Luke 10:17 - Meaning and Application

Christ sent out the seventy disciples while he was going up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. He did not go openly, but quietly, as John says, in secret (John 7:10). Since he had sent out such a large part of his usual group, Dr. Lightfoot thinks this happened before he returned from that feast. He thinks they, or at least some of them, came back to him while he was still at Jerusalem or at nearby Bethany, where he was later found (Luke 10:38).

Here we are told what report they gave him about their work. They returned with joy (Luke 10:17). They did not complain about the long walks, or the opposition and discouragement they met. Instead, they rejoiced in their success, especially in casting out evil spirits. They said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us through your name.” Their commission had mentioned healing the sick (Luke 10:19), but casting out demons was surely included, and they had great success in it. They gave Christ the glory for it, saying it was through his name. All our victories over Satan come from power given by Jesus Christ. We must face our spiritual enemies in his name, and whatever victory we gain, he deserves all the praise.

They also found comfort in the success itself. They spoke with clear delight: even the demons, those strong enemies, were subject to them. Believers have no greater joy than victory over Satan. If demons are subject to us, nothing can truly stand against us.

Christ welcomed their report and confirmed it as true, matching his own observation. He said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Satan and his kingdom were falling before the preaching of the gospel. As the disciples gained ground, the devil lost ground. His fall was sudden, complete, and visible, like lightning striking from the sky. The disciples were happy that demons left people’s bodies, but Christ looked farther. He saw the devil losing his hold on human hearts, which is called his power in heavenly places, or his strong rule over evil powers (Ephesians 6:12). Christ also saw this as a sign of what would soon happen more fully, the breaking of Satan’s kingdom in the world through the end of idolatry and the turning of the nations to faith in Christ. Satan falls from heaven when he is cast down from the throne in people’s hearts (Acts 26:18). The gospel would fly through the world like lightning, and wherever it went, it would tear down Satan’s rule.

Some take this another way, looking back to the fall of the angels and hearing in Christ’s words a warning to the disciples. They think he was cautioning them not to let success fill them with pride. Satan fell by pride, and so, like one who had been an angel of light, he was cast down from heaven. That would be a warning to them not to be lifted up with pride and fall into the same judgment that came on the devil because of pride (1 Timothy 3:6).

Christ then repeated and enlarged their commission: “I have given you authority to tread on serpents” (Luke 10:19). To the one who uses well what he has, more will be given. Since they had used their power well against Satan, Christ now gave them greater power. He gave them offensive power, power to tread on serpents and scorpions, meaning devils and evil spirits, that old serpent. In other words, they would bruise their heads in his name, as was promised at the beginning (Genesis 3:15). They could set their feet on the necks of these enemies. They would trample them underfoot wherever they met them, as Psalm 91:13 says. They would tread on all the power of the enemy, and the Messiah’s kingdom would rise everywhere on the ruins of the devil’s kingdom.

Christ also gave them defensive power. Nothing would by any means hurt them, not serpents or scorpions, even if they were among them in punishment or in prison. They would be safe from the most venomous creatures, as Paul was when he was bitten and suffered no harm (Acts 28:5), and as is promised in Mark 16:18. If wicked people were like serpents to them, and they lived among those scorpions, as Ezekiel says (Ezekiel 2:6), they could despise their rage and stand on it. Their enemies could hiss, but they could not truly hurt them, because they have no power except what is given from above. They could even face the hole of the asp, because death itself would not ultimately hurt or destroy God’s people (Isaiah 11:8-9; Isaiah 25:8).

Christ then turned their joy to the right place. He said, “Do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you” (Luke 10:20). He did not mean they should never be glad about such success. He meant they should not make that their main joy, or count it mainly as their honor, or use it to place themselves above other good people. Their greater joy should be this, that their names are written in heaven. Christ, who knew God’s plan, could tell them that their names were written there, in the Lamb’s book of life. All believers, by grace, have the right to the inheritance of sons, have received adoption as God’s children, and have the Spirit of adoption as a guarantee of that inheritance. They are listed among God’s family, and that is a much greater joy than casting out demons.

The power to become children of God is worth more than the power to work miracles. We know that some cast out demons in Christ’s name, Judas among them, and yet Christ will reject them on the last day. But those whose names are written in heaven will never perish. They are Christ’s sheep, and he will give them eternal life. Saving grace is better than spiritual gifts. Holy love is a better way than speaking in tongues.

Then Christ offered a solemn prayer of thanks to his Father for using such weak people as his disciples in such high service (Luke 10:21-22). Matthew had recorded this before (Matthew 11:25-27), but Luke adds that in that very hour Jesus rejoiced. That detail matters, because such moments were rare. He was a man of sorrows, so it is striking to hear of his joy. In that hour, when he saw Satan fall and heard of the good success of his ministers, he rejoiced. Nothing gives the Lord Jesus more joy than the spread of the gospel and its gains over Satan through the turning of souls to Christ.

Christ’s joy was deep and real, an inward joy. He rejoiced in spirit, but, like deep water, it made no noise, and no stranger could share in it. Before he turned to thank his Father, he first stirred up his own joy, because thankful praise is the true language of holy joy, and holy joy is the root and source of thankful praise.

He gives thanks for two things. First, he thanks the Father for what was revealed through the Son: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth” (Luke 10:21). In all our worship, we should keep God in view both as Creator of heaven and earth and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in him, our Father too. Here Christ thanks the Father that his plans for reconciling people to himself were revealed to some of the children of men, people fit to teach others, and that God has spoken these truths to us through his Son and revealed them in us by his Spirit.

He also thanks the Father that these truths were revealed to babes, to people of small gifts and little learning, whose background and training gave no promise of greatness. They were children in understanding until God lifted their minds by his Spirit and gave them both this knowledge and the ability to pass it on. We should thank God less for honoring babes and more for honoring himself by showing strength through weakness.

At the same time, he hid these things from the wise and understanding, the Gentile philosophers and Jewish rabbis. He did not reveal the gospel to them, nor did he choose them to preach his kingdom. We can thank God that the apostles were not taken from their schools. If they had been, they might have mixed their own ideas with Christ’s teaching and corrupted it, as later happened. Christianity was later damaged by Platonic philosophy in the early church, by Aristotelian thought in later times, and by Jewish legalism when the faith was first planted.

If rabbis and philosophers had become apostles, people would likely have credited the success of the gospel to their learning, cleverness, reasoning, and eloquence. So God passed them by for the same reason Gideon’s army was reduced, “The people are still too many” (Judges 7:4). Paul, of course, had been educated as a scholar among the wise and understanding, but when he became an apostle, he became like a babe. He laid aside clever speech and human wisdom, forgot all that, and knew nothing among them except Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2, 1 Corinthians 2:4).

This was also an act of God’s sovereign will, his free right to choose as he pleases. “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight.” If God gives his grace and the knowledge of his Son to some who seem less likely, and withholds it from others we might think better suited to spread it, that should be enough for us. His wisdom is far above ours. He chooses to place the work of his gospel in the hands of those who, by God’s power, will give it force, rather than those who, by human skill, would only make it look polished.

Second, Christ gives thanks for what was hidden between the Father and the Son (Luke 10:22). He speaks of the great trust the Father has placed in the Son. “All things are delivered to me by my Father.” All wisdom and knowledge, all power and authority, and all the grace and comfort meant for God’s chosen people have been handed over to Jesus. In him all fullness must dwell, and from him it must come to others. He is the great trustee who manages everything in God’s kingdom.

He also speaks of the close understanding between the Father and the Son, a shared knowledge no creature is allowed to enter. No one knows who the Son is, or what his mind is, except the Father, who knew him from the beginning of his ways, before his works of old (Proverbs 8:22). And no one knows who the Father is, or what his plans are, except the Son, who was beside him from eternity, “as one brought up with him,” and “daily his delight” (Proverbs 8:30). The Son also reveals the Father by the Spirit to those he chooses. The gospel is the revelation of Jesus Christ, and we owe every true discovery of God’s will for our salvation to him. Christ speaks of being trusted with this work as a great joy, and he thanks his Father for it.

He then told his disciples how blessed they were to have these things revealed to them (Luke 10:23, Luke 10:24). After speaking to his Father, he turned to them to show how much their happiness, and God’s glory, were tied to knowing the mysteries of the kingdom and helping others come to that knowledge. It is a great step toward something better. Even if this knowledge alone does not save, it puts us on the path to salvation. “Blessed are the eyes that see the things you see.” God blesses them in this, and if it is not their own fault, it will end in eternal blessedness.

It is also a great step beyond even the greatest saints who came before them, those most favored by heaven. Many prophets and righteous men, or as this passage says, many prophets and kings, longed to see and hear what the disciples saw and heard every day, yet they did not. The honor and happiness of New Testament believers are much greater than those of the Old Testament prophets and kings, even though they were highly favored too. The Old Testament saints had general ideas, from the hints given them, of the grace and glory of the Messiah’s kingdom, and they often wished they had been appointed to live in those blessed days, when they could see the reality instead of only faint shadows.

So we should think carefully about the great advantages we have in New Testament light compared with those who lived under the Old Testament. That should stir us to make good use of it. If it does not, then it will only make our guilt greater when we are judged for wasting it.