LEVITICUS 25
Chapters 25 and 26 bring out the conditions on which “the land that I will give you” could be held and enjoyed. God would have His people ever to remember that the land was His. They were not to be independent proprietors of the freehold. They were to hold it as the gift of sovereign love, and to hold it in relation to the Giver; it was His inheritance (Exodus 15: 17), and they were “to him a people of inheritance” (Deuteronomy 4: 20). Their title was one of absolute grace, but the rights in grace of the Giver were always reserved. This brought out the state of their hearts. Apart from a right attitude of heart towards the One who had conferred the inheritance there could be neither true appreciation of the inheritance, nor any right possession of it. They might be actually in Canaan through God’s providential ordering and His forbearance, but if the land were not held in relation to the Giver it morally ceased to be the inheritance.
On Jehovah’s part all that He claimed were rights of grace. The Pentateuch does not contain a more touching expression of God’s rights in grace than is set forth in this chapter. The sabbatical year, and the year of jubilee with its provisions of liberty and [p. 272] complete restoration show the character of the Giver of the land, and the spirit with which He would have all His heirs imbued. And they bring out, typically, the ultimate issue of His ways with His people. The “sabbath of rest” speaks of what remains to be entered into, and the “year of jubilee” of that complete restoration in grace under new covenant conditions by which Israel will return to all that they have forfeited by their sin and unbelief; and, indeed, by which they will for the first time truly enter into God’s rest. For, as we know, Joshua did not really bring them into the rest of the inheritance (Hebrews 4: 8), though they came in an outward way into the land of Canaan. The true fulfilment of God’s promises and purposes as to Israel’s inheritance and entering into His rest awaits a yet future day.
In the meantime the love of God has given to the partakers of the heavenly calling a wondrous inheritance in Christ. But it can only be enjoyed with Him as we hold it in a sense of the love that has given it, and with reference to His will in the use we make of it. We are tested as to how we take up the spiritual blessings which God has given us, and whether we really hold them in relation to Him, and to all that is before Him for His pleasure. What God has given us in Christ is the expression and witness of His love, and as we thus hold it we wish to take up the great gain of it in relation to His pleasure. Otherwise the abundance of the blessing may turn to self-consideration, and the joy of it with God be lost. We may be occupied with what “the land” is to us, and not hold it in relation to the love and pleasure of God. There is a warning as to this in the fact that the sabbatical year probably ceased to be observed about Solomon’s time, as we gather by reckoning back 490 years from 2 Chronicles 36: 21.
The “sabbath of rest” in the seventh year was a wonderful testimony to what was in the heart of God. Love gave the land, and love would have it to be held in relation to what was before God. His thought was to bring in rest. God was the great Worker in Genesis 1, but He worked in view of rest on the seventh day, and when that day came He blessed and hallowed it “because that on it he rested from all his work which God had created in making it” (Genesis 2: 3). God ever has in view His own rest, and His pleasure that His people should share in it. Sin has made Him a Worker for well-nigh six thousand years, but He cherishes the thought of rest for Himself and His people. God would bring us under the influence of His love into sympathy with what He delights in.
I have no doubt that God uses the toil and burden of things here, and even labour and travail in the Lord’s interests and service, to develop desires that are in harmony with His own. The young are energetic and think of work, but the older we get the more we cherish the thought of rest. Read J.N.D.’s hymns, and see how often the thought of rest comes in! His desires were formed in harmony with God’s.
The weekly sabbath was continually saying to the people that God delighted in rest, and in having His people in rest before Him. And the sabbatical year said the same thing in a larger and more impressive way. “A sabbath of rest for the land, a sabbath to Jehovah ... a year of rest shall it be for the land”. We may be sure that God would not reiterate the sabbath thought so frequently if it had not a great place in His own mind. He has cherished all through [p. 274] the thought of that blessed time when He “will rest in his love” (Zephaniah 3: 17). He was ever saying, as it were, “My great thought is that you should share my rest, and enjoy my love in that rest”. A toil-less year of rest would yield abundant food (verses 6, 7); instead of losing by keeping the sabbatical year, they would only the more prove the wealth of the land. It was a whole year undisturbed by toil — no sowing the field, no pruning the vineyard, no reaping even what sprang up from scattered seed, no gathering of grapes even from undressed vines! Nothing to do but to enjoy in restful obedience that which love had freely given!
The great pleasure of God is that we should be restful, and enjoy what He has given us in His great love. He would have us near to Him to know what He values, and to be in the light and gain of His rest in Christ. The people went into captivity for seventy years because the land had not “enjoyed its Sabbaths” (2 Chronicles 36: 21); and if we do not keep our sabbaths we shall, sooner or later, fall under the power of what is of man. To enter into God’s rest is a greater pleasure to God than any labours of ours could be; it is presented in Scripture as complete blessedness. It will be entered into by Israel in millennial conditions; it is anticipated in spirit by those who believe (Hebrews 4: 3), who enter into that which will characterize the world to come, when the rest of God will be publicly introduced. The sabbatical year is a typical foreshadowing of that period.
I suppose that the sabbatical year and the “year of release” in Deuteronomy 15 were probably concurrent. In the year of release every creditor remitted his claim. A people whose many transgressions have [p. 275] been forgiven, and their sins blotted out and remembered no more, should not find it difficult to “make a release” even of what might be a just claim. We are to be “compassionate, forgiving one another, so as God also in Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4: 32). People say sometimes, “But I want righteousness!” Well, righteousness at the present time is to act toward others on the same principle as God has acted toward us. We see this in Matthew 18: 21 - 35. As to what may be personally due to us let us not hold anything in our hearts against one another. Let us “make a release”, let us “relax” our hand. “He shall not demand it of his neighbour, or of his brother; for a release to Jehovah hath been proclaimed” (Deuteronomy 15: 2). It is a “release to Jehovah”! It is a little opportunity to show to the blessed God that we appreciate His wondrous forgiving grace, and that we are in the spirit of it towards our neighbour and brother.
Then after “seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years ... shalt thou cause the loud sound of the trumpet to go forth in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month; on the day of atonement shall ye cause the trumpet to go forth throughout your land” (verses 8, 9). The “year of jubilee” speaks of liberty, and the restoration in pure grace and sovereign mercy — based on atonement — of all that has been forfeited by Israel. It looks on to that day of restoration when “the great trumpet shall be blown; and they shall come that were perishing in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall worship Jehovah in the holy mountain at Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27: 13).
“[p. 276] And ye shall return every man unto his possession,
and ye shall return every man unto his family” (verse l0). This supposes that the possession has been forfeited, that the people on their side have lost their inheritance. But God says, so to speak, “I will have the last word; I will not give up the thoughts of my love; every man shall return to his possession”. What a comfort to know that God will have the last word in relation to Israel! After all their unbelief, unfaithfulness, and rebellion He will in sovereign mercy cause the trumpet of jubilee to sound, and they will return to their possession. They will come into their inheritance on the footing of atonement and of Christ. I do not suppose that any of them will be able to prove their genealogical title. They will have to get their title from Christ, who as the heavenly Priest has the Urim and Thummim (Nehemiah 7: 64, 65). Israel’s title and genealogy are preserved in the breast-plate of that glorious Priest who has never forgotten them, though they have at present no thought of Him.
And if God will have the last word in relation to Israel, we may be sure He will have the last word in relation to saints of the assembly, and to every other family of the redeemed. How much was given to the assembly! It was set up in all the blessedness of the love of God, known by the Holy Spirit. It was enriched with the unsearchable riches of the Christ — the glorious Head in heaven. It was blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.
A long history of failure has come in, but it has not changed God’s thoughts, or the purposes of His love, and He will eventually bring His saints into all that He has purposed for them in Christ. At the rapture He will place them all in the everlasting possession [p. 277] and enjoyment of what His love has given to them in Christ. A trumpet is very soon to sound which will “in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye”, introduce the saints into “the glory of the children of God”. The dead raised incorruptible, the living changed, and both caught up together in spiritual and glorified bodies to meet the Lord in the air, and to be ever with Him. 1 Corinthians 15: 51, 52; 1 Thessalonians 4: 15 - 18. It is delightful to think of the saints being actually introduced by divine power in an incorruptible condition into all that divine love has purposed for them. The full possession and enjoyment of their incorruptible and undefiled and unfading heavenly inheritance will then be theirs, never to be alienated.
“The anxious looking out of the creature expects the revelation of the sons of God ... the creature itself also shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8: 19 - 21). The sons of God will be revealed in company with the Firstborn, and the creature will be freed from bondage, and brought into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. What a jubilee will that be! What a triumphant last word on God’s part after all the unfaithfulness of men! The assembly glorified in its heavenly portion, Israel reinstated on earth in the land of her possession, and the whole creation liberated from thraldom, and set in the value of reconciliation! And all this brought about purely by divine mercy and grace on the basis of atonement, and by a power that gives effect to all the purposes of God.
No question is raised at the jubilee as to how a man came into bondage and lost his possession. The past, with all its sorrowful history of failure, is blotted [p. 278] out; the day of atonement meets it all; and the exercises of the people on that day justify God, and prepare them for blessing which is wholly of God. It will be so with Israel: it will be so with saints of the present period. They lost the land of their possession by unfaithfulness. And how many saints of the assembly are practically not in possession and enjoyment of their blessings in the heavenlies! Indeed it may be said that the church, as a whole, has sold its heavenly possession for earthly things. But the assembling shout of the descending Lord, with archangel’s voice and trump of God, will place the heavenly saints in complete and everlasting possession of their inheritance; while shortly afterwards the trumpet of jubilee will sound for the reinstatement of Israel. But this chapter suggests to us the possibility also of returning to our possession even before the jubilee, as we shall see presently.
A section comes in here which has a very practical bearing. Buying and selling were to be according to the nearness or remoteness of the jubilee (verses 14 - 16). Our estimation of the value of things will show pretty accurately whether we regard the jubilee as near or distant. There are “sufferings of this present time”, but they “are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us” (Romans 8: 18). The jubilee was not distant to Paul’s heart when he spoke of his affliction as “momentary and light”; the “eternal weight of glory” was near — the things not seen (2 Corinthians 4: 17, 18). He took a light estimate of the affliction because the glory was near! And as to earthly advantages — the acquisition of wealth, position, name — what would they all be to us if we were momentarily expecting to hear the [p. 279] assembling shout of our Lord? Alas! I am afraid we often say in our hearts, if not with our lips, “My Lord delayeth His coming”. The Lord said, “I come quickly”. Did He not know that nearly two thousand years would elapse? Yes, He did, but He said, “quickly” because it was going to be near His heart all the time, and He wanted it to be near ours.
During a great part of the last century there was much ministry about the coming of the Lord; it occupied the attention of saints very largely; and the novelty of the teaching awakened a more or less deep interest in thousands. Now the freshness attaching to a newly recovered truth has passed; we no longer need pamphlets or addresses to enlighten us as to the truth of the Lord’s coming; it is an accepted teaching with us. But there is now the danger of accepting and holding the truth without being much practically affected by it. How does it affect our practical outlook? Are we estimating the value of things here in relation to the jubilee? Whether it be sufferings or advantages, are we soberly taking account of them in view of the nearness of the rapture, and of “the times of the restoring of all things, of which God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since time began”? (Acts 3: 21).
It has often been pointed out that there is an analogy between the seven weeks ending in Pentecost (Leviticus 23: 15) and the seven times seven years followed by the year of Jubilee. Pentecost brought to light that which is “first-fruits”, in the power of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, of the great result for God in the world to come. But the year of Jubilee is typical of the complete restoration of Israel — “[p. 280] liberty in the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” — when their fulness will be the world’s wealth in a way far surpassing what their fall and loss have been (Romans 11: 12 - 15). Pentecost was the fiftieth day, and it was “the morning after the seventh Sabbath”. It was the beginning of a new period, when all the promises of God were known as substantiated in a risen and glorified Christ, and the Holy Spirit was here to be the power of witness to Him. The jubilee is the fiftieth year, and it will bring in the fulfilment of all the promises by the “times of refreshing” coming from the presence of the Lord. It answers to “the fulness of times” in Ephesians 1: 10. “The acceptable year of the Lord” was preached by the Son of God (Luke 4: 19), and it was made known here spiritually in the testimony of the Holy Spirit who came down at Pentecost, but it will be introduced actually when the Lord comes again.
I think the fiftieth day in each case indicates that a new element is brought in as connected with the ways of God on the earth, but not exactly forming part of those ways. The presence of a glorified Christ in heaven was plainly spoken of in the Old Testament (Psalm 68: 18; Psalm 110: 1), and such a wondrous fact brought in a new character of blessing and testimony. The Holy Spirit came down to make good in men the influence of what was established in a glorified Man in heaven, and thus the Pentecostal “first-fruits” were brought forth. The Messiah glorified in heaven was a new starting point for all blessing. All the promises were confirmed and established, not by being fulfilled in the ways of God on earth, but by being substantiated in the Person of Christ as a risen and glorified Man in heaven.
And the jubilee is “the fiftieth year”. I think it indicates that the consummation of the divine ways on earth will come about as a result of divine actings which are additional to those ways. The sons of God — the joint-heirs with Christ — have been called during this wondrous interval between the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost and the calling up of the heavenly saints at the rapture. A company has been called and secured for a place in heaven according to eternal counsels of love — a company of many brethren predestinated to be conformed to the image of God’s glorified Son, that He may be the Firstborn among them. This is outside the weeks of earth; it is above and beyond the Sabbath periods, which always refer, I believe, to God’s works and ways on earth, and their consummation in the introduction of His rest in millennial blessedness. But that consummation will be connected with the shining forth of the glory of a heavenly Christ, and with the revelation of the sons of God who have been called to have a place in heaven with Him. This will give a peculiar character to the liberty into which “the creature” — that is, everything connected with this creation which now groans under the bondage of corruption — will be brought. It is “the liberty of the glory of the children of God”. So that there is not only the intensified perfection of the “seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; so that the days of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty-nine years”. That would suggest the winding up in perfect rest of the ways of God with man on the earth. But there is a “fiftieth year”, which suggests that the earth will also partake in the wondrous gain which will come to creation through the shining forth of that [p. 282] company of sons who are the fruit of the eternal purpose of God’s love, and who have their place in heavenly glory outside God’s ways with the earth. So that the liberated creation will not only have the fulfilment of all the Old Testament promises, which bring in sabbath conditions where the vanity, bondage, and groaning and travailing in pain have been. But they will enjoy those conditions in the light of “the revelation of the sons of God”. The shining forth of the heavenly families will give an additional glory to the scene, and will give character to the liberty which pervades it. I think this is suggested by the fact that the jubilee is “the fiftieth year”.
The Old Testament contains hints of the blessed fact that God intended to bring the earth under the influence of what He established in heaven. Daniel 7: 22 speaks of the Ancient of days coming, and judgment being given “to the saints of the most high places” — clearly the heavenly saints. And the New Testament tells us that “the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13: 43). And that “at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven ... he shall have come to be glorified in his saints, and wondered at in all that have believed” (2 Thessalonians 1: 10). The place which the heavenly saints have in the kingdom is thus a most important feature of it. Their calling and heavenly place are something additional to God’s ways with the earth, but not unconnected with those ways, as it is the revelation of the heavenly sons which will give character to the restoration and liberty of earth’s jubilee. My impression is that this is intimated in “the fiftieth year”. It will secure not only Israel’s blessing, but the emancipation of the whole creation.
[p. 283] It will mean the undoing of all that has come in by sin and Satan’s power.
Jehovah says, “And the land shall not be sold forever; for the land is mine”. It is His land. The people may refuse “the waters of Shiloah which flow softly” (Shiloah means “sending forth”; it probably refers to the prophetic word of promise in regard to Christ); and they may rejoice in “Rezin and in the son of Remaliah” — kings of Syria and Israel — and in divine judgment the Assyrian may come and over-flow the land, but it is still “thy land, O Emmanuel” (Isaiah 8: 5 - 8). The Turks have had it for centuries, the British have it now, but it is still Emmanuel’s land. He will not enjoy His land until His people enjoy it. I think this must be the force of “ye are strangers and sojourners with me” (Leviticus 25: 23). When Emmanuel came in He had no possession in the land that was His; He was the true Stranger and Sojourner; He had not where to lay His head. He came in to be with a disinherited remnant, and to have them with Him. He was Emmanuel — God with us. He was with repentant ones, with those who were poor in spirit, mourners, meek, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peace-makers, those persecuted on account of righteousness. In view of the redemption of the purchased possession it is important to see the kind of heirs that can take it up. It is a people of this kind who are the children God has given Him. “Emmanuel” speaks of the grace in which He was with them, but “with me” speaks of their great and peculiar privilege — though having lost possession of the land — of being with Him, and sharing His Strangership.
[p. 284] Does it not touch our hearts to think that the One who is entitled to everything here — the One who can say, “The land is mine”, and who in claiming that land claims the right to dispose of the earth as He will — is a Stranger and Sojourner? He is not in possession of His rights here, so the place of the joint-heirs is to be “strangers and sojourners” with Him. Peter addresses the people of God in this character (1 Peter 1: 1; 1 Peter 2: 11). It has ever been faith’s place here, and ever will be until Emmanuel takes up His rights in the true year of jubilee. We “have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance” — and that a heavenly one — but as to our place on earth we are “strangers and sojourners”.
Verse 25 shows that if one who has sold his possession has a wealthy kinsman he may have it redeemed, and may return to it before the jubilee. This is very interesting, for it sets forth what is available at the present time. Israel grew poor and sold his possession. A blessed Kinsman came in with the right of redemption; but Israel — save a small remnant — spurned the Kinsman-redeemer, and lost his golden opportunity. He will have to wait now until the jubilee to return to his possession. But in the meantime the remnant who received the Messiah got a better inheritance — a heavenly one — in association with Him. And a day is coming when the remnant, as having forfeited all right to the promises, and therefore typified by Ruth the Moabitess, will cast herself upon the grace of Christ as the true Boaz — the “mighty man of wealth” — and will learn what a Redeemer He is.
Many a Christian today has practically sold his [p. 285] possession. He has become spiritually impoverished, and got his mind on “the things that are on the earth”. He has sold his possession at a very low price, for he has given up the spiritual and the heavenly for a bit of the world or the earth. It may be that “there was a famine in the land”! For some reason in the government of God there was a shortage of spiritual food, and the believer went to sojourn “in the fields of Moab”, only to be disciplined there, and to find that all turns to bitterness. But then there comes a gracious report “how that Jehovah had visited his people to give them bread”, and a desire is awakened to return. Is there any means of being restored to his possession now, or must he wait for that assembling shout which will be, in a certain way, our jubilee? Thank God! there is still a Boaz for every returning Naomi and Ruth — a Kinsman who can redeem what has been forfeited or sold! Our Kinsman loves us, and it lies in His ability to secure for us now a return to the full possession and enjoyment of our spiritual and God-given possession. He is the “mighty man of wealth” in Bethlehem (the house of bread) before He is King in Zion. “In him is strength” to reinstate an impoverished one in possession of an inheritance which has been sold. This speaks not of the original gift of divine love, but of the peculiar strength of that love in granting recovery and restoration when that gift has been departed from. If there is a desire to return on the part of one who is conscious of having got away, grace would encourage that one to come back and lay down at the feet of the true Boaz. Put yourself absolutely in His hands. He will spread His wing over you, and secure all for you, though you may be conscious that you have no title to anything. The [p. 286] only claim you have is that which grace gives. The grace of the jubilee can be known beforehand in the Kinsman-Redeemer. We are “not left ... this day without one that has the right of redemption”. He can reinstate even one who has sold his possession! What precious grace! The Book of Ruth brings Christ before us in this blessed character.
The whole character of the Lord’s ways with saints of the assembly at the present moment is one of recovery, and restoration of lost privilege. The saints are soon going to be translated, but in the meantime a great spiritual revival is going on. The presence of the Holy Spirit — so long practically ignored — is being recognized by many. The affections of the saints are being stirred up to hold the Head, and to love one another, and to reach after the possession and enjoyment of what is spiritual and heavenly. In this way they are returning to their possession in anticipation of that moment when they will be actually with Christ in the heavenlies.
If one sold a “dwelling house in a walled city” there was a limited period during which the seller had the right of redemption; if he did not exercise that right he lost it for ever. It was a warning to the Jew that there was something which he might lose for ever — which not even the jubilee would restore to him. “The fields of the country” would speak, I think, of earthly blessing; but the “walled city” speaks of what is enclosed. It speaks of a community with its own exclusive privileges. A “walled city” has a distinctive character and collective life of its own, with a definite separation from all that surrounds it. It typifies the place which the assembly has here. God gave the Jew an opportunity to have a house in that “walled city”, but he sold his dwelling, and he did not redeem it within the “full year”. The book of the Acts shows us, I think, the “full year” during which the dwelling might have been redeemed, and then it passed into the hand of the Gentile.
Have we “bought” a dwelling in that “walled city”? It costs something to have a dwelling in that city, but it is worth more than all it costs. We are tested as to whether we prefer earthly things — “the fields of the country” — or a dwelling in the “walled city”. In the assembly viewed as the “walled city” everything is made of Christ; nothing else has any importance or standing; its walls exclude all that is of man after the flesh. His wisdom, his righteousness, his religion, every part of his glory are outside its walls. That city stands in holy separation from the world, and from all that is earthly in a religious way.
It is good to see that “the Levites shall have a perpetual right of redemption” (verse 32). The Levites had cities, but they had no inheritance among the children of Israel (Numbers 18: 23); they typify “the assembly of the firstborn ones who are enregistered in heaven” (Hebrews 12: 23). The portion of a heavenly people can never be alienated; it is “a perpetual possession”. “The field of the suburbs of their cities shall not be sold”. God will secure to us as much of earthly mercy as we need so long as we are here, but the place we hold here is that of a people whose inheritance is a heavenly one.
Then we have the thought of a brother grown poor, and “fallen into decay” (verse 35), or even “sold unto thee” (verse 39), or sold unto a wealthy stranger (verse 47). The whole chapter contemplates in [p. 288] different forms a reduced and impoverished state — a state in which the original wealth of the inheritance has been forfeited. But it is full of the spirit of grace. The poor brother is to be cared for, the one sold is not to be treated as a bondservant, and if sold to a wealthy stranger there is still to be “right of redemption for him”, and full liberty in the year of jubilee. Jehovah says, “They are my bondmen”. It is as much as to say, You must be considerate for them because they are mine. How touching the grace of it! Does it not teach us tender and gracious consideration for those who belong to God, however impoverished and decayed they may be? There is perhaps with us a tendency not to care enough for those who do not get on spiritually. We feel it is their own fault that they have “fallen into decay”, and this may be true; but do they belong to God? If so, they are to be cared for. It is due to God that they should be the subjects of considerate and kindly interest.
Thus chapter magnifies the grace that deals wondrously with those who have, on their side, lost their possessions. The whole chapter is coloured by the grace of the jubilee. God will have the last word. Whatever happens on our side, His unfailing grace will assert itself, and every one will return to his possession. When the trumpet of jubilee sounds the power of sovereign divine love will place the heirs in possession and enjoyment of the inheritance. It will be known then that “of him, and through him, and for him are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen”.