After nearly 15 years of following Jesus, and after multiple times of reading the New Testament, I mistakenly thought I knew the gospel backwards and forwards, yet, the Lord miraculously opened my eyes once again to show me another side of it that, had I refused to ask Him the question that started it all, I would still be in my ignorance. I allowed the Lord to take me on another journey through His Word (both His book and His Person), and as I reflect on it now, I'm blown away at how interactive the Lord is in His discipleship of His people. The fact that Jesus is still just as much of a Rabbi now through His Holy Spirit than He was while His feet walked among His creation is a mystery that I don't think I'll ever fully wrap my head around on this side of Heaven.
It Started with a Question
I didn't even ask the Lord this question directly. I was reading the New Testament, as I have several times before, but this time, I noticed something I never noticed before. As I was reading through the gospels, I kept noticing verses like:
"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people" (Matt. 4:23).
"And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people" (Matt. 9:35).
"And [Jesus was] saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15).
"And [the disciples] departed, and went through the towns preaching the gospel, and healing everywhere" (Luke 9:6).
I stopped. I was confused. Usually, when we think of preaching the gospel, we are sure to emphasize Jesus willingly dying the death we deserve, receiving the punishment for sin in His own flesh for our rebellion against God, even though He was innocent in every way, then defeating death and resurrecting 3 days later, so that those who believe and repent can live in the victory of His crucified and resurrected life, being reconciled to God and following Him. Surely, these things are crucial, however, the previously listed verses show that Jesus and His disciples were preaching the gospel before He even died and resurrected.
"What was the gospel they were preaching, then?" I wondered to myself.
I did little more than ponder it in the moment, then dropped the subject. Then, that Sunday at church, I ran into a friend and we briefly talked about the goings on of our lives recently. I shared with him that I was reading the New Testament and found something strange... Jesus and the disciples preaching the gospel before He died and resurrected. I asked him if he's noticed this before, and as his face curled into a question mark, he said "Huh. I have not. I wonder what it could be!" Again, the subject was dropped...so I thought.
An Unexpected Journey to the Answer
A few days later, I was listening to a podcast episode of The Naked Bible Podcast, where an Old Testament PhD scholar named Dr. Mike Heiser explains weird passages and what they really meant in their historical, geographical, and linguistic context. I was listening to his series on Leviticus, and was specifically listening to an episode on Leviticus chapter 25. Suddenly, I got a text from that same friend that I spoke with the other day, saying "Sierra--something interesting happened. I was talking to my mentor, and I think he answered your question. We weren't even talking about your question or the subject, but he mentioned that the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus preached was in Luke chapter 4 when He stood up in the synagogue in His hometown and declared Himself to be the fulfillment of that passage in the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, where it says 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.'"
I thought "Oh, how cool! I guess that's it then. That's the gospel that He preached before He went to the cross. Case closed."
I was satisfied with that answer, but it was far from "case closed." Still listening to that podcast episode, I pressed play on it, only for Dr. Heiser to then delve into the exact same subject right after I read my friend's message. The timing of it all was scarily divine. He started explaining the origin of this God-ordained celebration that is first explained in Leviticus 25 called a Jubilee. Starting in verse 8, God commanded the Israelites:
“You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound a loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants" (Leviticus 25:8-10).
It sounded interesting, but it still didn't click for me, until he went further to say that this Jubilee celebration that started in Leviticus, that was only localized to Israel, was a type and shadow of what the Messiah would later do on a global scale as prophesied in Isaiah 61, then quoted and proclaimed by Jesus in Luke 4! In essence, as Dr. Heiser put it, Jesus was proclaiming Himself to be the "Jubilee Liberator" and proclaiming "the favorable year of the Lord" which is as if to say that His coming to the Earth to set the captives free, to open the eyes of the blind, to drive out demons, to preach to the poor--all of this signifies the initiation of the ultimate Jubilee cycle--one that begins with the Messiah setting captives free, so that His kingdom can spread to the ends of the earth.
But Wait--There's More
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How could His gospel be this intricately beautiful, powerful, and more importantly, this consistent from the Old Testament to the New? After hearing this, I had to find a worship song about the Jubilee and worship God all the more for it. I was driving to a fitness class, and practically shouting in my car to the song "Days of Elijah," singing:
"BEHOLD HE COMES, RIDING ON THE CLOUDS, SHINING LIKE THE SUN AT THE TRUMPET CALL. LIFT YOUR VOICE--IT'S THE YEAR OF JUBILEE, AND OUT OF ZION'S HILL, SALVATION COMES!"
In Leviticus, a trumpet would be blown during a Jubilee celebration. When Jesus comes back a second time, a trumpet will be blown (See Matthew 24:31, 1 Corinthians 15:52). John the Revelator even describes Jesus's voice being like a trumpet (Revelation 1:10).
At this point, you might be feeling like I did at that point, thinking "Surely, I've reached the end and NOW the case has thoroughly been closed. I'm amazed, and I'm grateful. Now, what else does the Lord want to show me?" Yet, the Lord had one more thing up His sleeve about the subject even a few months after.
Something About a Name
I was in the middle of sleeping, but I couldn't sleep soundly. I kept hearing the name "Jubal" over and over again the whole night. I haven't heard this name before. I had no idea what it meant, or why I was hearing this seemingly random name. Immediately, when I awoke, I went straight to Google to look up this name, and what I found jolted me.
The name could mean "stream" but it also means "ram's horn." Google went on to say "The latter meaning comes from Jubilee, an event in Jewish history that celebrates the Israelites' release from bondage. During this event, a ram's horn trumpet was blown. Jubal is also a figure in the Hebrew Bible."
I was ready to excitedly yell at God, and if it were physically possible, grab Him by the shoulders, shake Him incessantly, and exclaim "ARE YOU SERIOUS, GOD?! THERE'S MORE?!" Of course, with it mentioning that this is the name of a figure in the Bible, I had t0 research this, too. I found that Jubal is only mentioned once in the entire Bible, yet his name and purpose had such prophetic significance within God's long term plan. He's mentioned in Genesis 4:21. All it says is that "[Jabal's] brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and flute." Basically, he was considered the father of music, and music would later be used during the Jubilee, and the Jubilee would be a celebration of liberty for the captives, which is what the Messiah came to bring. There's evidence of this marvelous plan as early as Genesis!
What Do We Do Now?
Suddenly, the gospel is that much more powerful to me knowing that not only did the Messiah come to initiate the ultimate jubilee cycle, but to this very day, He's still doing what He started thousands of years ago, and He's doing it through His people all over the earth. The Spirit was upon Him and had anointed Him to preach the good news and set people free, but then He tells His disciples in John 14:17 "... the Helper is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him because He remains with you and will be in you." The same Spirit that was on Jesus to preach this gospel, to heal diseases, to cast out demons, to raise others and Himself from the dead, Jesus says that He now remains with us and is in us that believe to do the works of the Jubilee Liberator Himself, and even greater (John 14:12)! Jesus was raised up in glory, now sitting at the right hand of the Father, and tells His people "Tag--you're it! It's your turn now. Go do likewise." How amazing is that that we get to partner with Him in helping finish what He started?
The implications of this truth are massive. What if we believed it?
The Secret Girl
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