Proclaim the Year of Jubilee!

This is the year of jubilee! That’s the good news Jesus proclaimed.

Jesus brought in the jubilee when He proclaimed the familiar passage from Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth.

There Jesus took the Isaiah scroll and read from Isaiah 61:1-2,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to announce the gospel 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 year of jubilee].” (Luke 4:18-19)

When He rolled up the scroll all the eyes in the synagogue were fixed on Him. Then Jesus told them plainly,

“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (v. 21)

Jesus’s speaking that day initiated the real “year of jubilee,” the age of the jubilee, the age of grace.

This is the complete gospel that Jesus announced, the apostles proclaimed, and that we should announce today.

What is this “year of jubilee”?

First, God expressed His desire in Leviticus 25:8-17. In verse 10 of that chapter it says,

And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.

God made a provision in His law to care for His people’s enjoyment. Every fifty years He established a year of jubilee.

In the fiftieth year, they were to proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. In this year every person was returned to his possession, every slave was set free and each one was returned to his family.

This was “the acceptable year of the Lord” prophesied in Isaiah 61:1-2 and proclaimed as the gospel by Jesus in Luke 4:16-22.

Return to your possession

First, due to their poverty, God’s people may have sold their possession of the good land to pay their debts. (This good land signifies God in Christ as our real inheritance.)

Due to the fall, we all have lost our right to enjoy God as our complete supply (Gen. 3:24)

However, in the year of jubilee, God’s people who had lost their inheritance, their allotment of the good land, got it back!

In the same way, God intends to make Christ our full inheritance, our good land for our enjoyment. In Christ, God gives us everything we need. God intends that we not only receive Christ, but walk in Him daily (Col. 2:6-7).

What good news!  In the jubilee we are returned to our inheritance without paying anything for it!  Christ already paid our due. He simply says, “Come to Me. Come and enjoy Me!”

Simply respond to His word and say,

“Lord Jesus, I come back to You. Be my full inheritance. You are all I need. I believe Your word and receive You as my inheritance by faith.”

Freed from slavery

Second, in the year of jubilee everyone who sold themselves into slavery regained their freedom.

In those days, God’s Old Testament people, may have become so poor that they had to sell themselves into slavery.

Today, all fallen people have become slaves of sin.  Jesus said, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). For example, all the sinful things people do to seek pleasure in this world, eventually become a bondage to them.

However, to those bound in sin, Jesus’s words of grace resound,

“He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives” – Luke 4:18

Today, in the jubilee, God receives back the captives of sin.

We simply need to freely receive this blessing of the jubilee by faith. You can tell the Lord,

“Lord I am a captive of sin. I can’t free myself. Thank you that through Your death and resurrection, You released me from the bondage of sin.  You paid the price for all my sins. I receive the forgiveness of sins accomplished through Your redemption. Thank you for freeing me.”

This glorious freedom is conveyed in the words of this hymn.

Return to your family

The third great blessing of the year of jubilee was the return of God’s people to their family. When God’s people sold themselves into slavery they also lost their family.

This was the case of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-24. He left home to seek the pleasure of the world, wasted his inheritance and became so poor he could only feed the hogs. As a slave in the world he lost the enjoyment of his family.

But when he came to himself, He said I will rise up and go to my father. In the jubilee, we also are returned to our Father and to God’s family, the church (Eph. 2:19).

In his proclaiming the gospel, the apostle Paul announced this blessing of the jubilee in Acts 26:18,

“…that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.”

Not only are we forgiven of our sins, but we receive our inheritance “among those who have been sanctified by faith in Christ.”

We don’t just get released from the bondage of sin and returned to Christ as our inheritance for our enjoyment. We also enjoy this inheritance “among those who have been sanctified”! We’re brought back to the family of God. We’re really home!

Claim this blessing by faith saying,

“Lord, I thank you that You have not only released me from the slavery of sin. You have brought me home to my divine family. I claim this blessing by faith. Lord show me the real family life that You have intended for me.”

Are you enjoying these blessings of the jubilee? Are you proclaiming them?

First, we need to see all the divine blessings of the jubilee. Second, we need to live in the reality of the jubilee by enjoying Christ daily in our real family, the church.  Third, we need to proclaim this good news to all the people we know, so that they also may enjoy all the blessings of the jubilee.

References and Further Reading

Here is a new song that really conveys the feeling of this post: This is the Year of Jubilee.

You may also enjoy reading this small book entitled: The Jubilee by Witness Lee. You can read it freely online at ministrybooks.org.