As we might have been prepared for, this chapter declares the long and fullest sound of the trumpet ere judgment be pronounced—seventy additional instruments, answering to the number who shared with Moses the burden of the stiff-necked and rebellious Israel of his day. Their perverseness in that day made it necessary, and so now. The harvest must not lie un-gathered for want of hands. “Into every city and place whither He Himself would come,” there must be a twofold announcement of His mercy. They are warned of His approach. If they reject, they must do so deliberately. The Lord could already pass sentence on some cities where “mighty works had been done.” The Chorazin, the Bethsaida, and the Capernaum of this world have already deserved condemnation. As the return of the twelve in the former chapter was an occasion for the Lord to explain to them a large page of their yet future history, so might we expect another of still greater interest and matter to be unfolded here. The seventy return with joy, gratified with the fact “that the devils are subject unto us through thy name.” Little yet, doubtless, had they learned the extent of Satan’s power; for the reply of Jesus is, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” We know what is the terrific effect of lightning on the inhabitants of earth. “But yet, saith the Lord, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the powers of the enemy (heavenly or earthly), and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Though this assurance might appear the highest of all blessings, yet there was a higher.
“In this rejoice not ... .but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (τοῖςοὐρανῖς.) Your names inscribed in a region afar and above all here, is the real source of joy. And in the sense of this Jesus exults in the purposes of God being so accomplished, that “ the babes,” the powerless un-intellectual class, have revealed unto them what the magnates of wisdom and prudence, the highly esteemed among men, knew nothing of; and therefore, “privately,” the disciples are told by Him that “blessed are the eyes which see the things which they see, for that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them” — “the mystery which was kept secret since the foundation of the world,” and of which they themselves as yet knew scarcely anything.
The stern demands of law are all answered by grace. The more it demanded from us, the more does Jesus, by substitution, for us. The greater the difficulty we had to encounter through it, the greater the service Jesus performed for us. The more my responsibility to my fellow man from the law, the more do I gain from Jesus, born of a woman, born under the law. Thus grace resolves all the difficult questions that the law can raise; and Jesus but describes Himself when He recounts the traits and acts of the good neighbor. Who but Jesus, as an unbidden friend, an unwelcome servitor, a Samaritan, would visit the Jerusalem wanderer, the self-immolated sufferer, the victim of human malice, without money or clothes, and almost lifeless—when neither priest nor Levite, the boasted appendages of the law, could aught avail—would come “where he was,” be it into the darkness of death? “He had compassion on him, and went to him” (side by side with him on the cross of Calvary), and “bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine; “ and on that living power which bore this gracious neighbor to the sufferer’s side, was now the sufferer to be conducted and raised out of this scene of sorrow. He “set him on His own beast,” and brought him to an inn—the abode of travelers and strangers—and then, having cared him to be trusted to no other hands at first, He on the morrow consigns him to “the host” (the proprietor of all needful supplies by the way), defraying the probable expense, but chargeable with all, cost what he will!— “And whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee.” If the host has great and arduous services in the absence of Jesus, His coming again will crown his labors with rich rewards. May the saints understand their service!— “If ye love me, feed my sheep.”
From the next little scene we gather the nature of the best services we can render. Jesus is “received” into Martha’s house. Who so great a stranger here? Who so way-worn and friendless? Surely, a most desolate One, yet, for love’s sake, “received.” Well, reception is one thing, right hospitality is another. Doing one thing well often leads us to do the next thing indifferently. Martha understands not the nature of the services this desolate servant of God would value most. Mary has learned this. “She sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word.” The service most grateful to Jesus will be so, in like manner, to His Spirit in His people. And, doubtless, the patient lover and student of Christ’s word will, towards the wearied traveler, exceed in hospitalities more than the more apparently laborious and external attentions of Martha.