Christian Jubilee

"And 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. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile 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. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubile 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. For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession." (Leviticus 25: 8-13)

So describes the ancient ordinance of Jubile (or Jubilee) given to the chosen people, to the Hebrews under the Old Covenant (Testament). It is based upon this ordinance that we get our English word "Jubilee" and its variants, as jubilation and jubilant. The ancient meaning is integrally connected with both the number fifty and with great joy, excitement, and celebration, and all in a religious context. It was a Sabbath of Sabbaths.

Christians believe, based upon New Covenant teaching by the inspired apostles of Christ, in their epistles, that the ordinances, rites, and ceremonies, given by God through Moses, to the Israelites, and to them alone, were all designed by God to be temporary educational tools to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah and his institution of the New Covenant.

They also taught that these religious ceremonies, feasts, and holy days, were all fulfilled in the person and work of the Messiah, and in the New Covenant, antitypically. That is, they were all teaching ordinances, which required faith and a gracious revelation from God to see the things to which they symbolically point.

So, what is the significance of Jubile (or Jubilee)? How is that fulfilled in Christ and in the New Covenant?

Now that Christ has died, and now that sinners are being called, by the church and the gospel, to come, to receive, and to enjoy the fruit of what Christ has done for them, provisionally, sinners are enjoying Jubilee in reality, albeit not yet in fullness. For the full enjoyment of Jubilee will not be realized until Christ returns and "restores all things." (Mark 9: 12; Acts 3: 21)

-We are in the Day of Atonement (Christ has died as a sacrifice for sin)
-The Trumpet is being Sounded (the gospel is being preached)
-This is an hallowed age (age of grace & invitation to salvation)
-Liberty is being proclaimed throughout the land (salvation proclaimed)
-Redemption is taking place (in souls being converted)
-Debts are being Forgiven (in souls being forgiven of sin)
-Prisoners are being Set Free (from the bondage of sin in conversion)
-Restoration is occurring (in the soul through being 'born again')
-Rest is being Experienced (cessation from labor to save ourselves)
-Great Joy and Celebration is being Experienced (in the heart of the Christian)

The year of Jubilee was a time to "enjoy a full year of holy vacation." It was a type of the present state of the Christian, and of his future inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, in the new heavens and the new earth.

Christians now have a spirit of jubilation and great joy. Yet, it is but a foretaste. The fullness of Jubilee, the fullness of what Christ has accomplished for Christians, is yet future. But, just as sure as we enjoy the foretaste, so sure are we that we shall enjoy the fullness of the Christian Jubilee, when it is inaugurated fully upon Messiah's return.

The joy and celebration of the Hebrew Jubilee was the highest. So too is the joy of the Christian. Wrote Peter: "ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (I Peter 1: 8). Christians rejoice with such joy because they understand what it means to be liberated from the slavery of sin, what it means to be forgiven of the great debt of sin, what it means to be "restored" and "redeemed." They too understand and experience "rest" and inner soul "Sabbath" in Jesus (See Hebrews chapter 4).

Friend, would you like to be a participant in the Christian Jubilee experience? Do you want jubilant joy now? Do you want to be fully restored to the image of God which, by sin, you have lost? Then, simply by faith come to the Messiah, the one who "made atonement" for sins, and who made it possible for you to be set free of sin, to be made whole and happy, to receive eternal inheritance.