EXPERIENCING, ENJOYING, AND EXPRESSING CHRIST (1)
Message Five
Enjoying Christ as the Reality of the New Testament Jubilee
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; 116:1-7, 12-13, 17-19.
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—vv. 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 becalm 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 parables of the good Samaritan in Luke 10 and the prodigal son in Luke 15 are excellent illustrations of the jubilee:
A. The Man-Savior presented in the parable of the good Samaritan signifies the expression of His divine attributes with His human virtues—10:25-37:
1. The Man-Savior, in His lost-one-seeking and sinner-saving ministry journey (19:10), came down to the place where the wounded victim of the Judaistic robbers lay in his miserable and dying condition.
2. When the Man-Savior saw him, He was moved with compassion in His humanity with His divinity and rendered him tender healing and saving care, fully meeting his urgent need— 10:33-35.
B. The Man-Savior presented in the parable of the prodigal son shows His shepherding, seeking, and saving Spirit with the Father's loving, forgiving, and compassionate heart—15:11-32; cf. 9:55-56:
1. 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—15:20, 24; cf. Lev. 25:10-12.
2. 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); to be saved is to gain God; when we have God, we have everything; without God, we have nothing (Col. 1:12).
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.
4. 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.
5. God in Christ has become the fattened calf for the enjoyment of the repentant and returned prodigal sons—v. 23.
6. 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.
7. 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.
IV. We need to enjoy Christ as the reality of the freedoms and blessings of the New Testament jubilee—Luke 4:18-19:
A. In order to enjoy Christ as the reality of the jubilee, we need to spend time with the Lord day by day to listen to His word and be infused with Him; we need to follow the pattern of Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and was listening to His word—10:39:
1. She was at the feet of the Lord Jesus and not at the feet of anyone else; she was drawing near to the Lord; no method is better than coming to Him moment by moment, loving Him, worshipping Him, unceasingly fellowshipping with Him, and remaining in His presence.
2. She sat at the feet of the Lord, meaning that she put herself in a humble position in order to receive the Lord as grace (1 Pet. 5:5); humility is not belittling ourselves; humility is ignoring ourselves, negating ourselves, and considering ourselves as nothing.
3. She was sitting down; quietness before the Lord is often the source of spiritual strength (Isa. 30:15a); man's eyes and thoughts often are distracted to the outside world; those who are busy with a wandering mind and vacillating thoughts cannot receive revelation easily.
4. She was listening to the Lord's word; the words that the Lord speaks are spirit and life (John 6:63) in order to dispense Himself into men; her listening to the Lord's word afforded the Lord the opportunity to communicate Himself to her so that she would continually receive the Lord and gain Him.
B. God's salvation causes us to have real freedom; our possession is God, and our freedom comes from our enjoyment of God; if man does not enjoy God, he cannot have real freedom; freedom means release, to be freed from all bondage, all heavy burden, all oppression, and all enslavement—8:32, 36; Gal. 5:1; 2 Cor. 3:17.
C. First, Satan captured us; then he came to dwell in us as the inciter, the instigator, of our sins; the result is that he has become our illegal master, and we have become his captives to the extent that we are unable to do good and can only commit sins—Rom. 7:14; 1 John 5:19:
1. If a man does not have God, whatever he tries to enjoy apart from God is dog food, refuse, and dung—Phil. 3:7-9; cf. 2 Pet. 2:22.
2. Satan is called Beelzebul, which means "the lord of the dunghill," from Beelzebub, meaning "the lord of flies"; Satan specializes in leading sinners like flies to feed on dung—Matt. 10:25; 12:24, 27; 2 Kings 1:2.
3. Although deep in his heart no one wants to sin, eventually everyone sins; no one has control over himself, and everyone has become a slave of sin—Rom. 7:18-23; John 8:34.
D. Paul's desperate cry in Romans 7:24 is answered in Romans 8:2, which says that the law of the Spirit of life frees us in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death.
E. We can be released and have real freedom only by enjoying Christ as the life-giving Spirit; only those who enjoy God do not commit sin and are really free, living a life of liberty, release, and freedom from bondage—John 8:11-12, 24, 28, 31-36:
1. The law of the Spirit of life releases us from the law of sin and of death; this law is the Lord Himself, who passed through death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit—Rom. 8:2.
2. If we do not enjoy the Lord sufficiently, we will still be in bondage to many things; making up our mind will not work; we must continually come to the Lord to eat and enjoy Him— 1 Cor. 1:9; Rev. 2:7; Isa. 55:1-2.
3. Christ as the jubilee frees us from our poverty, captivity, blindness, and oppression—Eccl. 1:2, 14; 3:11; Phil. 3:8; 2 Pet. 2:22; Luke 12:21; Rev. 3:17.
F. The living of the jubilee is a living in the enjoyment of Christ, a living of enjoying God as our inheritance and real freedom—Acts 26:18; John 8:36:
1. The living of the jubilee is a life in which we take God Himself, Christ Himself, in every situation; then He becomes the primary factor and center in us to overrule all the troubles of human life—6:16-21; Col. 1:17b, 18b; Phil. 4:6-7, 11-12.
2. Because everything is under His sovereignty, we should pray, "Lord, fill me, gain me, and possess me; no matter what my outward situation is, I just want to enjoy You"; we need to be today's ministers and witnesses by living and proclaiming the gospel—Christ as the jubilee of grace—for the accomplishing of God's eternal economy—Acts 26:16-19.