Stephen Jones — Creation
b1 — Creation’s Jubilee
Jubilee as the Fundamental Law of Creation
“Even as Jesus Christ is the central Person of all history, the law of Jubilee is the most fundamental law of all creation. The law of Jubilee is the basis of forgiveness and grace. It is the purpose and goal of the law itself.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 7 (The Law of Jubilee)
Interpretation: Jones frames the Jubilee law not as an Israelite agrarian regulation but as the deepest constitutional law governing all of creation. Grace and forgiveness are not external interventions but the built-in telos of the law itself.
“God owns it [the land] by right of creation (Gen. 1:1). Thus, all land sales were temporary.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 7
Interpretation: God’s ownership of creation rests on the principle of creation (creatio ex nihilo as the ground of ownership). All human property is temporary derived ownership; the Jubilee reversion principle mirrors God’s sovereign proprietorship.
“No man has the authority to sell himself permanently as a slave to sin. Even if he wanted to do so, he has no right to do this, because he does not create or own himself. For this reason, at the Creation Jubilee, all men whom God has created will return to the original Owner of all things.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 7
Interpretation: The creatio-ground has direct soteriological and eschatological consequences: no one can permanently alienate himself from his Creator. The great Creation Jubilee enforces universal return.
“The law of Jubilee mandates the setting free of all creation at some point in history. Personally, I believe this will come after 49,000 years of history.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 7
Interpretation: Jones projects the Jubilee pattern onto a cosmic scale: 49,000 years as the great Jubilee of the entire creation. He himself notes this is speculative (“I cannot prove this”).
“The law of Jubilee on every level obtains its power by the blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 7
Interpretation: Jubilee and redemption are inseparable: the cosmic Jubilee is not a mechanical legal process but is sustained by the atoning work of Christ.
Cosmic Tension in Creation (Theodicy)
“Paul makes it clear that the creation had no choice in being subjected to ‘futility’ and to ‘slavery to corruption.’ It was done by the sovereign will of God alone.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13 (The Tension in Creation); reference to Romans 8:19–22
Interpretation: Jones rejects any view that creation voluntarily participated in its own corruption. Subjection to futility is a sovereign divine decree, not the unintended consequence of a fall.
“We do not hesitate to call God’s action a ‘temporary injustice,’ which is the direct cause of the Tension in the history of creation. Tension is the result of injustice or disharmony while it is yet unresolved.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
Interpretation: Jones introduces “temporary injustice” for God’s imputation of Adam’s sin to all creation (contrary to Deut. 24:16; Ezek. 18:20). This apparent contradiction with the Mosaic law is for Jones a deliberate, resolvable legal tension — analogous to a musical dissonance that demands resolution.
“Tension always demands a resolution. In music there are certain chords which contain conflicting or discordant notes. […] God, too, has employed this technique in the music of the spheres and in the book of history.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
Interpretation: The musical dissonance image is Jones’ central metaphor for theodicy: the injustice of corrupted creation is not a flaw but a compositional device that makes the final harmony (restoration of all things) all the more powerful.
“The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Rom. 8:18) […] “Paul is reminding us that the injustices of life are not only temporary, but will be more than righted at the last day when He restores all things.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
God’s Legal Liability: Three Torah Analogies
Jones develops three legal analogies (Exodus 21–22; Deuteronomy 22) to show that God is legally liable for Adam’s fall by his own law:
1. The Ox in the Pit (Ex. 21:33–34)
“God dug a pit, because he created an opportunity for Adam to sin. […] That made God legally liable by His own law and created a ‘tension’ that demanded a resolution. The lawful solution is that restitution must be made.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
Interpretation: God made the pit (opportunity and occasion for sin) but did not cover it, causing the ox (Adam) to fall in. His own law compels the pit-owner to make restitution: therefore God “bought back” the dead animal through Jesus.
2. The Consumed Field (Ex. 22:5)
“God ALLOWED one of his ‘beasts’ or creatures (the serpent) to feed in another man’s field. […] What kind of ‘grass’ did this beast consume? It was Adam and Eve and ultimately all of mankind, for ‘all flesh is as grass’ (1 Peter 1:24). […] ‘the best of his own field’ (Jesus) was given to man as restitution.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
3. The Parapet on the Roof (Deut. 22:8)
“When God allowed Adam to fall, and when God allowed the tempter to tempt Adam, He left the railing off the roof. […] Jesus had to come as the true High Priest of the temple in heaven and die, in order to release God from the liability incurred and strike the chord that would again bring harmony to the sphere of the universe.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
Interpretation: The three Torah analogies together constitute Jones’ theodicy structure: God is not “guilty” (a sinner) but is legally liable under his own law. He resolves that liability by offering Jesus as restitution — definitively resolving the tension in creation.
“God created man with the potential to sin, provided man with the opportunity to sin, and then allowed the tempter to provoke the sin.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
The Origin of Evil
“God is the Creator of Both Good and Evil […] Isaiah 45:7 plainly says: ‘The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity [ra, “evil”]; I am the LORD who does all these.‘”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
Interpretation: Jones rejects the dualism (Persian or Augustinian) that seeks to exonerate God by attributing evil to Satan. God is the Creator of all that exists, including evil and calamity, without thereby being a sinner (evil = ra = adversity/judgment, not moral failure of God).
“Evil is not sin, for God does evil, but does not sin. […] Evil becomes sin only when it is done apart from the perfect will of God.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13; reference to Amos 3:6
“God is the direct cause of man’s weak (mortal) condition and the indirect cause of his personal sins.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 13
Apokatastasis and New Creation
“For as in Adam all die, so also in [the] Christ all shall be made alive. […] The ‘all’ in both cases parallel each other and are equal in scope.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 5 (The Restoration of All Things); reference to 1 Cor. 15:22
Interpretation: Jones’ exegesis of 1 Cor. 15:22 is universalist: the “all” in Adam (everyone without exception) and the “all” in Christ are equal in scope, though the resurrection occurs in stages (tagma/squadron).
“[Acts 3:21:] ‘whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.’ The purpose of this book is to reveal the secret of His will. This secret is that God will reconcile ‘The All’ of creation.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 5
“What a glorious promise! The Jubilee is the law of grace. No matter how far a man goes into debt, the Jubilee will set him free. Even if no kinsman redeems him, there is a day coming when he will be set free into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 7; reference to Lev. 25:54
Interpretation: The great Jubilee functions as the ultimate guarantee of universal salvation: even those not redeemed in the interim will be freed at the Jubilee. Jones links this to Rom. 8:21 (“the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God”).
“This is why all of creation is awaiting this day. Romans 8:19–25 says, ‘For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.‘”
— Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, chapter 7