Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

DISCOVERING THE NEW COVENANT
no longer be a binding issue in the new era, but He does
endorse it fully by what He taught and modeled. He clearly
points to Himself as the fulfillment and warns against
letting the form cause us to miss the true Sabbath, Himself.
Another illustration from the Gospels that deeply
impacted me, because I had never noticed it before, is
found in Luke 4:16. To set the background, a knowledge of
the Sabbath system in the Old Testament is essential.
Starting in Leviticus 23-25 the system is laid out. It starts
with the weekly Sabbaths that point forward to the monthly
and yearly festivals, which in turn point forward to the
sabbatical years, which point forward to the ultimate
Sabbath, the year of Jubilee. After the seventh sabbatical
was celebrated, in the 50 th year, there was to be a year of
Jubilee when all the land was to be returned to original
owners, all the slaves were to be freed, all the indentured
servants were considered debt free. It was a year of
freedom. It was this Jubilee that was referred to in Isaiah
61:1-2 in reference to the coming Messiah. He was to usher
in the ultimate Jubilee. Now with that backdrop notice how
Luke 4:16ff reads:
So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought
up, And as His custom was, He went into the
synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah.
And when He had opened the book, He found the place
where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon
Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel
to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty (preach deliverance) to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those
who are oppressed; to proclaim (preach) the acceptable
year of the Lord.” Then He closed the book, and gave
it to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all
who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And
108