We have seen that, according to Leviticus 25:9, the proclamation of the jubilee was on the tenth day of the seventh month, on the day of atonement. This indicates that the jubilee is based on God’s full redemption in Christ.
Concerning the year of jubilee, Leviticus 25:11b-12 says, “Ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.” Here we have the rather unusual requirement that in the year of jubilee the people were not to sow, reap, or gather, but eat the increase of the land. This does not mean that we should enjoy the riches of Christ without working at a job. Such an understanding is according to the natural thought. Here the word about not sowing, reaping, or gathering signifies that we should not labor on Christ in a natural way or by our natural strength.
In any religion people are encouraged to exercise their effort to behave themselves, to improve, and to do good. This is to “sow,” to “reap,” and to “gather.” But according to God’s ordination, in the New Testament jubilee we are to cease from our labor and not trust in it with respect to the enjoyment of Christ. Instead of laboring in a natural way by our own sowing, reaping, and gathering, we should simply enjoy the riches of Christ.
Leviticus 25:10 speaks of hallowing the fiftieth year. Here we see that the jubilee was a holy year, a year hallowed to God and also to us. Elsewhere, the year of jubilee is called the acceptable year of the Lord. According to Luke 4:18 and 19, the Lord Jesus in the synagogue read from Isaiah 61:1-2: “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.” The acceptable year was the year in which the Lord accepted His people who were lost and who came back to Him. Therefore, on the Lord’s side the year of jubilee was the year of acceptance.
The year of jubilee was a holy year and also an acceptable year. It was a year of proclaiming freedom to all people, and it was a time of freedom, rest, enjoyment, and satisfaction.
We have pointed out in other messages in this Life-study that the proclamation of the jubilee by the Lord Jesus in Luke 4 governs the whole Gospel of Luke. Actually the entire New Testament age is the jubilee. The New Testament age is a time of proclaiming release to all those who have lost their possessions and who have sold themselves into slavery. Today the proclaiming of the gospel is to bring these people back to their possession and to their family— back to God and to the family, the house, of God.
In this message and in the foregoing message we have given a definition of the jubilee. The definition is based on the description given in Leviticus 25. In forthcoming messages we shall see the application of this jubilee in the New Testament.