Luke 10:18

Luke 10:18. I was beholding, i.e.. while you were thus exercising power over demons. Of course the vision was a spiritual one.

Satan, the personal prince of darkness.

Fall as lightning, i.e., suddenly.

From heaven. This seems to be figurative, implying the pride and height of Satan's power. The thought is, I saw your triumph over Satan's servants, and in this a token of his fall, of complete victory to be finally achieved through such works of faith and courage in my name. If the verse did not stand in this connection we might perhaps refer it to some remote point of time, such as the victory over Satan in the wilderness, or the original fall of Satan. The tense used in the Greek does not, however, indicate any such point of time, but a period. Every explanation must accept much that is figurative and poetic in the verse, but the one we adopt is open to the fewest difficulties. The objection that the success of the Seventy was an insufficient ground for such declaration depreciates their success. They had surpassed, through their courage and faith, the promised power. He, to whom the secrets of the world of spirits lie open, saw in this more than a temporary success; it was to Him the token of final triumph. The human agents in bringing in that triumph, have a conflict which is not with flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12).