Boaz, through his wise plan, revealed in an indisputable way that he was the only true redeemer that could redeem Ruth. He didn’t act carelessly or casually in regard to Ruth’s request. Instead, he took her seriously, committing all of his resources to the task of securing her redemption.
Jesus showed by His incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension that He was the only redeemer capable of redeeming humankind. He showed Himself to be unique in every way; fully God and fully man. The uniqueness of His person, His work, His plan, His love, and His sacrifice is indisputable, and this picture is beautifully captured and foreshadowed in the story of Ruth and Boaz.
Boaz, through his wise plan, revealed in an indisputable way that he was the only true redeemer that could redeem Ruth. He didn’t act carelessly or casually in regard to Ruth’s request. Instead, he took her seriously, committing all of his resources to the task of securing her redemption.
Jesus showed by His incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension that He was the only redeemer capable of redeeming humankind. He showed Himself to be unique in every way; fully God and fully man. The uniqueness of His person, His work, His plan, His love, and His sacrifice is indisputable, and this picture is beautifully captured and foreshadowed in the story of Ruth and Boaz.
Welcome to drippings from the honeycomb, the official podcast of Another 12 ministries. We are so glad that you have decided to join us as we enjoy the sweetness of God's word, one verse at a time. Welcome to episode four of our journey through the book of Ruth, as we take a look at the Christmas story, the story of Jesus through this incredible Old Testament book and we look to see the parallels that God gave to His people and to us of the coming Messiah of the redeemer in the Old Testament. Now, in the last episode, we left Ruth with Boaz, on the threshing floor, where Ruth had petitioned Boaz to redeem her to, in her words, spread his wings over her in protection to take her as his wife, and to raise up a line to her dead husband to Elimelech, the dead husband of Naomi so that that line wouldn't die out. The goal was to perpetuate that line to keep it going to keep the inheritance within the family, and ultimately from that line would come the Messiah. So we can see that this whole story is building to a central theme that God is defending the line that his son will come from. And this is such a beautiful picture of God's sovereignty, interrupting human history, and orchestrating human history and guiding everything that goes on in human history for His own glory and for his own purposes. And when Ruth left the threshing floor, Boaz gave her a lavish Gift of Grain, it was kind of like a wedding present, I'm going to make this happen, don't worry, I'm going to take care of this matter. And to show you that I'm serious about it. I'm going to give you this large Gift of Grain this provision this indication that I will be providing for you from this point forward and for your mother in law. And the reality of this is confirmed by the reaction of Naomi When Ruth comes back from the threshing floor in the morning, and she's got this very lavish gift from bow as have ample provision for Naomi and Ruth, Naomi points out that the kinsman redeemer Boaz has accepted her request that he will see to the matter that day. In other words, this is of utmost importance to bow, as Naomi understand, understands that he's not going to sit on this, he's not going to forget about it. He's not going to let a lot of time pass. He is going to deal with this today. However, in the conversation that Boaz and Ruth have on the threshing floor when Boaz responds to Ruth's request for redemption, Boaz notes that he is not the first redeemer in line to potentially redeem Ruth and Naomi, there is another family member who is also a redeemer who actually has the first right of refusal. On this redemption. He has the first claim. So if Boaz wants to redeem Ruth, if Boaz wants to be the one who steps into the shoes as the Redeemer, he is going to have to act shrewdly to act intelligently, so that he can get the other Redeemer to give up his claim. And so there's a little more to this matter than initially meets the eye. It's going to take some doing to make this all come about and yet Boaz does have the attitude that he knows how to get this done. He has given this gift to Ruth, he is on the warpath, so to speak. Of I am going to be the Redeemer I am going to get this done. There is an obstacle in my way, but that doesn't stop me. I'm going to still accomplish my plan. And he does exactly what Naomi predicted he would do. He immediately goes up to the city gates, and he takes a whole bunch of people with him that are significant leaders in the city elders in the city, 10 men, he wants this to be well witnessed. He doesn't want any challenge to his redemption, if he is able to make this happen and redeem Ruth, there will be no challenge whatsoever. He wants to make sure that everything is done legally, everything is done precisely and that no one will ever be able to contest the fact that he was the redeemer in the future. So Boaz gathers these men, he goes to the city center, he waits for this other Redeemer to pass by, and when he does, he grabs him. And he says, Hey, come over here. I want to talk to you about something. Naomi has come back, Naomi is selling a piece of land. Now Boaz shows his intelligence and his creativity in the way he presents this to the primary Redeemer, the one who's claimed supersedes him, he presents the land first. Land was extremely valuable in the first century. It's still valuable today. But even more so back then because the inheritance was allotted to family so to be able to buy and redeem an inheritance meant that this property would stay with that Redeemer. permanently, it would stay within the line of that Redeemer. And that's different from simply purchasing land. Because if you purchased land in Israel, at the year of Jubilee, which happened every 50 years, all the land returned to the family that had originally inherited it. So the reality in Israel with buying and selling land was actually that it was more bought and sold for a period of time. In fact, the way land was valued in Israel is that the value was calculated based on the number of years until the Jubilee until this land would have to go back to its original family of inheritance. And God had made it this way, because God said, Look, I actually own all the land in Israel, I give it to you to steward for me, but the land belongs to me. And so I want it to always reset back to its original boundary lines every 50 years. That way, no family finds itself without an inheritance in Israel. Now, for the buyer of the land, this might not have been such great news because you bought the land, you eventually had to give it back. And that's why God set stipulations for how the value should be tabulated for parcels of land within Israel. But for a family that was struggling a family that was destitute, a family that had fallen on hard times. This was very good news, because it meant that within at least one or maybe two generations, your family was going to get its original inheritance back, your family was going to be restored. You were never more than 49 years away from a restoration. And that is a big, big deal, especially in the ancient world. But this land sale is different. This land sale is not a sale, it is a redemption, the parcel of land that is redeemed that belonged to Naomi and Elimelech will stay with the Redeemer and his descendants forever. Now, the interesting thing here is Boaz presents this as a redemption of Naomi. And that's critical to understand that he does that first because he explains that Naomi is selling the piece of land for redemption, Naomi is beyond childbearing years. And so there's no chance of a compromised inheritance for the purchaser buying from Naomi, Naomi cannot raise up a new line to Elimelech her dead husband, so whoever buys it will have to care for Naomi, but that's no problem, because when they only passes away, that land will move into the Redeemers inheritance and go to any children that he had from his original marriage. That means that his family estate will be enlarged permanently. So the way Bo has presented initially, this is an excellent opportunity, it is something that the first Redeemer would definitely want to take advantage of. And he does, he immediately says, I will redeem it. And then bow has springs the second part of this on him, he explains that if he redeems the land, he must also take Ruth, the Moabite is the Gentile as his wife. Now Ruth is young enough to bear children. And so the responsibility will be expected of the Redeemer that he must raise up a line to Elimelech. By revealing this, Boaz changes the entire picture. Now it looks like a financial windfall for the Redeemer is actually a loss, because he will have to raise up a second line of generations and that land that he buys won't go to his initial inheritance, it will be split and stay with the heirs that Ruth yields to him. In other words, the money that he spends on that field will come out of the inheritance that was going to go to the children from his first marriage permanently, because that land will never leave the descendants that he has with Ruth. On top of that he will have to be united in marriage to a Gentile woman, he will have to take that position of scorn within Israel that he is married to a Gentile woman. And that is not really lessened by the fact that he is taking up a redemptive part of Leverett marriage, he is still going to be looked down upon, he is still going to have to endure the fact that his children by that union will only be half Jewish, they will be half Moabites as well. And that leads us to the verse that we're going to look at in detail, which is Ruth for six, and it reads, then the Redeemer said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it. You see, Boaz knew that he was the only one who could really redeem Ruth. But he had to carefully execute his plan in such a way that he positioned himself to be the only eligible Redeemer Jesus Christ, position himself by coming to earth humble and lowly. by taking on the form of his servant by living a perfect life by dying a death in the place of humanity as the perfect sacrifice by enduring God's wrath, positioned himself as the only viable Redeemer for lost human race. See the first man Adam brought death through his actions, and he was unable to offer up anything that could have redeemed him or his future generations, Adam could not do anything Adam's death would not avail anything, Adam was in a position where even if he offered himself up as a sacrifice, all that would do would be to destroy his inheritance. In other words, if Adam had committed the sin of eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, and then immediately killed himself, in an attempt to undo the sinfulness, said, I'm going to sacrifice myself so that sin will perish from the earth. See, that wouldn't have availed anything because he would have just impaired his inheritance. In other words, there would have been no children born to him and Eve, and the human race would have ended before it began. He was not in a position to redeem anyone, he couldn't even redeem himself. But Jesus, on the other hand, had the ability had the means and had the opportunity of redemption, just like Boaz. That's what we're seeing here. That's how we see the picture of what was to come. We see this reflection of our redeemer in the book of Ruth, no one else was fit to redeem a lost and fallen world. Just like in the story of Ruth and Boaz, no one else was fit to redeem Ruth, it was going to be Boaz or no one else, even though the initial reaction from the other Redeemer was, yes, I'll redeem it, when he found out that the redemption included redeeming the line of Elimelech that was cut off not just buying the property, but actually redeeming and continuing the line, he realized he was no longer in a position to execute that redemption. And so he had to withdraw himself as a Redeemer. He was not a redeemer, because he was not actually capable of redeeming that line. He was not capable of raising up a new line. And this picture is an amazing foreshadowing of the surpassing uniqueness of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, fully man, fully God, born of a virgin, fulfilling the prophecies, living a perfect life, honoring God in every way, exhibiting the power of divinity, dying a sacrificial death for something he wasn't guilty for taking the sin of the world upon him and bearing the wrath of God in Him and then rising again to life and ascending to the Father, to prepare a place for us with a promise that he'll return. He is unique. And Boaz is in an extremely small way, a picture of that incredible uniqueness. See, through the story of Boaz and Ruth, we get to see that the Redeemer, the true Redeemer from God, was going to be unique. There was only going to be one there weren't going to be 50 messiahs, all of whom might be able to perform the work, there weren't going to be 10 messiahs are five messiahs, or three messiahs or even two Messiahs. There was one Messiah, one Son of God, he was going to make it very plain who he was, the evidence of who he was, was going to be undeniable, and he was going to take up the redemption of his people, no one else, because no one else had the ability. No one else had the resources. No one else had the opportunity, and no one else had the willingness to redeem the entire world and to bear the wrath of God. Only Jesus Christ, the true kinsman redeemer, could do what he did for us. So as you celebrate this Christmas season, focus on the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the fact that he alone is the one who could be the Redeemer. He invalidated all other claims to being a redeemer. To be sure there were many false messiahs before Jesus, just like there have been many false Christs since he came, but He alone is the only one who was able and not only was he able, but he was willing, and he did everything he came to do and he accomplished salvation for his people. I hope you enjoyed this episode of drippings from the honeycomb. If you would like to learn more about another 12 ministries and the work that we are doing to train youth ministry leaders to bring the Gospel to young people, visit another twelve.org. If you would like to support our ministry, click on the Donate link in the description below.