Lev. 25:8-168And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. 9Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 10And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. 11A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. 12For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. 13In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession. 14And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbor, or buyest ought of thy neighbor's hand, ye shall not oppress one another: 15According to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee: 16According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee. (Leviticus 25:8‑16)
Someone has truly remarked that the institution of the jubilee had a double testimony. It testified of man's confusion and it testified of God's order. During forty-nine years, many things were suffered to get into disorder under the hand of man. One man got into poverty, another into debt, another into bondage, another into exile. Again, one man through extravagance had let his inheritance slip through his hands; another, by his shrewdness or penuriousness, had added to his.
Thus it happened during man's day. But the trumpet of jubilee changed, in a moment, the entire condition of things. No sooner had that hallowed sound fallen on the ear than the debtor was released, the slave emancipated, and the exile brought back. The jubilee was God's year, and He would have no debtors, no slaves, no exiles. All should be free and happy, and all abundantly supplied throughout Jehovah's year. When the Lord alone is exalted, all must be right.
Now it is interesting and very practical to note the various ways in which men would be affected by the approach of the year of jubilee. The man who had lost his property would be glad because he would get it back. The man who had gained property would be sorry because he would lose it. But the man who had done neither, who had neither lost nor gained, the right-minded Israelite who had retained his patrimony, and was satisfied therewith, this man would regard the jubilee, not with reference to his gains or his losses, but simply as a noble testimony to God's order, and as securing the blessing of the entire nation.
Thus it was with the Jew in reference to the jubilee; and thus it should be with the Christian in reference to the glorious appearing of the Son of God from heaven. We should simply look forward to that blessed event as the moment of Christ's exaltation, the moment of His full investiture with the kingdoms of this world, the moment in which an end shall be put to all man's misrule and confusion, and the order of God be established for evermore. Blessed, longed-for moment!
And be it noted here that the cross of Christ is at once the remedy for all man's confusion, and the basis of God's order. This is strikingly brought out in the ordinance of the jubilee. "Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land" (see Lev. 16). The trumpet of jubilee and the day of atonement were inseparably linked together. The blood of the cross is the foundation of everything. In the times of the restitution of all things the river of life will proceed out of the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:11And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. (Revelation 22:1)).
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