READING IN LUKE 10
READING IN LUKE 10
In sending out the seventy others the Lord showed that He would not be limited to the ministry of the twelve apostles in the testimony. In the Acts we see God acted independently of them. Unity, of course, was maintained. It is important to recognise that God is sovereign, and He cannot be limited to any order of things He may introduce in the course of His ways. Seven is a number which denotes God’s own work; it is taken from Genesis 1, the time covered in the creation, seven days. Here we have divine sovereignty in testimony, but the number is seventy; ten times seven. Ten, no doubt, represents the responsibility of the servants. They were sent out two and two, which indicates adequate testimony. They were to salute no one on the way; they should have but one object before them.
The Lord thought of the greatness of the harvest, and the workmen were few; the Lord of the harvest was to be supplicated that even more workmen should be sent out. God’s sovereignty in goodness must ever be counted upon; He cannot be restricted; He may ordain certain vessels of administration, but you cannot confine Him to them. These seventy workmen were to go to “every city and place, whither he himself would come”; they should heal the sick in each city and say, “The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you”, verse 9. This was their testimony.
The kingdom of God should be well considered;
[p. 50] it is God revealed in grace, acting in power on behalf of man. This was what had come nigh to the cities of Israel. This chapter speaks of a wonderful moment in the Lord’s path; it comes in after the mount of transfiguration. The Lord was on His way to Jerusalem to die, and a wonderful spirit marked the moment; it was the spirit of One who was descending from the glory on high to the cross to die for men. It was in such an One the kingdom of God was revealed, and His spirit was to characterise all His ministers. Thus their ministry was a testimony to the kingdom, as His was. The Lord says, “He that heareth you heareth me”, verse 16. The apostles saw the kingdom of God on the mount of transfiguration; the vision was calculated to impress them with the blessed character of the kingdom; there was nothing hostile to man in it, but everything in his favour. The power of the kingdom is seen when the Lord descends from the mountain; He “rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father”, chapter 9: 42. The same beneficent power was also to mark the ministry of the seventy; they were to heal the sick and say, “The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you”.
So that Israel had a full and complete testimony as to what had come in on their behalf; to hear the seventy meant to hear Him, and whether their testimony was received or not, all were to know this, that the kingdom of God had come nigh. There is no hope if men reject the kingdom of God, for the kingdom of God has reference to His power and its activity in grace on man’s behalf. It is moral and cannot be seen or entered into by man as born after the flesh; one has to be born again in order to see and enter into the kingdom of God.
James and John were entirely out of keeping with the spirit of the moment when they asked for [p. 51] judgment on the Samaritans, chapter 9: 54. The vision on the mountain suggested nothing of this. Elias was there, and he spoke of the Lord’s decease, and not of judgment on men. The kingdom accorded with God’s character, and everything was, as it were, to be subordinated to it. The Lord was surrendering all to establish it by His death, and all who would serve in connection with it must take this line, and nature must be refused; Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And if one put his hand to the plough and looked back, he was unfit for it, chapter 9: 59 - 62.
God is one, and His mind was that all men should be saved; the Mediator between God and men is one, and He is in accord with God’s mind, and He dies to make it effective. Thus we see the wonderful down-stooping of Christ so as to make the will of God effective. Personally He had title to the glory and was saluted there; but His conversation in it was about His decease. Moses and Elias, with whom He spoke, could be there only on the ground of His decease. And He descended to accomplish it so that the kingdom of God should be permanently established. Entering into this, we apprehend “what manner of spirit we are of”.
The seventy disciples were overjoyed on account of the success of their ministry, that the demons were subject to them through the Lord’s name. The Lord takes occasion to point out their own place and portion; their peculiar blessing did not consist in the exercise of power down here, but that their names were written in heaven. Luke shows the excess of God’s grace; that is, that man is to have a place in heaven. No matter how great your gift, or how great the success in the exercise of your gift, your blessing lies outside of that; and it is common to all believers. The blessing that is common to all Christians is greater than the gift of an apostle.
[p. 52] Luke sets forth the excess of grace. I think he brings in the Levites; not as servants merely, but as a privileged class, the assembly of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. Privilege necessarily means something distinctive, something that others have not. The Levites were a tribe in Israel, but there were twelve tribes without them, they were a privileged class apart, and yet there was a complete Israel.
There is a time coming when God shall write up His people, Psalm 87. Their names shall be registered on earth; the point with us is that our names are registered in heaven. We are a heavenly family. The effect of accepting this is that we are, delivered, not only from the world in the bad sense, as we speak, but from earthly-mindedness. The book of Numbers presents the service of the Levites; the book of Joshua speaks of their privileges. They had the sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel made by fire; then they had the Lord Himself; and they had the priesthood; finally they had cities allotted to them. These things formed then- inheritance.