleased JEHOVAH to bruise Him (past tense) and to put Him to grief (past tense). And that is the question: “When did He put Him to grief?” The answer overwhelmingly points to the foundation of the world. Sometimes people say, “Well, it is a doctrine built on Revelation 13:8 and a misreading of it,” because they just listen to their theologians that say that Christ died “in principle,” and that is why God made that statement. And they stop their ears and turn away from further discussion by dismissing things and saying, “Well, I trust the theologians, and I trust the churches that have been teaching this for centuries.”

And how somebody can trust the churches, I do not know, especially when they have so many errors built into their confessions and creeds and theological positions that can be shown to be in error. But there are many that do trust the churches and, yet, they are missing so much because the evidence is far greater than just Revelation 13:8. It is Hebrews 4:3. It is Matthew 25:34 which says the kingdom was prepared from the foundation of the world. It is Romans 1:4 and all the information we have been discussing for the last several hours, because we are in study #16, and we have already put several studies together on this, and each study is about a half hour long, so we have been spending hours looking at the “firstborn from the dead,” and the fact that “without the shedding of blood there can be no remission,” and so forth. This is a doctrine that has tremendous proof and confirmation from the Bible alone. Again, and again, and again, it shows the error and the erroneous position that cannot be Biblically held to regarding the doctrine that Christ paid for sin in 33 A. D. There is no way.

That is probably one reason why there may be some that are secretly listening to EBible Fellowship, but they do not call or try to enter into discussions on Facebook about this because they cannot support their position. There is no counsel against the Lord, basically, and they have a position that is against the Lord and the Word of God.