I like to teach on “The Magnificent 7” (the magnificent numeral, not the movie) which in the Bible is sacred and signifies completion and perfection. Some of the ‘sevens’ in the Bible, include the Israelites’ seven marches around Jericho’s walls, Naaman’s seven dips in the Jordan Riven, the seven times Elijah’s servant ascends the peak of Mt Carmel to watch for the rain prophesied by the prophet; and, not least, the Magnificent 7 “I AM” statements and accompanying miracles of Jesus in the Gospel of John.
Then there was the seventh year “sabbath” of the land, during which the soil was allowed to lie fallow (Lev. 25:1-7), and how on the seventh year those in debt were released from financial burdens. Deuteronomy 15:1 calls this “the LORD’S release”. (One of God’s many great ideas!)
We think of God’s Law as burdensome, and it is to those who do not walk in the Spirit, but the kindness of God was revealed in this law of relief to those struggling under the burden of debt.
Seven times seven, 49 years, brought in the “year of the LORD” – the 50th year, called Jubilee. In that year all bondage was lifted and everyone went free (Leviticus 25:8). In beginning his first recorded sermon (Luke 4:19)
Jesus pronounced “the year of the Lord” (but withheld the following line in Isaiah’s prophecy that speaks of “the day of vengeance of our God” – a catastrophic event that took place in AD 70 with the Roman army’s destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. (See Luke 21 for “the days of vengeance of our God”.)
A spiritual Jubilee continues to this day (2 Corinthians 6:2) and signifies the once-in-a-lifetime experience of total freedom that follows deliverance from bondage to sin and to Satan.
Jesus taught that we should not just forgive “seven times” but “seventy times seven” – an infinite number of times (Matt. 18:21, 22). The numeral 490 (70 x 7) appears in Daniel’s prophecy of the Seventy “weeks of years” (Daniel 9:27). Moreover, the time of Judah’s exile from their land was calculated on the number of years they had failed to allow their land to lie fallow (Lev. 26:34, 35; 2 Chron. 36:21; Jer. 25:11, 12 & 29:10, 13).
“The LORD’S release” of His people was no once-in-a-lifetime event, but rather a cyclical 50th year event that brought a release for everyone from financial bondage and a once-in-a-lifetime new start. So when Jesus was asked, “When my brother sins against me repeatedly, how many times should I forgive him – seven times?” and he replied, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven,” he was not saying 490 times but endlessly, infinitely.
When we release a person who has offended us by forgiving, we might well be releasing him or her into a once-in-a-lifetime new start and – who knows? – might well be releasing ourselves also from deep, personal bitterness and hidden, long-time resentment. We can have a Jubilee whenever we are ready and willing to do so.
Thank God for The Magnificent 7 in all of its forms! I have omitted the “Seventh Heaven” of romance, which by the grace of God and an ever-loving wife I have lived in for more than sixty-two years. However, very much on my mind is the number 85 (as in years of age) approaches, is the “Third Heaven” known also as Paradise. Magnificent, from Paul the apostle’s inability to describe it is something to go by, is a word that is far too ordinary!)