“That the antitype of the Jubilee did not in any sense begin (i.e., take place) when the Israelite’s ceased to observe (the last typical event) is evident; hence it must be that the grand cycle began to count then, even though Israel and all the world are completely ignorant of the fact, and of the great antitypical Jubilee by which it will be terminated. We are not to look for the great Jubilee of Jubilees to begin after this cycle, but as the antitype to take the place of the fiftieth or last Jubilee of the cycle.

An antitype never follows its type but takes its place upon the same date. Hence the 2500th year, which would be the great 50th Jubilee, must be the antitype, the real Jubilee or Restitution. But instead of being a year, as in the type, it will be larger; it will be the beginning of the great thousand-year Jubilee–the Millennium. Just so it has been in the fulfillment of every type in which time was a feature. Thus, the Pentecostal outpouring of the holy Spirit came upon the typical day of Pentecost–or fiftieth day. Christ, our Passover sacrifice, died in the same night in which the typical lamb was appointed to be killed–a day before or a day after would not answer. So here, not the year after nor the year before the 2500th, or closing of the typical cycle, would do; but that very year, beginning October, 1874, must have begun the antitype of Restitution times.

The observance of the type could not cease until the great cycle (50 x 50) began to count. The important point to be ascertained, then, is the exact date when the last typical Jubilee was observed by Israel. With that date definitely established, it becomes a very simple matter to count the great cycle of fifty times fifty or twenty-five hundred years, and thus locate definitely the date of the beginning of the great Jubilee of Earth–the “Times of Restitution of all things.”

But we must look for the beginnings only of this stupendous work of restoring all things. The first few days in the typical Jubilee Year would see comparatively little accomplished; and so, we must expect in the first few years in the dawning of the great Millennial Jubilee to see but little accomplished. The first work in the typical Jubilee Year would naturally be a searching out of former rights and possessions and the ascertaining of present lacks.

Tracing the parallel of this, we should expect in the antitype just what we now see going on all about us; for, as will shortly be shown, we have already entered upon the great antitypical Jubilee period, and have been in it since October, A.D. 1874.

What do we see about us?

We see investigation on the part of the people of their original, God-given inheritance, and their present lacks, rights, etc., many in ignorance and selfishness claiming what others have (i.e., pushing for the redistribution of the wealth of others); and the attempt to hold on to as much as possible on the part of those who have such possessions–causing disputes, controversies (civil disturbances, protest, riots), strikes and lock-outs, with more or less justice and injustice on both sides, which must finally be left to Christ’s adjudication, as disputes under the Law were settled by Moses, and after his death by those who sat in Moses’ seat. (Matt. 23:2) With these fixed conclusions and expectations, let us seek the date which God evidently hid for us in this type, “that we might know the things freely given unto us of God,” now due to be understood.

We have no direct Bible record of Israel’s observance of their typical Jubilees which would show which was the last one observed. Thus, we fix upon the date for the Jubilee immediately preceding the Babylonian captivity and seventy years desolation of their land, as the last one, for two reasons:

First, it could not have been this side of that desolation, because there, surely, the type ceased, “passed away“; for the land being desolate seventy years and the people in captivity in a foreign land, a Jubilee must have been due somewhere in the midst of those seventy years and must have gone unobserved (Remember a Jubilee was supposed to have taken place at the end of every 49th year on the 50th year). A glance is sufficient to show that the commands and provisions relative to the Jubilee Year could not be complied with while they as a nation were in captivity and the land was desolate. Hence, we say the type either passed away at that time, or before that interruption: it could not be this side of it. And whenever the observance of the type ceased, the cycle of the great antitype must have begun to count. One such failure to observe the type would indicate that the type had ceased and that the cycle leading to the antitype had begun. Besides, not since before the Babylonian captivity had Israel ever had full control of the land: they and their land were ever since subject to Gentile dominion. (That is until the “The Times of the Gentiles”, came to an end in 1914 A.D., and the restoration of Israel to their homeland began leading up to their once again becoming an independent nation in 1948.)

Secondly, in every captivity previous to that one, God evidently delivered them from their enemies in time to get back into their own land to celebrate the Jubilee Year, and thus to perpetuate it as a type until the right time for the great (50 x 50) cycle to begin counting; for their previous captivities, though frequent, it seems never lasted longer than forty years, thus permitting them, according to the Jubilee arrangement, to go free and to receive back every man his inheritance every (50th or) Jubilee Year.” (B181-183 edited)

We continue with the next post.