THIS Gospel comes in two parts; for a declaration of woe (verses 12-15) is omitted. The first part is Jesus’s instructions to the seventy (or seventy-two, depending on the Greek text) when he sends them out to proclaim his Kingdom message, and to show the effects of the Kingdom by healing the sick. He gives them unexpectedly precise instructions — “unexpectedly”, because he could have focused on the message, “Say this. . . explain that. . .”; but most of his attention goes on how the seventy are to be equipped, and how they must behave.
At the beginning of these instructions, Jesus makes an admission: he is deliberately making their task harder. He did not have to make them hit the road preaching without baggage or equipment, but that is what he has chosen to do. The admission itself takes the form of a simile. Everyone in those days would understand it, as we still do: “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.”
The seventy will be defenceless: at the mercy of anonymous forces such as weather or their own cold and hunger, but also vulnerable to the animosity of anyone who is suspicious of strangers, especially strangers disturbing a peaceful status quo. What is the point of insisting on this weakness, when common sense dictates ensuring their security as the best way to get the message out?
The answer lies in whom the message is for. At this relatively early point in Jesus’s ministry, “the Kingdom of God” is a message of a straightforward kind. No redemption has yet been effected by Jesus’s salvific sacrifice on the cross. Any faithful Jew could respond positively to the preaching of the seventy, while still remaining a faithful Jew.
At least one purpose in Jesus’s lambs-among-wolves programme — perhaps the most important — is its effect on the seventy themselves. They must learn to accept being vulnerable, meeting with hostility, and enduring hardship, isolation, and deprivation. They must learn to adapt themselves to the needs of any who show themselves receptive to the message. They must accept that they are utterly reliant on God for the necessities of life, and trust him to provide for them.
After a time (the duration is not specified), the seventy return, and their return is joyful. They sound more than joyful: they sound excited, perhaps amazed by the power they have found within themselves — “Even the demons submit to us!” In the previous chapter (9.40), they had failed to exorcise such spirits of evil, but now, even when Jesus himself is not present, his very name is enough to cast them out.
Now for the second part of the Gospel. Jesus’s reaction to this enthusiastic return is mysterious, making a link between mission and exorcism, and so setting a pattern for the Christian future: “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.” The verb form points to this observation as being continuous: we could translate it as “I watched over and over”. Christians came to associate this verse with Isaiah 14.12: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!”, thus merging Satan and Lucifer into one. But generations continue to puzzle at how Lucifer (the name means “bringer of light”) could be a fitting name for the Adversary.
Much in this passage remains unclear (at least, it does to me), but there is surely an important message for the seventy in the fact that, at the moment when Satan falls from heaven in a flash of light, their names are being recorded in heaven. His place is lost at the same moment — and as part of the same shift — as theirs is secured. Jesus’s observation of the actions of the seventy also real-ises the fall of Satan. Their mission becomes, in that moment, salvific — not yet for all, true, but undoubtedly for them.
What Jesus is really doing is turning the attention of the seventy away from their own wonder-working successes and on to the real point of the exercise. What have they learned, once he concludes his explanation of what has taken place? They have learned that their faithful obedience, their overcoming of fear and hardship, their recognition of Jesus’s authority, have earned them the place in heaven for which they long. There is cause and effect in being lambs, and being written in the Lamb’s book of Life (Revelation 21.17).
