Luke completes Jesus’ quote from Isaiah with ‘to proclaim the favourable year of the Lord’.

In Jesus, God is declaring His continuing pleasure in, and His desire to save and redeem, humanity. This was sung at his birth and now when grown and full of the Spirit he commits his life and purpose to expressing God’s favour to humanity.

The ‘favourable year’ is the year of Jubilee, sourced in the Sabbath.

The creation songs in Genesis chapter 1 tell of God’s favour. ‘God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.’ He celebrated this by declaring a ‘Sabbath’ bringing His creation into the enjoyment of His rest.

The intention is an ongoing enjoyment of rest and friendship, a balance of rewarding work and recreation, not a one day a week break from monotonous toil. Sin resulted in degrading toil instead of rewarding work and unrest.

 To His son Israel, God reopens the way back into His favour, an enjoyment of His rest, life as it is meant to be. His favour is illustrated as a Sabbath year. It is applied to the land. It is not to be worked every 7th year but will still yield sufficient food. It is a reminder that God is the creator and provider of everything we need for life.

God then confirms His favour for families and generations by introducing Jubilee. The Sabbath year is the 7th year and after every Sabbath of years, there will be an additional year of rest, the 50th year, called Jubilee.

Jubilee is expressed in the land as property, an inheritance to enjoy.

Jubilee is expressed in family and friendship.

Jubilee clarifies the principle of redemption, the release from captivity and debt, to regain a lost inheritance.

Jubilee reaffirms that what we hold is leasehold not freehold and whilst this encourages enterprise, together with redemption it affords such an opportunity equally to all persons and generations. The misfortunes of one person are corrected and not afflicted on another.

Jubilee results in well-being, fulfilment and security.

There is no record of the people embracing the principles of Sabbath year or Jubilee and therefore no demonstration of how life following these principles could look like. We do have records of the prophets explaining the people’s predicament by not embracing Jubilee. Isaiah highlights God’s hatred of pretence, a religious veneer that tries to hide a core of selfishness.

By declaring the favourable year, Jesus is redefining Jubilee. He is the example of sonship, God’s new humanity. He is claiming his inheritance for himself and those who want to share his new humanity. He is bringing redemption for people who want to share in this humanity, bringing release and drawing them into his family and friendship, a promise of fulfilment, security, an enjoyment of life and rest. 

Jesus is quoting Isaiah when he declares that in himself he is going to express Jubilee, God’s favour. He is not quoted as stating the second phrase in the Isaiah prophesy that mentions ‘the day of vengeance of our God’. Jubilee is impractical where people are essentially selfish, caring more for their own interests and imprisoning or impoverishing others. Whereas Jubilee is expressed as a year, in contrast God’s judgment is a day when such people will no longer be able to spoil and prevent God’s intention for humanity. Jesus is bringing God’s favour and this is open to everyone. He is not bringing God’s vengeance. Judgment comes if people reject him. His message and offer of redemption is open to all. By stopping his quotation of Isaiah’s prophecy at the favourable year, Jesus emphasises the redemptive purpose of his mission to open a new way of expressing life.

Paul explains this in his letter to the Ephesians. God’s favour is expressed as the ‘kind intention of His will’. He predetermined that everyone would have the opportunity of sonship, sharing in Jesus’ new humanity. In Him we have redemption and an inheritance in a new way of living (an administration).