In the first chapter, we saw that the Lord has come to bring in the New Testament age as the age of the jubilee. In the second chapter we saw that the possession of the jubilee is God Himself. God has become our inheritance, the portion of our cup, and our eternal dwelling place in all generations. Since God is our inheritance, our enjoyment should be God. In the third chapter we saw the freedom of the jubilee. Freedom means release, to be freed from all bondage, all heavy burden, all oppression, and all enslavement. Paul said that all things were lawful to him, but he would not be brought under the power of anything to be its slave (1 Cor. 6:12). Everything in our life can be a bondage to us, and we can be slaves under any matter. To pursue education is to be enslaved, and to not pursue education is also to be enslaved. The poor are ruled by poverty, while the rich are ruled by money; the Chinese expression for miser refers to one who is a slave of money. The jubilee is a matter of possession and also of freedom. The jubilee is to return those who are poor and who have lost God back to God as their possession, and it is also to proclaim release.
In the holy year, the year of jubilee, freedom is proclaimed to all the people. Today in the age of democracy people greatly promote freedom, but the result is that they have very little freedom. Based on nearly sixty years of observation, I have found that people are much more free when they do not pursue outward freedom. We may illustrate this with political freedom. Sixty years ago, there was a certain amount of political freedom in China. No one would interfere with others, taxation was simple, and people could freely travel without permits. Today, however, after much pursuit of freedom, traveling is very troublesome, and there are many restrictions. People continually talk about liberty and seek for freedom, but eventually they are bound and restricted in every way. Wherever we go on the earth, there are bondage and restrictions. People often use doves to symbolize liberty. “Liberty doves” are released during celebrations, but after the doves are released, they never return. In the same manner, once freedom is “released,” it “flies away.” If we do not pursue freedom, we may enjoy some amount of freedom, but the more we talk about freedom, the more we lose it. Many people consider that America is free, but the freedom in America is an unrestrained freedom. There is little real freedom here. American society is full of entertainment, crime, dancing, gambling, and other matters. All these are very strong bondage. Americans fall into bondage because they are too free. As a result of this kind of freedom, they fall into indulgence and are enslaved. The Lord’s salvation causes us to have real freedom. The Lord Jesus said, “If therefore the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). We can only enjoy real freedom when we have Christ, the Son of God.
Now we will consider the living of the jubilee. The jubilee is not a mere doctrine or simply a declaration; the jubilee is a kind of living. When the year of jubilee came and the trumpet sounded, release was proclaimed throughout the land. This ushered in a practical living, on the one hand, of enjoying the life of rich possession, and on the other hand, of enjoying freedom. The jubilee is a type in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament it is fulfilled in all those who believe in the Lord. However, if we do not know the real condition of human life, we do not know how much we need the jubilee. Every person is like a glass filled with the wrong content. For the glass to contain the right drink, it must be emptied; to know our real condition is to be emptied. For this reason we will present a clear picture from the Bible of the real condition of human life. If we see this picture, we will not be deceived about human life.
Hymns, #1080, which was written based on Ecclesiastes, depicts the actual condition of human life. The real condition of life is neither good fortune nor misfortune. Actually, both good fortune and misfortune are useless. The true condition of human life can be summed up in one word, vanity. The wise king Solomon said that a man has no advantage in all his work which he does under the sun, and a generation goes and another generation comes, yet there is no remembrance of those who were before; hence, all is vanity of vanities (Eccl. 1:2-11). All things of the human life are vanity, like pursuing after shadows and chasing after wind; they are fleeting and short-lived.
Psalm 90:1 says, “O Lord, You have been our dwelling place / In all generations.” This declaration is the proclamation of the jubilee, but verse 9 says, “For all our days have passed away in Your overflowing wrath; / We bring our years to an end as with a sigh.” These words thoroughly portray the real condition of human life. There is nothing much worth singing about in the entire life of a man. When Moses wrote this psalm, he was over eighty years old, perhaps almost one hundred twenty years old. Having had the experience of human life, he said that we bring all the years of our life to an end as with a sigh. Little children do not know about human life, so they do not sigh. However, old men are always sighing; they sigh from morning until evening. They sigh when they think about themselves, they sigh when they think about their children and grandchildren, and they sigh when they think about their relatives and friends. There is nothing that does not make them sigh. Even when they sing, they cannot sing for too long, because eventually their song becomes a dirge or a lamentation. The days of man’s entire life are nothing but a sigh. Verse 10 goes on to say, “The days of our years are in sum seventy years, / Or, if because of strength, eighty years; / But their pride is labor and sorrow, / For it is soon gone, and we fly away.” This is a word of experience spoken by Moses as an old man. His description of human life is thorough. A person may live to the age of eighty years due to his strength, but all that he can boast of is nothing but labor and sorrow, for his life is soon gone and he flies away. Even though I am also eighty years old, I hope to live for forty more years, because I enjoy the Lord and I have hope. If one lives to the age of eighty without the Lord, then the phrase labor and sorrow...it is soon gone, and we fly away is a description and a true portrait of the real condition of his human life. The Bible is the only book that speaks the truth; every philosophy and “ism” is deceiving. The Bible says that the real condition of human life is only “labor and sorrow...it is soon gone, and we fly away.” Ecclesiastes 1:2 says, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” In Hebrew, vanity of vanities means emptiness of emptiness. Solomon’s words fully agree with the words of Moses. Moses said, “It is soon gone, and we fly away,” whereas Solomon said, “All is vanity and a chasing after wind” (v. 14).
Psalm 73 was written by a seeker of God. In verse 14 the seeker said, “For I have been plagued all day long / And chastened every morning.” Before they are enlightened by the Lord, many believers are like this psalmist. It seems to them that even though they are seeking the Lord and loving Him, they end up receiving plagues and chastisements. Even though the psalmist loved the Lord out of a pure heart, everything was an affliction to him. Consequently he could only say that he had been plagued all day long and chastened every morning. Then he went on to say, “When I considered this in order to understand it, / It was troublesome in my sight, / Until I went into the sanctuary of God; / Then I perceived their end” (vv. 16-17). Once he went into the sanctuary, received the enlightenment, and carefully considered this matter, he understood. Having understood, he went on to say, “Whom do I have in heaven but You? / And besides You there is nothing I desire on earth” (v. 25). In this way, he was led from vanity into reality, which is just God Himself. Because he passed through vanity, the psalmist, who was rich in experience, realized the real situation. It is as if he was saying, “Since everything under the sun is vanity, why should I pursue them? To do so makes me a fool. Now that I have woken up to reality, I do not want any of these things. What I want is the God who fills heaven and earth. Having Him, I do not pursue anyone else in heaven, and having Him, I do not desire anyone else on earth.”
It is not easy for many Christians to turn in this way. This is because when man thinks of God, the fear of God is aroused in him, and when he begins to fear God, he comes under the philosophy that God will be kind to him and that the more he fears God, the more prosperous he will become, the healthier he will be, the more children and grandchildren he will have, and the more he will have good fortune and not misfortune. When I was small, I often heard my mother say, “Giving birth to a son lasts a moment, but fearing for a son lasts a lifetime.” I have experienced the truth of this word. Once a son is born, his parents are afraid that he may not survive. They are afraid that he may not eat or drink well or that he may catch a cold and become sick. After this, they are afraid that he may not get into a good elementary school, junior high school, or high school, and once he gets into a good school, they are afraid that he may not pass the entrance examination to get into a good university. After he is admitted to a good university, the parents are afraid that he may not pass the English language examination to be able to go to America, and after he passes the examination, they are afraid that he may not be able to get into a good graduate school. Furthermore, they are afraid that he may misbehave himself with young friends or marry the wrong wife. Such fears are endless. Therefore, human life is nothing but labor and sorrow and will be soon gone. There is no genuine good fortune.
Job is a long book of forty-two chapters. Some readers do not grasp the significance of this book, and they lose interest when they read it. The characters in Job seem to argue the whole time. At first, Job’s three friends argue with Job; later, Elihu joins in, and finally, even God Himself joins in. In recent years, however, I have begun to have more appreciation of the book of Job. Although this book is of considerable length with forty-two chapters, it deals with only one issue. Job was originally a man blessed with possessions and children, but suddenly calamities came one after another—his livestock was stolen, his possessions were burnt, and his children were killed in an unnatural way. Natural disasters and man-made calamities came one after the other, causing Job to end up with nothing. Not only so, but Job’s wife troubled him. She could not comfort Job even a little; on the contrary, she provoked him, saying in effect, “See, you fear God, yet what do you end up with?” God took everything away from Job and left him with only a mocker. When a person is smitten repeatedly to the extent that everything he has is gone, he truly needs sympathy from others, but all those who could comfort him had died. Of all the sufferings of Job, the most severe was the mocking from his wife. This caused Job to suffer exceedingly. It seemed that God had been extremely cruel. Nonetheless, after passing through these trials, Job gained God. He was able to say, “Jehovah gives and Jehovah takes away; / Blessed be the name of Jehovah” (1:21). Had Job not encountered this stripping and suffering, his experience and enjoyment of God could not have been as great.