Everything that was written of old, was written for our
instruction, on whom the ends of the world have come. Now, Israel, when
redeemed from Egyptian bondage, had both a sabbatical year appointed them,
and the great Jubilee. The first was every seventh year; and the last when
fifty years were completed. There was also a release, when, after six years
service, the man-servant and maid-servant were set at liberty. All these
Israel, by divine command, observed; and though their deliverance from
Egyptian bondage was thereby commemorated, yet it respected a much diviner
and more interesting liberty. In the year of Jubilee, the land was to rest
In the Sabbatical year the laborers were rest. And by the third the lawful
heirs returned to the inheritance of their fathers.
And, may not this prefigure, the deliverance of
individuals from the slavery of sin, into the glorious liberty of the sons
of God? Is not here shadowed out the salvation of the world, from the
ignorance, idolatry, and darkness, that had overspread all nations?
But though the Jews had both their sabbatical year, and
great jubilee, yet they could not be made perfect without the
gospel-dispensation. Therefore, all their grand epochs were only typical of
"the acceptable year of the Lord," when the great High Priest of God, with
the trumpet of the everlasting gospel, proclaimed liberty to the captives,
the opening of the prison-doors to those who were bound, not only through
all the land of Israel—but to the ends of the earth. It was not strange,
that the saints who lived in the times of types and shadows, should not be
made perfect without us; but it is strange that the saints who fall asleep
in Christ, and so have past their week of trouble, and entered on the
year of release, on the sabbath of rest, (so graciously has God connected
things,) though possessed of all felicity, cannot, without us, who are
expectants of the same state, be made perfect; as their souls wait for the
resurrection of their bodies; that the whole man may exalt and enjoy him,
who is very God and very man.
Now, though the seventh year Sabbatical was very pleasant
and divine, yet the fifty year Jubilee in all respects excelled it very far,
being proclaimed with loud sounding trumpets to the ends of the land,
inviting the captive to liberty, and the impoverished heirs to their
paternal estates.
But the Jubilee of the glorious gospel is the glad
tidings of great joy to all people, and a general proclamation to
disinherited spendthrifts and bankrupts to return, through their elder
Brother, who has redeemed the mortgaged inheritance, to the full and ample
possession of spiritual things, of which they shall never be again
despoiled.
But the grandest and most glorious Jubilee of all, is the
jubilee of glory—when the great trumpet of eternity shall be blown,
and the saints, who now seem outcasts in the land of death, shall hear and
assemble, and enter into the full possession of the everlasting kingdom. In
this great and last Jubilee, all former deliverances shall be summed up, so
that there shall be no after-mortgaging of the inheritance, as might take
place among the Israelites, no fears of being dispossessed of the land of
promise, which often vex the Christian's bosom.
The blast of the ram's horn was heard all over Israel,
the sound of the gospel all over the world; but the last trumpet shall be
heard in heaven, earth, and the grave! So that the saints in all ages shall
be equal sharers in this jubilee—which shall end all their sorrows, and
begin their everlasting joys. Then shall they enter, not into a sabbatical
year, that can be succeeded by time—but into a sabbatical eternity, even
an eternal Sabbath of rest which shall never have an end!