MUSINGS
‘PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND’—This is the striking inscription on an American postage stamp marking the bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It is taken from Leviticus 25: 10, which is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. That verse relates to the time when, once in fifty years, the loud sound of the trumpet proclaimed the beginning of Israel’s year of jubilee. Property and land which had been sold or mortgaged returned to its owners; Hebrew bondservants were set free. It was a year of liberation and the lifting of burdens. Every man was to return to his possession and to his family. It was on the day of atonement that the trumpet sounded—pointing powerfully to the death of Christ, the shedding of His blood, and His going into the distance and judgment, bearing every burden, meeting every debt, so that there might be this wonderful announcement: “Ye shall … proclaim liberty in the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”. Gloriously the trumpet of jubilee sounded in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4: 18) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor … to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”. It sounded again at Pentecost, in the full light of Christ risen and glorified, and continues now in the preaching of the glad tidings. It was sounded by Paul in Galatia, when legal teaching sought to pervert the truth of the gospel— “Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother”, and again, “Christ has set us
free in freedom; stand fast therefore, and be not held again in a yoke of bondage”, Galatians 4: 26; 5: 1. May we be true children of our mother, marked by the spirit of generosity, forgiveness, and the lifting of burdens and restrictions (see Ephesians 4: 32). May the trumpet sound be heard by many believers who have fallen into bondage. But this liberation is not to make way for any licence; the trumpets are of beaten silver, speaking of redemption and reminding us that “Ye are not your own, for ye have been bought with a price—glorify now then God in your body”, 1 Corinthians 6: 20.
FCM