Message Twelve

Living and Proclaiming Christ
as the Jubilee of Grace for His Second Coming

Scripture Reading: Isa. 61:1-3; 65:17; 66:22;
Lev. 25:8-17; Luke 4:16-22; Acts 26:16-19

1. Isaiah 61:1-3 refers to the ministry of Christ as the Anointed of Jehovah in His two comings:
   1. Verses 1 and 2a in this chapter refer to Christ in His first coming, in which His ministry was to announce the gospel of grace.
   2. Verses 2b and 3 refer to Christ in His second coming, in which His ministry will be to avenge Israel that they may be restored.
   3. The prophecy concerning Christ as the Anointed of Jehovah was fulfilled as a foretaste at Christ’s first coming, for the age of grace as the acceptable year of Jehovah, the New Testament jubilee, resulting in the producing and building up of the church.
   4. This prophecy will be fulfilled as a full taste at Christ’s second coming, for the restoration of Israel unto the new heavens and the new earth—65:17; 66:22.
   5. The age of jubilee is divided into two periods—one period is the New Testament age, which is the age of grace today, and the other period is the age of the millennium, which is the fullness of the jubilee.
2. The year of jubilee in Leviticus 25:8-17 is recorded as a prophecy in Isaiah 61:1-2a and is fulfilled in reality in Luke 4:16-22:
   1. In the year of jubilee there were two main blessings—the returning of every man to his lost possession and the liberation from slavery—Lev. 25:8-17.
   2. The Hebrew word for jubilee 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—Luke 2:10-11.
   3. The year of jubilee is the age of grace, the age of Christ as grace dispensed into us for our enjoyment by His words of grace—4:22; Psa. 45:2; John 1:14-17.
   4. The New Testament jubilee is an age of ecstasy for our salvation—cf. 2 Cor. 5:13-15; 6:2.
3. 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—vv. 11-32:
   1. The prodigal son left his father’s house, selling his possession and himself:
      1. Human life is nothing but labor and sorrow and will be soon gone; the true condition of human life is vanity of vanities, vapor of vapors, and futility of futilities—a chasing after wind—Psa. 90:10; 73:14, 16-17, 25; Eccl. 1:2-11, 14.
      2. Today fallen people have no real dwelling place; they are drifting about and wandering without a home, because God is man’s real dwelling place—Psa. 90:1; Gen. 28:17-19; John 15:4; Matt. 11:28.
      3. The fall of man is a fall from God; the people of the world have lost God as their possession and enjoyment—Psa. 16:5; Rom. 9:21-23; Eph. 2:12.
      4. Also, fallen people have sold their members to sin to become slaves of sin—Rom. 7:14; 6:19.
   2. One day the prodigal son returned to his possession and his father’s house; that was a jubilee, a liberation, and everything became pleasant and satisfying—Luke 15:20, 24; cf. Lev. 25:10:
      1. 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—Eph. 1:13-14.
      2. When we have God, we have everything; without God, we have nothing—Hymns, #1080.
      3. We must receive the Lord Jesus as the real jubilee in us; if we have Him, we have God as our possession and can be delivered from the bondage of sin and Satan to have real freedom and rest—Acts 26:18; Eph. 1:14; Col. 1:12; Matt. 11:28.
      4. Even though genuine Christians have God, many are like lights that do not shine because they do not “turn on the switch” by taking God as their portion—Eph. 4:18; cf. Phil. 2:9-16.
4. The living of the jubilee is a living in the enjoyment of Christ, a living of enjoying God as our inheritance and real freedom—Acts 26:18; John 8:36:
   1. In the jubilee all things are pleasant and satisfying to our heart, and we are free from anxiety, at ease, and exultant; hence, everything is to our satisfaction.
   2. The secret of a Christian’s enjoyment of rest is his gaining God as his enjoyment; if we have God, everything is to our satisfaction:
      1. Paul learned the secret of living in the jubilee, the secret of gaining Christ in any environment—Phil. 4:5-7, 11-13.
      2. Everything can be satisfying to us only after we have gained the all-inclusive Christ as our enjoyment; it is not outward persons, matters, or things but Christ within who enables us to be calm and free of worries as we face all kinds of situations—John 16:33.
      3. When we receive Christ as our Savior and life, He comes into us to be our jubilee, but unless we allow Him to live in us and unless we live by Him, we are not practically living in the jubilee—8:11-12.
      4. If our heart is set on any person, thing, or matter other than the Lord, this is idolatry, and the end is wretchedness—1 John 5:21; cf. Ezek. 14:3, 5; 6:9.
   3. The only way to be released from the three kinds of labor in human life—the labor to be a good person, the labor of anxiety, and the labor of suffering—is to take Christ as our enjoyment, satisfaction, and rest—Rom. 7:24—8:2; Phil. 4:5-7; 2 Cor. 12:9.
   4. The living of the jubilee is a life in which we take God instead of other things as our enjoyment and enjoy only God Himself in every situation; then He becomes the primary factor and center in us to lead us and overrule all the troubles of human life—John 6:16-21; Col. 1:17b, 18b.
   5. Our possession is God, and our freedom comes from our enjoyment of God; freedom means release, to be freed from all bondage, all heavy burden, all oppression, and all enslavement—cf. 1 Cor. 6:12:
      1. Christ as the jubilee frees us from our poverty, captivity, blindness, and oppression—Eccl. 3:11; Phil. 3:8; 2 Pet. 2:22; Luke 12:21; Rev. 3:17.
      2. We can be released and have real freedom only by enjoying Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the law of the Spirit of life—Rom. 7:24; 8:2:
         1. Only those who enjoy God do not practice sin and are really free—John 8:11-12, 24, 28, 31-36.
         2. If we do not enjoy God sufficiently, we will still be in bondage in many things; making up our mind will not work; we must learn to contact our living Lord to enjoy Him—cf. 4:24; 1 Cor. 1:9.
5. We need to be today’s ministers and witnesses by living and proclaiming the gospel—Christ as the jubilee of grace—for the accomplishing of God’s eternal economy—Acts 26:16-19:
   1. Our preaching of the gospel is our blowing of the trumpet of God’s complete salvation 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; Acts 26:16-19.
   2. The word jubilee in Leviticus 25:10 means “a time of shouting,” or “a time of the trumpeting of the ram’s horn”; the trumpeting of the ram’s horn signifies the preaching of the gospel as the proclaiming of liberty in the New Testament jubilee to all the sinners sold under sin that they may return to God and God’s family, the household of God, and may rejoice with shouting in the New Testament enjoyment of God’s salvation.
   3. Announcing the gospel to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and sending away in release those who are oppressed are the freedoms and blessings of the jubilee—Luke 4:18-19:
      1. To announce the gospel to the poor is to preach the gospel to those who are without God, to those who are poor in heavenly, spiritual, and divine things; people who live in the world without God do not have hope—12:21; Rev. 3:17; Eph. 2:12.
      2. To proclaim release to the captives is to impart Christ as the Emancipator into those who are prisoners of war, as exiles and prisoners under Satan’s bondage; we can be released and have real freedom only by enjoying Christ as the liberating life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17-18.
      3. To proclaim recovery of sight to the blind is to open the eyes of those who are fallen and turn them from darkness to light so that they may see the divine things in the spiritual realm; to see these things requires spiritual sight and divine light—Acts 26:18.
      4. To send away in release those who are oppressed is to bring those who are being oppressed under Satan in sickness or sin into the enjoyment of Christ as the release of God’s salvation—Luke 13:11-13; John 8:34, 36.