The mission of the seventy follows in chapter 10, a mission important in
its character for the development of the ways of God.
This character is, in fact, different in some respects from that of the
beginning of chapter 9. The mission is founded on the glory of Christ
manifested in chapter 9. This of necessity, settles the question more
decisively of the Lord's relations with the Jews: for His glory came after,
and, as to His human position, was the result of His rejection by the
nation.
This rejection was not yet accomplished: this glory was only revealed to
three of His disciples; so that the Lord still exercised His ministry among
the people. But we see these alterations in it. He insists on that which is
moral and eternal, the position into which it would bring His disciples,
the true effect of His testimony in the world, and the judgment about to
fall upon the Jews. Nevertheless the harvest was great. For love, unchilled
by sin, saw the need through the outward opposition; but there were few
moved by this love. The Lord of the harvest alone could send forth true
labourers.
Already the Lord announces that they are as lambs among wolves. What a
change from the presentation of the kingdom to the people of God! They were
to trust (like the twelve) to the care of the Messiah present on the earth,
and who influenced the heart with divine power. They were to go as the
Lord's labourers, openly avowing their object, not toiling for their food,
but as having claims on His part. Wholly devoted to their work, they were
to salute no one. Time pressed. Judgment was coming. There were those in
Israel who were not children of peace. The remnant would be distinguished
by the effect of their mission on the heart, not yet judicially. But peace
should rest on the children of peace. These messengers exercised the power
gained by Jesus over the enemy, and which He could thus bestow (and this
was much more than a miracle); and they were to declare unto those whom
they visited that the kingdom of God had come nigh unto them. Important
testimony! When the judgment was not executed, it required faith to
recognise it in a testimony. If they were not received, they were to
denounce the city, assuring them that, received or not, the kingdom of God
had come nigh. What a solemn testimony, now that Jesus was going to be
rejected-a rejection that filled up the measure of man's iniquity! It would
be more tolerable for infamous Sodom, in the day that judgment should be
executed, than for that city.
This clearly points out the character of the testimony. The Lord denounces
[see note #30]
the cities in which He had wrought, and assures His disciples that to
reject them in their mission was the same thing as to reject Him, and that,
in rejecting Him, He who had sent Him was rejected-the God of Israel-the
Father. On their return they announce the power that had accompanied their
mission; demons were subject to their word. The Lord replies that in effect
these tokens of power had made present to His mind the full establishment
of the kingdom-Satan cast out entirely from heaven (an establishment of
which these miracles were only a sample); but that there was something more
excellent than this, and in which they might rejoice-their names were
written in heaven. The power manifested was true, its results sure, in the
establishment of the kingdom but something else was beginning to appear-a
heavenly people were dawning, who should have their portion with Him, whom
the unbelief of the Jews and of the world was driving back to heaven.
This very clearly unfolds the position now taken. The testimony of the
kingdom rendered in power, leaving Israel without excuse, Jesus passed into
another position-into the heavenly one. This was the true subject of joy.
The disciples, however, did not yet understand it. But the Person and the
power of Him who was to introduce them into the heavenly glory of the
kingdom, His right to the glorious kingdom of God, have been revealed to
them by the Father. The blinding of human pride, and the Father's grace
towards babes, became Him, who fulfilled the counsels of His sovereign
grace through the humiliation of Jesus, and were in accordance with His
heart who came to fulfil them. Moreover all things were given to Jesus. The
Son was too glorious to be known, save by the Father, who was Himself only
known by the revelation of the Son. To Him must men come. The root of the
difficulty in receiving Him lay in the glory of His Person, who was known
only to the Father, and this action and glory of the Father, which needed
the Son Himself to reveal it. All this was in Jesus there on earth. But He
could tell His disciples in private that, having seen in Him the Messiah
and His glory, they had seen that which kings and prophets had in vain
desired to see. The Father had been proclaimed to them, yet they but little
understood it. In the mind of God it was their portion, realised afterwards
by the presence of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of adoption.
We may remark here, the power of the kingdom bestowed on the disciples;
their enjoyment at that moment (by the presence of the Messiah Himself,
bringing with Him the power of the kingdom which overthrew that of the
enemy) of the sight of those things of which the prophets had spoken; at
the same time the rejection of their testimony, and the judgment of Israel
among whom it was rendered; and, finally, the call of the Lord (while
acknowledging in their work all the power that shall establish the kingdom)
to rejoice, not in the kingdom thus established on earth, but in that
sovereign grace of God who, in His eternal counsels, had granted them a
place and a name in heaven, in connection with their rejection on earth.
The importance of this chapter is evident in this point of view. Luke
constantly brings in the better and unseen part in a heavenly world.
The extent of the dominion of Jesus in connection with this change, and
the revelation of the counsels of God that accompanied it, are given us in
verse 22, as well as the discovery of the relationships and the glory of
the Father and of the Son; at the same time also the grace shewn to the
humble according to the character and the rights of God the Father Himself.
Afterwards we find the development of the change as to moral character. The
teacher of the law desires to know the conditions of eternal life. This is
not the kingdom, nor heaven, but a part of the Jewish apprehension of the
relationship of man with God. The possession of life was proposed to the
Jews by the law. It had, by scriptural developments subsequent to the law,
been discovered to be eternal life, which they then, at least the
Pharisees, attached as such to the observance of that law-a thing possessed
by the glorified in heaven, by the blessed on earth during the millennium,
which we now possess in earthen vessels; which the law, as interpreted by
conclusions drawn from the prophetic books, proposed as the result of
obedience:
[see note #31] "The man that doeth these things shall live by them."
The lawyer therefore asks what it is that he must do. The answer was plain:
the law (with all its ordinances, its ceremonies, all the conditions of
God's government, which the people had broken, and the violation of which
led to the judgment announced by the prophets-judgment that should be
followed by the establishment, on God's part, of the kingdom in grace)-the
law, I say, contained the kernel of the truth in this respect, and
distinctly expressed the conditions of life, if man was to enjoy it
according to human righteousness-righteousness wrought by himself, by which
he himself should live. These conditions were summed up in a very few
words-to love God perfectly, and one's neighbour as oneself. The lawyer
giving this summary, the Lord accepts it and repeats the words of the
Lawgiver: "This do, and thou shalt live." But man has not done it and is
conscious that he has not. As to God he is far away; man easily gets rid of
Him; he will render Him some outward services and make his boast in them.
But man is near; his selfishness makes him alive to the performance of this
precept, which, if observed, would be his happiness-make this world a kind
of paradise. Disobedience to it is repeated every moment, in the
circumstances of each day, which bring this selfishness into play. All that
surrounds him (his social ties) makes man conscious of these violations of
this precept, even when the soul would not of itself be troubled about it.
Here the lawyer's heart betrays itself. Who, he asks, is my neighbour?
The Lord's answer exhibits the moral change which has taken place through
the introduction of grace-through the manifestation of this grace in man,
in His own Person. Our relationships with one another are now measured by
the divine nature in us, and this nature is love. Man under the law
measured himself by the importance he could attach to himself, which is
always the opposite of love. The flesh gloried in a nearness to God which
was not real, which did not belong to participation in His nature. The
priest and the Levite pass by on the other side. The Samaritan, despised as
such, did not ask who was his neighbour. The love that was in his heart
made him a neighbour to any one who was in need. This is what God Himself
did in Christ; but then legal and carnal distinctions disappeared before
this principle. The love that acted according to its own impulses found the
occasion of its exercise in the need that came before it.
Here ends this part of the Lord's discourses. A new subject begins in verse 38.
From that verse to the end of verse 13 in chapter 11 the Lord makes known
to His disciples the two great means of blessing-the word and prayer. In
connection with the word, we find the energy that attaches itself to the
Lord, in order to receive it from Himself, and that leaves everything in
order to hear His word, because the soul is laid hold of by the
communications of God in grace. We may remark that these circumstances are
connected with the change that had been wrought at that solemn moment. The
reception of the word takes the place of the attentions that were due to
the Messiah. These attentions were demanded by the presence of a Messiah on
the earth; but, seeing the condition man was in (for he rejected the
Saviour), he needed the word; and Jesus, in His perfect love, will have
nothing else. For man, for the glory of God, but one thing was needful; and
it is that which Jesus desires. As to Himself, He would go without
everything for that. But Martha, though preparing for the Lord, which was
right surely, yet shews how much self is inherent in this kind of care; for
she did not like to have all the trouble of it.
