LUKE 10
WE have noticed that the Lord sent out those who should be His personal representatives. He extended the testimony of grace by adding to the vessels in whom it should be carried — first the twelve, and then the seventy. In principle every soul brought to know the Lord is an extension of the testimony of grace and of the personal representation of Christ in this world. The Lord says in verse 16, “He that hears you hears me; and he that rejects you rejects me, and he that rejects me rejects him that sent me”. The Lord was the personal representative of God, and those whom He sends are His personal representatives.
A divine principle is involved in their being sent in twos. One is not adequate as a witness: “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established”. Peter stood up with the eleven; he did not stand up alone. If we are called to be personal representatives of Jesus, it is important that we should be up to our mission. The seventy were, like ourselves, not up to the height of their mission. They had been wonderfully used, but they had been sent forth to prepare [p. 122] the way of the Lord; He sent them “into every city and place where he himself was about to come”. They were sent to prepare His way and as workmen into His harvest. As having His Spirit they were sent forth as lambs in the midst of wolves, they were sent as peace-bringers, and they were to be content with such circumstances as they found themselves in. All this was their mission, but they came back rejoicing in the fact that the demons were subject to them through His name. It was below the level of their mission; it was something that signalised them. There was the divine power, but evidently they thought of it as giving them some peculiar distinction — “the demons are subject to us” — they rejoiced in that. The contrast is marked in this section; these verses are the crown and climax of the gospel. The joy of the seventy was quite different from the Lord’s. He had His joy, but their joy was based on something quite different from what His was based on; and the Lord is not content that we should have a joy of a different character and on a different basis from His own joy. That is why this is the top note of the gospel, because in these verses we are brought into the region of the Lord’s own personal joy, and of the pleasure of the Father and the Son. There is no possibility of any movement of evil there, no demons to be subjugated there.
Luke greatly supports Paul by making the heavenly supreme in our thoughts. The great point is, not that we are going to heaven by and by — all Christians look for that — but that we are citizens of heaven now at this present moment; our names are written there, we are on the roll of the citizens of heaven at this minute. If you could look at it you would find your name, and the names of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, inscribed there as present citizens of heaven. The teaching of the heavenly in Luke is in keeping with Paul’s teaching; we have to do with a heavenly One and we are heavenly ones.
Chapter 9 brings us to heaven. “It came to pass when the days of his receiving up were fulfilled” — that is the great turning point of the gospel; what follows is more or less connected with the Lord as in the heavenly position, as received up. Luke presents things morally, and this is the point where the Spirit of God through Luke contemplates the Lord as about to be received up; He is going to heaven. Now all the teaching of this gospel turns on that, and we have to be impressed with the importance of the heavenly. People say,
[p. 123] Why have you not more converts? We need to understand the relative value of things. I see people doing great works, and able to speak of conversions, but how does it stand in relation to the heavenly? That is the great question. You may have great activity of divine power and little appreciation of the heavenly, like the seventy, but that was not the special pleasure of the Lord. His thoughts are set on what is heavenly. If the Lord is presented to us as “received up”, what is heavenly must be of supreme importance. I see people more interested in having power on earth than in being citizens of heaven: they talk of speaking with tongues, of healing the sick, of miracles, and make all that very important, but that is not heaven or the heavenly.
Paul was used to the end of his career in preaching the gospel, but there was always a heavenly ring about it; his gospel was always clothed in blue. He never tired of telling people that he was converted by a light out of heaven; he had a heavenly commission and there was something peculiarly heavenly in the way he preached the gospel.
The Lord had sent forth the seventy in the light and power of what was heavenly. Here we find them rejoicing in the power they had over what was evil, and it was true enough. But what was in the view of the Lord was Satan’s fall from heaven: “I beheld Satan as lightning falling out of heaven”. The Lord was thinking of heaven, and they were thinking of their wonderful power over evil here. The Lord was going to heaven; the fact of His being received up involved the fall of Satan. The very fact of Jesus going up as Man to heaven made it absolutely necessary that Satan should fall out of heaven. We are sent forth to represent the Lord, but we have to feel that we have given a defective representation; we cannot deny it. This dispensation has heaven in view, so the full height of everything on the divine side is brought in in love. It is what prophets have desired to see and have not seen. What satisfies divine love must be a scene where no evil is present. The setting of this is beautiful — Christ is received up into heaven, the saints are registered there, and Satan falls from heaven. Now, the Lord says, I want your joy to be there. The Lord gives the power to put all evil under the feet of the saints; even Satan himself is to be bruised under their feet; but that is not our joy, nor what made the Lord praise. Satan’s fall is not actual yet, but it was in the view of [p. 124] the Lord. Satan is not actually cast out according to Revelation 12, but in the view of the Lord Satan is seen as fallen from heaven and man is seen as exalted to heaven, and the saints are registered in heaven.
We ought to think much of heaven as our present place, not only that we are going there. The more we accept that we are at the present moment citizens of heaven, the more we shall be characterised by what is heavenly. Publicly the Lord is rejected. What marks this section of the gospel is privacy: “having turned to the disciples privately”, verse 23. The Lord said these things privately. What we get here we cannot get by the preaching or by the ministry of the word; it is a matter of what is personal and private. The Lord withdrew their hearts into the region of His own joy. There was a region of unalloyed joy to the Lord, and it formed His praises. On this occasion we are permitted to hear the Son speaking to the Father — what an immense interest to us! There is a holy character and sweetness about it that does not attach to anything else. There is a private scene too in John 17: the Lord is with His loved ones, and He opens His heart freely, and in their presence speaks to His Father. The trouble is that so many of us live on what is public or on what we hear ministered in the gospel or in teaching, but we do not get revelation that way. Here we have the region where the Father is acting; we have the activities of the Father and the Son. There is no other movement of any kind; we are outside the region of evil altogether. The Father is praised because He has hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes, so one would be sorry to be wise and prudent. There is the direct action of the Father and the Son in personal revelation. This is a blessed retreat. Even if we could do works of power there is something far better, the favour of having a personal revelation.
This is an action of the Father revealing these precious heavenly things to babes, persons of no account in this world but only subjects of affection. If we are prepared to be that, there is no limit to what we may get through divine favour. The new man is marked by an absence of self-importance and self-sufficiency. To be a babe indicates that we are subjects of divine work, so the self-importance of which we are all full naturally has come down, and a different kind of spirit has come up, and then the Father can reveal heavenly things.
[p. 125] Someone once asked J.N.D. to give him some hints as to the best way to study the Scriptures. He replied, I find that when I come to the word in the spirit of a new-born babe I get something.
In verse 22 the Lord says, “No one knows who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is pleased to reveal him”. That is personal. One cannot conceive of anything greater or higher than this, because it is the good pleasure of the Father and the Son. The Father is seen in supreme authority as the Lord of heaven and earth, and it has pleased Him to reveal the whole blessedness of heavenly things to babes. All things, in heaven and on earth, are seen as delivered to the Son. We are outside the sphere of evil; there is no possibility of failure in the system of things delivered by the Father to the Son. It changes the character of persons who get this supreme favour; it is open to all who have the babe character. These things are beyond all thought — what creature could take in the thought of all things delivered by the Father to the Son? It is infinite. The Son is so great that no one can know Him but the Father. What a comfort that is! If One in the form of God comes into manhood, there must be that about Him which is inscrutable. It is our great theme of praise that no one knows the Son but the Father; we should not like to think that we could compass the Son. Then, no one knows the Father but the Son, “and he to whomsoever the Son is pleased to reveal him”. It is a matter of the Son’s personal favour and pleasure to reveal the Father. The Lord delights to put in the hearts of His saints the knowledge of the Father as He knows Him. If we know the Father at all we know Him as the Son knows Him; there is no other way to know Him now in this heavenly system. He is revealed sovereignly by the Son.
Matthew 11 presents the side of the Lord’s rejection. Here He praises in view of the completeness of the fall of all evil, and consequently the establishment of the divine pleasure; and this is what prophets and kings desired to see. It was not only that things were hidden from the wise and prudent, but they were not seen by men who were in the place of the greatest favour with God. It is extraordinary to think that we are more favoured of God than Daniel, David, Solomon or Isaiah, or any of the great prophets and kings: they did not see what we see. They only got an inkling of the heavenly system [p. 126] What desires must have sprung up in David’s heart when he wrote Psalm 110: “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” — how he must have desired to understand that! Scripture says that they enquired and searched diligently, but there were hints in the Old Testament of the heavenly, and the spiritual desires of the prophets and kings were so strongly awakened that God comforted them by telling them that these things were not for them but for others who were coming after. They will have their part in the heavenly undoubtedly, but they did not have it then; they did not see these things. We ought to cultivate the thought of the excess of divine favour. How many of us here have the deep sense in our souls that we are much more favoured of God than Abraham? The consciousness of this would keep us from the world. If we want to deliver saints from the world and from earthly-mindedness we must get their minds full of Christ and what is in heaven. These prophets and kings put us to shame, for they did not see what we see. We may apply the principle in another way. How many great and honoured servants of God in the church have not seen what we see! The Spirit of God could not fail to give heavenly desires. All our brethren who are in any way walking in the Spirit must have heavenly desires, but a great many are in such environment that they cannot see heavenly things. What a favour it is to De so endowed and so privileged as to be able to see heavenly things! We are called to a heavenly position, joy and relationship, everything that is for the pleasure of the Father and the Son — there is nothing higher than that. These verses bring us to the climax of things as Luke presents them, and from this standpoint we approach the latter part of the chapter.
The man among thieves was a. helpless victim. This is not the sphere of divine purpose; in this section we come to a scene of need. If we have been in that heavenly elevation where all is light and blessedness, and have learnt the supplies that are there, we can come down into this scene of ruin and need to act as real neighbours, as those who are able to supply all that is requisite for ruin and poverty. The actual condition here is one of deep and dire need, and that is the condition still, even amongst the people of God, for the man who fell among thieves was no doubt one of them. The Lord could bring heaven’s resources down, and the Lord is saying to us now, This is what I want you to be — a neighbour. We are [p. 127] tested, not by what is in heaven but by what is in a scene of need. The test is, Have we been in heaven spiritually, and have we the supplies of heaven? The Lord could bring down supplies from heaven to meet the direst need. The Lord wanted, in the power and blessedness of the resources of heaven, to convert this man from a lawyer into a neighbour. It is patterned in the Lord, but it is not to remain there. In the power and blessedness of what is learnt in private we can come out as neighbours in a scene of need. Heaven’s resources are boundless, and the Lord would take us into that region to furnish us. How much need there is amongst the brethren! What spirit does it bring out? That of the lawyer saying, This ought not to be and that ought not to be, or the spirit of the One who can bring a supply of everything that is requisite? The priest and the Levite may have been very good men, but they had no resources. But the neighbour had full resources. If we are heavenly, we shall have resources when we come into contact with need. Naturally we are all lawyers. A lawyer will use any light even as to God’s mind, and apply it in a legal way, to set himself up, and to expose weakness and failure in others; but he has no resources. This applies to us all in regard to conditions which are not what they ought to be.
The man who fell among thieves had left the place of favour which God had given, and he had got into a state which God never meant him to be in. Can you act as Christ did? Now what can you do for him? This man was cured, carried and cared for; he is the subject of service and care until the Lord comes back. We are to look at the saints as objects of care if we are true neighbours.
The legal man can tell you what is wrong and how it grieves him, but he can bring no remedy. The lawyer came professing to be interested in eternal life, but when he came into the presence of the Lord a very serious question was raised as to his own state as having no resources. Eternal life is connected with the world to come; then divine resources will be made available so that the whole condition of distress and weakness will be met, but have we the supplies by which to meet it now? It needs the grace of heaven. The neighbour came making no demands, but furnishing all that was requisite. We should be ready to act as neighbours to the very end in pure grace. If we have found, like the man who fell among thieves, that we are destitute and that Christ has supplied every need, that [p. 128] will affect our hearts and we shall be able to act in that spirit towards all. The assembly is the place where people are cared for; it is like the inn, a place where the service of Christ is carried on unweariedly until He comes. The Lord’s death is involved in His coming into the place where the man was.
It is remarkable that it is the question of the neighbour that is raised in this man’s conscience, not of love to God. His summing up of the law in verse 27 referred to both. The Lord had shown how the first part, love to God, is secured in chapter 7. God is securing the love of His poor debtors; the great Creditor comes out in the grace of forgiveness, and secures the love of the worst debtor by forgiving all. But there is the question of the neighbour too. It is beautiful to think that the Lord can use any wounds that I have sustained as the result of my own departure to make me learn the touch of His hands in a way that I should never have known without those wounds, and to make me conscious of the tenderness of His hands in binding them up. It is in the grace that I learn in Him that I can serve others: if I am to render any service effectively I must know what it is to be served. This man was at Jericho; there are few saints who have not known what it was to be carried away. He lost his possessions, he lost his raiment, he lost all except his life; he illustrates one who has got away from the Lord. Many have lost what God has granted to them in favour. The Lord is challenging the lawyer as to what he can do for this man; He is raising that question in plain words. He says, as it were, It is no use opening out all your rich stores of learning and law; if you cannot do anything for this man you will have to give place to Me.
The oil, the wine, and the beast all suggest the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is viewed first in a restorative way. The Lord came bringing divine resources and they all lie in the Spirit. The vigour of life is restored to the man and then he has a beast to carry him. He had no ability to walk himself, but he is set up in the power of another. J.B.S. used to tell us that he was cured, carried and cared for. Restoratives and power for walk lie in the Spirit.
The, host represents the feature of responsibility and care in the house of God; he acts under the instruction of the neighbour. This service has now passed into the hands of the saints for the benefit of those who have lost what they ought to have retained. The Holy Spirit acts through the saints. An [p. 129] inn is a temporary provision, a place for passing strangers. In that provisional setting there is a carrying on of neighbourly care, and an expenditure of resources for those who have none. The possibility of spending more suggests that there is full scope for any amount of care. The Lord is very concerned that this spirit should prevail amongst His people. If we are to be here to dispense the grace of heaven, who is going to say we have not enough to go on with? I have had to learn what a Neighbour He is to me. Think of the many forms of need we find ourselves in, and there have been resources to meet every one of them; that is the spirit in which we are to go on together.
In I Corinthians the apostle is showing them how they are to keep the inn; chapter 13 is the spirit in which it is done. In 2 Corinthians the apostle says, “I shall most gladly spend and be utterly spent for your souls, if even in abundantly loving you I should be less loved”, chapter 12: 15. That is the real spirit of the neighbour, and the inn-keeper must be imbued with that spirit. The neighbour takes all charges; he is not restricted, he spends as much as he likes in care. We have to look at saints as in the region of need; they are to be cared for. What sort of people do we expect to find in the assembly viewed as the inn? “Admonish the disorderly, comfort the faint-hearted, sustain the weak, be patient towards all” (1 Thessalonians 5: 14) — these are the people we may find in the assembly.
The Lord would lead us to another region in His Supper. His intention in giving it to us is that by means of the Supper we might pass over from the region where there is need to the region of divine pleasure and appreciate it as Mary did. “Jesus loved Martha”, but she allowed service to hinder her from giving Jesus the pleasure that Mary gave Him. Are we going to let service hinder us? Martha was hindered by what was extremely good. She had received the Lord into her house in order to serve Him; nothing could be more commendable, but it became a distraction. The point here is to mark the contrast between one who was interested in what lay very near the heart of the Lord and one who was hindered even by service. The Lord wants to convert us from Marthas into Marys, just as He wants to convert us from lawyers into neighbours.
In John 12 we see Martha serving without any distraction. She was divinely adjusted so that she could take her place in [p. 130] that circle of affection and represent the true place of service, If you get occupied with service you will find such a multiplicity of things needing attention that it becomes a distraction to rob you of the good part. There is an extreme reluctance with us all to pass over into the region of the pleasure of God. We need the service of Christ; Mary was the product of the Lord’s own service.
This is the climax of the gospel: all that goes before leads us up to what is heavenly. The Lord would lead us into the apprehension that heaven is our place, not in the future merely, but now. All believers acknowledge that heaven is their place in the future, but few have apprehended that that is their place now, that the world is no more their place now than it is Christ’s place. Mary gave herself over to His thoughts and to His word. Martha was serving Him, actively and indeed devotedly, but she did not touch the region of that good part. There is no true service without having sat at the feet of Jesus. The fact of being distracted about service proves that it is of a Martha character. One of the world’s poets has said, “All great service springs from the centre of a quiet heart”. It is a bad sign if we begin to complain of the brethren. Martha made complaints. When we get on to the line of serving only, we always think that other people should be doing just what we are doing. The question is, Are we supremely interested in what is for the divine pleasure? Mary’s blessing lay in her deep interest in the supreme joy of the Father and the Son; she gave supreme pleasure to the heart of Jesus in listening to His word. We all know what it is perhaps to do a great deal for a person, and for that person to receive it with gratitude and affection; and our hearts might be full of something we want to speak of, but we find they are not interested; we know the bitter sense of lack that it gives. That is so with us often and the Lord’s heart is grieved. We are more interested in what meets our need than in what is for His pleasure. I noticed this when I first began to preach: if I spoke of what was for man’s benefit and gain, there was interest shown; but when I turned to speak of what was for the heart of God the interest flagged.
Mary realised the true character and blessedness of the moment. The Son was here on earth revealing the Father; His word was the revelation of God as the Father, and she felt that was infinitely greater than all matters connected with [p. 131] service here; she yielded herself up to it. The good part is the knowledge of God revealed as Father. The full truth as to God is out; we have not to wait for some further light as to God. It was said many years ago, Who can speak after the Son? When the Son speaks it is the final word, and He speaks to make God known as Father. The degree in which we have received the revelation is measured by the degree of our confidence in God. The Son has been pleased to reveal the Father, and the first product of the revelation would be perfect confidence, and that is most essential to our happiness. Dependence without confidence is misery, but dependence based on confidence is supreme happiness.