This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 13: Your Names Are Written in Heaven: Luke 10:20.

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The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Look, I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy; nothing at all will harm you. However, don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:17-20).

At first, it sounds like a buzzkill. Jesus has sent out seventy-two disciples to every town and place he is about to visit. He authorizes them to perform miracles and proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom. They are ecstatic when they return: “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name” (Luke 10:17). 

After acknowledging the damage their spiritual offensive has done to Satan, Jesus seems to let the air out of the room. He tells his followers, “[D]on’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you” (v. 20). Say what?

But Jesus isn’t trying to harsh their mellow. Rather, he takes this opportunity, while they’re at a spiritual high point, to tell them true joy should not be grounded in missionary endeavors but in the ultimate gift of God: eternal life. “[R]ejoice that your names are written in heaven,” he tells them – and us. 

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