THE JUBILEE PROPHECY.

(3) Note another prophecy, similarly hidden in type in the Mosaic law, – Israel’s Jubilee Year. No one is prepared to understand this line of prophecy who has not first learned that the second coming of our Lord is not for the purpose of destroying the world, but for the purpose of blessing it according to the promise made to Abraham, “in thy Seed shall ALL the families of the earth be blessed,” – with the favors lost in Adam. These will be offered to ALL and will be made perpetual to those who will accept them on the terms of the New Covenant. None can see any beauty or typical significance in Israel’s Jubilee, who have not learned that God has provided “times of restitution of all things” which are to begin in connection with the second advent of the Redeemer. – See Acts 3:19-23.

We find that Israel’s Jubilee year, in which every person and family had every lost possession and all personal liberties restored to them, was intended to be a type of the coming time of restitution, when a full opportunity for attaining freedom from sin and from Satan, and from the hereditary weakness of the flesh, shall be presented to all, and when the earth shall again revert to the human family in general, for whom it was created, and for whom, after being lost through Adam’s transgression, it was redeemed by Christ.

We find that the Scriptures indicate, in connection with these jubilees, a system of counting by multiples; and that a Jubilee of Jubilees, or fifty times fifty years (2500 years) constitutes a Great Jubilee cycle and that such a cycle began to count after fleshly Israel had observed her last typical Jubilee. We find from the Scriptures that Israel’s nineteenth Jubilee year, – in the year B.C. 626, – was her last.

Knowing that the Jubilee was a part of the Law, and that no feature of that Law, not one jot or tittle, can pass away without reaching a fulfilment, or antitype, we measure the cycle of the Great Jubilee 2500 years from the date when the last typical Jubilee was kept (626 B.C.), and find accordingly that the antitypical Jubilee or Great Jubilee of Jubilees should have begun in October, 1874.

Thus, – 625 years B.C. plus 1875 years A.D. are 2500 years, which would include the Jubilee year: consequently, with the end of the year 1874 (Jewish time, October), the antitypical Jubilee of 1,000 years, instead of another typical one year, was due to begin.

Watchers will note carefully the correspondences of this date, and the character of the event to be expected, with the finding of our previous examinations (1 and 2), which showed us this very same date, October, 1874, was the time when the “harvest” of this age was due to begin, and when the Lord himself, as the Chief Reaper, was due to be present.

The only thing necessary to connect this Jubilee prophecy with the others, is the statement of the Apostle Peter in Acts 3:21.

“Whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

This shows that our Lord must be present (at his second advent) at the beginning of the times of restitution of all things, and as already seen, these restitution times are the Antitypical Jubilee times typified by Israel’s Jubilees. Thus, we have two very simple but clear and very important lines of Scripture testimony which indicate clearly that the parousia of our Lord was due to begin in October, 1874, and both show us the character of the work which we should expect would be in progress during the time of his presence, preceding his open manifestation to the world, his epiphania, his apokalupsis.

Continued with next post.