Man Lost God and Sold himself in Slavery, but Christ brought in the Age of Jubilee

We thank the Lord that we live in the age of grace, which is the age of the jubilee, for Christ has come, He has set us free from sin and the world, and we have returned to God as our inheritance! Hallelujah!

This whole week, as we are enjoying and prayerfully and thankfully studying the matter of the jubilee as seen in Lev. 25, we want to be freshly delivered from bondage and slavery, and also freshly returning to God as our inheritance.

Every man that was born on the face of the earth, because of the fall of Adam, has been born in slavery under sin (every man apart from Jesus Christ, the first God-man).

Because Adam fell, he lost God as his rightful inheritance and possession, and he has become a slave of sin. But praise the Lord, Jesus has come to proclaim the jubilee!

The year of jubilee spoken of in type in Lev. 25:8-17 and recorded as a prophecy in Isa. 61:1-3 is fulfilled in reality in the Lord Jesus Christ, as see in Luke 4:16-22.

If we read the portion in Luke we can visualise what was happening – the Lord Jesus has done some miracles in other cities, and now He returned to His hometown, and He was given to read the boom of Isaiah in the synagogue.

He was already accustomed to reading this book, so He opened to the portion speaking of the jubilee in ch. 61, He read it, and then sat down. As He sat down, all eyes were fixed on Him, and He told them, Today in your hearing these things have been fulfilled.

This is a great fact. The Lord Jesus came to be the fulfillment of the year of jubilee. He came to release His people from any slavery and bondage inwardly, and He wants them to return to God and enjoy God as their inheritance. Hallelujah!

This is not just to help them to be better or to heal them from their diseases – Christ came as the jubilee Jesus to deliver His people from sin and its power, and for His people to come back to God to enjoy God.

This is truly the real and genuine emancipation, for this releases us from Satan’s usurpation and bondage and brings us back to God as our enjoyment, our portion!

This is worthy of jubilant joy and rejoicing, just as they did in the Old Testament when they sounded the ram’s horn, when all who sold themselves into slavery returned to their family and those who sold their possessions would return to them without paying anything.

Hallelujah, we don’t have to pay for a thing, for Christ has taken the full responsibility of paying the price for us to return to God and be delivered from slavery!

Man Lost God and Sold himself in Slavery, but Christ brought in the Age of Jubilee

When God created man in His image and according to His likeness, He wanted man to just enjoy God and partake of God as his inheritance. God gave Himself to man to be man’s possession and inheritance, but man fell after being deceived by Satan, and man lost God.

The inheritance that God has given to us is not just the earth and everything that’s upon it, but God Himself. Later in the New Testament we see that our inheritance is among the saints, those who believe into the Lord, for us to enjoy God in Christ as the Spirit, our allotted portion of the good land.

But because of man’s fall, he lost God as his possession, and man fell into the world. On the one hand man sold himself into the slavery of sin, Satan, the world, death, and lust, and on the other, man lost God as his inheritance.

Eph. 2:12 tells us that the people living on earth today have no hope and are without God. This is how we were before we believed into the Lord. Whether people are rich or poor, of a high-class or base, civilised or rough, everyone is the same – they have no hope and are without God in the world.

Even more, people sold themselves to sin and Satan, and whether they realise this or not, they are enslaved under Satan and sin. Paul himself testified that he is fleshly, sold under sin, whenever he lived in his old man (Rom. 7:14).

Even as believers in Christ, whenever we do not live in the jubilee by enjoying God as our possession and by being freed in Jesus, we are slaves under Satan and sin.

Oh Lord Jesus! How we thank and praise the Lord that He has come to bring in the age of jubilee!

In the Old Testament the jubilee lasted only for a year, and it was a year of joy, rejoicing, and happiness, but in the New Testament we are in an age of jubilee, which lasted for more than 2000 years.

When we hear the gospel and believe into the Lord, He comes in and delivers us from the bondage of sin, Satan, and the world, and He brings us back to God to enjoy Him.

Christ brought us out slavery and bondage in the world and into the church where God in Christ as the Spirit is everything to us for our enjoyment as our inheritance. Hallelujah!

The jubilee was on the fiftieth year, which signifies full responsibility (the number five times ten) for the meeting of God’s requirements (signified by ten, the Ten Commandments).

We did not seek God; we did not look for God; we cannot please God; we cannot do anything to redeem ourselves. It was God who sought after us, it was Him who became a man, and He as a man took full responsibility to deal with our sins and fulfill all of God’s requirements, so that we may enter into the jubilee.

Christ paid the highest price and brought us into the jubilee; He became our jubilee, and He brought us into full freedom from slavery and back to God, our rightful inheritance.

Thank You Lord for coming to us as the Jubilee Jesus to deliver us from the slavery of sin and of Satan, and to bring us back to God as our designated inheritance. Thank You Lord for coming to declare the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee. Lord Jesus, we believe into You. You took the responsibility for fulfilling all of God’s requirements, and You brought in the age of the jubilee! Oh Lord, we were in slavery under sin and we had lost God, but You came to us to announce and bring in the age of jubilee! Hallelujah!

In the Age of Jubilee we Return to God as our Inheritance and we’re Freed from Slavery of Sin

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. 7:14-22).

We are now in the age of jubilee, which is the age of grace; grace is the Triune God in Christ becoming our enjoyment to be everything to us and to do everything for us. This age that we are in – the age of grace – is the fulfillment of the jubilee.

When Christ came, He was full of grace and reality, and words of grace were coming out of His mouth.

Our enjoyment of the jubilee in the age of grace – our enjoyment of Christ as God’s grace to us – will issue in the full enjoyment of the jubilee in the millennium and in the fullest enjoyment in the New Jerusalem in the new heave and new earth (see John 1:16-17; Rom. 5:17; Phil. 3:14; Rev. 22:1-2a).

Hallelujah, when Christ came grace and reality came. Now we can receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness and reign in life through Jesus Christ.

In the year of jubilee we have two main blessings – returning to our lost possession (which is God Himself as our inheritance) and liberation from slavery (the slavery of sin and of Satan).

When we were saved, we received the Lord Jesus as the real jubilee, and we entered into the age of jubilee; when we have Him, we are free indeed, and our possession is recovered.

The Lord Jesus released us so that we may have God as our possession and be delivered from the bondage of sin and of Satan. In Christ we have real freedom, for when the Son sets us free, we are free indeed!

Before we were saved, we thought we are free but actually we had no freedom and no control over ourselves. But after we were saved, the Lord released us from within so that we are no longer slaves!

We are no longer slaves to the self or to the flesh, and we are no longer captives or in bondage of sin. Now we are brought back to God as our possession.

We can come to the Lord with all our toils and labor, and He will give us rest; He gives us freedom from sin and rest for our souls.

Day by day we can come to the Lord even as we are; as we come to jubilee Jesus, He releases us from any slavery under sin and Satan, and He brings us back to God as our inheritance.

Hallelujah, we are no longer poor – we have God as our inheritance and riches! Now and today is the acceptable time when the Lord listens to us, helps us, and saves us; now is the well-acceptable time, the day of salvation!

Thank You Lord Jesus for coming to bring in the acceptable year of the Lord, the age of jubilee! Hallelujah, we have returned from any captivity of sin and we have come back to God to enjoy Him as our designated possession. Thank You, Lord, for listening to us, helping us, and saving us. Bring us fully into the enjoyment of the jubilee. Bring us fully into the enjoyment of the release of Your salvation. We want to enjoy You as grace, receive the abundance of grace, and reign in life through Jesus Christ! Hallelujah for this amazing grace!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1984, vol. 4, “The Jubilee,” ch. 1, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 10, The Jubilee (1).
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, / That saved a wretch; like me! / I once was lost, but now am found, / Was blind, but now I see. / When we’ve been there ten thousand years, / Bright shining as the sun, / We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise / Than when we first begun. (Hymns #313)
  # Come, all ye saints, and sing with me. / His love and joy have set me free. / The greatest Savior ever, He! / Come praise and sing in Jubilee! / He changed my life with one simple call. / He gained my heart to love Him o’er all. / And now I will praise Him, and tell the whole world. / I love my Jesus forevermore! (Song on, The Jubilee)
  # Jesus Christ, the genuine, complete, / Moral, perfect Man revealing God; / In His saving grace to fallen man, / In the Jubilee of grace. / Jesus Christ You are the God-Man— / The reality, / The reality of the Jubilee. (Song on, Jesus Christ, You are the Man-Savior)