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.