Luke 10

Our Lord continued to use an increasing number of disciples in extending His kingdom. To send forth seventy-two men in pairs seems to be quite a number. How many more than that is the Lord sending out today? By the same power and provision that He exercised so long ago in a very limited geographical area, our powerful Redeemer is now sending people all over the world. They go with abilities that are not their own, and they speak words of blessing and judgment that only God can fulfill. They should be received like angels from heaven, because they are representatives of the kingdom of God.

Nonetheless, people do not always receive God happily, and they will often treat His representatives with the disrespect that they have for Him. Jesus here speaks words of judgment upon towns where He had performed many amazing miracles. These places have a duty to respond to the messenger of God appropriately. The only way to show our dedication to God for the great things He has done for His people is to more seriously repent of our sins and to follow Him. To reject the disciples of Jesus is to reject Jesus, and to reject Jesus is to reject the Father who sent Him.

When the seventy-two returned from their mission they were greatly encouraged, for they had seen first-hand that the power of the kingdom of God was able to overrule the power of spiritual darkness as these men exercised divine authority over demons. Jesus affirms this with the exciting phrase, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.” They do have authority from Jesus to do these amazing deeds of conquest over a spiritual adversary that they cannot even see. Yet this is not to be the cause of their greatest rejoicing. It is their election by God that should thrill their hearts. That comes first. They have been chosen by Him to believe and to follow Jesus (except for the one who will betray Him). Their names are written in heaven. Jesus rejoices in the fact that He and the Father are working out their plan, not with the proud and the wise, but with those who are like little children. All of this is for the glory of the Father and the Son in accord with God’s great plan of grace, in all of their marvelous power and knowledge.

This plan of grace is not the natural thought of men. People know that eternal life has something to do with commandment-keeping, but they miss the special office of the Messiah in His necessary leadership of perfect obedience. Here we have One who is not merely showing us the way. He is doing what needs to be done in our name. We would only keep the Law by finding some way to minimize it. When we hear that we are to love our neighbors, it is natural for us to want to raise the question, “Who is my neighbor?”

God the Son saw us from heaven in our great spiritual weakness, when others would only walk by and leave us for dead. He came to us with compassion. He has bound up our wounds by His willingness to take wounds upon Himself for us on the cross. He has brought us everything we need for life, and healed us of our sin sickness. We have a new heart, and from that new life of grace, we are to show forth good fruits of mercy to others. He is the Good Samaritan. He has been merciful to us beyond measure. We are to go and do likewise. Those who have some other way to God beyond this way of divine substitution have not yet discovered the resources of divine mercy that would enable them to do something other than consistently pass by on the other side of the road, if not in body, at least in the lack of love that characterizes our dead hearts.

Even for those who have come to love Jesus Christ, it is very hard for us to rightly understand the place of works in our life. Our Lord was not against good works. The cross would have been emptied of its meaning if Christ had not devoted Himself to love and good works that are the fulfillment of the Law. Furthermore, He did give to one who inquired about the way to inherit eternal life an answer that had some doing in it; some summary statement of the heart of the Ten Commandments, followed by the instruction to do this and live. Jesus loves obedience to God. He loves it so much that He wants to grant that obedience to us in our moral ineptitude and foolishness. This love cost Him His life.

Yet we also know that the best way for us is not to lead with our own obedience, but to cultivate an obedience that follows from something better. We need to choose Him as the better portion, like Mary, of Mary and Martha. Martha was doing a good thing in caring for others. But Mary chose the good portion. That would not be taken away from her. There is a question here of what is first. Our Lord is first; His obedience, His sacrifice, His love, His teaching on the Kingdom, His provision of every resource, His Word, His knowledge, His power, all of these things are first. Then we follow with the fruits of a life that knows the One who is first, and trusts that He will even supply the good things that will follow next.