Luke 10:20 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Because your names are written in heaven.— Not by an absolute decree, but approved and accepted of God, on account of their faith and sincerity. Many are of opinion, that this is an allusion to the enrolment of the citizens' names in a register, by which their right to the privileges of citizenship was acknowledged by the community. It seems most probable, that when the seventy disciples were returned, Jesus was surrounded with a great multitude of people; this may be gathered at least from Luke 10:23 where, after having spoken publicly to the seventy, we are told that he turned unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed, &c. The happiness here praised, was enjoyed in the same sense by the seventy, as by the twelve, and consequently it was as fit that they should be made sensible of its greatness, as that the twelve shouldunderstand it. Besides, this declaration, as well as what was spoken more publicly, was designed to moderate the joy which the seventy had conceived on finding the devils subject to them. These things shew, that what our Lord said privately to his disciples, was said to the seventy, as well as to the twelve. If so, he was now attended by the multitude; which is the more necessary to observe, as it accounts for the behaviour of the lawyer in the subsequent verses.