Crystallization-Study Outlines Leviticus (2)
Message Ten
The Jubilee (1)
Scripture Reading: Lev. 25:8-17; Isa. 61:1-3; Luke 4:16-22; Acts 26:16-19
I. The year of jubilee in Leviticus 25:8-17 is recorded as a prophecy in Isaiah 61:1-3 and is fulfilled in reality in Luke 4:16-22:
A. In the year of jubilee there were two main blessings: the returning of every man to his lost possession and the liberation from slavery—Lev. 25:8-17:
1. In the year of jubilee everyone who had sold his possession, his allotted portion of the good land, was returned to it without paying anything to redeem it (vv. 10, 13, 28), and everyone who had sold himself into slavery regained his freedom and returned to his family (vv. 39-41).
2. Returning to one's possession and being freed and returning to one's family signify that in the New Testament jubilee the believers have returned to God as their lost divine possession, have been released from all bondage, and have returned to the church as their divine family—Eph. 1:13-14; John 8:32, 36; cf. Psa. 68:5-6.
B. In the Old Testament type the jubilee lasted for one year, but in the fulfillment it refers to the entire New Testament age, the age of grace, as the time when God accepts the returned captives of sin (Isa. 49:8; Luke 15:17-24; 2 Cor. 6:2) and when those oppressed under the bondage of sin enjoy the release of God's salvation (Rom. 7:14—8:2).
C. The believers'enjoyment of the jubilee in the age of grace (their enjoyment of Christ as God's grace to them) will issue in the full enjoyment of the jubilee in the millennium and in the fullest enjoyment in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth—John 1:16-17; Rom. 5:17; Phil. 3:14; Rev. 22:1-2a.
II. The year of jubilee is the age of Christ as grace dispensed into us for our enjoyment by His words of grace; the New Testament jubilee is an age of ecstasy for our salvation—Luke 4:22; Psa. 45:2; John 1:14-17; 2 Cor. 6:2:
A. The New Testament age is an age of ecstasy, and a Christian is a person in ecstasy; if we have never been in ecstasy before God, this shows that we do not have a sufficient enjoyment of God—5:13; Acts 11:5; 22:17; Psa. 43:4a; 51:12; 1 Pet. 1:8; Isa. 12:3-6.
B. Jubilee means having no worry or anxiety, no concern or care, no lack or shortage, no sickness or calamity, and no problems whatsoever but, rather, having all benefits; hence, all things are pleasant and satisfying to our heart, and we are free from anxiety, at ease, excited, and exultant—Psa. 103:1-5.
C. We must receive the Lord Jesus as the real jubilee in us; if we have Him, we have God as our possession and can be delivered from the bondage of sin and Satan to have real freedom and rest—Acts 26:18; Eph. 1:13-14; Col. 1:12; Matt. 11:28; John 8:32, 36:
1. When we receive Christ as our Savior and life, He comes into us to be our jubilee, but unless we allow Him to live in us and unless we live by Him, we are not practically living in the jubilee—Lev. 25:11-12.
2. If our heart is set on any person, thing, or matter other than the Lord, this is idolatry, and the end is wretchedness—1 John 5:21; cf. Ezek. 14:3, 5; 6:9.
3. If we allow Christ to live in us and we live by Him, everything is to our satisfaction; otherwise, everything is a problem, and nothing is a jubilee.
D. Everything can be satisfying to us only after we have gained the all-inclusive Christ as our enjoyment; it is not outward persons, matters, or things but Christ within us who enables us to be calm and free of worries as we face all kinds of situations—Phil. 3:8-9; 4:5-8, 11-13.
III. The proclamation of the jubilee in Luke 4 governs the central thought of the whole Gospel of Luke, and the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is an excellent illustration of the jubilee—vv. 11-32:
A. The prodigal son left his father's house, selling his possession and himself:
1. The content of a vessel is its possession, and man is a vessel of God; hence, if man does not have God as his possession and enjoyment, he is empty and poor—Rom. 9:21-23; Eph. 2:12; Psa. 16:5; Rev. 3:17-18.
2. Adam lost his portion of the enjoyment of God when he did not take the tree of life; all the unbelieving people of the world have lost God as their possession and enjoyment and have sold their members to sin in order to become slaves of sin—Eph. 2:12; Rom. 7:14; 6:19.
3. Human life is nothing but labor and sorrow and will soon be gone; the true condition of human life is vanity of vanities, emptiness of emptinesses—a chasing after wind—Psa. 90:10; 73:14, 16-17, 25; Eccl. 1:2-11, 14.
4. Fallen people have no real dwelling place; they are drifting about and wandering without a home, because God is man's real dwelling place—Psa. 90:1; Gen. 28:17-19; John 15:4; Matt. 11:28.
B. One day the prodigal son returned to his possession and his father's house; that was a jubilee, a liberation, and everything became pleasant and satisfying—Luke 15:20, 24; cf. Lev. 25:11-12:
1. In redemption God is our possession for our enjoyment; to be saved is to return to our inheritance, to return to God, to come back to God and enjoy Him anew as our possession—Eph. 1:13-14.
2. To be saved is to gain God; when we have God, we have everything; without God, we have nothing—Col. 1:12; Hymns, #1080.
3. God has become our blessed portion in Christ, but many Christians are unhappy and are like lights that do not shine, because they do not "turn on the switch" by taking God as their portion—Eph. 4:18; Phil. 2:12-16.
C. The father's acceptance of the son and the son's returning to his father and his father's house were the year of jubilee to the son, the year of grace—Luke 15:20:
1. God in Christ has become the fattened calf for the enjoyment of the repentant and returned prodigal sons—v. 23.
2. This corresponds to Leviticus 25:11-12, which says that the people were neither to sow nor reap in the year of the jubilee but only to eat and enjoy; once we repent and return to God by receiving the Lord Jesus, we obtain God within, and this is the beginning of our jubilee.
3. We are not the Father's hired servants but His enjoying sons, and we can continually enjoy God as our possession from now unto eternity.