Another thing that goes right along with spiritual captivity or with this theme that runs throughout the Bible is the Jubilee period. When was the Jubilee? The Bible tells us that the Jubilee was to come every fifty years.
We read in Leviticus 25:8-10:
And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
If we go back into history, Israel entered the land of Canaan in the year 1407 B.C. 1357 B.C. would have been the first 50-year period after that and, therefore, a Jubilee year; and then 1307 B.C., etc. Every year that ended in 57 or 07 on the B.C. side of history would have been a Jubilee year. 7 B.C., the year Jesus was born, also happened to be a Jubilee year. The Lord arranged this, of course, since Christ is the very essence of the Jubilee.
His entering into the human race was an actual fulfillment of what the Jubilee year spiritually represented. Indeed, Jesus’ work in saving His people (spiritually setting them free from sin) was everything that the Jubilee had pointed towards.
For example, we read a passage in Luke 4 where we find Jesus quoting from the first few verses of Isaiah 61. It says in Luke 4:18-19:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
We can readily see how this fits the Jubilee. The Jubilee was to be held every fifty years, and that fiftieth year was hallowed. If the Israelites had fellow Jews as bondmen or bondwomen, they were to set them free in that year. We do not really find Israel observing the Jubilee year anywhere in the Bible. But still, the commandment was there.
The first “spiritual” Jubilee period began from Christ’s birth and went throughout the whole New Testament Era until 1988. Then the church age ended and this ended the first “spiritual” Jubilee. But then God had a plan to “set his hand again the second time.” We read of this in Isaiah 11; and this time, it would actually be more glorious, because He would save far more than He had ever saved in all previous history.
We also know that in 1988, the great tribulation began. For the first 2300 evening/mornings of the great tribulation period’s 8400 days, virtually no one was being saved. But then came September of 1994, and 1994 happened to be a Jubilee year.
If we go from 7 B.C. when Jesus was born and we project this into the New Testament, after remembering that we always have to subtract one because there is no year zero, 7 B.C. plus 44 A.D. would equal 51; and then after we minus 1, we reach the 50-year mark. This means that 44 A.D. would have been a Jubilee year. Then 94 A.D. would have been a Jubilee, etc. 1944 was a Jubilee and 1994 was a Jubilee.
The Jubilee was to start in the seventh month. Actually, the trumpet that blew on the first day of the seventh month, unlike any other month, was the trumpet of the Jubilee and this was blown every year as a memorial.
So in September (7th month of the Hebrew calendar) of 1994, God set forth another plan, which was the second outpouring of the Holy Spirit or the “latter rain.” This time of plenteous salvation was also known as the second “spiritual” Jubilee; and during this wonderful proclamation of liberty to the world (outside of the churches), God delivered a great multitude of captives to sin and Satan. He completed His salvation plan and set free every one that had had their name recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
May 21, 2011 was officially the end of this Jubilee period. It had lasted for 6100 days out of the great tribulation’s 8400-day period. May 21 was the close of the “spiritual” year of setting the captives free. As we have seen repeatedly, many things relating to God’s salvation plan converged on May 21. Yes, it was the beginning of five months of judgment, but it was also a day of great freedom.