(1)
Scripture Reading: Lev. 25:8-13, 23-24, 28, 39-41
In Luke 4:14-30 we see that the Man-Savior began His ministry by proclaiming the jubilee of grace. On the Sabbath day in the synagogue at Nazareth, He read from the book of Isaiah and proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:16-21). This acceptable year is the New Testament age of grace typified by the year of jubilee (Lev. 25:8-17), the fiftieth year in which all the slaves were liberated and every man’s inheritance was restored to him. Beginning with this message, we shall consider further the jubilee. In this message and in the message following we shall give a definition of the jubilee.
The word “jubilee” is anglicized from the Hebrew word yobel. This Hebrew word denotes the blast of a horn, specifically the signal of a silver trumpet. Hence, the word came to signify the instrument itself and the festival thus introduced. Concerning this, Leviticus 25:9 says, “Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.”
We have seen that yobel refers specifically to the blasting of a silver trumpet. In typology silver signifies redemption. Hence, the blasting of a silver trumpet indicates the trumpeting of God’s redemption. The Hebrew word yobel, anglicized jubilee, refers to the blast of a horn, the instrument itself, and finally to the festival introduced by the blasting of a silver trumpet.
The basic thought concerning the jubilee is that it is the sounding out of God’s redemption. The blasting of the silver trumpet was a proclamation of redemption. It was a proclamation based on God’s redemption and also a sounding out of this redemption.
This sounding out, this proclamation, of God’s redemption was not the proclaiming of any commandment or requirement. On the contrary, it was a proclamation of freedom, of release. Leviticus 25:10 says, “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.” Here we see that the proclamation of release or liberty was related to people and to their possessions. Regarding every human being we need to consider the person himself and his possessions. Therefore, the release proclaimed for the jubilee affected the Israelites and their possessions.
The study of political methods has been going on for thousands of years. Those who study politics know that if someone is to rule others, the first thing he must do is take care of feeding them. In other words, a ruler must manage the economy well. If the people do not have food, they will rise up against those ruling them.
An important issue in the election of any president of the United Sates is whether a particular candidate can provide jobs and insure a proper standard of living. A good president must be able to meet this need. For example, Roosevelt became president during the great depression. Because he changed the economic situation of the country, he is regarded by many as a great president. Some claim that Roosevelt was great not merely in political affairs but in uplifting the living standard of the American people.
The point we are making here is that if any politician or statesman is to be successful he must find a way to improve the living of the people. The more successful a political leader is in this, the longer he will be able to remain in office. The political leaders who are respected most by the people are those who have the ability to improve the level of daily life.
Because of man’s economic needs, especially the need for food, certain “isms” have developed. These “isms” include communism, capitalism, and socialism. According to communism, economic resources should be held in common, land should not belong to certain property owners, and social wealth should not belong to the capitalists. Communism teaches that something should be done to balance the wealth. In some countries taxation is used as a means of balancing wealth. In these countries a person may earn a great deal of money, but much of it must be given to the government in taxes. Socialism is also concerned with man’s economic needs. Statesmen and philosophers have tried their best to find ways to meet man’s need for food. However, the more “isms” they have invented, the more the people have suffered.
In the jubilee portrayed in Leviticus 25 the main thought is how to take care of people’s living. In other words, the basic concern is man’s enjoyment. The primary enjoyment in human life is to be filled with good food. A person whose stomach is empty will not appreciate money or material riches. He would rather have food to fill his stomach. Suppose a rich man who owns a luxury car is starving. Do you think he will be able to enjoy his car? No, he would gladly trade his car for food. Humanly speaking, the jubilee is concerned with taking care of our eating, with filling our stomach.
Although God is very different from worldly politicians and has not taught man any “isms,” we may say that He is a “great statesman.” The jubilee was ordained by God as the divine statesman.
God ordained that His people be given the good land of Canaan. This land was allotted to the twelve tribes of Israel. Eventually, each family received an allotment of land as a possession. The land was not mainly to be for their living or their lodging; the land was primarily for their eating.
The need for food is greater than the need for lodging. One may live in the wilderness for a long time without a house, but he could not live very long without eating. The good land, therefore, was given to God’s people for their eating. This is the reason the Bible refers to this land as “a land flowing with milk and honey.”
The good land was not called a land of gold. What good would it be to have a land that could provide gold but could not provide food? God created the land not for man to have gold but for man to have food. The land is for food.
Milk and honey signify that the good land is rich in food. Some countries may have wheat and corn but no milk and honey. The good land is a land flowing with milk and honey. Both milk and honey are produced by the mingling of two lives — the vegetable life and the animal life. This mingling of the animal life with the vegetable life signifies the riches of the land.
Because God brought His people into the good land and allotted a portion of the land to every family, each family was rich in its possession of the land. But suppose the members of a particular family did not labor on the land. Because they did not work on the land, they became very poor. Little by little they sold the land until their entire allotment was sold. In this way they lost their portion of the good land.
When land was sold in a country other than Israel, the land was sold forever. But God’s ordination did not allow the land in Israel to be sold permanently. At most, the land could be sold only for fifty years. Leviticus 25:23 and 24 say, “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.” Here we see that the land was not sold forever; land that had been sold could be redeemed. The one who bought the land did not have the right to keep it indefinitely. After fifty years at the latest, the land could be redeemed.
In Leviticus 25 we are told not that the land was returned to its original owner, but that the person returned to the land. Concerning this, verse 28 says, “In the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.” Actually, one did not sell the land — he sold himself. Eventually, it was not the land that was returned to the seller; it was the seller that returned to the land, to his possession.
After the children of Israel received their portions of the land, some became poor and sold their allotment of the land, and others became landlords. Was there the need of some kind of “ism” in order for the land to be redistributed? No, God’s ordination concerning the land allowed that in the fiftieth year, the year of jubilee, those who lost their possession of land could return to it. This means that in the fiftieth year every family could become rich again. Here we see that the principle of balancing the amount of land among the people was written in the Bible thirty-five centuries ago. What we find in Leviticus 25 is much better than the theories of statesmen, politicians, and philosophers.
We have seen that with every human being the most important matters are the person himself and his possession. From Leviticus 25 we see that it was possible for an Israelite to sell his possession and thereby lose his portion of the land. Now we need to see that some became so poor that they even sold themselves: “And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant: but as a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee: and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return” (vv. 39-41). These verses indicate that in the year of jubilee one who had sold himself to serve another would be released. Therefore, in the fiftieth year there was no one without land and no one in slavery. Everyone had his freedom and his own possession. This means that both the land and those who had sold themselves were released. The proclamation of the jubilee was a proclamation of the release of people’s possessions and of the people themselves. This is the jubilee.
If all the Israelites had been diligent to labor on the land, no one would have been in poverty, and no one would have had to sell his land or himself. However, many lost both their possessions and themselves. They had no way to return to their possessions or to their families. But when the year of jubilee came, there was release both of the possession and of the people. Those who had lost their land could return to it, and those who had sold themselves could go back to their families.
Before we consider further the definition of the jubilee, I would like to apply what we have already covered to today’s situation. When man was created, he received a possession. Man’s possession by creation was actually God Himself. God created man to be His vessel for His expression. Thus, God intended to give Himself to man as his possession. But man became fallen, and in the fall man lost God as his possession.
Through the fall man also sold himself. In Romans 7:14 Paul says, “I am fleshly, sold under sin.” To be sold in this way is to be held in slavery. Anyone who sells himself to be a slave enters into a condition of slavery. Today all of mankind is in slavery, mainly the slavery of sin. Man has sold himself into the slavery of sin, Satan, and the world. Therefore, fallen man has lost both God and himself.
Before we were saved, we were those who had lost God as our possession and who had also lost ourselves. Ephesians 2:12 indicates that fallen man is without God. Instead of God as his possession, man has sin and has sold himself into the slavery of sin.
Apart from God’s preserving grace, even Christians may lose God as their possession in a practical way and may also sell themselves into the slavery of sin. In their daily living some Christians have sin instead of God. Like unbelievers, they have lost God as their possession, and they have sold themselves to sin, pleasures, and worldly amusements. All such believers, as well as all unbelievers, need a jubilee.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, the entire human race had lost God as their possession and had sold themselves into the slavery of sin. This was true of Jews as well as Gentiles. The Lord Jesus did not live in the Gentile world; He lived in the Jewish land among God’s chosen people. According to the four Gospels, not even those in the Jewish land, the so-called holy land, had God as their possession. Who among the people in the Jewish land had God as his possession? In the record of the Gospels we see that even Israel had lost God. Furthermore, all the Jews, including the Pharisees and rabbis, had sold themselves into sin. This was the reason the Lord Jesus rebuked the Pharisees so strongly in Matthew 23. Because they were in the slavery of sin, He pronounced woes upon them. He seemed to be saying, “You Pharisees, scribes, elders, and high priests have sold yourselves to sin. You have lost God as your possession, and you have lost yourselves.”
In Luke 4 the Lord Jesus read a portion from Isaiah that was a prophecy not of the jubilee in type, but of the actual jubilee: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to send away in release those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (vv. 18-19). Then He declared, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your ears” (v. 21). By reading that portion of the Scripture the Lord sounded the trumpet; He proclaimed the jubilee.
Do you know what the preaching of the gospel is? The preaching of the gospel is the sounding of the jubilee, the trumpeting of the jubilee. The preaching of the gospel is the proclamation of our release. Actually, this release is not the release of our possession to us; it is the release of us to our possession and to our family. Once we were in the wrong family, the family of slavery. The sounding of the jubilee tells us to return to our own family, to the family of God.
Now we can understand what the jubilee is. The jubilee is the proclaiming of a wonderful release — a release of our possession to us and the release of ourselves so that we may return to God, to our family, and to our possession.
