«　WEEK 22　DAY 2　»

　　Lev. 25:11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; you shall not sow nor reap its aftergrowth nor gather from its unpruned vines.

　　Isa. 49:8 ... In an acceptable time I have answered You,...in a day of salvation I have helped You;...I will preserve You and give You for a covenant of the people, to restore the land, to apportion the desolate inheritances.

　　That the jubilee was in the fiftieth year (Lev. 25:10-11) signifies that the full responsibility (typified by the number fifty) to meet all the requirements of God has been fulfilled so that man does not need to bear any responsibility. Fifty years also signifies the entire course of fallen human life. Thus, the year of jubilee, the fiftieth year, signifies the conclusion of our fallen human life.

　　The year of jubilee is the acceptable year of the Lord prophesied in Isaiah 61:1-2 and fulfilled by the Lord's coming in Luke 4:16-22. 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). The believers' enjoyment of the jubilee in the age of grace, that is, 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. (Lev. 25:10, footnote 1)

　　God created man with the purpose that man would be a vessel to contain Him for His expression. Hence, immediately after man was created, God gave Himself to man to be man's possession. The inheritance that God has given to us is God Himself....The inheritance spoken of in the Bible is the inheritance among the saints to be received by all those who believe into the Lord (Acts 26:18). This is

　　God Himself. We are those who inherit God. Therefore, after God created Adam, He did not say much to him; He simply indicated that He wanted Adam to receive Him to be his real possession. However, due to his fall, man forsook God, lost God as his possession, and fell into the world. Consequently, man sold not only his own possession but also himself.

　　Ephesians 2:12 says that people living in the world today have no hope and are without God. Whether rich or poor, noble or base, civilized or barbaric, everyone is the same; all have no hope and are without God. Not only so, people today have fallen to such an extent that they have sold themselves to sin and Satan....The basic problem is that man has sold himself and lost God; thus, he has completely lost his freedom and his own possession and has become a slave. Paul says in Romans 7:14, "But I am fleshy, sold under sin." Not only the unbelievers but even many who are believers are still not wholly delivered from the slavery under Pharaoh.

　　In the year of jubilee there are two main blessings: the returning of every man to his lost possession and the liberation from slavery. If we want to be truly free and able to enjoy God as our possession, we must receive the Lord Jesus as the real jubilee in us. If we have Him, our possession is recovered and our freedom is returned to us. The Lord Jesus has released us so that we may have God as our possession and be delivered from the bondage of sin and Satan in order that we may have real freedom. Every one of us who has experienced the grace of the Lord can testify that before we were saved, we had no freedom and no control over ourselves. Now that we have been saved, the Lord has released us from within so that we are no longer slaves. Not only so, we have been brought back to God as our possession. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, "Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest." We are no longer those who toil and are burdened; we are those who have freedom and enjoy rest. Furthermore, we are no longer poor; instead, we have God as our inheritance (Acts 26:18; Eph. 1:14; Col. 1:12). This is the meaning of the year of jubilee. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 4, "The Jubilee," pp. 8-9)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Leviticus, msgs. 57-58