“You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely.” Leviticus 25:17-18
The thing about sin is that it makes us stupid. It just does. Since the root of sin is suppression of the obvious it always leads us in one way or another, to rank foolishness. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. The Titanic and that iceberg. There’s literally no end to examples of humans being daft. Sin draws our focus away from wisdom…away from what would otherwise be obvious (Proverbs 1:7), which is why we see the great irony of educated foolishness all around us. To this end I submit the latest heretical case of bad hermeneutics – which is, without further delay, the crazy justification of college debt eradication by invoking the Jubilee (or Sabbath) year debt forgiveness in Old Testament Israel.
Yes, indeed, several alleged pastors, showing their true false-teacher credentials, have dusted off their Old Testament, taken it all out of context, and presumed to justify a public sin with it.
In short, it’s a classic case of people wanting the blessings of God but not God himself. More still, it’s a dangerous example of the hubris of sin. It’s stark raving pride that’s so dangerously stupid as to defy description. Think I’m overreacting? Well, consider the following.
By invoking the year of Jubilee as a means of justifying President Biden’s unconstitutional (Presidents don’t make laws in our system) and undemocratic (did anyone vote for this?) debt cancelation they have unwittingly invoked the law of God. For so-called Christian pastors (and that’s all they are, “so-called”) to recklessly suggest the year of Jubilee is in effect in the New Testament era is grossly stupid. Epically moronic. Why is my language so strong? Because false teachers such as these misuse the law and lead people away from Christ, which is to say, away from Christ and salvation. And that’s a very big deal.
The Jubilee law was given to the covenant people of Israel in which on the 50th year (after seven sabbath years) all people were released from debts and returned to their original property. The property was, lest we forget, given to them by God when they entered the promised land. Trying to apply this law literally to America is impossible due to the vast differences in property acquisition and the nature of the economy. Israel and America are naturally not one and the same. The principles of the law are still valid (as we’ll see) but we aren’t to try and live by the letter of the law (Romans 2:29) – especially in this case. Our position on this particular abuse is that it’s very much like an abusive and philandering husband quoting the seventh commandment to his wife. He’s being very, very selective while breaking all the laws himself.
Old Testament law, by the way, is meant to be our “tutor to lead us to Christ” (Galatians 3:24). But now that faith has come and we follow the law of faith, not the old written code (Romans 3:31) we are no longer under the law (Romans 6:14). As both James 2:10 and Galatians 5:3 explain simply, if we go back to the yoke of the law we’re bound to keep the whole law. And this is something we simply cannot achieve, for all of us have failed morally before God’s righteous standards. The moral law of God is the great leveler of mankind and, used correctly, will bring us to the cross. Thus, all uses of the law of God (and the law is righteous and good) must bring men and women, sinners all, to Christ. In this way, the law is used to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.
Has Joe Biden glorified God? Has our recklessly idolatrous state submitted to Him and begged for mercy so that we might all receive grace? Has the United States humbled itself before Him? On the contrary, it has wantonly spent money it hadn’t saved and then patted itself on the back, spiking the ball in the end zone as it were.
But while we’re on the subject of the Jubilee, let’s look at it more closely. We’ll see how terribly astray these false teachers are in their evaluation of it.
We noted earlier that sin makes us stupid. It does this primarily through a mechanism known as the “myth of neutrality.” That’s the sinful act of beginning our reasoning about life on the premise that God’s word isn’t sovereign over every single thing. That’s the case here. The Lord’s moral law interacted with the economy through the ascending sabbaths: one day in seven, one year in seven, and another year (Jubilee) at the end of seven times seven years. This was all to show God’s people, through faithful obedience, that He was their provider and Lord. Nowhere within the text of the Jubilee chapter of Leviticus 25 do we read about a “neutral state.” God is King, not the state. President Biden and his deceived supporters believe that law is whatever they think it is and do not submit to God’s law.
And this brings up the proverbial elephant in the room, which is the fact that if we’re to invoke the Jubilee debt forgiveness for college loans we must erase ALL debt. Poof. Gone. Everything is canceled. All of it. Car loans. Mortgages. Credit cards. Business loans. Buh-bye. Can you imagine the caterwauling and chaos this would cause? The debt riddled economy would rather surely totter and collapse. So, why the college debt cancelation but not a full Jubilee? Ah…such is our arrogance and depravity. And while we’re at it, a sabbath year rest requires ALL work to cease as well. This was meant as a blessing to God’s people so that we wouldn’t make acquisition our god and goal of life! Oh, how we yearn for a rest from our labors and debts and yet won’t turn to Him for that rest. False gods like the state promise us the heavens and always deliver to us more and more weariness of body and soul. And still we won’t come to Him!
God’s commandment that Israel release debts during the sabbath year was designed to make sure that His people didn’t become infected with the sin of organized covetousness and love of money. James 4 details that all the quarrels among people arise because of our unfulfilled desires. God’s law, until Christ, was meant to hem in the sin impulse and as one songwriter so aptly put it, “a man with a briefcase can steal a lot more money than any man with a gun.” The modern state with its central banks and market manipulation is the physical manifestation of Paul’s warning to Timothy about the dangers of the love of money. Our careers and educations can’t be our primary goal in life lest we be left unsatisfied. Only Christ is the living water who quenches the great thirst of our beleaguered souls. Thus, the sabbath year worked so as to prevent the powerful from exploiting the weak! And it worked so that society would be ordered around God, not self, profit, and stuff, through which we’d sacrifice the liberty of our neighbors, and even sell our own futures to achieve.
A society that knows all debts were to be released every seven years will build a true prosperity based on worship and liberty. Religion and politics are inextricably linked and we see that so well right here. One’s theology determines one’s economics. And one’s economics determines one’s law. So, as always, we ask: do we serve God or money?
The sabbath was therefore instituted by a holy and wise God who knows us perfectly. Our heavenly Father is no Karl Marx. He’s not some egghead academic with no real world experience. The sabbath year, if followed, meant that there would not be a perpetual debtor economy in Israel. And its principles today would mean godliness with contentment, not a mad pursuit of wealth that traps us into debt service and the long, bitter hours of a job that wrings the joy from our very souls.
A 30-year home loan? That’s insane. The interest rates are usury but that’s the financial world our secular humanistic premises have produced. God’s people were meant to be free…from sin and its encroachments. Perpetual debt is a form of slavery. For all the talk about slavery these days, what sin has done is remove our focus from the obvious: slavery is about power. And debt gives the creditor power over the debtor. This principle is still in force in the New Testament, by the way. Romans 13:8 succinctly put it, “owe no one anything except to love.”
So, to be clear, America is a debtor economy precisely because she’s evil. Humanism and state-worship are her false gods and that decrepit old fellow stumbling through his words, forgetting what he was saying, having grown into a multi-millionaire through a life of “public service” is the creditor. All the debtors who praised his unilateral action didn’t give praise to God, but to the state. The easiest way to discover false worship is to ask who gets the glory in something. Congratulations, America. You’ve traded in Jesus Christ for a crusty old man with a messiah complex.
The real jubilee is Jesus Christ! The real sabbath rest is Him and His holy and life giving word. Follow Him, Christian, and apply His principles to your life and family and He alone will make straight your paths.
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