The seventy come back, when their mission was ended and their testimony given, saying, “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.” This was a great witness of Messiah's power. Men in Israel always looked, and of course especially the faithful, for the manifestation of divine power through Messiah over Satan in the world. It was not so much God as such to act directly, as through man in Israel, the Seed of the woman, the Son of David. And now what a sign and seal was given, seeing that not only did He cast out demons, but they, His servants, through His name did the same! Nevertheless, the Lord marked this the more to be a conclusory mission to the people and land, and that His Messianic glory, the object of promise, however true, was in no way the great truth that was beginning to unfold itself. Heavenly things were about to come in through His rejection and death. Therefore says He unto them, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” It was quite true. The exaltation of Satan through man's fall was gone as it were before His eyes, and the Lord had the full vista of God's counsels in sight, the total destruction of the enemy's power. “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” But while this was true to the Lord's vision who sees things that are not as though they were, suggested by His disciples' casting demons out of men; there were things even better than these, though He fully owned what there was then. “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” He openly confirms what He had given. There was thus authority to trample upon the well-known symbols of Satan's craft and torment for man, and over all the power of the enemy, whatever it might be. They were delivered from all calculated to injure; “nothing shall by any means hurt you.” They belonged to the Savior. “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” To belong to heaven, to be called to that seat of divine light and blessing, was a far greater prize: the rest was Satan's power broken on the earth, a sample of the earthly kingdom, and the powers of the age to come. But a rejected Christ opens the door into the presence and glory of God. This was a matter of far more real and profound joy—that their names were written in heaven. To this the Jews were utterly blind, as man is still; for his cool assumption of heaven, as if it were a natural end for man, is even more evil and presumptuous. Present power and authority are great in his eyes; heavenly things are little, because they are distant and unseen. Nevertheless they are nigh to faith which beholds them, knowing that they are the great reality, and that present things are only the arena of sin and folly and distance from God. But the disciples must learn this; therefore the Lord would lead their hearts into this deeper joy: “rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
“In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.” Now in a legal state of things the wise and prudent have their importance. The law admits of angelic media, and supposes human administrators; it desires things in due order, regulated in a way that commends itself to men's reason and conscience. But grace meets a ruined world when all this is set aside; and Jesus, rejected by those who boasted of the law, rejoices in the grace of God, and thanks Him as the Father, whom the law never revealed. He was Father in His own divine relationship to the Son, entirely outside the ken of men or the scope of their thoughts or imaginings. The Jews who had the law never saw the reality of divine relationship. It was dimly couched under various obscure forms and terms in the Old Testament. For all through God was a veiled One, dwelling in the thick darkness, not revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This is come out clearly in and through Jesus our Lord; as also light and incorruptibility for men through the gospel, not through the law. In the law it was simply one God, the Jehovah-God of Israel, and He only behind the intricate barriers of the Levitical system. But the gospel shows the veil rent, and, through Him who went down to the cross, the Father known by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Thus Christianity supposes the full revelation of the true God and the persons of the Godhead. Hence it was impossible to have a distinct or full, if any, knowledge of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost under the law. And it may be a question how far those who are in the spirit of the law enter into it fully now; they may be orthodox, and recognize the general certainty of it; but this is a very different thing from entering into and enjoying it practically as the known truth and blessing of the soul.
Our Lord Jesus then, perfect in everything and with divine knowledge of all, says, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast bid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.” It was no longer a question of Israel and the land; neither are wisdom and prudence of account now. Things that are highly esteemed among men are judged as an abomination in the sight of God. He had revealed His mind unto babes. Clearly this was grace. There was no claim; and babes would have seemed the very last persons to whom God would have revealed what was beyond the wise and prudent, what the vulture's eye had not seen. “Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.” It was His pleasure, He took complacency in His own love. And grace does not find but makes objects proper to itself and for God's glory.
Grace creates, the law does not. It does not give a nature capable of enjoying God, nor can it give an object, still less one worthy of God Himself to rest on; it can only press a claim on man from God. But grace does all this and more through Jesus, who both gives us a nature capable of enjoying God and is also Himself the object to be enjoyed.
Hear how He presents Himself even here: “All things are delivered to me of my Father.” It is not now merely the land of Israel or the Jewish people, but “all things;” the Son of man with all things handed up to Him—a higher glory even than dominion over all peoples and tongues. (Dan. 7) It is the universe put under Him; and this because He is the Son of God. “All things are delivered to me of my Father.” It is not merely the Ancient of days giving the universal kingdom under the heaven to the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven; but the rejected man on earth, revealing Himself as the Son of God, the Son of man, who is in heaven, as is said elsewhere, to whom His Father has delivered all things. We see not yet all things put under Him. But He speaks of a far deeper blessing and glory than even this universal inheritance. “No man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father.” He is a divine person—the glory of His person is unfathomable; it is for the Father alone to know and delight in, though for us to know it unknown. No man knoweth; indeed it is not merely no man, but “no one knoweth who the Son is, but the Father: and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.” It is clear that none but the Son knows of Himself the Father. But it is not merely true that the Son knows the Father, for He reveals Him to others— “he to whom the Son will reveal him.” This is Christianity; and to lead on the souls of the disciples from their Jewish expectations to the heavenly and divine truths of Christianity is the object of the Lord Jesus henceforth, as of the Spirit afterward. It is remarkable that it is said, “no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father,” but it is not added he to whom He will reveal Him. Thus God envelops the Lord Jesus as it were with a divine guard against the prying curiosity of the creature; and if the Son humbled Himself in grace to man, God forbids that man should approach that, as it were, holy ground. Not even with unsandaled feet can he tread there. God reserves the knowledge of the Son for Himself; He alone really penetrates the mystery of the Only-begotten. The Son does reveal the Father; but man's mind always breaks itself to pieces when he attempts to unravel the insoluble enigma of Christ's personal glory. All that the saint can do is to believe and worship. No man knows the Son but the Father. On the other hand it is our deepest comfort that the Son not only knows the Father but reveals Him. The revelation of the Father in and by the Son is the joy and rest of faith. It is true even of the babes. The little children (παιδία) and not merely the young men and the fathers, know the Father (1 John 2); and this falls in with these unspeakably blessed words of our Lord in Luke a. “And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: for I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” Thus, the Lord Jesus, while He is preparing them for greater things, fully owns the blessedness of the present.