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Scripture Reading: Lev. 25:9-13; 2, Psa. 16:5; 90:1; Acts 26:18; Eph. 1:14; Col. 1:12; Eph. 2:12; Luke 15:11-24
In the previous chapter we saw something concerning the age of the jubilee. The jubilee refers not only to a day or a year but to an entire period of time. In typology the jubilee lasted a year, but in fulfillment it refers to the entire New Testament age and the millennium. To God’s chosen people the entire New Testament age is the age of the jubilee. In this chapter we will consider another crucial point — the possession of the jubilee.
The Bible calls the fiftieth year among the Israelites the year of jubilee. In that year every owner was returned to his lost possession, and everyone who had sold himself as a slave regained his freedom. Exodus 1 shows us that when God’s elect, the Israelites, fell into Egypt, they not only lost their possession but were afflicted and enslaved by Pharaoh, king of Egypt. This is a picture depicting the condition of fallen man. A person living on the earth has two things: himself and his possessions. Whatever a person has can be put into one of these two categories. We all have ourselves; in this respect we are all equal. With regard to our possessions, however, we are not equal; some may have houses, lands, stocks, bank accounts, a wife, children, and grandchildren as their possessions. However, fallen man has lost everything and even sold himself as a slave.
The children of Israel fell from the good land into Egypt, the land of slavery, and eventually they lost everything. The land of Canaan, which God had given to them, was no longer theirs. It was not that the land left them but that they left the land. They left their possession, the good land of Canaan, and brought everything with them into Egypt. After losing the good land, they lost themselves; they had no freedom and became Pharaoh’s slaves. This is the fullest type in the Bible depicting fallen mankind. According to this picture, as fallen mankind, we have lost our possession, and we have also sold ourselves, becoming slaves who own nothing. This was the situation of the children of Israel in the land of Egypt, and it is also the situation of the entire human race.
In the previous chapter we defined the Chinese term for jubilee as “everything being to one’s satisfaction.” In the jubilee all things are pleasant and satisfying to our heart, and we are free from anxiety, at ease, excited, and exultant. In English the word jubilee denotes a rejoicing, a joyful shouting. The Hebrew word for jubilee is yobel, which means “a joyful noise,” “a shouting with the blasting of a trumpet,” and “a proclamation.” It is a proclamation not of sorrow or lamentation but of the gospel, the good news of great joy.
When the children of Israel, God’s chosen people, fell into a pitiful situation, God came to redeem them through Moses out of the land of Egypt that they might gain their freedom. When God led them out of Egypt, He performed a great miracle by separating the waters of the sea for them to pass through. Then, when they crossed the Red Sea and saw their enemies drowned and buried, they were in ecstasy, shouting and dancing for joy. Miriam led them to sing with great jubilation on the bank of the Red Sea. Fighting was the men’s job, whereas singing was the women’s specialty. We should be women in this way before God, and the more excited we are, the better. We should not remain in oldness, embracing the traditional way of Christianity, the way of having a Sunday morning service in a rigid manner. Instead, we should exult, as Psalm 100:1 says: “Make a joyful noise to Jehovah, all the earth.” In Hebrew, make a joyful noise means to shout together noisily to Jehovah. However, the Chinese translators dared not translate it in this way and therefore rendered it as “shout for joy unto the Lord.” Ezra is another book in the Bible that has a record of people making a joyful noise. When the foundation of the temple was laid, after the children of Israel had returned to Jerusalem from their captivity, all the people shouted with a loud shout. They could not discern the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of weeping, for the people shouted with a loud shout (3:11-13). Some may ask, “Doesn’t 1 Corinthians 14:40 say that in the meetings all things should be done becomingly and in order?” This is true, but the Bible has not only 1 Corinthians 14 but also the Psalms. There are many verses in the Psalms that tell us to make a joyful noise and to rejoice, and not only to rejoice but also to exult and leap for joy. When the jubilee came, millions of Israelites made a joyful noise in a loud and spontaneous way, shouting with joy, even at the same time. Today choirs are orderly because they sing in a rigid way, without any jubilation, but if we all sing with excitement, it is hard to be altogether orderly.
The jubilee is an age of ecstasy. The New Testament age is an age of ecstasy, and a Christian is a person in ecstasy. Over fifty years ago, Brother Nee said, “If, as a Christian, you have never reached the point of being beside yourself, you are not up to the standard.” He added that we should be beside ourselves before God but soberminded before men. Some seize this word and say, “See, didn’t Brother Nee say that we should be soberminded?” Yes, we need to be soberminded before men, but have we ever been beside ourselves before God? The Bible has many sides; we cannot look only at one side. Yes, we should be soberminded before men, but to be soberminded does not necessarily mean to be quiet. To shout in the meetings is not to be deranged and to yell in a frenzied way. We may shout for joy and still be soberminded. On the one hand, we rejoice and make a joyful noise, but on the other hand, we are soberminded, exercising restraint. If we, as Christians, have never reached a point of being beside ourselves or being “crazy,” if we have never been in ecstasy before God, we are not up to the standard. Rather, this shows that we do not have a sufficient enjoyment of God. If we have a sufficient enjoyment of God, we will leap for joy. Even as an old man, I am often beside myself before God, yet those around me may not be aware of it. It seems that I am serious every day, coming and going according to a prescribed schedule, yet God knows the real condition. We have a real reason to be beside ourselves. If there is no joy in us, we cannot be beside ourselves, but if we are always enjoying God, we will reach a point where we cannot help but be beside ourselves. In the same way, because the children of Israel enjoyed the grace of God’s all-sufficient redemption, when they crossed the Red Sea, they shouted and leaped for joy, praising and singing with a loud voice, and cheering unceasingly.
After this, God brought them through the wilderness into Canaan and allotted the good land of Canaan to them. Each tribe received an allotment of land, and each family within each tribe also received an allotment. Furthermore, each household within each family enjoyed their portion of the allotment. Therefore, once they entered Canaan, everyone possessed a portion of land. There were no rich ones or poor ones, because all the households were equal, each possessing a portion of land. There was no need for anyone to become a slave, because everyone was his own landlord. There were no small landlords or big landlords; they were all the owners of their own land. Moreover, they lived a wealthy life because the land was a land flowing with milk and honey.
However, after receiving their allotted portions of the land, some of them slowly declined and became lazy. Some who were gluttonous and slothful gradually became poor. They began to sell what they owned, and even after selling their land, they eventually had to sell themselves as slaves. God, who is wise, foreknew all these things, so He set up a simple ordinance. In the forty-ninth year after the children of Israel entered Canaan, the trumpet was to be blown on the tenth day of the seventh month throughout all the land. The tenth day of the seventh month was the Day of Expiation. Based on the expiation for sin, freedom was proclaimed to all the people of Israel. Therefore, if someone had sold his land, he would be returned to his land, and if someone had sold himself as a slave, he would regain his freedom. There may have been many who had sold their land and themselves. Those who had lost their possession and had become slaves must have danced and been in ecstasy when they heard the blast of the horn, the silver trumpet, proclaiming the jubilee. This shows the significance of the jubilee. God’s wisdom is immense and incredible. At the arrival of the fiftieth year, there was no more selling of land or of persons; every household had a portion of land once more. Every fifty years there was a balance of the ownership of the land; this was the fairest way to deal with the land.
We must now consider what man’s possession is. Psalm 16:5 says, “Jehovah is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; / You maintain my lot.” An inheritance is a possession. The land is not our real possession; rather, God is our possession. The land is merely a type, a symbol, and a figure. How can we say that God is man’s possession? From Genesis 1:26 and Romans 9:21-23 we can see clearly that man was created by God to be His vessel. A vessel as a container is empty by itself; hence, it needs content. The content of a vessel is its possession. An empty cup is a destitute cup. One who is thirsty desires a drink, but an empty cup cannot quench his thirst. To be empty is to be poor, and to be poor is to be empty. Man is a vessel of God; hence, if man does not have God, he is empty and poor. The first chorus of Hymns, #1080 says, “Vanity! Vanity! / Vanity! Vanity! / ’Tis chasing the wind, / It’s all vanity!” The last chorus says, “Christ without, all is vain! / Christ within, all is gain! / All things are vain, / Christ only is gain!” Man without Christ is vain. Hence, man’s real possession is not land or a house, and neither is it a wife or children; man’s possession is God. God created man as His vessel to contain Him. If we as a vessel do not have God as our content, we are empty and poor.
After God created Adam, He put Adam in front of the tree of life, indicating that He wanted Adam to receive the tree of life; besides this, He indicated little else to Adam. What is the tree of life? The tree of life is God. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger, and he who believes into Me shall by no means ever thirst” (John 6:35). Psalm 36:9 also says, “With You is the fountain of life.” The Lord is the tree of life and the river of life; he who believes into Him eats and drinks Him and is satisfied. To be sure, God is our possession. Furthermore, according to Psalm 16:5, God is not only our inheritance but also the portion of our cup. In this verse, inheritance is a general expression, whereas cup is a more personal expression. God is not only our inheritance but also the portion of our cup for our enjoyment. God is not only our possession but also our real enjoyment. Moreover, God maintains our allotted portion.
God presented the tree of life to Adam, but Adam did not take it; hence, he lost his portion of the enjoyment of God. Adam fell from God’s presence, and as a result, all the people of the world lost God. Therefore, Ephesians 2:12 says that people living in the world today have no hope and are without God. The prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32 is a portrait of all mankind. From kings and presidents to street sweepers and beggars, everyone is a prodigal son who has become penniless and who lives with “hogs.” The fall of man is a fall from God, a fall from man’s possession. Man has lost God as his possession and enjoyment. This is the first step of man’s loss.
The second step is that in the fall, man sold himself to sin. Paul says in Romans 7:14, “I am fleshy, sold under sin.” As fallen sinners, we have lost God, and we are without God. Not only so, we have sold our members to sin to become slaves of sin (6:19). Sin dominates man. Today people in the world, no matter who they are, are under the domination of sin. Some people have a higher degree of intellect and thus are controlled by their reason. For the sake of society, their relatives, and their friends, they are not reckless outwardly, but they are still reckless in their mind. Who is not sold to sin in his heart? We have all sold ourselves to sin.
God called Paul and said to him, “I send you, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:17b-18). This inheritance is God as our possession, that is, God as our land with its rich produce. Today man needs land to provide food for his living and a lodging for his rest. As we have seen, Psalm 16:5 says, “Jehovah is the portion of my inheritance,” and Psalm 90:1 says, “O Lord, You have been our dwelling place / In all generations.” Hymns, #600 is written based on these two psalms. The general idea of the hymn is that God is our eternal portion, our everlasting all, and our safe abode. God is our land and our dwelling place. It is no wonder that when the Lord Jesus came, He said, “Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Moreover, in John 15:4 He said, “Abide in Me.” Today all men have lost God as their possession, and they have no real dwelling place. Fallen people are all drifting about and wandering without a home. Although they may live in high-rise buildings or large mansions, within them there is no rest, no dwelling place. Man is wandering because he has lost God. God is man’s real dwelling place and real possession.
When we preach the gospel, we proclaim God’s jubilee to others. In Luke 4:18-19 the Lord Jesus made a proclamation concerning the coming of the jubilee. The proclamation of the jubilee in Luke 4 governs the central thought of the whole Gospel of Luke, and the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is an excellent illustration of the jubilee. Before examining this parable, however, we must consider a few verses. In Ephesians 1:13-14 Paul says, “In whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory.” What does it mean to be saved? To be saved is to return to our inheritance, to return to God, to come back to God and enjoy Him anew as our possession. God is our inheritance, and after we are saved, the Spirit of God is in us as the pledge, the guarantee, the proof, and the security of our inheritance. In Greek the word for pledge or guarantee also means “sample.” A sample is a foretaste, guaranteeing the full taste in the future. Today the Holy Spirit is in us as the guarantee, the sample, of God as our enjoyment, giving us a foretaste and guaranteeing our full enjoyment of God in the future. Therefore, to be saved is to gain God. We have not only obtained salvation, but even more we have obtained God. When we have God, we have everything; without God, we have nothing. We are saved only when we have God, and with God we have everything. Therefore, God is our inheritance.
Furthermore, Colossians 1:12 says, “Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light.” Today God has become our blessed portion in Christ. Apart from Christ, people live in the world, having no hope and being without God. Outside of Christ, we are without God in the world. We, however, can no longer say that we are apart from Christ. We are in Christ, and we have God. This is not merely a saying but a reality. Perhaps some may ask, “Why is it, then, that some Christians are still unhappy?” We may illustrate this with electric lights. Lights may be installed in a building, and the electricity may be connected, but if we do not use the switch to turn them on, the lights do not shine. There is electricity, but there are no lights; practically, this is the same as having no electricity. This is the situation of many Christians. Even though they have God, they are like lights that do not shine because they do not “turn on the switch” by taking God as their portion.
As Paul says in Ephesians 2:12, we were apart from Christ, having no hope and without God in the world. Today, however, we are no longer apart from Christ. Rather, we are in Christ. We have God, and we “turn on the switch” to enjoy God as our possession. The jubilee is altogether related to our possession, and our possession is God. When we have God, we have the jubilee; when we have God, everything is to our satisfaction. Our preaching of the gospel is our blowing of the trumpet of redemption to proclaim to the world, “Behold, now is the well-acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation,” the year of jubilee (2 Cor. 6:2). Though man has fallen far from God, God is waiting for him, longing for his return.
We may now consider the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. We are all very familiar with the parable of the prodigal son’s return. Some have even known this story from their childhood. In this story the Lord Jesus spoke of a certain father who had two sons. The younger one, being befuddled, asked the father to give him his share of the inheritance. After he received his inheritance, he went out and lived dissolutely until he spent it all. Then he had no choice but to go and join himself to a citizen of a “distant country,” which signifies the satanic world. This citizen, who may be compared to Satan, was more oppressive than Pharaoh and sent him to feed the hogs. Pharaoh sent the people to build cities, but in this parable a citizen sent the son to feed hogs, which is worse. Building cities is a matter of sweating and making bricks, but in order to feed hogs, one has to associate with them. Eventually, the son desired to eat the carob pods which the hogs ate, yet even then his hunger was not satisfied. As a result, the prodigal son came to his senses and returned to his father’s house.
A Chinese proverb says, “The return of a prodigal son is more precious than gold.” Many people refer to this parable when they preach the gospel. However, this parable is mainly concerned not with the prodigal son’s return but with the father who looks for his son and accepts him with embraces and affectionate kisses. The father’s acceptance of the son was the “year of jubilee” to him. A father’s great fear is that his children might run away from home; this is a very painful thing. Although it is painful for an only son to run away from home, we may think that a father of many children would not care as much about one son. However, a father treasures every one of his children. A father even cannot bear it when a son runs out of the house for a short time. In this parable the father not only looked occasionally for his son, but he must have stood at the door of his house every day, eagerly waiting for his son’s return. Therefore, when the son returned, the father saw him from afar and immediately ran to him to embrace him and kiss him (v. 20). This was his acceptance of the son. The day of the return of the prodigal son was a year of jubilee to him. That was the year of grace, the acceptable year of God. God accepts all fallen and repentant prodigal sons.
According to spiritual significance, this story depicts a fallen man who completely lost his possession in the house of God the Father. He left his own possession and sold himself as a slave. Today all fallen people, regardless of their profession, whether presidents, kings, or poor beggars, are “feeding hogs.” To feed hogs is to engage in unclean business. We may say that a profession in politics is dark, but in reality, which profession is not dark? If politics is the darkest profession, then commerce is the second darkest, but is education not dark? Those who have a Ph.D., medical doctors, and everyone else are also in darkness. Everyone is “feeding hogs.” The most obvious result of feeding hogs is to become unclean; this indicates one’s engagement in unclean things. In today’s society, which profession does not practice giving and receiving bribes? If one does not give bribes, he has no way to succeed. Whose money is earned in an absolutely clean manner? It is no wonder that the Lord Jesus gives money a name, “the mammon of unrighteousness” (Luke 16:9). The very nature of money is unrighteous. Even if a person seems to be righteous, as long as he makes money and acquires a fortune, he is “feeding hogs”; he is engaged in unclean business. Perhaps when some hear this, they may say, “Since this is the case, from now on I will give up my schooling and abandon my job.” This is not what we mean. In this world people have to work lest they become vagrants and loafers. How can one eat without working? Rather, this story is a picture showing us that once a fallen man leaves God, he goes to “feed hogs,” regardless of what profession he is in. We should consider seriously whether we are clean in our work. All fallen people working in society are “wallowing in a pigpen,” although some eat better “carob pods” than others. Everyone is “feeding hogs” and eating “carob pods.”
When the prodigal son considered his situation, he may have asked himself, “Why am I doing this? My father is very rich, so why should I perish here in famine?” This is a sinner’s repentance. However, the concept of a sinner after his repentance is to return home to work. Therefore, the prodigal son went on to say, “I will rise up and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants” (15:18-19). Then he rose up and went to his father to speak according to what he had prepared. However, the father did not want to hear what he had to say, so before the son could finish his speaking, the father interrupted him and told the servants, “Bring out quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fattened calf; slaughter it, and let us eat and be merry” (vv. 22-23). The fattened calf signifies Christ, who is God. God in Christ has become the fattened calf for the enjoyment of the repentant and returning prodigal sons. To us, this is the jubilee.
Therefore, Luke 15:11-32 is an illustration of the jubilee proclaimed in Luke 4:18-19. The prodigal son sold his possession and himself. One day he returned to his possession and his father’s house. That was a jubilee, a liberation, and everything became pleasant and satisfying. In the father’s house there was only enjoyment with eating and drinking; there was no labor. This corresponds to Leviticus 25:11, which says that the people were neither to sow nor reap in the year of the jubilee; they should only eat and enjoy. Furthermore, they could only eat of the produce directly from the field. This means that they ate what God supplied without the need of their own labor. Similarly, the father in Luke 15 did not listen to what the son had to say about being a hired servant. Instead, the father desired to give the son the fattened calf for him to eat and enjoy. No one is unworthy; rather, all are worthy because God says, “I have accepted you.” The jubilee is the age, the time, of God’s acceptance, indicated by the father’s acceptance of the prodigal son in Luke 15.
The jubilee in the Bible is the age of the gospel, which is this age. Once we repent and turn to God by receiving the Lord Jesus, we obtain God within. This is the beginning of our jubilee. From that day onward, our whole life is a jubilee, and we enjoy the jubilee forever. We can continually enjoy God as our possession. We thank and praise the Lord that our jubilee will be richer and richer from now unto eternity. This is the meaning of the possession of the jubilee.
