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Luke 10:1 reads,
“After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.”
In light of that verse, I want to float a theory.
My theory is this: Jesus did nothing arbitrarily or randomly. There was purpose behind everything that Jesus did.
Including His sending of the 70.
So if my theory holds, that Jesus did not send out the 70 randomly or arbitrarily, we are face with two most-intriguing questions:
- Why in the world did Jesus send out 70?
- What does it mean to us today?
And as you will soon hear in this PODCAST, it means everything to us today.
Back in Genesis 1:1, we read an incredibly austere and dramatic statement. Especially when compared to other Middle Eastern creation accounts:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Everything you need to know about the Bible, this world, you, your relationship to this world, and more importantly your relationship to God is contained in that one verse. All of the rest of the Bible is commentary.
Now, from the moment that God created Adam and Eve, the entire human race has always been the unique focus of God’s attention and the object of His love. Additionally, from the moment that Adam and Eve declared their independence from God and willfully defied Him, God has been on a rescue mission of epic proportions. His goal being to save everyone who would allow Him to do so.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)
Now, I often say the truism that “given enough time, God will give us exactly what we want.” And that’s just what happened here in between God, Adam and Eve in the garden. What did Adam want? What did Satan offer? To be like God. And that’s what they got.
So, immediately after Adam and Eve took Satan’s offer, we see God decree the following:
“And I will put open hostility
Between you and the woman,
And between your offspring) and her Seed;
He shall fatally bruise your head,
And you shall [only] bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
Now, admittedly, this is just a hint – barely a shadow of what would become a vivid redemptive reality. And, oh, did mankind need it. For, right away in the very next chapter, we read about Cain killing his brother Abel – the first recorded murder. Then, just a few verses later, we read the Bible’s first song, written by the first recorded bigamist:
19 Lamech married two women…
... 23 One day Lamech said to his wives,
“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
listen to me, you wives of Lamech.
I have killed a man who attacked me,
a young man who wounded me.
24 If someone who kills Cain is punished seven times,
then the one who kills me will be punished seventy-seven times!” (Genesis 4:19-24)
The depravity of mankind sank and sank and sank, culminating to what we read in the very next chapter:
5 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil
Now, you know that this resulted in the Great Flood, but what you may not know is what was occurring for the 120 years prior to the flood. As Peter wrote in 2 Peter 2:5,
Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment.
For 120 years, while he constructed the ark, Noah warned his neighbors, pleading with them to accept God and get into the ark – God’s rescue mission.
Then we move ever so quickly to Genesis 11. Flying in the face of God’s promise to Noah in Genesis 9 – instead of heeding God’s advice and adhering to His covenant of peacefully repopulating the earth – we read these disastrous words:
At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. 2 As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.
3 They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.)4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”
5 But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. 6 “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!7 Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”
8 In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world.
Eventually, the people of Genesis 11 settled into 70 distinct nations.
Now, here’s something most people don’t catch: Genesis 11 gives us the cause of the world’s situation. Genesis 10 gives us the effect. Genesis 10 talks about the dissemination of nations stemming from Noah’s family, due to the events of chapter 11.
So… we have 70 different nations. Within one of which is the city of Ur, where there eventually lived Abraham – a monotheistic man living in the midst of polytheistic Babylon. Once again, God extended his rescue mission… this time to Abram:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)
The focus of God’s rescue mission has ALWAYS been and ALWAYS will be ALL THE PEOPLE of the world. We see this in the Old Testament, and even more so in the New Testament:
For God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son that WHOEVER believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. (2 Peter 3:9)
2 He (Jesus Christ) is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)
You (Jesus) were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. (Revelation 5:9)
You see… from end to end, from Genesis to Revelation, God’s rescue plan is laid out. God did not choose the Jews to be the only inheritors of salvation. Also, God did not choose the Jews to only be the inheritors of salvation.
He chose them to light the way.
That’s what Jesus was doing when He sent out the 70 – trying to elevate the world to the highest moral and spiritual level possible, and to perfect the world under God’s rule.
This is why, in the two months between John 10:21 and John 10:22 (between the Feast of Tabernacles in October and the Feast of Dedication in December), He was preparing the way and painting the picture that not just the twelve tribes of Israel, but the 70 tribes of the world were who He was sent to save.
After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. (Luke 10:1)
Seventy. It’s more than a random number. It’s God’s rescue plan for you, me, and the rest of the world.