The prominent image in the Bible is Redemption
from slavery.
The Old Testament narrates incidents of slavery
and redemption.
The New Testament is all about the fulfillment of
redemption from slavery.
The people of the Old Testament, the people of Jesus’
time and Apostles were familiar with slavery and redemption story.
Slavery was a reality of the time and so was redemption.
Even Israelites had to go under slavery more than
once in their national history.
1.
Exile from own land into slavery
2.
Redemption from slavery
3.
Restoration into the land
Let us discuss these three points briefly.
1.
Exile from the
land into slavery
Man was created and placed in the Garden of Eden.
The Garden of Eden was a special place separated
and created in this earth.
Though the whole earth was created by God and
hence owned by God, God still choose a special geographical area at the east of
the earth and created a garden to place Humans.
But sin disqualified the inhabitants and humans
were thrown out of the land.
They lost the land.
By sin humans became the slave of satan.
The effect of the
slavery was losing the land.
This fact is important for this study.
After that God started to execute His plan for
the redemption of Man.
Again he chose a land, called Canaan.
Canaan was a kingdom of gentiles
It was a large and prosperous
country in the Near East region.
Some historians say that it was
also known as Phoenicia.
The
land was an area which might have included parts of modern day Israel,
Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
God chose the land of Canaan, claimed its
ownership and decided to inhabit a community of people whom He can call His
own.
To fulfill this plan, God chose Abraham and
commanded him to go out of his mother land leaving behind all his relatives and
friends.
Now, let us understand that going out of one’s own
land is exile into slavery.
In the Old Testament times own land or own country
meant security, prosperity and rest.
That means Abraham was called into the slavery of
Yahweh the Lord and into a new land owned by God.
God promised to give Abraham and his descendents
the land of Canaan as an inheritance.
For Israelites their land, a promise of Yahweh
the Lord is freedom, security, prosperity and rest.
Out of the land is exile and slavery.
The passionate love of the Israelites for their
land is explained in this way.
2.
Redemption from
slavery
The second part of the slavery-redemption story
is redemption from slavery.
Abraham was promised that the land of Canaan
which Yahweh had taken claim as His own will be given as an inheritance to him
and to his descendants.
Thus he lived in the land, his son Isaac lived
there and Jacob lived in the land.
But the time of inheritance of the land was related
to another event – the completion of the iniquity of the Amorites.
By Amorites, God meant the inhabitants of Canaan.
During the time of Jacob, they faced a severe
famine in Canaan and had to move to Egypt.
Thus they were removed from their land.
And they fell into slavery in Egypt.
Outside the land it is slavery.
The great redemption of a nation from slavery is
the story after this event.
After 400 years of slavery, when the iniquity of
Amorites was complete, God intervened in history.
Yahweh redeemed them from slavery.
Israelites got freedom from Egyptian slavish
masters and moved into Canaan, the land owned Yahweh.
In fact redemption is a shift from an evil master
to the real master.
The first is a cruel slave master and the real
master is a loving one.
Israelites were redeemed to remain as slaves of
Yahweh.
That is why the Hebrew word “ebed” meaning a
bonded servant is used in the Old Testament to speak of Israelites.
Greek word “doulos” meaning slave is used in the
New Testament epistles to signify God’s people.
Redemption is not freedom from slavery; it is
only changing the evil master to the real master.
And that change is very important.
3.
Restoration of the
land
The third part of the slavery-redemption story is
restoration of the land.
As we have already seen, the land is protection,
prosperity and rest for the people.
Restoring the land means restoring protection,
prosperity and rest to the people.
The land is wealth, water and food.
The land is a protected area because it belonged
to a mighty God.
God’s people lived there without fear and famine.
Israelites were brought back to the land of
Canaan and they inherited it.
God instructed Joshua to divide the land among
the 12 tribes of Israel.
This is the restoration of the land.
That is the restoration of protection, prosperity
and rest.
Israel was God’s own people in God’s own land.
Though the land was shared among the twelve
tribes of Israel, the ownership always belonged to God.
The tribes had an inheritance into the land but
the ultimate owner of the land is God.
So God, the rightful owner of the land,
stipulated certain laws of the land.
The important law was that no portion of the land
inherited by a tribe should be sold to another.
We read all about the losing the land, slavery
and restoration in Leviticus chapter 25.
The chapter speaks of the Sabbath of the seventh
year and the Jubilee.
The three stages of slavery-redemption theme are
seen here.
It has its fulfillment in the New Testament and a
perfect and final fulfillment in the eschatological era.
The Sabbatical year
With the truth
that the land ultimately belongs to Yahweh the Lord, let us move further into
the study.
Men are but
stewards.
God's dominion is
universal over their persons and possessions.
Nothing that man
is or has can be exempted from the need of consecration.
So God consecrated
every seventh year as a year of Sabbath or rest.
God prohibited
Israelites to do what they please with the land in every seventh year.
A Sabbath year is
one in every seven.
In the Sabbath
year the land was to lie fallow.
The sabbatical
year commenced in the autumn, when the farmers first began to sow for the
coming year.
The sowing was
suspended from the autumn of the sixth year till the autumn of the eighth year.
The produce of the
sixth year was harvested in the seventh month of that year.
No harvest or
sowing is done in the seventh year since it is Sabbath.
The next sowing is
done in the eighth year and harvest is done in the ninth year.
So the harvest of the
sixth year was blessed abundantly by God.
The sixth year was
to yield a miraculous supply for three continuous years.
It must be
sufficient for three years, till the harvest in the ninth year.
The
Jubilee year
Now let us move to the
Jubilee year.
The word for Jubilee is a
very ancient word.
The Hebrew word for
Jubilee is “t@ruw`ah” (ter-oo-aw)
The word was derived from
an imitation of a joyful shout or the blowing of a trumpet.
The word jubilee signifies
some particular sound of the trumpet distinguishable from any other.
The word was later
accommodated to mean the sound of the trumpet ushering in the season of joy.
The Jubilee year was
celebrated in every fiftieth year.
It started with a proclamation
with the sound of trumpet in all parts of the country.
Leviticus 25: 9 Then
you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the
seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound
throughout all your land.
The trumpet was sounded in the
close of the Day of Atonement.
And then the jubilee commenced.
That is, when their peace was
made with God, then liberty was proclaimed.
The year of jubilee is meant
for three important things:
After Israel inherited
Canaan, the land was assigned to Israel’s clans and families.
But they held it
merely as tenants, and had no right or power of disposing of it to strangers.
Still in
necessitous circumstances, individuals might effect a temporary sale.
And they possessed
the right of redeeming it, at any time, on payment of an adequate
compensation to the creditor.
Even if they could
not pay the buyer, in the year of the Jubilee the land is redeemed free of cost.
This was the law
of the Jubilee year.
There are there
situations in which a person may go under slavery by leasing his land to
another.
Remember that
losing the land is equal to going out of the land.
It is losing
prosperity, protection and rest.
It is exile into
slavery.
Three situations
of losing the land is depicted in Leviticus 25
1. A person could simply become poor
A farmer who borrowed money to buy seed but could not
harvest enough to repay the loan may go poor.
To cover up the debt and for money to buy seeds for the
next sowing, he is forced to sell some of the land to a creditor.
In this situation any person who belonged to the farmer’s
clan can, if he wish, pay the creditor and redeem the land. (Leviticus 25: 25 )
He is called a redeemer.
He will keep the land until the next jubilee year and in
the jubilee year he will restore the land to the farmer.
Until that time, the land belonged to the
redeemer, who allowed the farmer to work in it.
2. The second situation is more serious as described in Leviticus 25: 35 - 38.
The land sold to a creditor is not redeemed and the
farmer again fell into debt from which he could not recover.
So he forfeits all of his land to the creditor.
In this case, the creditor must lend the farmer the funds
necessary to continue working as a tenant farmer on his own land.
No interest is charged from him.
The farmer may repay the loan with the profit made from
the crops and regain his land.
In the year of Jubilee, even if the loan was not fully
repaid, the land would revert back to the farmer or his heirs.
3. The third stage is more serious.
A narration of this situation is found in Leviticus 25: 39 - 43.
The farmer could neither pay back the loan nor even
support himself and his family.
He sells himself to the
creditor.
He will be temporarily bound to the household of the
creditor.
That is he becomes a bonded servant, equal to a slave to the
creditor.
As a bound laborer he would work for wages, which were
entirely for reduction of the debt.
At the year of jubilee, he would regain his land and
his freedom (Leviticus 25:41).
The point of these
rules is that Israelites were never to become slaves to others.
God redeemed his people
from Egyptian slavery, to become his servants.
It is unfitting,
therefore, that an Israelite should be sold into slavery to another person.
The jubilee was a
guarantee that no Israelites should continue in slavery.
New
Testament significance
As we move forward from here to the New Testament significance of the Jubilee
year, let me remind you one important point.
There is a great
continuity between the Old Testament revelation and the New Testament.
The whole Bible is
about a single theme: the redemption of mankind.
So let us look at
the significance of this Old Testament event in the New Testament period.
The Jubilee is a vivid
foreshadowing of the whole Messianic Age.
The year of Jubilee is a beautiful prototype of
the redemption which will be achieved in the person of Jesus Christ, Israel’s
Messiah. (mi-si-u)
This fact was stressed by
Jesus Christ in the very beginning of his ministry.
18 "The
Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel
to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty
to the captives And recovery of sight to
the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the
acceptable year of the LORD." (NKJV)
Jesus was proclaiming that
He is in the ministry of the Jubilee year.
After reading from Isaiah 61: 1, 2 Jesus said that these words have been
fulfilled in the hearing of it.
Jesus was proclaiming the
fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah as an antitype of the year
of jubilee.
The messianic age brings liberty to the oppressed
and release to the captives.
This age was inaugurated with Christ’s first
coming (Luke 4:21).
It will be completed by his second coming (James. 5:1-8; Luke 16:19-31).
That means, the Jubilee looks back to God’s first
redemption of his people from Egypt.
It also looks forward to restoration of all
things, in the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. (Acts 3:21; 2 Peter. 3:13).
In the Sermon on the
Mount, Jesus announced, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”.
This declaration conveys
the concept of the Jubilee year.
Again, on the last day of
the feast, Jesus stood and cried out to all thirsty people to come to Him.
He shall provide them
drink that will quench their thirst.
Not only that rivers of
living water will flow from them. (John 7:37-38).
Jesus was replacing the
land which provided water to the Israelites with Himself.
The Old Testament saint looked on the land of
Canaan as the special place of God’s presence and His blessing.
The New Testament teaches that the dwelling place
of God and the place of security, prosperity and rest is none other than Jesus
Christ.
If the Old Testament saints delighted to be in
the land, the New Testament saint delights in being “in Christ.”
The whole
Christian era is one long year of jubilee.
We are living amid
the glorious privileges of the Lord's acceptable year.
The gospel, as
preached to men, is the trumpet blown at the beginning of the jubilee.
It is blown over
the completed atoning sacrifice of Christ.
Eschatological
significance
The Jubilee is also a type of the everlasting
rest in the eschatological era.
Hebrews 4: 9 There remains therefore a rest
for the people of God. (NKJV)
The meaning is this:
There is now a promise of rest made to the people
of God in the land of Canaan.
But the rest did not pertain merely to those who
were called to go to the Promised Land.
It is the promise of rest that pertains to all
the people of God of every generation.
The rest promised to the faithful and obedient in
the Old Testament was not merely a temporary rest on the Sabbath, or in Canaan.
It is a spiritual, eternal heavenly rest.
The rest in Sabbath and the rest in Canaan were only
types of eternal heavenly rest.
It is right to
speak of the Christian era as a time of jubilee.
But its perfect
realization is yet to come; its true and glorious fulfillment awaits us.
The perfection
comes only when the blessed kingdom of the Son of God shall have come in all
its fullness and the latter-day glory shall appear.
Another
eschatological Jubilee year will be ushered in by the trumpet of God as
described in:
16 For the Lord
Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel,
and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are
alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. (NKJV)
No comments:
Post a Comment