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THE YEAR OF JUBILEE

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 12, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 11.

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THE YEAR OF JUBILEE

By Percy T. Magan

The year of jubilee was the happiest of all the years to the people of Israel. No service, no sacrifice, gave as much joy as did this ordinance. So true is this fact, that the very word “jubilee” has come into common use as the expression of the acme of happiness. And now Seventh-day Adventists have been told by the Spirit of Prophecy that “if all will take hold of this work of rolling back the reproach of debt from our schools, in the spirit of self-sacrifice, for Christ’s sake and for the truth’s sake, it will not be long before the jubilee song of freedom can be sung throughout our borders.” This is not an arbitrary promise. It is a fundamental part of the gospel and the Third Angel’s Message.
The twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus is the chapter of the Bible on the jubilee. Here is what it says:—
“And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of jubilee [“loud of sounds,” margin, Heb.] to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”
Let every one notice, first of all, the time when the year of jubilee began. The trumpet of jubilee was to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement. It did not begin at the regular time for the beginning of the Jewish year; it began “on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement.”
The day of atonement was the day when all Israel waited around the tabernacle, afflicting their souls until the descent of the cloud announced that God had blotted out their sins. The day of atonement was a blessed day in Israel; for what can be more blessed than the knowledge that our sins have been blotted out?
The day of atonement came every year; but the year of jubilee came only once in fifty years, and it began on the day of atonement. But the year of jubilee was the year in which EVERY SOUL WENT FREE FROM DEBT. Then what day could be more of a jubilee day than the one in which all sins were blotted out and all debts were wiped away?
In these closing scenes of time, we are living in the antitypical day of atonement, when Jesus is blotting out the sins of those who seek for pity and for pardon. And, thank God, we are also living in the antitypical year of jubilee, when every debt that stands as a reproach against the cause and name of God is to be wiped out. Israel sang the song of jubilee when her debts were canceled. The same is promised to the remnant Church to-day, that we shall sing the song of jubilee, when, in loyalty to God, we have rolled back the reproach of debt which stands as a disgrace against the institutions that bear His name.
It is written that in the year of jubilee “ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his own family.” This also is true to-day; for when all our sins and all our debts are blotted out and washed away, the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion, the purchased possession, and we shall be infolded in the arms of those dear ones of our family, whom “we have loved long since, and lost awhile.”
In the year of jubilee the land reverted to the original owner. It is written: “The land shall not be sold forever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.”
And now God calls upon us to free our schools from debt, and let them become once more in deed and in truth dedicated to God himself.
The jubilee is designed to teach every soul that all we have is not our own, but only held in trust for God. By selling and sacrificing our houses and our lands to pay these debts, we shall learn the precious lesson of being “strangers and sojourners” with Christ.
Lastly, Israel was given the year of jubilee that they might remember that they had been BONDmen in the land of Egypt, and that God had called them out of that dire captivity.
Jesus, the Lord of heaven, surrendered the hoarded wealth of eternity, the mansions of His Father, the gardens and vineyards of Paradise, and the balmy bowers of the tree of life. He left all, and for our sakes came to earth and became poor, that through His poverty we might roll back the reproach of the debt of sin which bound the human family with the bands of death.
P. T. MAGAN.