Much of
the on-going theological debate about the Sabbath is focused on the weekly day
of rest given to national Israel and whether or not it was changed in day,
scope, and application in the New Covenant. But the idea of Sabbath is much
greater and more significant than this, though mostly overlooked. This neglect
actually ends up making too much of the day and too little of the One Who gives
rest. Consider how YHWH commanded national Israel to give the land which He had
given them a Sabbath rest every 7th year:
Leviticus 25:1-7 The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: “Speak to the Israelites and
tell them: When you enter the land I am
giving you, the land will observe a Sabbath to the LORD. You may sow your
field for six years, and you may prune your vineyard and gather its produce for
six years. But there will be a Sabbath
of complete rest for the land in the seventh year, a Sabbath to the LORD: you
are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard. You are not to reap what
grows by itself from your crop, or harvest the grapes of your untended vines.
It must be a year of complete rest for the land. ⌊Whatever⌋ the land ⌊produces during⌋ the Sabbath year can
be food for you—for yourself, your male or female slave, and the hired hand or
foreigner who stays with you. All of its growth may serve as food for your
livestock and the wild animals in your land.
Note that,
during the Sabbath year, the people of Israel could not take anything that was
produced by plants that they had cultivated BUT they would live off the produce
from those plants they had NOT cultivated - those that YHWH had provided. This
reflects the same doctrine as the weekly Sabbath - rest from working to provide
sustenance and trust God; the same message Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the
Mount, wherein He was describing life in the New Covenant and told people that
those therein should not worry about your
life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you
will wear. Isn't life more than food and
the body more than clothing? (Matt 6:25) This last sentence reveals
that He was speaking of the New Covenant, where life is spiritual and eternal
and IS more than food and drink and clothing. Certainly life in this age
requires food and drink and clothing, and even these the Father provides
richly.
So the
nation of Israel was to work the land for 6 years, then give it a Sabbath rest,
following the pattern and purpose of the weekly Sabbath. Throughout their
history they failed to obey either of these commanded rests and their exile was
directly related to this:
2
Chronicles 36:11-21 Zedekiah was 21 years
old when he became king and reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD
his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet at the LORD’s
command. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who had made him swear
allegiance by God. He became obstinate and hardened his heart against returning
to Yahweh, the God of Israel. All the
leaders of the priests and the people multiplied their unfaithful deeds,
imitating all the detestable practices of the nations, and they defiled the
LORD’s temple that He had consecrated in Jerusalem. But Yahweh, the God of
their ancestors sent word against them by the hand of His messengers, sending
them time and time again, for He had compassion on His people and on His
dwelling place. But they kept ridiculing God’s messengers, despising His words,
and scoffing at His prophets, until the LORD’s wrath was so stirred up against
His people that there was no remedy. So He brought up against them the king
of the Chaldeans, who killed their choice young men with the sword in the house
of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young men or young women, elderly or
aged; He handed them all over to him. He took everything to Babylon—all the
articles of God’s temple, large and small, the treasures of the LORD’s temple,
and the treasures of the king and his officials. Then the Chaldeans burned God’s temple. They tore down Jerusalem’s wall,
burned down all its palaces, and destroyed all its valuable articles. He
deported those who escaped from the sword to Babylon, and they became servants
to him and his sons until the rise of the Persian kingdom. This fulfilled the word of the LORD through Jeremiah and the land
enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation until 70 years were
fulfilled.
Israel had
disregarded nearly ever commandment given them, had mistreated the poor, and
worshipped the demonic idols of the pagan nations - which they were commanded
NOT to do. Law incites people to sin by telling you what you may not do.
Did you
catch this one thing in that prophecy: the Chaldeans burned God’s temple. They tore
down Jerusalem’s wall. When
Jesus spoke of every stone in the temple being overthrown, this scene where the
Chaldeans burned God’s temple and tore down Jerusalem’s wall must have been
playing in the minds of the Jews who heard Him. Even though YHWH had never
commanded Israel to build a stone temple, He condescended to use it and honor
it. Yet the stone temple, just as the stone tablets, were not super-spiritual
and not everlasting; they and everything else in the Levitical religion pointed
to One Who was greater than all and would make all things new.
The length
of their exile was pegged to the yearly Sabbath they had forsaken. Jeremiah
prophesied this, as we read in Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10-14 This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations
will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will
punish the king of Babylon and that nation,’ declares the LORD, ‘for their
iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting
desolation… “For thus says the LORD, ‘When
seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My
good word to you, to bring you back to this place. ‘For I know the plans
that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for
calamity to give you a future and a hope. ‘Then you will call upon Me and come
and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ‘You
will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ‘I will be
found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will
gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven
you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I
sent you into exile.’
This was
the declaration of God - national Israel will be punished for disobedience, the
land will be left without human cultivation, and God's time-table would
determine when and how restoration would take place. When the 70 years were up,
Daniel prayed to God and confessed the sins of his people, knowing God would be
faithful to keep His promise and return the Jews to Jerusalem. What Daniel
didn't see clearly was that the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophesy would not be
fulfilled until David's Son and Lord would complete His redemptive work. Acts
15:12-18 shows how Amos' prophecy about the rebuilding of David's tent was
actually about inclusion of Gentiles in the kingdom of God. All of which was
told to Abram but forgotten by national Israel.
Lev 25 reveals
the ultimate expression of Sabbath blessings for national Israel. Release of
debt, freedom of slaves, etc. I will read much of this chapter to give us a
sense of the weight of the laws governing Sabbaths and the relief this year of
Jubilee promised.
Leviticus
25:8-22 “You are to count seven sabbatical years, seven times seven years, so
that the time period of the seven sabbatical years amounts to 49. Then you are
to sound a trumpet loudly in the seventh month, on the tenth ⌊day⌋ of the month; you will sound it
throughout your land on the Day of Atonement.
You are to consecrate the fiftieth year
and proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants. It will be your
Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and each of you to his
clan. The fiftieth year will be your Jubilee; you are not to sow, reap what
grows by itself, or harvest its untended vines. It is to be holy to you because
it is the Jubilee; you may ⌊only⌋ eat its produce ⌊directly⌋ from the field.
“In this Year of Jubilee, each of you will return to his property. If you make
a sale to your neighbor or a purchase from him, do not cheat one another. You
are to make the purchase from your neighbor based on the number of years since
the last Jubilee. He is to sell to you based on the number of ⌊remaining⌋ harvest years. You
are to increase its price in proportion to a greater amount of years, and
decrease its price in proportion to a lesser amount of years, because what he
is selling to you is a number of harvests. You
are not to cheat one another, but fear your God, for I am Yahweh your God. “You
are to keep My statutes and ordinances and carefully observe them, so that you
may live securely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, so that
you can eat, be satisfied, and live securely in the land. If you wonder: ‘What
will we eat in the seventh year if we don’t sow or gather our produce?’ I will
appoint My blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop
sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating
from the previous harvest. You will be eating this until the ninth year when
its harvest comes in.
Leviticus
25:39-43 “If your brother among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you,
you must not force him to do slave labor. Let him stay with you as a hired hand
or temporary resident; he may work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then
he and his children are to be released from you, and he may return to his clan
and his ancestral property. They are not
to be sold as slaves, because they are My slaves that I brought out of the land
of Egypt. You are not to rule over them harshly but fear your God.
Leviticus
25:47-55 “If a foreigner or temporary resident ⌊living⌋ among you prospers, but your
brother ⌊living⌋ near him becomes destitute and
sells himself to the foreigner living among you,
or to a member of the foreigner’s clan, he has the right of redemption after he
has been sold. One of his brothers may redeem him. His uncle or cousin may
redeem him, or any of his close relatives from his clan may redeem him. If he
prospers, he may redeem himself. The one
who purchased him is to calculate ⌊the
time⌋
from the year he sold himself to him until the Year of Jubilee. The price of
his sale will be ⌊determined⌋ by the number of years.
It will be ⌊set⌋ for him like the
daily wages of a hired hand. If many
years are still left, he must pay his redemption price in proportion to them
based on his purchase price. If only a few years remain until the Year of
Jubilee, he will calculate and pay the price of his redemption in proportion to
his ⌊remaining⌋ years.
He will stay with him like a man hired year by year. A foreign owner is not to
rule over him harshly in your sight. If
he is not redeemed in any of these ⌊ways⌋, he and his children are to be
released at the Year of Jubilee. For the Israelites are My slaves. They are My
slaves that I brought out of the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.
Those who
are down and out, poor and vulnerable, are not to be mistreated - because they
belong to YHWH. They could be forced to work for wages but not treated as
slaves. At the appointed time, the year of Jubilee, they were to be released.
Jews who sell themselves as slaves to Gentiles were to be redeemed, calculating
the price based on the year of Jubilee. Twice they were reminded of how YHWH
brought His people out of slavery in Egypt with a mighty hand, how they are to
treat people right because of their fear of YHWH their God. This was to keep them from thinking too highly of themselves
and too little of one another.
Numbers
36:1-4 The family leaders from the clan
of the descendants of Gilead—the son of Machir, son of Manasseh—who were from
the clans of the sons of Joseph, approached and addressed Moses and the leaders
who were over the Israelite families. They said, “Yahweh commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance by lot to
the Israelites. My lord was further commanded by Yahweh to give our brother
Zelophehad’s inheritance to his daughters. If they marry any of the men
from the ⌊other⌋ Israelite tribes,
their inheritance will be taken away from our fathers’ inheritance and added to
that of the tribe into which they marry. Therefore, part of our allotted
inheritance would be taken away. When
the Jubilee comes for the Israelites, their inheritance will be added to that
of the tribe into which they marry, and their inheritance will be taken away
from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe.”
Jubilee
meant return of inheritance, land that had been surrendered according to the
law of the nation. It was the year of the Lord's favor! The nation had been
given a weekly Sabbath, a 7th year Sabbath, and a 50th year Sabbath; the entire
Sabbath structure was to teach them to trust YHWH for the things of this world
that we need. One thing you might not know: until the early 20th century,
mortgages in this country ran 7 years - because of the Sabbath land law given
Israel. As part of the human reaction against everything of God, bankers
thought it was smart to extend mortgages and see the size of loans grow
accordingly. Houses got larger, more expensive, and took 30 years rather than 7
years to pay off. Look at how many people live over their heads in debt because
they pay 30 years on a house, 7 years on a car, and 15 years on credit cards. Cars
are not sold much on price any more, but on monthly payments. These terms are
evidence of fleshly desires to have stuff and not to count the cost - only the
ability, today, to pay for it each month. This is slavery.
Jubilee
was the promise of being set free from these debts, set free from the laws that
regulated Israel. Yet whether it was a mortgage that was refinanced, a car that
was replaced, or another cycle of hard work until the next Sabbath, the
temporal Jubilee could only whet one's appetite for the spiritual, eternal
Jubilee that would mean true freedom for the souls of the saints. When you read
Leviticus, does your soul ache for Christ? The Spirit intends that!
But did
Jesus say or do anything that established Himself as our Jubilee, or is this
idea a theological fabrication?
You
recall, right after He was baptized by John, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit
to the wilderness, where He was tempted by Satan. Almost immediately after the
temptation, Jesus was teaching in their
synagogues, being acclaimed by everyone (Luke 4:15). Then He entered into
the synagogue, as was His custom, in Nazareth - the city of His birth.
He walked
in and stood up, indicating He was ready to read. (Luke 4:17) The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given
to Him, and unrolling the scroll, He found the place where it was written,
in Isaiah 61, which details these Jubilee blessings and declared that His
coming had fulfilled those promises! Isaiah 61:1-2 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on
Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has
sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and
freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor. Jesus stopped quoting Isaiah at the
point wherein prophecy was fulfilled at that time. The latter part of verse 2
will be fulfilled when He returns to judge the nations, gather His people, and
make all things new: and the day of our
God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn.
Luke
4:20-21 He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat
down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him. He began by
saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”
Luke
4:22-23 They were all speaking well of
Him and were amazed by the gracious words that came from His mouth, yet they
said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Then He said to them, “No doubt you will quote
this proverb to Me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. ⌊So⌋ all we’ve heard that took place in
Capernaum, do here in Your hometown also.’” Jesus was not
seeking to impress or please these people who were amazed at His words; He was
rather abrupt with them. He went on to recite two incidents from their
history. The first was where the widow of Sidon was taken care of because
Elijah was sent to her, but not to any in Israel who were in great need.
Secondly was the occasion of the Syrian leper, Naaman, who was cured of leprosy
while many lepers in Israel were not cured. In both cases, God had miraculously
cared for Gentiles while not doing so for many in Israel.
The point
was not glorification of Israel; it was the glorious redemptive plan of YHWH
that Jesus was beginning to unveil before them. All the jubilee promises from
Leviticus 25 meant nothing to them. This man, by His very presence, threatened
their plush lives and positions of influence. And for this they wanted to kill
Him.
Luke
4:28-30 When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They got up, drove Him out of town, and
brought Him to the edge of the hill that their town was built on, intending to
hurl Him over the cliff. But He passed right through the crowd and went on His
way. Again, we see Jesus focused on a mission that is not focused on the
creature. Not only did He not try to impress the home crowd, He drew two
incidents from Israel's history to show them YHWH had people from among the
Gentiles, that national Israel was not the end-game for the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. The Jews hated the thought - remember how Jonah reacted when
YHWH told him to go to Nineveh? And so they tried to kill Jesus. But it was not
His time - His work had only begun.
When
John's disciples asked if Jesus was the promised one (while John was in jail),
Luke 7:22-23 (HCSB) He replied to them,
“Go and report to John the things you have seen and heard: The blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news. And anyone who is not
offended because of Me is blessed.”
Jesus did
send John reassurance but not in the way we might expect, not with words of
fleshly comfort. He declared Himself
as Lord of the Sabbath as His witness. He
brought the age of the true Sabbath, the day of the Lord's favor! All who
are weary and heavy laden can come to Him for rest! Lord of the Sabbath - not
merely Lord of the weakly Sabbath, as if that one day a week were a worthy type
of rest, in and of itself. The Sabbath rest given national Israel was much more
than the weekly day of rest. Even as that day has eschatological meaning,
unless we see and grasp the heavy weight lifted by the entire system of the
Sabbath - 7th day, 7th year, 50th year - we won't appreciate what Jesus meant
when He said He would set us free. Be not earthly minded, but set your
affections on the heavenlies, wherein Christ is.
Jesus was
crucified on a high Sabbath (John 19:31), emphasizing His role as the Lord who
provides Sabbath/rest for His people. The rest promised in Canaan was a shadow
of the rest we have when we come to Christ in faith. The relief promised in the
Jubilee Sabbath was nothing more than a shadow of the rest we have when the
Spirit of God raises us up from spiritual death to new life in Christ!
At the
transfiguration, Peter was, in essence, recognizing Moses and Elijah as Jesus'
equals - tabernacles for each! But God the Father shut Peter up and, with Jesus
all by Himself - as the One Who had fulfilled the Law (Moses) and the Prophets
(Elijah) - told the apostles to listen to Him! When Jesus had finished the work He had been sent to do, the Old
Covenant Law and the Old Covenant prophets had finished their course and were
not worthy to have tabernacles built for them along-side of Jesus. If we
have a right view of Christ, we will not want anyone or anything - such as
undue focus on the Decalogue - to obscure our view of Him. This is the mystery
of the Christian life - we are His and He is ours!
Speaking
to those who wanted to live as Jews, under the Law of Moses, Paul wrote:
Galatians 3:22-26 But the Scripture has imprisoned everything under
sin’s power, so that the promise by
faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Before this
faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith
was revealed. The law, then, was our
guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. But since that
faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for you are all sons of God
through faith in Christ Jesus. Everything in creation is under sin's
power; the earth was cursed because of Adam's sin. This was to preclude any
boasting by any flesh, to make salvation by grace through faith all the more
evident. Before Christ came, Jews were kept by the law which served as a
guardian - it kept the promised seed secure and pointed them to their
Scriptures and the One Who was to come. When He came, the Mosaic Law had
finished its course, the type had served its purpose, and the covenant in which
that law functioned was swept away as the antitype came and ushered in the New
Covenant with its new mediator, new priesthood, and new law. Gentiles, who were
never under the Mosaic Law, are a law unto themselves, and do not escape the
wrath of God. There is no refuge for man other than Christ Jesus! No matter
which law binds up the soul of man, there is only One who can free him. Call
upon Jesus - He is the Lamb of God Who takes away sin! Look unto Him, trust
your weary soul to Him, believe on Him. He is the Jubilee for your weary soul.
Come, ye
sinners, poor and wretched
Weak and
wounded, sick and sore
Jesus,
ready, stands to save you
Full of
pity, joined with power
He is
able, He is able
He is
willing; doubt no more
Come ye
needy, come, and welcome
God's free
bounty glorify
True
belief and true repentance
Every
grace that brings you nigh
Without
money, without money
Come to
Jesus Christ and buy
Come, ye
weary, heavy laden,
Bruised
and broken by the fall
If you
tarry 'til you're better
You will
never come at all
Not the
righteous, not the righteous
Sinners
Jesus came to call
Let not
conscience make you linger
Nor of
fitness fondly dream
All the
fitness He requires
Is to feel
your need of Him
This He
gives you, this He gives you
'Tis the
Spirit's rising beam
Lo! The
Incarnate God, ascended
Pleads the
merit of His blood
Venture on
Him, venture wholly
Let no
other trust intrude
None but
Jesus, none but Jesus
Can do
helpless sinners good
