Luke 4:16-19 (NKJV) 16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 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.”
We finished our study of Psalm 112 in our last post and podcast. I want to look at something that is a little different but that I believe relates to overcoming the world in our day. One of the most important aspects of Christianity is the idea of the New Creation from 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. One of the things that keeps us bound is the past. Everyone has one. Everyone has things they regret or feel they should have done better. Our limitations of today are often fueled by our mistakes of yesterday.
In Christ we have no past beyond the day we received him as Lord and savior. Of course, there are physical consequences of our choices. However, we do not have to be defined by them. We may have to deal with them, but they are not who we are anymore. Have you ever helped a friend deal with something produced by a bad choice they made? You may have to spend time, money and deal with the fallout from the choice, but it was not your choice that caused the problem. Paul said if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The consequences that you face for past mistakes are a result of someone else’s choices. How can I say that? You are a new creature in Christ. The person who made those choices passed away and you are now someone else. Therefore, the guilt of the choice, the label, such as stupid or reckless, does not apply to you. You are not defined by those decisions even if you made them. That was a person who died when you, the new creation, were born.
There is something in the Old Covenant that foreshadowed what happens to us in Christ. It was called the Jubilee year. You can read about it in Leviticus 25:8-13 and 39-41. I am not going to take the space here to quote them, but you should read these verses for yourself. I want to share the essence of what the Jubilee meant to every Israelite. It is this practice that Jesus is referring to in Luke 4.
God gave Israel some important instructions to follow when they came into the Promised Land of Canaan. They had been slaves for hundreds of years. They had no idea how to live as free people. God gave them directions about many things, but here in Leviticus 25 he talks to them about two things. The first is how to use the land. They are to let the land rest with no cultivation every seventh year. This is a powerful example of God’s requirements doing something that science now recognizes as wise practice. The idea of resting fields is an important part of modern farming.
Israel lived in cycles of sevens. Every seventh day was a sabbath where people were required to rest. Of course, this was a day to meditate and focus on the Lord, but Jesus said something that changes the perspective.
Mark 2:27 (NKJV) 27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
The sabbath was not just a legalistic requirement as a sacrifice that man was to make to God. It was God mandated rest for man. How important is rest in the life of an individual. Proper rest means better health, more productivity, less stress and longer life. God knows what we need and when he gives a directive or even a law it is for our benefit. Everything in this cycle of sevens is that way.
For six years Israel farmed their land in the normal way. The seventh year they let the land rest. They did not plant it nor cultivate it in any way. Seven cycles of seven years brings you to the end year 49. What happened in the fiftieth year? In that year, the land also rests, but there is much more that happens in the fiftieth year. Verse 11 makes the link between this practice in Israel and Luke chapter 4.
Leviticus 25:10 (NKJV) 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all 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.
Jesus is quoting from the Prophet Isaiah, but he is referring to this practice from the book of Leviticus. Isaiah was prophesying about a day when the Jubilee year would be manifest for all. What was this year to the average Israelite? It was a new beginning that happened once in the course of a lifetime.
In the year of Jubilee there were a number of things that happened. First it says that every Israelite shall return to his possession and his family. The obvious benefit is that you were restored to your home possession. I will look at that more shortly. I want to point out something else. They were returned to their family. If there was any kind of separation in a family, it was restored every fiftieth year. What a powerful thing.
If any Israelite sold land, it was restored to him in the Jubilee year. There were many rules that protected both parties, but the result was that any land that belonged to a person was restored to him during the Jubilee. He may have lost it because of bad financial choices or because of things out of his control. He may have been foolish or sinful. None of that mattered. Every fifty years it came back to them.
Another aspect of this is that all Israelites who were sold into slavery to another Israelite were set free. We cannot imagine that slavery could ever be a part of God’s people. However, we need to understand the times. There were no social safety nets for people. If a person was left destitute, one way they and their families could survive was to become a slave to another Israelite. God makes it clear in this chapter how that person must be treated. However, the key idea I want to point to is that this bondage, all be it pleasant bondage, did not last forever. At the Jubilee, the person and their family were set free, and their lands restored to them.
There were many reasons these things could happen to people. They may have sinned. They may have made bad choices. They may not have been at fault in any way. It could have just been the things that happen in life that cause some to fail and some to succeed. It did not matter. Everything went back to start every 50 years. Debts were cancelled, lands were restored and bondages removed. What a wonderful thing to incorporate in a society. I can just imagine the joy that would come into a heart as the end of the 49th year approached. The Jubilee is coming! Hallelujah.
All of this is a wonderful thing for Israel, but what was Jesus saying to the people of Nazareth? They were Jewish. They knew about the Jubilee, so when he used that word, it was not a mystery to them. Jesus, quoting Isaiah, puts down the book and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled.” What does he mean? He is telling them that it is no longer necessary to wait 50 years for what the Jubilee promised. From that day forward the Jubilee was available to all people all of the time. There was a difference in what Jesus was talking about.
The Abrahamic covenant was, primarily, a physical covenant. It had spiritual ramifications to be sure, but its outworking was in the natural. The New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus is primarily a spiritual covenant with physical ramifications. In the old Jubilee we see that most of what happens involves lands and such. In the New Covenant, the Jubilee is primarily about deeper things. It is about a person’s spiritual condition and about wiping away the emotional and spiritual consequences of past mistakes. If we understand this properly, it will help us be more than conquerors as we overcome the world. More next time.
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