13.06 Redemption vs Jubilee

13 - Jubilee; Section 6 REDEMPTION VS. JUBILEE

Let me interject a foundational truth at this point. It is a truth seldom, if ever, heard among the people of God. The preachers and evangelists are totally ignorant of it, but it is fundamental to all our understanding of the works of God in this present age and in the ages to come. Few truths have come with more soul gripping force and power to my heart than the truth I now present. I will introduce this grand theme in the form of a question. What is the difference between Redemption and Jubilee? The first thought I want to bring is this: Redemption and Jubilee ACCOMPLISH THE SAME PURPOSE. The end of both is the same. God established the Year of Jubilee so that all who lost their inheritance during the previous forty-nine year period, would be able to return to it during that Festival. When the trumpet sounded, on the tenth day of the seventh month of the forty-ninth year, every man received his inheritance. NOBODY WAS ABLE TO STOP IT. Even though another had bought and paid for it, when the trumpet sounded, the first owner could again take his inheritance and have complete possession. No one could prevent him!

So, in the Year of Jubilee EVERYONE AGAIN received their inheritance. There were no restrictions, no conditions, no qualifications, for the trumpet’s sound called ALL back to the inheritance they had once known. Now Redemption DOES EXACTLY THE SAME THING, ONLY IT DOES IT BEFORE THE YEAR OF JUBILEE. Let us say that a man loses his inheritance in the tenth year of that forty-nine year cycle. He may either sell it or just lose it. After a short time a redeemer, a near-kinsman, comes to him to redeem it, to buy it back for him. Can we not see the relationship we enter into between ourselves and Jesus as redeemed and Redeemer? Thank God! He was not a stranger to us. He was our next of kin, one of our own kind. So it must be in order for Him to become our Redeemer. The law of Redemption demanded such a relationship. So the near-kinsman comes to the one whose inheritance is lost and inquires the price of redemption. The redeemer says, "I have enough to redeem your inheritance. We will go and pay off the one who has it and you can have it back." The one who has bought the inheritance must receive the price of redemption, and vacate the property. The original inheritor then has the perfect and unhindered freedom to come again into his inheritance. HIS INHERITANCE HAS BEEN REDEEMED AND THUS HE DOES NOT HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL JUBILEE to regain his inheritance - he has it NOW! Let us use this illustration. A man who is forty-five loses his inheritance in the fifth year after Jubilee. By the next Jubilee the man’s inheritance will not be of great value to him personally, for he will by that time be ninety years old. For that man to have to wait for his inheritance for forty-five years would give him time to starve to death many times over! BUT the redeemer comes and redeems the inheritance and the original owner immediately re-enters his inheritance, GAINING ALL THE YEARS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN LOST.

This, my beloved, IS WHAT JESUS HAS DONE FOR US. He has made it possible for us to receive our inheritance and enjoy it immediately. We have an inheritance reserved for us IN A HEAVENLY WAY OF LIFE, ON THE SPIRITUAL PLANE OF GOD’S OWN DIVINE NATURE AND GLORY AND POWER. Vast multitudes of Christians subscribe to the crude and unscriptural notion that they must die and travel some inestimable distance through the galaxies to receive their inheritance. But Redemption makes it possible to receive it right now, and through God’s infinite and unbounded grace we are able to appropriate it this very day. REDEMPTION AND JUBILEE ACCOMPLISH THE SAME PURPOSE, THEY ARRIVE AT THE SAME END. The great and only difference is that Jubilee takes fifty years and REDEMPTION DOES IT N-O-W! In Israel of old THE POSSESSION OF THE INHERITANCE WAS THE SUPREME ISSUE. God wanted His people to have and enjoy their inheritance. He did not want them to have to wait for twenty-five years, or ten years, or even five. HE WANTED THEM TO HAVE IT NOW. God had ordained this law of Jubilee which would return every man to his inheritance, but He did not want them to wait that long. So immediately upon the death of Jesus, and by that death, God enacted the law of Redemption, SO THAT WE CAN REGAIN OUR INHERITANCE RIGHT NOW IN THIS PRESENT DAY. The only reason we are not in our inheritance now is because we do not appropriate it or walk in it. Possession of the inheritance is the paramount thing. God desires that we get our inheritance. It is no glory to God for us to bemoan the fact that we are just flesh and so weak and cannot experience and manifest the fullness of God’s glory and nature and power. How many of the Lord’s precious people are struggling along continually defeated by the flesh, the world and the devil, when all the time they have been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus and may with boldness enter into the inheritance!

Listen! Redemption is one of the most wonderful things God has ever given to humanity. Yet - for those who do not or cannot take advantage of it, there is assuredly coming a YEAR OF JUBILEE when, by the sovereign act of Almighty God, ALL shall be restored to their inheritance. By accepting the Redemption offered we can immediately have all the joys and privileges and responsibilities of our inheritance. If we do not experience redemption we must endure the pain and travail of poverty and slavery until the Year of Jubilee arrives. With all emphasis I must now declare that the grace of Jubilee can be fully known beforehand in the Kinsman-Redeemer, Christ Jesus our Lord. We are "not left ... this day without One that has the right of redemption" (Ruth 4:14). He can reinstate even one who has sold his inheritance, his birthright. Thus, Redemption is to know that You DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR JUBILEE TO ENTER INTO YOUR INHERITANCE! I am well aware that some carnally-minded soul will suggest the proposition - if all men will be released and restored to their inheritance in the Year of Jubilee - will not the preaching of this incite men to spurn Redemption and wait for their Year of Jubilee? I will answer such ignorant nonsense with this question: Who among you wishes to remain impoverished and a slave for another fifty years when you can gain your freedom and enjoy your inheritance RIGHT NOW!

"In whom we have REDEMPTION through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace" (Ephesians 1:7). All things which God has ordained to be ours now and forevermore are found in that sphere of divine operation known as in Christ Jesus. Here alone is the particular grace and power unto salvation and the eternal purposes of God made available. Thus, in the context of "the Beloved," Paul writes that IN HIM "we have redemption." The verb is in its present tense, and durative in action, and thus would be literally translated, "in whom we are having redemption." The redemption is an abiding fact from the past, through the present, and into the future. In the past we were released from the GUILT of sin and death. In the present we are being released from the POWER of sin and death. When the process of redemption is complete we shall be fully free, spirit, soul and body, conformed to the image of God’s Son, filled with all the fullness of God. Oh, yes, it is true that we have been redeemed, but, like salvation, redemption is no single act or experience, as one has stated, it is "a crisis leading to a process" as we are progressively "loosed away" from one realm to another, from one mind to another, from one nature to another, from one state of being to another. Truly we are being freed from the dominion of the carnal mind, from a world of self-assertive religious activities and from the workings of sin and death, first in spirit, working outward into the emotions and will of the soul life, and finally in body by the mighty working of Him who is even able to change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body (Php 3:21).

Redemption means a RETURN to that place, wisdom, knowledge, brightness, life, glory and dominion which we once had in God before this present cosmos, world arrangement began. Thus, we continually and expectantly fasten our gaze upon HIM who is working so great a redemption in us, "Looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people of His own, zealous of good works" (Titus 2:13-14). Praise God, when redemption’s work is complete in us WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM!