In the preceding chapter we saw the possession of the jubilee, and in this message we shall see the freedom of the jubilee. Possession and freedom are both positive, but there is a difference between them. Some may say that they would rather have freedom than a possession, but this concept is not correct. Our possession is God. We cannot renounce God, saying that we want freedom instead of God, because without God there is no freedom. Our possession is God, and our freedom comes from our enjoyment of God. When we have our possession and enjoy our possession, the result is that we have freedom. Freedom is to be without oppression or deficiency. Some people apparently are not oppressed, but they are poor. Only those who have suffered the misery of poverty really know what poverty is. Poverty is a tremendous bondage. Nothing oppresses people more than poverty; it can oppress people to the extent that they have no escape. How we thank God that today He is our possession, and when we enjoy Him, we have freedom!
Without the types of the Old Testament, we would have no way to understand the plain words of the New Testament. Thus, the Old Testament types are very precious to us. Kindergarten students can appreciate pictures and models. If we speak about an airplane, they may not understand what an airplane is, but if we show them a picture or a model of an airplane, they will immediately understand. The Bible seems to use the “kindergarten teaching method”: the New Testament contains plain words, and the Old Testament contains pictures. The New Testament clearly tells us that without God, we lose our possession; that is, we do not enjoy God, and consequently we sell ourselves into slavery. We have lost God and have been sold into sin. However, if the Bible only says this without giving us a picture, we would still not be clear. This is why the Old Testament types are helpful. Each point in the types completely corresponds to the clear words in the New Testament. We need the proper understanding to comprehend these types. Some people, when they read the Old Testament types, such as the ordinances concerning the tabernacle and the offerings in Exodus and Leviticus, feel that they are insignificant and hard to understand. When I first began to read the Bible, I felt the same way. Whenever I came to genealogies, types, and prophecies, I wanted to skip over them. Today, however, I can say that some of the most precious items in the Bible are the types.
The Old Testament describes the year of jubilee very well. Leviticus 25 is a long chapter, but it has only two main points. The first point is that in the year of jubilee all those who had lost their possession were returned to it. The possession was not returned to its original owner; it was the owner who was returned to his possession. On the one hand, man left and lost his possession, but on the other hand, his possession lost him. Did we lose God, or did God lose us? Both are true; we lost God, and God lost us. As we have seen, the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is an illustration of the year of jubilee. We are all the real prodigal sons. Today even kings, presidents, prime ministers, and cabinet officials are prodigal sons. In this parable, did the son lose his father, or did the father lose his son? This parable mainly does not speak of the son’s losing the father. In verse 24 the father said, “This son of mine was dead and lives again; he was lost and has been found.” From this verse we can see that the father’s losing the son is emphasized more than the son’s losing the father. Therefore, in the year of jubilee we mainly do not have our possession restored to us; rather, we are returned to our possession. Primarily, God is not restored to us; we are returned to God. The greatest blessing in the year of jubilee is that we are returned to God as our possession. This is the first main point in Leviticus 25.
The other main point in Leviticus 25 is that we have obtained freedom. Because we were poor, we not only lost God as our possession but also sold ourselves as slaves. Since we sold ourselves, we lost our freedom. However, when the year of jubilee comes, we not only are returned to God as our possession, but we also obtain freedom and are released from the bondage of slavery. Today many people talk about freedom, civil rights, and human rights, but if man does not enjoy God, he cannot have real freedom. When today’s politicians speak about freedom, they say nothing about our being returned to God as our possession; therefore, nothing of what they say is of a proper nature. Beginning at least with the French Revolution two hundred years ago, people have been pursuing democracy in order to obtain freedom. However, when people only speak about freedom without being returned to God, the result is that many problems are produced and many evil things are brought in. Who has obtained real freedom? If someone says that he is so free that he can go freely to gamble, he does not realize that he has fallen into the slavery of gambling and is under more bondage than ever. Seventy years ago in China, women and young people had little freedom. They had to rise when they saw their fathers, grandfathers, or uncles come in the room, and they yielded their seats to them politely. Today in America, however, most children do not yield their seats to their father or even to their grandfather; in this sense, they are very free. However, many children in former times had true freedom, while today’s children have the wrong freedom, a freedom under the yoke of slavery. In the same principle, the yoke of slavery borne by many women today is worse than before because many women today do not have God. The biblical principle is that we must first be returned to God before we can have freedom. If we want to obtain freedom without being returned to God, the result is that we do not have true freedom.