The Israelites were redeemed and blessed by God and eventually were brought into the good land of Canaan, and each family was allotted their portion of the land. Under God’s care, not only were the Israelites blessed, but even their land was blessed. Every seventh year the land did not have to yield its produce. In that year the Israelites and the land were to rest. In the seventh year, no one sowed his field because this was the year ordained by God as the Sabbath year. Then after seven Sabbath years, there was the Pentecostal year, the fiftieth year. The Pentecostal year was not just a Sabbath year; it was beyond human description. Because of this, the translators of the Chinese Bible struggled to invent the Chinese term hsi-nien, the year of jubilee, to describe it. After the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, every fiftieth year was a year of jubilee to them. Fifty years signifies the entire course of fallen human life. The year of jubilee, which is the fiftieth year, signifies the conclusion of our fallen human life.
As we have seen, the Israelites were redeemed by God; they left Egypt, journeyed through the wilderness, and entered into Canaan. After entering into the land of Canaan, each family received a portion of the good land flowing with milk and honey for their rich enjoyment. However, some of the people were lazy and gluttonous. Lazy people like to eat, but they do not like to work. To be sure, one who is lazy and gluttonous becomes poor. In ancient times the people did not have much to sell, so when they became poor, they sold their land. However, if the land had been sold permanently, in just a few generations there would have been an extreme disparity between the rich and the poor. Therefore, God told the Israelites, “The land shall not be sold into permanent ownership, for the land is Mine; for you are aliens and sojourners with Me” (Lev. 25:23). They were not to sell their portion of land, the possession that they had received from God, into permanent ownership. This is unlike the sale of land today, in which once land is sold, it is sold forever. The longest duration for which a piece of land could be sold was fifty years. After a man sold his land, in the fiftieth year, the year of jubilee, he as the original owner would receive back his land.
Furthermore, some of the people were so gluttonous and lazy that even after selling their land they were still in poverty, and they had no alternative but to sell themselves as slaves. Nevertheless, when the year of jubilee arrived, they no longer remained slaves but obtained their release. In the year of jubilee, which the Israelites were to sanctify, they proclaimed release throughout the land to all its inhabitants, and each one returned to his possession and to his family (Lev. 25:9-10). No one needed to pay for redemption; everyone freely recovered his possession and his freedom. Therefore, in the fiftieth year, no one was without land and no one was in slavery. Therefore, the year of jubilee was a grace to them.
Isaiah 61:2 calls the year of jubilee “the acceptable year of Jehovah.” This can also be translated, “the year of Jehovah’s grace.” This verse is included in the Scripture which the Lord Jesus read in Luke 4:17-19, where the above phrase reads, “the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee.” In Isaiah it is the year of grace, whereas in the New Testament it is the year of jubilee. Therefore, the year of jubilee is the year of grace. Man became a vile sinner, not only lazy and gluttonous but also reckless and lawless. Laziness and gluttony made him so poor that he had to sell his possession, and recklessness and lawlessness caused him to become so destitute that he had to sell himself. Consequently, he fell into a situation in which he had neither his possession nor his freedom. However, in the year of jubilee every owner is returned to what he has sold, and everyone regains his freedom.
Politicians and philosophers have been trying their best to find ways to meet the needs of people, but the more “isms” they invent, the more people suffer. What the Bible teaches is far better than any theory or “ism.” What we need is not a theory or an “ism” but the coming of the Lord Jesus into mankind. In His coming He was anointed by Jehovah to announce the gospel to the poor, and He was sent to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send away in release those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of God’s acceptance of man, the year of jubilee, which is the year of grace. The year of jubilee is the time when God forgives and accepts man.
As a type in the Old Testament, the year of jubilee is recorded in Leviticus 25, and as a prophecy it is found in Isaiah 61. The type was given about fifteen hundred years before the coming of the Lord Jesus, and the prophecy was given about seven hundred years before His coming. During this time, however, the Jews were altogether ignorant of the significance of the year of jubilee in Leviticus 25 and the year of grace in Isaiah 61. Over the years, they simply kept the regulations of the law according to their tradition, worshipping on every Sabbath day and going to the synagogues to listen to teaching. But one day the Lord Jesus came, and on a particular Sabbath day He entered the synagogue, picked up the scroll, and opened it to Isaiah 61, which prophesies that God would anoint the Lord Jesus with His Spirit to announce the gospel to the poor and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee. Then Jesus said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). The Jews bore witness to Him and marveled at the words of grace proceeding out of His mouth (v. 22). However, to this day they still do not understand the true meaning of these words of grace.
Today we understand the true significance of the words of grace spoken by the Lord. God created man with the purpose that man would be a vessel to contain Him for His expression. Hence, immediately after man was created, God gave Himself to man to be man’s possession. The inheritance that God has given to us is God Himself. He has not given us anything other than Himself because, in God’s view, everything else is dung. The inheritance spoken of in the Bible is the inheritance among the saints to be received by all those who believe into the Lord (Acts 26:18). This is God Himself. We are those who inherit God. Therefore, after God created Adam, He did not say much to him; He simply indicated that He wanted Adam to receive Him to be his real possession. However, due to his fall, man forsook God, lost God as his possession, and fell into the world. Consequently, man sold not only his own possession but also himself.
When considering human society, we may divide human beings into three categories: optimists, pessimists, and those in between. Many optimists are dreamers and persons without sobriety, and they are filled with imaginations about everything. In the eyes of pessimists, however, nothing is good. To them, China is not good, and America is also not good. When they are in one place, they say another place is better, and when they are in the other place, they say that the first one was better after all. Those in between are neither overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic; they are very clearheaded. They teach their children to study hard, to endeavor, to be sure to graduate from college, and to pass the English language test so they can go to the United States to study. If they do not obtain a Ph.D., at least they receive a master’s degree. Then after getting their degree, they work even harder so they can get married, have a family, and build up a career. However, regardless of whether they are optimists, pessimists, or in between, they have all lost God as their possession and have sold themselves to be slaves of Satan.
Ephesians 2:12 says that people living in the world today have no hope and are without God. Whether rich or poor, noble or base, civilized or barbaric, everyone is the same; all have no hope and are without God. Not only so, people today have fallen to such an extent that they have sold themselves to sin and Satan. Some people have sold themselves to sinful things, such as extravagant eating and drinking, sexual indulgence, gambling, and drug addiction. With others it may not be as obvious; nevertheless, they also have sold themselves and are therefore without freedom, having no control over their own will. Those who are unmarried think that marriage is the way to be freed from problems. After marriage, however, they discover that instead of obtaining freedom they have entered a new kind of slavery. The basic problem is that man has sold himself and lost God; thus, he has completely lost his freedom and his own possession and has become a slave. Paul says in Romans 7:14, “But I am fleshy, sold under sin.” Not only the unbelievers, but even many who are believers are still not wholly delivered from the slavery under Pharaoh.
Therefore, in the year of jubilee there are two main blessings: the returning of every man to his lost possession and the liberation from slavery. If we want to be truly free and able to enjoy God as our possession, we must receive the Lord Jesus as the real jubilee in us. If we have Him, our possession is recovered and our freedom is returned to us. The Lord Jesus has released us that we may have God as our possession and be delivered from the bondage of sin and Satan so that we may have real freedom. Every one of us who has experienced the grace of the Lord can testify that before we were saved, we had no freedom and no control over ourselves. Now that we have been saved, the Lord has released us from within so that we are no longer slaves. Not only so, we have been brought back to God as our possession. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” We are no longer those who toil and are heavily burdened; we are those who have freedom and enjoy rest. Furthermore, we are no longer poor; instead, we have God as our inheritance (Acts 26:18; Eph. 1:14; Col. 1:12). This is the meaning of the year of jubilee.