LET’S UNDERSTAND

GO’EL, CREATION, AND REDEMPTION: As a mother pledges to rescue her own child when necessary, so does God. The concepts of creation and redemption were linked together from the very beginning, because God created us in His image, and therefore became our closest of kin, our kinsman redeemer. What a fantastic and surprising concept!

Go’el is used in the Scriptures as a descriptive name for God, usually translated as Redeemer in our English Bibles. It highlights His mighty acts of redemption on behalf of His people (see Ex. 6:6; 15:13). God constantly reminds us that He is our Kinsman-Redeemer, our Go’el, especially in the book of Isaiah. I am particularly touched when He reminds me to “fear not” because He has acted as our Go’el (see Is. 43:1).

What would you do for your children if they were in trouble? Do you think God feels the same way about you?

GO’EL, JUBILEE, AND LIBERTY: “It is clear that the close family members are obligated to act as next of kin for another member of the family …. If a debtor-slave has not been “redeemed” by any of the ways provided for him to gain his freedom, he “goes out” in the year of Jubilee… . This language means that the release at the year of Jubilee possesses the same quality as the exodus from Egypt. Each Jubilee, Yahweh acts again as Israel’s great Redeemer” (Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], p. 442).

The Jubilee was the favorable year of the Lord, when once every 50 years, seven times seven years (forty-nine), all slaves were to be set free, all debts were cancelled, and all property returned to its original owners. If someone had a kinsman-redeemer (Go’el), this blessed liberty could happen anytime, if and when the person’s closest of kin paid the ransom. But just in case they didn’t, the heavenly Kinsman-Redeemer, Yahweh (the Lord), would step in for everyone once every seven times seven years. On the Day of Atonement, the ram’s horn would sound (see Lev. 25:8-10), and everyone and everything would be set free (seven has always been the number for redemption and freedom in the Jewish Scriptures).

When the United States of America was founded, the dream was that this would be the “land of the free,” that everyone would have freedom and liberty. As a reminder of this fact, the Liberty Bell bears the engraving: LEV. XXV:X. This verse reads: “Proclaim a release (or liberty) through the land to all its inhabitants” That’s why it is called the LIBERTY BELL!

GO’EL, SABBATH, AND REDEMPTION OF PROPERTY: “In the OT the idea of redemption is closely associated with the laws and customs of the Israelite people … According to the theocratic arrangement in Israel, the land belonged to God and the Israelite families only possessed the right to use the fruit of the land. If a family forfeited this use because its parcel of land had to be sold or because there was no heir, the parcel was returned to the family at the year of jubilee, which came every fifty years (Lev. 25:8-17). Prior to this year the nearest kinsman had the right and the responsibility to redeem the property, i.e., to liquidate the debt so that the property might be restored to its original owner (25:23-28)“ (Knudsen, “Redeemer, Redemption,” in Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 5, p. 49).

“Technically, all land in Israel which had been sold reverted to the original family during the Jubilee year. Leviticus 25:25-28 provides that the person himself or his next of kin may buy the land back before the Jubilee, however” (Oswalt, “Redemption of Land”, in Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 5, p. 50).

Therefore, in an amazing development of concepts, not only the Sabbath day (see Ex. 20:11 and Deut. 5:15), but also the Sabbath year, the Day of Atonement, and the year of Jubilee would be constant celebrations of remembrance of Redemption. The Creator is also the Redeemer; the captives and their property (the land) were set free by Yahweh, the Lord, the ultimate Go’el. One of the perpetual reminders that we can rest knowing that our Creator is also our Redeemer is the seventh-day Sabbath (Read Ex. 20:11; Deut. 5:15; Matt. 11:25-12:8; Heb. 4:8-10). Even in heaven, we will continue celebrating this “remembrance feast” designed to remind us of the amazing redemption achieved by our Go’el (Jesus).

LET’S REFLECT

It was a sunny afternoon and my mother and I were enjoying ourselves. We were in La Pampa, Argentina, a little town where my parents were conducting an evangelistic series. My dad was an evangelist and the three of us used to move to a new location every six months.

That afternoon I was four years old and my mother decided to take me for a ride. We lived in a small mud house. There was not much for me to do at home, so my mother borrowed a bicycle to take me sightseeing. I was so excited! I was not old enough to ride the bike myself, so I settled into a small seat behind my mother. She was the one in charge, pedaling and steering on our tour. I was the one enjoying it in the back. We had been going for quite a while and were now far away from town, enjoying the never-ending wheat fields. At one point, on a particularly bumpy part of the road, I started to slide sideways off of the bike seat. My mother advised me to straighten up and to hold on firmly, so I wouldn’t fall. I did. Then it happened:

I started crying with utter desperation and my mom couldn’t understand why. She stopped the bike and asked me why I was crying. I pointed to my feet. Socks covered my legs almost up to my knees and my mom took off my socks to find out what was going on. Then she saw it! The flesh at the bottom of my foot came off along with the sock, and she could see bone where my heel used to be. As I had tried to straighten up on the seat, I had accidentally stuck my foot in the wheel, which injured my foot.

My mother didn’t have to think twice. With energy and strength that seemed to come directly from above, Mom sat me on the seat of the bicycle, took hold of the handlebars, and started running to take me back to town. Right outside the town, she saw a clinic that was designed to deal with simple ailments and minor injuries, the only medical facility the town had. We went inside and she asked for an X-ray. It turned out that I had no broken bones. But took me six months to recover. A tiny scar on my heel reminds me of that fateful day—the day when my mom also became my rescuer, because she did for me what I couldn’t do for myself.

 

 

Why did Jesus choose to read that specific section of Isaiah, “TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD … (Jubilee)” (See Is. 61:1, 2; Luke 4:19) when He visited the synagogue in his hometown (See Luke 4:18, 19)? What did Jesus mean when “He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’“ (Luke 4:21)?

 

 

LET’S COMPREHEND JESUS IN SCRIPTURE

Jesus would be the One to become flesh, become our Brother, and redeem us without money (see Is. 52:3). He redeemed us with His blood; He came to die. That was the purpose: to pay the ransom because He is our Go’el. Jesus Himself stated that this was the purpose of His death. And in His explanation, we find a word usually associated with the Go’el, and the payment offered for an enslaved relative: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45, emphasis mine).

“The ransom metaphor sums up the purpose for which Jesus gave his life and defines the complete expression of his service. The prevailing notion behind the metaphor is that of deliverance by purchase, whether a prisoner of war, a slave, or a forfeited life is the object to be delivered. Because the idea of equivalence, or substitution, was proper to the concept of a ransom, it became an integral element in the vocabulary of redemption in the OT. It speaks of a liberation which connotes a servitude or an imprisonment from which man cannot free himself. In the context of verse 45a, with its reference to the service of the Son of Man, it is appropriate to find an allusion to the Servant of the Lord in Is. 53, who vicariously and voluntarily suffered and gave his life for the sins of others. The specific thought underlying the reference to the ransom is expressed in Is. 53:10 which speaks of ‘making his life an offering for sin.’ Jesus, as the messianic Servant, offers himself as a guilt-offering (Lev. 5:14-6:7; 7:1-7; Num. 5:5-8) in compensation for the sins of the people. The release affected by this offering overcomes man’s alienation from God, his subjection to death and his bondage to sin. Jesus’ service is offered to God to release men from their indebtedness to God.

“The thought of substitution is reinforced by the qualifying phrase ‘a ransom for the many.’ The Son of Man takes the place of the many and there happens to him what would have happened to them… . The many had forfeited their lives, and what Jesus gives in their place is his life. In his death, Jesus pays the price that sets men free” (Lane, The Gospel of Mark [NICNT], pp. 383, 384).