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Jesus Our Kinsman Redeemer Part 2 – Redemption Types and Shadows Pt 1

(Ver 1.1) This will be Part 2 in a series that answers a very challenging Bible question using the Word of God to interpret the Word of God. As you can tell by this series title, these lessons are about “Jesus our Kinsman Redeemer”. This will be the second lesson that is designed to help us further establish what a “Kinsman Redeemer” represents and why God elected to create this role and then why He chose to personally use this established role to save us? This lesson will be focused upon the subjects of Redemption, and a Redeemer found within Old Testament Typology. It is highly recommended that you go and read this series from the beginning “Part 1” first.

Typology is very similar to allegory, and both apply to today’s lesson. A type is a natural pattern of a place, a person, or an action, that represents a greater spiritual reality.  An allegory is a story of actual timed events happening to real people that reveal a hidden greater spiritual reality. All of this simply means that there are real-life accounts written in the Bible about actual historical people, places, things, and their uses, purposes, and actions, that reveal to us a much higher hidden spiritual reality about Jesus and His life and purpose.  These concepts are revealed by inspired New Testament writers like Paul, Peter, and John.

For example, the concept of typology is very clearly stated by Paul in Romans 5:14 where Paul writes the first Adam was a “patterned type” (G3667) of the Last Adam that was Christ to come. Remember this Greek word G3667 because it comes from G3666, and we will be seeing this word again soon.  Then Paul in Galatians 4:21-31, describes the lives of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and their children, and then Paul claims these people and their stories are an “allegory” (G238) of Jesus.  

The Greek word G238 is transliterated from the Greek word “allēgoreo“. The word means to “allegorize”.  An allegory is defined in Bible terms as an actual living account of people, places, and things that describe and teach a greater spiritual truth, usually about Jesus. These Truth concepts are stated by Jesus to the Jewish people when He told them to “Search your scriptures, for in them you believe you have eternal life, but these are they that testify of me” (Jn 5:39).  This simply means we can find Jesus if we search for Him in practically every story of the Bible.

Today, we will be studying the God created and authored allegorical and typological patterns found within the Book of Ruth using just a quick overview format of the information. This means we will not cover every possible detailed type, natural pattern to spiritual, or even every verse and every word that points us to Jesus. Hopefully you are already familiar with this book.  It is about five named men and one unnamed mystery man. The first named man is (1) Elimelech a father of two named sons, (2) Mahlon, and (3) Chilion. Then there is the very key named man (4) Boaz who is our recognized main story’s “Kinsman Redeemer”, the type of Jesus. Then there is an unnamed man mentioned in chapters 3 and 4, who appears to be an older brother of the man Boaz. Finally, there is a seventh key named male that is the heir of Elimelech, named Obed. It just so happens that Obed is the grandfather of David the King. Here is a list of the significant male names and their definitions that are found in the story of Ruth:

  1. Elimelech = H458 – My God is King (Occurs 6 times)
  2. Mahlon = H428 – Sick (Occurs 4 times)
  3. Chilion = H3630 – Pining (Occurs 3 times)
  4. Boaz = H1162 – Fleetness (Occurs 24 times in 22 verses)
  5. Obed = H5744 – Serving (Occurs 3 times)

There are three key named women found in the plain text story of Ruth. But there is also one very key female, that is not mentioned in this book of the Bible, but the book of Ruth could not have occurred without her direct contribution. This hidden woman is mentioned at least 10 or more times in other parts of the Bible with some using different spellings of her name. The most prolific occurrence is found in the book of Josha, which is also the Hebrew name of our Lord, Savior, and Messiah, Jesus. That is an important clue to understanding the typological meaning of the study of Ruth. Who is this ignored woman in Ruth? Her name is “Rahab”, and she is called a “harlot” in more than one verse of the Bible. Why is she important? It is because she is the named mother of “Boaz” in Matthew 1:5.

The wife of Elimelech is the first named woman in Ruth and she is called Naomi. She is one of the key female types found in the story. The second named woman is called a daughter-in-law of Naomi and she is named Orphah. Orphah is a very insignificant character due to her personal choices. She is only mentioned twice in the entire Bible. But we know that Orphah was a Moabite gentile wife of Chilion and she becomes a widow after his death.

But the central female figure being named 12 times in the book who represents name of the book, Ruth. Ruth is also a daughter-in-law of Naomi, and she becomes the wife of Mahlon and then his widow after his death.  Remember Orphah and Ruth are both Moabite Gentile women and that is very important to the typology application and our understanding. It is interesting to see that Orphah and Ruth are like the two men that were hung on crosses with Jesus. One of the men asked Jesus to remember him, and the other man wanted nothing to do with Jesus. This is very analogous to Ruth choosing to remain with Naomi and Orphah choosing to leave her. Here is the list of the key named and unnamed women in the book of Ruth:

  1. Naomi = H5281 – My Delight (Occurs 20 times)
  2. Orphah = H6204 – Gazelle (Occurs 2 times)
  3. Ruth = H7327 – Friendship (Occurs 12 times)
  4. Rahab = H7343 – Wide/Pride (Occurs 0 times)

So, we have one woman named Rahab that is not directly mentioned other than her husband being named in the genealogy that occurs at the end of the book and three named women who were all wives and then became widows. We have Naomi that had two sons, but they both died following the death of Elimelech her husband and the sons’ father. This story leaves these three women in need of a Kinsman Redeemer after the death of all the males in the family. It is very significant that the name of Ruth is mentioned 12 times in this book, since that is the number of apostles chosen by Jesus, fitting the pattern of the church as being a type of Ruth who marries Boaz a type of Jesus. Do you believe that god is smart enough to place clues like this in the Bible? We hope so. That was the very high-level overview of the main characters.

Again, this is a warning up front that this study is a series of lessons in a format of progressing deeper spiritual topics that has the potential to offend new and immature Christians. Many people who call themselves Christians are not spiritually mature enough to handle growing strong spiritual subjects like these. The series began with just some of the fundamentals of God’s truth that provide us the foundation of the study. But we will continue today by building upon this basic foundation, as we move into the deeper controversial spiritual concepts that will be used as continuing building blocks of greater and deeper spiritual truths.

Therefore, if you feel you are new to the faith in Jesus, it might be best for you to go and read some lighter soft subjects that are required to understand the advanced subject matter. This is the same concept as trying to teach a two-year-old advanced calculus when they have not even begun to learn to count. Please judge yourself and make the personal determination to act mature no matter what you are feeling about the subject today and going forward. Thank you and may you continue to receive what God has blessed you with in Christ Jesus.

Jesus Hidden in the Type and Pattern of Boaz

If you have read our series of lessons on the book of Ruth revealing the types and patterns found in this story, you already have a great understanding of how this story matches Jesus role as the Church’s spiritual Redeemer. But for those that have not studied this book of the Bible this will be a rapid overview of the typology revealing Jesus. 

The book of Ruth is only 4 chapters long and it is highly recommended that you go and read it all before continuing to read this lesson.  In Chapter 1 we have a famine taking place in Bethlehem. This is your first clue to show you this book is about Jesus, since Jesus was birthed by Mary in Bethlehem.

Next the story continues with the family of Elimelech leaving Bethlehem of Judah to go into the land of Moab to find food. The family consisted of a father named Elimelech, his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion.  Both names of the sons relate to mortality, sickness, and death.

The father Elimelech died first and Naomi the widow is left with her two sons.  Both sons take women of Moab to be wives. It appears from reading this story that Mahlon appears to be the elder son and he marries a woman named Ruth. Chilion appears to be the younger son and he marries a woman named Orphah. They live there for 10 years and both sons died also having no children, thus leaving only the three women.

Rth 1:8  And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother’s house: the LORD deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me.

Naomi goes to her daughters-in-law and tells them to go back to their father’s houses because she has no ability to bear them anymore children to become their husbands. If you did not realize it yet, Naomi the Jewish woman in speaking to them, was focused on God’s designed law, written about a brother’s role of being a good Kinsman Redeemer for his dead brother.  This law was given to Israel by God through His prophet Moses who wrote the Torah. If Naomi would have had another male child, he would have been required to take his dead brother’s wife to marry her for the cause of raising up an heir for the house and name of Elimelech to continue. This was the role of the Kinsman Redeemer who must be a blood relative to the dead man that has left his family in a debt which they are unable to payback of themselves.

Rth 1:16  And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
Rth 1:17  Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

As women in that culture, Naomi and her two daughters-in-law were unable to work to make enough money to repay any family debts. Do you see where this story is taking us?  The Gentile women Orphah and Ruth would not normally be able to help Naomi their Jewish mother-in-law without someone to be a Kinsman Redeemer. Naomi tried to send them back to find another husband from their own people. The woman Orphah left Naomi, but the woman Ruth was more noble and faithful and told Naomi, “Where you go, I will go, where you live, I will live, your people will be my people and your God will be my God”. Then Ruth says, “where you die, I will die and be buried, the Lord do so to me, until death separates me from you.” This was Ruth making a covenant in a language that God noticed. God respected her words of faith in Him and her commitment to His people and He watches over such words and faithfulness to bless them. It was this confession of Ruth that opened a door to welcome God’s blessings upon her and for God to work out another Kinsman Redeemer to save both women of the family named of Elimelech.

Rth 1:19  So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?

Rth 1:20  And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.

Naomi and Ruth returned to Bethlehem which is called the city of David the King (Luke 2:4).  Remember it was David that will be promised by the LORD that one of his “seeds” will sit upon his throne forever (2 Sam 7:12-13). We should all know this was God’s prophecy of the promised Messiah named Jesus who would be born in Bethlehem a long time to come after Ruth.  This is actually a very important part of understanding the book of Ruth is about Jesus because Ruth is one of only a few women that are mentioned directly in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. Let us continue with the story of Boaz next.

Rth 2:1  And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband’s, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz.

As we can see in chapter 2 that Naomi is mentioned to have a “kinsman” of her previously dead husband named Elimelech. This implies this man was a brother of Elimelech.  Here is another direct mention to God’s written law of the “Kinsman Redeemer” which we will get to in a future lesson, the Lord be willing.  In this verse we see the name of the kinsman as “Boaz” and a couple of his key features that gave him the ability to be Naomi’s redeemer. Here is a short list of his key parallel features to Christ:

  1. Boaz is a known close blood relative of Elimelech, likely to be a younger brother.
  2. Boaz was a strong and mighty man.
  3. Boaz was also a very wealthy man.

These are three key ingredients that allow Boaz to qualify for the role of the “Kinsman Redeemer” of the family of Elimelech. What we learn from this is that no doubt Boaz is the younger brother of Elimelech. However, we will learn later that there is another closer relative. This term “closer” has the meaning that this male was born before Boaz making him older, and he must be given the chance to fulfill the role of the “Kinsman Redeemer” first.

The key factor of Boaz is that he is a strong/mighty man which means he is capable of procreating children. The final mentioned quality in this verse is that Boaz is very wealthy, and this simply means he has the financial means to buy back or redeem the debt that was incurred by his brother Elimelech. In verse 2 we will find a part of Boaz’s wealth was that he owned fields that were planted with crops for good food sources. Wow, all this information is a typology of God and Jesus.

For example, we know Jesus was God in the flesh (Jn 1:14), He was anointed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38), and therefore He was backed up by the strength and power of the “Most High”. That makes Jesus strong like the mention of Boaz. Next, we find Jesus was wealthy. Uh oh? Here goes a controversial subject matter. For example, in 2 Corinthians 8:9 we find Paul writing about Jesus Christ that though He was rich, he became poor for our sakes. We should realize what this means by now. This meant God who lives in heaven with streets that are paved in gold, when He chose to come to the earth, His financial state on earth was far below what He was richly blessed with as normal in heaven. Yet heaven’s wealth and power were still backing Him up. Remember when He was about to be crucified, Jesus said “Do you not know that I could call for 12 legions of angels” (Mat 26:53).

Finally, we are noticing that Boaz owned land and planted food crops and we can see how this compares to Jesus also in spiritual terms. It should be becoming obvious that this is also a parallel to God. God as we know created everything in the physical universe, therefore it all belongs to Him. He also created all the food sources that Boaz was raising to sell and eat. After creating our world in Genesis 1, God creates a garden called Eden in chapter 2. It is this symbolic garden that is finally bearing fruit unto God in Revelation 22. But first Jesus had to come to the earth to plant “Seed” (Words of God, Mark 4) to cause God’s original designed garden to come to fruition. The parallels are amazing in what we are reading in the few descriptions of Boaz.

We will not be addressing the blood relationship of humanity to Jesus as a type of the near relative “Kinsman Redeemer” fully in this lesson. We will only be introduced to the need for Jesus to be a blood relative to redeem humanity. This is where the story becomes extremely controversial amongst religious indoctrinated believers. But we must begin to realize that this is a major part of the story of Ruth and the Law of the Kinsman Redeemer. It must have happened this way in the natural for it to have been repeated in the spiritual reality. That is the reason for God’s usage of typologies. Because we can more easily understand and accept how things work in the natural world, we can more quickly see how it might apply in the spiritual world of the unseen God.

As we can continue to read in chapter 2, Naomi sends Ruth to Boaz’s field to glean from whatever crop was left over after harvesters had picked. God’s written law also provided for the needy and hungry by allowing others that were poor to glean from intentionally left crop corners and leftovers (Lev 19:9). Boaz followed this intentionally to help the needy as God commanded.

Boaz also notices the maid Ruth who caught his eye in the field (Ruth 2:5). It is interesting to see, that God says in 2 Chronicles 16:9, “that His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong to those whose heart is perfect towards Him”. We can clearly see this is what is happening to Ruth because of God’s favor upon her. It is also interesting to see how Boaz appears to know God’s Word and follow God’s Word. This too is a direct parallel to Jesus who only did and said what He saw His father do and speak (Jn 5:19-30).

The servants of Boaz informed him that this woman that caught his eye, was Ruth the Moabite that returned with Naomi. Boaz then goes to Ruth and tells her not to go to any other field to glean. This is Boaz beginning to show his great favor to her (Ruth 2:8). This too is a pattern of Christ that exhibited great love, and compassion to show God’s grace to redeem, save, help and heal people.

This is the start of an amazing example of covenant “Grace” that God provides to His people. Because Ruth had entered the covenant of God by words spoken from her lips and then by her actions through coming back to Bethlehem with Naomi, she obtained God’s grace and favor, and He began to bless her through the man Boaz, a type of Christ. But this is just the beginning of God’s blessing upon a gentile woman representing the church as we will further confirm very soon.

Next Ruth is told that Boaz has commanded protection over her. None of his young men working in the field will touch her (Ruth 2:9). She is even told to come and drink from the waters that the servants have drawn. These are just more types and shadows of God’s covenant blessing upon His New Covenant people. In Old Covenant types, if the people obeyed the commands of God, they were protected and given drinks of waters by the hand of God’s servants. In New Covenant terminology water represents the Words of God spoken freely to save us, heal us, bless us, etc.

Then in Ruth 2:10, Ruth is found falling on her face due to Boaz’s kindness to inquire why such a stranger has found such grace. Please tell me you see the picture of the church which was broadly a gentile stranger to God, His covenant, and His grace? Remember in Ephesians 2:19 where Paul writing to the church says “We are no longer foreigners and strangers…”  If you have not felt this way before about your relationship with God, and His goodness to you, then you need salvation.

Boaz responds in Ruth 2:11, saying how he has heard of Ruth’s kindness and loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi.  Ruth is praised for leaving the lands of her birth, and for leaving behind her mother and father’s house to come into a land that she knew nothing about. Do you see the “faith” that it took for Ruth to do this?  This is again a parallel to entering a covenant with God. The foundation for this entrance into covenant with God is established in the Law of marriage written in Genesis 2:24. In this verse, a man is instructed to leave his father and mother and to be joined with his wife. This is exactly what Ruth was doing in the natural realm, as a type of what the saved church has done in the spiritual realm.

Again, we see a clear picture of salvation for people of the lost world to leave behind their natural ways to begin a new journey that will cause them to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). Ruth is a perfect type of the pattern of the church in the age of divine Grace. Remember she is living in Bethlehem now, and this name means the “House of Bread” and Jesus calls Himself the bread of Life (Jn 6:33-35). The matching parallels and patterns are very profound.

In Ruth 2:14 we again see Boaz inviting Ruth to eat with them and to partake of his bread and dip it in his vinegar. Then for her also to partake of his corn and other morsels.  The servants of the harvest field are told to show her favor and they bring her food like she is already Boaz’s favored wife. All of these are patterns of Jesus and His bride the Church (Eph 5:31-32). Let us quickly review what harvest and harvesting servants represent in the church’s future next.

Remember, that Jesus when walking the earth in the flesh, He taught us of a coming world end-time harvest of souls. Jesus makes the claims that the servant reapers of the harvest are His angels (Mat 13:39).  The wheat represents the good people of the earth that received God’s seed/Word. While the evil seed producing tares amongst the good wheat were the people that followed the devil’s word seeds. These patterns are all found in this story of Ruth.  Ruth works all day in the field of Boaz. Ruth represents the church that preaches the Gospel to bring forth new fruit unto God. Boaz is of course representative of the Lord Jesus.  The harvest field represents the world (James 5:7). In this story of Ruth, the reaping, the harvest and the threshing floor activities are all parallels of end-time events.

After Ruth finishes her labors to gather, she returns to tell Naomi of her blessings. Naomi’s response follows:

Rth 2:20  And Naomi said unto her daughter in law, Blessed be he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen.

We can clearly see that Naomi in this verse is reaffirming the law of the Kinsman Redeemer.  She confirms to Ruth, that Boaz is “one” of our next of kin. This indicates Boaz is a very close relative like a brother and not a more distant uncle, or cousin. And this simply means he is directly eligible to “redeem” them both and to raise up an heir for the dead husbands.

These concepts should be becoming very familiar to you by now, but there are many other things to learn from the Bible on this subject. Nevertheless, please take away the fact that we have again seen the “need’ for a close family blood relative that is required for there to be anyone or anything that is able to “redeem”.

Chapter 3 of Ruth is the marriage proposal. Naomi instructs Ruth to not go to Boaz until after the work on the threshing floor was finished and the feasting was completed. After this Boaz would lay down on the threshing floor and Ruth would come and uncover his feet after he was asleep.  Boaz awakens early to realize there is someone laying at his feet, and he asks her who are you?  Ruth explains her presence.  Now Boaz confirms his intent to approach the nearer “kinsman” to offer for him to repay the redemption price of the dead brother’s house and to marry the widow, Ruth.

We find the legal business of God’s earthly court system taking place at the gate of the city the next day in Chapter 4.  This business dealing is between Boaz and the unnamed nearer kinsman which is witnessed by 10 elders of the city (Ruth 4:2-3) gathered by Boaz. It appears that God is leaving us a mystery to solve by not naming the nearer relative. We can still learn a lot about him even from this intentionally designed omission.

We then learn in Ruth 4:4 that these two men are the last two brothers of Elimelech that remain and that there are no others that can lawfully redeem the parcel of land from Naomi. This is a very interesting detail to God’s story of redemption. This one fact has great potential for controversy. If Boaz is a younger brother and is a type of Jesus Christ our redeemer, who is this other unnamed nearer (older) brother of Boaz, but still a younger brother of the dead brother Elimelech? Notice we have a new pattern of three brothers, and this will be repeated in other typologies.

This is clearly a puzzling type of mystery. But this is what the Word of God says, and God is using this typology to teach us what is happening in the spiritual realm. What we can logically conclude is that Elimelech is the dead eldest brother that appears to be a type of the “first Adam” who died causing us all to die (Rom 5:17). Remember Adam’s sin caused every human to die because we were “ALL” in him when he rebelled.

If we read in Hebrews 7:8-10 we learn about a concept that goes over the heads of many Christians. Christians need to get a revelation about whatever their father did, they did, because they were in their father when he did it, whether it be for good or for evil. Read these verses in Hebrews 7 and see how God writes of Levi paying tithes in his great-grandfather Abraham. This law applies to every human today. We are all dead because of what Adam did. But there is good news because we can get into the second Adam who is Jesus Christ to live eternally forever (1 Cor 15:45).

Therefore, tracking the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3 we find how Jesus was in each of these men going all the way back to the first Adam.   Wow, we have just opened a massive can of controversy, but we will not attempt to solve anything completely here today in this lesson.

Let us continue in the book of Ruth in chapter 4, with verse 5. If you read this verse again, you will find that Boaz has just offered the purchase of the dead brother’s land to his elder brother. But Boaz then reminds him that he must also marry the widow Ruth to ensure the raising up of an heir for this dead brother’s name to continue. As we are becoming aware this is a major part of the law of redemption which was God created and not man created. Therefore, family names were important to God, and they must continue to be passed down to the next generation so that their name would not be blotted out. 

Remember, Ruth was the widow of the son Mahlon. Do you still recall the law of marriage from Genesis 2:24 that we read earlier? In this law of covenant marriage God declares the man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and these two will be one flesh. Do you see how this law of covenant marriage potentially causes God’s other law of “redemption” to work also? Take notice if Mahlon and Ruth became one flesh, if he dies Ruth has been legally separated from him but is now still able to be called Mahlon’s flesh because of her previous marriage. Therefore, if Boaz married the widowed “one flesh” wife of Mahlon and he has a child by Ruth, Mahlon has in effect been given a child heir even though he was not the male father “seed” contributor. This appears to be a wise and very logical solution to a natural family problem. Could this also be a solution in the spiritual realm of God? We will possibly consider this later.

Next in Ruth 4:6 we can see that the unnamed elder brother of Boaz refuses to redeem the land to build up the name of their dead older brother. This too is a pattern we will find repeated in typology on this subject in the Old Testament. Notice what takes place in Ruth 4:7 to finalize the legal transaction that was taking place in the city of Bethlehem. After rejecting the offer the law required that the man that refused to do his brotherly duty, he must remove his sandals, and this is exactly what happened in Ruth.  This appears to be a clue to who the elder brother can represent.

Do you recall when John was baptizing in the river and Jesus came to him to be baptized? John made mention to everyone, that he was not worthy to unlatch the sandals of Jesus. Uh oh? That fact should not be rejected. What in the world is John referring to? What does John know that we don’t? How is this statement connected to what we are reading about a man removing his sandals in Ruth to follow God’s Law of Redemption? Interesting questions to consider for later. Especially because Jesus is soon to redeem humanity by His death on a cross three years after this baptism.

Do you see how this lesson has suddenly become a major controversial subject that could offend a lot of people, and we have done nothing but read through the scriptures in the book of Ruth to determine the mentioned typology characters? Please just think through what is being heavily implied so far. Was the mortal Son of God that was going to die on a cross the man that would redeem us? If He would have wanted to redeem us before His cross’ death, it would have been impossible because there was no blood that was shed to pay the purchased price for our redemption. That would be a major problem. But ask yourself is the mortal man named Jesus considered a potentially totally new man after being raised from the dead? We find out as we continue that He was the beginning of a brand-new creation, and the old natural and mortal man Jesus was an intimate part of God’s old creation. God did this intentionally for several reasons, that you probably do not know or understand right now.

Please keep this in mind as we continue to learn. We are going further into this typology than was originally intended, but please notice this verse in Romans 7:

Rom 7:4  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Notice what Paul has reminded us about legal matters written down in the Law of Moses. In this chapter it begins to describe how a woman is bound to God’s Law of marriage, if her husband is alive.  But after he dies, God says she is freed to marry another. God has just given us a major clue to what we were studying about in the book of Ruth. We should be able to see how since Ruth’s husband died, this is exactly what Paul is writing about in connection to the church in Romans.

Who is Ruth a type of? Remember, she is a type of the church.  Who was the church in covenant with prior to the New Covenant? Uh oh? This is an even deeper controversy that cannot be fully covered today. However, please remember that Ruth’s dead husband was named Mahlon, meaning “sick”. This appears to be an interesting clue. But for now we will go through some other interesting facts to know and learn about.

God never designed for a mortal human man capable of death to enter an eternal covenant to save or redeem anyone. No, God designed His plan of salvation and human redemption strategy to purposefully experience death for every human to make the full payment of the first Adam’s sin, including every other human that was “in him” and came from his “body”. Remember Eve was the physical body of the first Adam, as we can read in Genesis 2:23.

In Genesis 2:23 Adam says, “this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”, meaning this woman is my wife and she is my body. Then Adam says “She shall be called woman because she was TAKEN out of man. Have you ever wondered why in most marriage ceremonies, the minister asks, “Do you TAKE this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”. Uh oh, how many take this vow of commitment seriously? Notice what God says that He did to the natural people that came out of Abraham’s body and were being held as slaves in Egypt:

Jer 31:32  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

First, remember Abram was commanded by God to leave his father and mother behind and to leave all his people, gods, and idols to go to a land that God would show him in Genesis 12:1. Here we see the parallel reality of Ruth leaving her land and family. It was from the natural man Abram after being renamed Abraham that bring forth the people that would produce the Messiah that would redeem all of mankind. Therefore, we are still deep into our study subject of a “Kinsman Redeemer”.  But let us get back to Jeremiah 31:32.

In Jeremiah 31:32 we can again see the term how God “took” the hand of the people held in bondage to the nation of Israel and God reveals in this verse that He became a husband to this nation. Uh oh, here is something many Christians do not understand. In the Bible a covenant is a marriage, and a marriage is a covenant. What we are learning is how marriage covenants relate to redemptive works of God. But here is an amazing fact of truth that must not be ignored. God the Father was in covenant to a natural nation of people that He was married to as their husband. This is the same God the Father that was the procreator of Jesus calling Him the Son of God. Wow, this is getting very, very deep now. Do you see any parallels that have just happened in the book of Ruth?

Remember in Ruth there are three Jewish men that died leaving three widows. There was first the man Elimelech the father that died. The name “Elimelech” means “My God is King”. Wow is that a major clue or what? Wow, we are getting into some more infinitely deep waters. Could the name of Elimelech be a clue to point us to the first Adam in typology? When Adam was created was God the Creator, his original King? That does appear to be logical. However, we find out that after Adam rebelled against His Creator’s commandment and died, Satan became the god of this world system under death (2 Cor 4:4). So we have a new pattern developing that has significant built in controversy.

Remember the first Adam was created alive to God and fellowshipped with Him in the Garden. But after first Adam sinned, there appears to be a major transition taking place for Adam involving God kicking him out of the Garden and there being no more fellowship with God that was recorded. Uh oh. Now take this description to Jesus the Last Adam (1 Cor 15:45). Jesus was in complete fellowship with God His Father until the cross. It was Jesus hanging on the cross that cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34). What happened on the cross? Most scholars believe Jesus was made to be our sin on the cross and this taking of our sin caused God to turn away from Jesus. This was a picture within typology of Moses making a serpent hanging it on a wooden staff to cause the death of the people in natural Israel to stop. Jesus claimed in John 3, that just as Moses lifted up the serpent, He too must be lifted up. Wow, this was an amazing claim in the light of who the serpent represented in Biblical symbolism (Rev 12:9).

We have just gone down a side trip of information that needs to be understood, but that is not entirely on our subject of Boaz today, so let us begin on the path to get us back on track. Notice how God further describes the work of taking the natural nation of Israel out of their bondage in the land Egypt:

Exo 6:6  Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:

Do you see the connections being made in this verse? The natural people of Israel that were slaves of Egypt were literally owned as property by the ruling nation. Therefore, this property must be redeemed to be set free from captivity. This is exactly what God describes in Exodus 6:6. God says very clearly that “I will bring you out of the burdens” again a synonymous term from taking you by the hand to lead you out from the debts that you are under and cannot pay of yourself and your own works of the flesh.

Wow, this is a major typology that we are observing with parallel truths woven in the book of Ruth. It prophetically proclaims very clearly, what Jesus will do for all of humanity in the world on a cross. We all should be able to see that the Pharaoh ruler of Egypt, is a type of Satan. The nation of Egypt is a type of the world system of bondage to sin, and the blood of the lambs were the type of the redemption price that Jesus would pay with His blood to buy each human under the bondage of the kingdom of darkness ruled by Satan.

All the slain lambs we can read about in Exodus 12:7, were to be used by God for their blood to be sprinkled on the doorposts of each natural Israel’s family’s houses. This blood saved and protected each of the people in the house from their own deaths, while simultaneously paying the legal price of redemption out of the hand of their Egyptian owners. Wow, please reread Exodus 6:6 and notice the end of the verse.

At the end of Exodus 6:6 we are revealed the working outstretched arm of God representing His power and strength was required to redeem them. Do you recall what happened to Jesus hanging on a cross? Wasn’t His arms outstretched for the nation of Israel, as well as the rest of the world? Isn’t this a demonstration of the works of God and His infinite love for us all?

Finally, notice that there were legal judgments made that caused the heavenly redemption of God to take place for the natural nation of Israel’s redemption from Egypt. We again see that this is exactly what we can find in the book of Ruth in chapter 4, when Boaz came to the gate of the city to meet with the unnamed brother before 10 witnesses.  Then notice how many plagues were placed upon Egypt to redeem them? Were there not 10 plagues? Were these 10 plagues, God witnesses for His plan of natural redemption of His people Israel from Egypt?

None of this can be accidental or chance or random events that just happen to sound alike. All of this describes to us in detail exactly what Jesus would do for us all on a cross as our “Near Kinsman Redeemer”. Let us further verify this again with our study subject of Ruth:

Rth 4:13  So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.

It is the Hebrew word translated as “TOOK” in this verse that is the same Hebrew word used by God in Genesis 2:23, where Adam said she (Eve) was “TAKEN” out of man. Therefore, this word connection helps us to see how a “kinsman redeemer” named Boaz was also confirming that he was “taking” a gentile woman to be his covenant wife and he is accomplishing this by paying for her debts that she could also not pay for by her own natural human works. All of this is still pointing us prophetically to Jesus Christ.

But please pay very close attention to the fact that Boaz had to be a blood relative of the dead man to legally qualify to be Ruth’s “redeemer”. Does this mean Jesus must be in the same type of relationship within God’s creation works to all of us humans as was described to us in the Ruth relationship to Boaz? It should be becoming obvious that it is a requirement for the law of redemption to work as designed by God. The evidence for this will become more overwhelming after we find the other references to this subject in the Bible. However, believing in this truth can still be very challenging for religiously minded people.

Some Bible teachers have tried to ignore the controversial detailed subjects found in the story of Ruth. But this is very selective interpretation and denies God’s choices of which words, which names, their roles, and what were their characteristics that were written about by God’s choices. Please let us not ignore anything even if we will not cover them all today. Let us go back to verse 10 of chapter 4:

Rth 4:10  Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.

This is another verse directly related to the role of God’s future prophetic “Kinsman Redeemer”, named Jesus.  We are told that Boaz has agreed to “purchase”, which is another synonymous term for someone that is to “Redeem”. Then as a part of this redemption, the woman “Ruth” who was the widow of the apparent first-born son “Mahlon” must also be taken into covenant marriage. And Boaz as we can see has paid this price to both redeem the land and to make Ruth the Gentile woman, his wife.

We can easily confirm that this pattern of recorded information does fit the church today very specifically. For example, we can read in 2 Corinthians 11:2 where Paul is presenting the church to Christ as His covenant bride as a pictured type of Ruth that was the purchased wife of Boaz. However, this marriage of Ruth was not a slave auction of the highest bidder. Ruth desired the marriage as much or more than Boaz did. They were both desiring this union as well as we in the church should be to our covenant with the LORD, Jesus Christ.

Also, we can read where Christ paid the redemption price of the church through a purchase payment of His own blood in Revelation 5:9 and Acts 20:28. Right now we are only focused upon the purchase of the wife Ruth as being the church, but what about the land that was owned by the dead, what does that represent in New Covenant terms?

This will be another potentially controversial subject. What does a land purchase have to do with us today in the redeemed church? We can find this answer in another very interesting New Covenant fact about how we in the church are still awaiting the “redemption” of our physical bodies in Romans 8:23. Remember our key subjects are that of “Redemption” and a “Redeemer”. Wow this is another significant amount of new controversy that can take a lot to explain, but please begin to solve this mystery by understanding where our physical bodies came from.

Didn’t God create the body of Adam from the dust of the ground in Genesis 2? This means the human body of every man, woman and child came from Adam’s dirt body. Even the body of Eve came from Adam’s body. There is no denying we are clay vessels as is stated in Isaiah 64:8. Scientific evidence proves we all came from a single woman named Eve. Therefore, our bodies are all made from this same God created dirt we find in Genesis 2.

But what happened when Adam rebelled and committed sin? Didn’t Adam’s sin sell us (Isa 52:3), and allow Satan the lordship and ownership of mankind (Rom 6:16) causing a debt that we were unable to repay without a Redeemer (Mat 6:12)? Didn’t death also enter the world through the sin of the first Adam (Rom 5:12)? Who had this power of death until Jesus came and died? The power of death was in the hands of Satan according to Hebrews 2:14. Didn’t Satan obtain his title as the “god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4) when Adam sinned? Doesn’t Jesus call Satan the “prince of this world” in John 16:11?

Doesn’t Satan claim to have ownership of all the physical kingdoms of this world in the temptation of Jesus found in Luke 4? Could this legal technicality be the reason why God is waiting to redeem our physical and natural human bodies?  It appears to be this way. We can further learn this detail by the parable of the leased vineyard where Jesus describes a Garden that is let out to farm workers in Mark 12:1.

In this parable there are very specific details given to us about things that can only describe our planet as being God’s Garden put into the hands of the first Adam. Please go and read this to see that the far away landowner is representative of God the Creator. The land workers represent the first Adam and all his children throughout time.

But we all know this Garden was handed over to Satan’s authority (2 Cor 4:4). Now we also know by reading scriptures that Satan used human people to beat and kill God’s servants and prophets that were sent to obtain God’s fruitful offerings (Mat 23:31). The payment offerings sought by God represent people’s sacrificial praises to God for His goodness and His mercy (Heb 13:15), but instead people did only evil in the eyes of God (Rom 3:23). Then the distant land-owning man in the parable representing God says, “I will send my Son”. “They will respect my Son”.

We know the Son is Jesus the Christ/Messiah and He was sent to the earth and obtained zero respect from the people of the world (Isa 53:3). In this parable those that were in control of the Garden are representative of Satan and they said to themselves, “this is the Heir, let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours” (Mat 21:38, Mar 12:7).

There is no way that this parable should be ignored because it demonstrates God’s commitment to be a fair and just Judge and God and for Him not to overthrow Satan without sound legal grounds. It also demonstrates that God was infinitely wiser than his enemy Satan. We know from reading Revelation 13:8 that God planned the death of Jesus even before He created our world. Therefore, for the Son of God to die was God’s plan and Satan fell for it and regrets it every day now (1 Corinthians 2:8).

Therefore, how long was this described earth lease given to the 1st Adam that was subsequently then handed over into the hands of the devil? We know from reading in Revelation 12:12 that there is a soon coming time when Satan realizes that his time on earth is growing very short. This end of his timed lease on the surface of the planet will cause his rule over humanity to cease and when this happens it causes him to be in a rage against the people left upon the earth during these last 7 years. But how long is the total time of the earth lease?

We can learn from reading in Isaiah 46:10 that God has declared the end of human time from the beginning of human time on the earth. Therefore, we can discover the layout of all human history encoded within the first chapter of Genesis 1, hidden within the description of God’s 6 days of creation. By placing the definition of a day of creation with God’s prophetic timeline we can conclude that human history lasts for 6000 years which is equivalent to 6 days (2 Peter 3:8). Guess how long it has been since Adam was created? We are nearing the completion of the 6th day defined as 6000 years to God.

Therefore, at the end of the 6000 years of human history, there is another court case that begins to take place after Revelation chapter 4 with the rapture of the church in verse 1, and this is immediately followed in chapter 5 when God begins to open legal seals upon a document that looks like the title deed of this planet to take back full and complete ownership. That is enough of these subjects to give you some more vital new spiritual things to think about but let us move back to the book of Ruth.

But the reason given in the book of Ruth for Boaz’s redemption is so that he could raise up the name of the dead relative from among his brothers. Remember Ruth is a gentile and not a woman born from within the tribes of Israel like her dead husband “Mahlon”. But as we have been learning before, the child produced by Ruth and Boaz will still carry forth the name of the family line of Elimelech and Mahlon. Wow, that is all very important typological information to apply to our Redeemer Jesus, but probably not today.

But consider another amazing fact. The heir being produced by Boaz is in the family line of Judah. This tribe Judah will produce God’s chosen King named David. It is David that is promised a future seed that will sit upon his throne in his stead forever. Now pay attention to the fact that David will replace the natural nation’s chosen king named Saul who was from the tribe of Benjamin (1 Sam 9:21). Then do not forget that Judah was the 4th son of Jacob born of Leah, the wife he was tricked into marrying after working to obtain Rachel for 7 years.

Jacob worked another 7 years to obtain the wife that he truly loved named Rachel, but she was barren unable to have children for a long time. Rachel became very jealous of her older sister that is having many children for Jacob. However, eventually God has pity upon Rachel, and she conceives and has two children, Joseph who is also a type of Jesus, and Benjamin. What we will see by studying this topic in the Bible is that there are many types of sibling rivalries that take place between two or three or more brothers. Many times, one brother will kill or betray another brother, steal from his brother, even sell his brother into slavery after desiring to kill him. We can see this pattern repeated in the stories of Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his 11 brothers, David, and his brothers. We need to begin to accept and to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal how all these types and example patterns can and do fit into the life of our redeeming brother Jesus. But that is too much to get into fully today.

However, remember that the name Benjamin (H1144) means “Son of my Right Hand”. Also remember that Benjamin was Jacob’s last (12th) and youngest son, and he was born to his favored wife Rachel. All this information applies to help us identify, define, and understand who our near kinsman Redeemer is, and what is His relationship within the rest of God’s creation. Never forget it is God that became an intimate part of His own creation to legally redeem His bride, the Church. Then recall who is sitting at the right-hand of the Majesty in heaven today? According to Hebrews 8:1 it is Jesus who is presently seated in this position of highest authority.

But were there any others that ever held this position? Wow that is a loaded question full of more controversy. To give you some more home self-study work, please notice that Satan is mentioned in Zechariah 3:1 to be standing at the throne’s right hand to defy and resist Joshua the High Priest. Uh oh! This is another court challenge of the highest order being described that is happening in heaven. But this case is between Jesus our High Priest that we just read about in Hebrews 8:1 and Satan is directly challenging Jesus’ right to redeem us. This sounds very similar to our Ruth 4 study of two men standing at the gate of Bethlehem in court to figure out who will redeem one woman and own all her land.

We will not be going into any more of these details today, but you are welcome to do your own study, research and come to your own conclusions using the aid of the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth (Jn 16:13). Then if you would like to post your conclusions to share with others, please be brave to do so. Let us return to the book of Ruth and continue.

Clearly the only Redeemer that can make all this happen in this level of great design and detail, is God Himself, manifesting in the form of a man named Jesus Christ.  Now notice who the raised from the dead Jesus is named to be? Look at this verse:

Rom 8:17  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

We can learn so much from parallels and typologies hidden in the Old Covenant. Romans 8:17 makes the claim that Jesus the Christ is called the “firstborn from the dead” in Colossians 1:18, and here in this verse of Romans He has just been named “joint heirs” with the church (His body, and His bride). Wow, we have just found another amazing set of parallels to the recorded story of Ruth and Boaz about events in the natural realm. But these natural realities are leading us to understand that there are far greater realities of application about Jesus and His bride in the New Covenant. Who died for Jesus to become an heir? How did the church also become a joint heir with Him? Again, this is too deep to be fully explained in this lesson and it might take a book of lessons by itself to better understand.

This type of knowledge can cause more controversy and debate for some that choose to close their minds to be set in their beliefs. While being set in our beliefs is a great quality to not be deceived, it is also a tool of Satan to keep some deceived and not see the entire truth. Only you can choose to make that choice.

Finally, in this verse we again see the confirmation that there were 10 men that we are given that met with Boaz and the nearer unnamed kinsman to be witnesses to the legal procedures that were taking place. This court natural system is a pattern for the superior High Court system of heaven where God makes all final transactions binding in the spiritual realm. We just saw one of these cases taking place in Zechariah 3. Remember what God writes about Jesus in 1 Peter 2:23:

1Pe 2:23  Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

We can learn from this verse that when Jesus was being tried, He kept silent to allow the judicial system to bring about the plan of His Father. This verse in 1 Peter 2:23 can certainly apply to both the earthly and the heavenly realms. We notice that Jesus set an example for us to also trust in our heavenly Father the supreme Judge of heaven and earth to allow Him to rule righteously. Jesus did this for us to be condemned to die so that He could then trust His Father to raise Him from the dead. This simply meant that Jesus knew that He came to die for our sins, and He would choose to make Himself a willing participant to be crucified as God’s Lamb, to shed His blood to take the penalty of all human sin upon the earth for our redemption payment. It was this death of God in the flesh on a cross that paid the required price of God’s blood to cause our “Redemption” to be possible. This is exactly why we see Joshua (Jesus) our High Priest before the throne clothed in a filthy (sinful) garment. He has just paid for the sins of humanity and Satan appears to be doing everything that he can to stop it from coming to pass.

But is everyone “Redeemed” and going to be saved?  That would be nice but that is a false doctrine called “Universal Salvation” where God’s works, and His will, can override all other’s freewill choices, and their personal participation to receive salvation by faith. With the removal of human freewill that just violates scriptures to teach what the Bible does not reveal. Remember Ruth made the personal choice to return to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law. She also made the personal choice to work in Boaz’s field for her harvest. Finally, she could have refused the kindness of Boaz and never married him. All of this teaches us that humans have a right to choose and the choices that we make will either join us in covenant with God or against God by default.

CONCLUSION

We have only touched on a tiny bit on this story of Ruth and the revealing typologies within the approximate 2,039 words, 85 verses, and 4 chapters.  It is amazing how much information God can place in only one small book that some claim is not a major part of the Bible or a significant reference to Jesus. These types of people see the book as just historical and not prophetic.

But let me reemphasize that this story is included in the Bible both as the historical account of How God brought His Son, Jesus into the world, and as a type or pattern of what Jesus will or now has done for all of humanity. Remember the capital “T” is a modern picture of the ancient Hebrew letter “Tav”, representing a cross.  So had this “T” to the front of the name “Ruth” and we get the word “Truth”. Wow, that was an amazing bit of God’s intelligence being displayed. God is simply confirming “Truth” is found in this book connected to the Cross work of Redemption for humanity.

We have discovered from reading the book of Ruth is that there are definite parallels between Boaz and Ruth and Jesus and the church. Just as Boaz was a near brother of Elimelech to allow his work of natural redemption, so also must Jesus be a near brother to all of humanity to qualify Him spiritually to redeem us as His blood covenant wife. This is where many religious minded people begin to choke and scream “heresy” and “heretic”. But these are not the teachings or words of a human. All these concepts that we are learning are found plainly in the Word of God.  The Word of God and what He said about His redemptive works for us, and how it was legally accomplished were all His ideas, not ours. Let us look at, at a few scriptures that confirm what God has done through Jesus:

Heb 2:16  For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.

Heb 2:17  Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Hebrews is a book of the Bible that contains amazing spiritual truths. Notice in verse 16 God describes Jesus as not taking hold of an appearance likened to angels. Therefore, Jesus was never an angel like some cults try to teach. But rather Jesus literally became the promised “Seed” of Abraham (Gal 3:16).  This is a clear reference to Jesus being from the flesh of natural Abraham. Then we begin to get into how God accomplished this in verse 17.

In verse 17, God says Jesus was “made like His brothers”. Uh oh! What did God just say? The Greek word G3666 that was translated as “to be made like” is referring to a new creative work of God. This Greek word G3666 is very interesting especially because Strong gave it the number G3666. As we should all know 666 is a number for man and more specifically it is used for the man that will appear as antichrist in Revelation 13. But 3 is the number for God as a triune one divine being represented by Father, Son (Word), and Holy Spirit.  What we are seeing is an amazing prophetic picture of God becoming a human man (6). That must be just a coincidence, but it is one that is amazing.

Nevertheless, the Greek word G3666 means to “assimilate”. Wow, who knows what this means?  Does anyone remember the Star Trek series? In this series there were these aliens called the “Borg” and they would assimilate into the species of beings that they encountered. Borg did this to take over the species and control them. This does literally describe the Satanic anti-Christ agenda that is being attempted to take place today. This goal of Satan is to also be a copycat of God to pervert and discredit what God has already done in the past. This causes people today to more easily reject the real works of God as false teachings also.

In a natural God created parallel, it was the digestion concept of how food is consumed into the human body and is broken down into particles to be assimilated into feeding the body. In other words, the food consumed by the human mouth, literally becomes their body, and this is the concept of assimilation used by Star Trek probably by Satan’s influence of design who stole from what God created and did their own version to discount and discredit what God did in Jesus to become a human.

When God appeared to Mary through an angel, he told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her to cause her to conceive a child. This is an amazing supernatural occurrence. The Spirit of God through spoken words would do this work to cause the spoken Word of God to assimilate and become a flesh male sperm cell to be joined into the egg cell of Mary and these two would be joined together to become one complete human and God combined male child. Doesn’t this sound a lot like what Star Trek wrote about and put into entertainment shows? These shows must have been supernaturally inspired.

All of this is an amazing description of assimilation that we just read about in Hebrews 2. Remember that John 1:14 says “The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us”.  We know the Word is defined to be God in John 1:1. Wow, that was a lot of new controversial Bible information that may have turned off a lot of readers. But please just look up the definitions of words and figure out what they really mean. What we are confirming is that God became a human for the purpose of redemption, and He accomplished this by His designed and created work of “assimilation”.

However, let us move back to Hebrew 2:17 to not ignore the Greek word G80 that was translated as “brethren”. This key Greek word G80 literally means a “brother”, and it is applicable to a man being another’s “near kinsman”. What we are seeing is that God became a human male to become “our God in human form Near Kinsman Redeemer”. What we are observing in this reference is a fact of truth within the natural realm of creation. God literally chooses to participate within His own creation, by becoming a man and this is why Jesus was called “Emmanuel” meaning “God with us”.  Let us quickly examine more verses that claim the naturally born Son of God had human brothers:

Mat 12:46  While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.

When Jesus was speaking to a group of people, His physical mother Mary with her other born male children come with her to speak with Jesus.  In this verse of Matthew, it again uses the Greek word G80 defined as “brothers”.  These brothers had the same natural mother, but a very different father. In the natural realm Joseph was the other brother’s father, but as we should know, Jesus had the Father God as His Abba. Yet they are all still ½ brothers by the flesh and DNA of Mary. This is very much like the pattern of Jacob having twelve sons from 4 different wives. They are all still called brothers and are the completed 12 tribes of natural Israel.

If we read in Mark 6:3 we will find that the people of Nazareth believed Jesus to be the son of Joseph, and in this context, they named that He had 4 physical brothers and while also claiming that He had at least two unnamed sisters. Therefore, there are these verses and many others that confirm Jesus had natural family members upon the natural earth. In other words, Jesus was a human male within God’s Old Covenant nation of natural Israel and He was a brother to several of these natural humans by the common mother Mary.

Remember that there must also be a spiritual dimension that God reveals in His Word about how Jesus was formed in the womb of Mary. How God chose to manifest upon the earth in a human physical form does greatly matter and He reveals how it was accomplished using hidden descriptions that we are learning about today.

God’s spiritual dimension contribution to the birth of Jesus is revealed to us in the description of God’s Spirit Words (Words=Seeds, Mark 4:14), that were sent to Mary through an angelic heavenly messenger (Lk 1:26-38). It was the Words of God given to Mary and accepted by her faith in her spirit, that made her a willing participant to be joined into the making of Jesus as a human male child in her womb.

Because Mary believed the Words of God sent to her, she conceived the child Jesus in her spirit first and then the Holy Spirit came upon her, and the child Jesus was conceived physically within the natural realm with God’s Word becoming the flesh male sperm contribution. This formed the natural body of Jesus, after this conception God immediately places His Holy Spirit inside of the new forming and growing cells of the conceived fetus. Do you see how this description matches the word definition of the making of Jesus in Hebrews 2:16-17?

Remember verse 16 said God took on the form of the “seed of Abraham”. Mary was the legal human seed contributor descended from the physical man Abraham.  Then in verse 17 we found the Greek word G3666 translated as “him to be made as us” and we learned this word meant to “assimilate” as in something or someone that becomes a part of something, that they were not originally an intimate part of. We learned this was like a man, that is eating a piece of bread and the bread is digested and it becomes a part of that man adding energy and strength to him, vitamins to him, minerals to him, etc. That is the concept of assimilation literally created by God’s design.

What we are learning is that the natural woman Mary was the human contribution to manifest Jesus, and the Spirit of God was the spiritual contributor to causing Jesus to manifest. Without both of these two contributors joining to become one male child, Jesus could have never legally been called the “Son of Man”, simultaneously with being called the “Son of God”.

There have been people that have believed that God’s Holy Spirit was the only contributor to the making of Jesus’ spirit, soul, and body. They believe God became the complete flesh as an already combined single cell embryo called a zygote. The zygote then divides to create a ball of cells called the blastocyst. That is enough technical details. But please realize that if this was true, this would be a completed invasion of God’s Spirit within His chosen female named Mary. This would mean that Mary contributed nothing but volunteering to be the carrier and delivery service of God into the world. This would make Mary out to only be the Fedex or UPS service that delivered God’s package and there would be no humanity to Jesus at all, other than God being in the form like us and not actually be one of us. Believing this causes vast amounts of scriptural conflicts.

For example, remember that Jesus was born from the natural woman Mary who is confirmed by the Luke 3 genealogy to be a daughter of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. These are all people that are majorly involved contributors to the manifestation of Jesus. Do not forget that Jesus is called the “Son” of David and Abraham in Matthew 1:1. We already found Him called the “Seed” of Abraham in Hebrews 2.  Jesus is also literally called the “Lion from the tribe of Judah” in Revelation 5:5. Therefore, if Mary never contributed a “seed” to the manifestation of Jesus, God lied repeatedly in His Word to claim otherwise. Finally, recall that G3666 meant to be assimilated as in God who is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) must have assimilated His Holy Spirit into His own physical creation to make the body of Jesus, and this would require Mary’s “egg” contribution.

We can see that for the rest of the description of Jesus to be true, God had to have been spiritually joined with the natural human female egg in the womb by His spoken word seed to become a joined God/human being representing a man that was 100% man and 100% God. Only this interpretation aligns with the fact that Jesus called Himself the “Son of Man” more times than He called Himself the Son of God. He did this on purpose to firmly establish the truth that He was fully human. In the Gospels Jesus is referred to as the Son of Man approximately 88 times.

Then pay attention that this Greek word G444 that was translated as “Man” in the term “Son of Man” is the Hebrew word H120/H121 that God gives as the name of Adam many times in the Old Testament.  We can confirm this truth by observing Jesus’ words in Matthew 4:4 when He is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 that says “Man (G444) shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God”.  Going to Deuteronomy 8:3 we can easily find that the word “man” is the Hebrew word H120, and we now have established a God designed confirmation of the exact word equivalency between the two dominant written Bible languages, of Hebrew and Greek.

Why did we need to do all of this? We are confirming the revealed humanity of the God/Man named Jesus. This information will confirm that Jesus was then when He was born on the earth, and still is now seated in heaven, the 100% Spirit of God that was assimilated into a human egg that was produced and carried by Mary. This union proves God as 100% God who became a 100% legal human male.

But what else does this information establish? This information establishes the human relationships that Jesus was manifested to be and because He possessed these relationship qualities, He was qualified to be a legal God/Man Kinsman Redeemer for the first Adam who sold us into bondage under the kingdom of darkness ruled by Satan.

Let us stop here now, because that was a lot of new controversial information that many will need time to go and study to see if they are what the Bible says happened. Please be a faithful Bible student disciple of God’s Word and verify everything that is taught here. Don’t reject it automatically just because you never heard of it before. And do not accept it just because you read it here, and it seemed good logical human reasoning. Please do your own homework and dig deeper to confirm it or prove it wrong with at least as many scriptures as you were given to prove that it was true. Then pray about it and ask the Holy Spirit living inside of you to confirm it or prove it wrong using Bible verses that He knows.

God richly bless you and keep you in these last days before He returns to take us to be where He is to judge the world that remains. This is going to happen much sooner than you can imagine. Either become ready to go or prepare to suffer in a time that will never be like any other in human history.  Please make yourself ready. There is a link at the bottom of this study that will help you get started in your walk of salvation. Jesus said very plainly that “You must be born again, to see the Kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3).  Get born again as fast as you can to begin your walk into salvation.

Thank you and until the next time, remember that Jesus is LORD and He is coming very soon! But until He comes, let us make it our priority to occupy this world to spread the Gospel to the whole world. The Harvest is great, but the Laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the Harvest send forth more laborers. Amen.

Are You Saved? Do you Know Jesus? Life is Short! Jesus wants to Know You! Please come and get to Know Him!

The Book of Ruth, The Man with a Shoe Loose and The Marriage of the Bride! Chapter 4

(Ver 1.1)  We are now in chapter 4 of the book of Ruth.  If you have not been reading this series from the beginning you should go back and start with “Part 1“.  As you read chapter 3 of Ruth you should have noticed that Boaz tells Ruth that there is a closer relative than himself and he will have to see if the closer relative is willing to fulfill the law and marry her.  You should remember that the law gave a specific order of precedence for the fulfillment of the requirement of the law.  The order went from the closest or nearest relative to the most distant relative and always included the oldest male first down to the youngest male.  So Boaz was not the first in the line of living relatives to marry Ruth according to the law of Moses.  Therefore, Boaz in chapter 4 goes to the city gate and finds the nearer relative to discuss the situation with him.   Boaz at this point must already know his intentions because Boaz has gathered the elders of the city to witness the discussion between himself and this closer relative.

Rth 4:3  And he said unto the kinsman, Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth a parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech’s:

Boaz starts with the good news first.  Naomi the widow of our dead brother, is come back and she is selling his property.  So far this is a deal for any man that has money to buy it.   To own land is a sign of wealth and to own a lot of land is a sign of great wealth.  But, that was the good news and not the complete picture so here goes Boaz to explain what else is required.

Rth 4:4  And I thought to advertise thee, saying, Buy it before the inhabitants, and before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know: for there is none to redeem it beside thee; and I am after thee. And he said, I will redeem it.

So Boaz before the witnesses of the elders of the city informs this relative that it is his responsibility and his decision to make.   He then informs him that besides them,  there are no other relatives that are able to redeem the land of Naomi.  This means that they are all either dead or there were just no other living male relatives born in the family.

Rth 4:5  Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.

Now Boaz starts in with the potential bad news.  I guess it depends upon your point of view, but it is either good or bad based upon how it will affect you personally.  Since Boaz was the younger brother in this relationship, it affects him differently than the older brother.   Let’s think about this and how it affects each man.  Boaz says that by buying the land from Naomi, they must also buy it from Ruth since she was married to the son of their brother.  According to the law of Moses, this involves marrying the widow of the dead so that the family name is not removed from the face of the earth.  Whatever son that Ruth and the redeemer has, becomes the heir of Elimelech ‘s land.   You see it starts to get a little complicated at this point, since the future heir is now the owner of the dead family’s property, the relative that married the widow has no family or heir.  I know this is not technically correct, but yet this is the way that these people viewed the situation.  You can see that by the reaction of the closer relative to the news of marrying the widow Ruth.

Rth 4:6  And the kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it.

Did you see what the nearer kinsman said?   He told Boaz I can’t redeem this land or marry the widow, because it will mess up my inheritance.  In other words everything that he is in line for and everything his heirs are in line for will revert to the dead brother’s family and he would end up with nothing, so he thinks.  So the nearer kinsman tells Boaz, I won’t redeem it, so you redeem it.  This is of course what Boaz wanted to hear happen, yet the process had to be followed in the law and the procedures must be satisfied in the eyes of God and all legal actions satisfied with the elders of the city who were the witnesses.

Rth 4:7  Now this was the manner in former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbour: and this was a testimony in Israel.

Rth 4:8  Therefore the kinsman said unto Boaz, Buy it for thee. So he drew off his shoe.

As you can see, the nearer relative’s house is now called “the house of him who has his shoe loosed”.  In the eyes of the law, Boaz has satisfied all requirements and responsibilities and is now free to legally marry Ruth.  Boaz tells the elders and the people of the city that they are all witnesses to the fact that he has bought the property of Naomi and Ruth.

It might help you to understand what just happened based upon another story found in the Bible.  In Genesis chapter 38 there is a story of another family who is directly related to our story.  The story of the son of Israel named Judah.  He has three sons and the firstborn is named, Er.  When Er grows up big enough to marry, Judah gets him a wife named Tamar.  Remember Tamar?  The Bible says that Er was wicked in the eyes of God and so he died very young.  Judah then told Er’s brother to take the dead brother’s wife and have an heir for his dead brother, the firstborn Er.  But, the Bible says that Onan knew if he had sex with Tamar and had a child that it would be for his brother and he would not get anything.  So Onan basically refused to fulfill his requirements and the Bible says that he was found to be evil in the eyes of the Lord and he also died young.  So far not a good story, but yet this is how those in the Bible dealt with these matters.  Judah tells the widow Tamar to wait for the third and last son to grow up and she would become his wife and then that son would raise up an heir for the dead firstborn.  In the process of time, Tamar waits, but nothing happens.  Apparently Judah was not a man of his word.  Judah’s wife died and one day he went up to the city to do some business.  Tamar hears about this and takes off her widow garments and dresses up like a prostitute, covers her face and waits for Judah to come by.  She deceives Judah into having sex with her and she becomes pregnant.   Judah did not have the payment for the sex, so he left her his signet ring, a bracelet and his staff as collateral security until the agreed payment could be sent to her.

Tamar was not there for the sex or the payment that was promised to her.  She was there because Judah had not fulfilled what he had spoken to her and her dead husband, Judah’s firstborn had no heir to continue the family name.  So even though her methods were not very admirable her intentions before God were highly commendable.  So Judah eventually sends the payment back for the harlot that he could get back his collateral, but they could not find any prostitutes to pay.

Then time passes and three months later Judah is informed that Tamar has played the harlot and has become pregnant by harlotry.   Judah is outraged and tells them to get her and she will be killed for her error.  So she appears before Judah and tells him that before you do anything, I am guilty of nothing.  Here is the father of my child and she shows him, his signet, bracelet and staff.  Judah’s reaction is shock and immediately says she has been more righteous than him, because he had not given her to his younger son to be his wife.  Like I said, this is not a great or a highly positive moral standard Bible story that you want to teach your children in Sunday School, yet it has great significance to the story in the book of Ruth.  It helps to explain the dilemma that the nearer relative was experiencing.  Tamar is also a name mentioned in the Genealogy of Jesus so it must have some relevance to something we need to know.  If you search the Bible, you will discover that the term “daughter-in-law” is not widely used.  In fact Tamar and Ruth are only two of four women in the Bible called by this title.  So they are directly related and tied together meaning they share some commonalities that are very distinctive.   As we continue through Ruth chapter 4 you will see why I went over this story.

Rth 4:10  Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.

Boaz tells everyone to be witnesses to the fact that he has bought the land of the dead husband and he will marry the widow wife to raise up the name of the dead.

Rth 4:12  And let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the LORD shall give thee of this young woman.

The people of the city now speak a blessing on the actions of Boaz.  Did you notice the name of Tamar being mentioned?  You see if it was not for the illicit actions of Tamar there would be no Bethlehem or people to witness these deeds of Boaz.  There would be no elders of the city, there would be no Elimilech, in fact there would be no Boaz.  Everyone present was a descendant of the house of Judah whom Tamar his daughter-in-law bore to him.   All of these people recognized that they would not be present if it were not for Tamar and they could foresee that down the road in the future there would be many people born on this planet who would be grateful that Ruth was there to raise up and continue the family name of the tribe of Judah.  In fact looking at the genealogy found in the Bible, if not for Ruth and Boaz, there would have been no King David and eventually no Jesus Christ.

Rth 4:15  And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age: for thy daughter in law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him.

Boaz fulfills the requirements of the law and marries one of the few women in the Bible that get mentioned by name in the genealogy of Jesus our Savior.  Boaz is called the redeemer, the restorer of life. and a nourisher.    These are all terms that could describe Jesus to us today.  The story of Ruth is different than what many people think of when thinking of Jesus and the church.  Yet it has many natural patterns in it that are very significant to this spiritual reality.  In my next blog I will try to explore more of these patterns given to us in the Book of Ruth.

You can continue reading this series, by going to “Part 5“.

The Book of Ruth, The Marriage Proposal! Chapter 3

(Ver 1.1)  We have already seen in chapter 2 where Ruth has found favor in the eyes of Boaz her potential kinsmen redeemer and she has even eaten with him in resemblance to a covenant type meal where they have shared bread.  We can tell that Boaz likes this woman and grants her grace beyond all others.  Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law knows the law and has recognized who Boaz is.   In this next chapter we will see that God has orchestrated the answer to Ruth’s problems because of Ruth’s faith.  God has answered her confidence in Him beyond her wildest imagination.   It is amazing what trusting God a little can do.  If you have not read the first part of this series I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.  Now, let’s now look at chapter 3:

Rth 3:2  And now is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast? Behold, he winnoweth barley to night in the threshingfloor.

Apparently, Naomi has some inside scoop on what Boaz is up to.  Either Naomi is very nosy or Boaz has been dropping some clever clues in some obvious places.  You figure out which one it is.  Naomi knows that tonight Boaz will be working late in the threshing floor with the harvest.  Of course all of this is symbolic and has meaning.    Threshing in the Bible times was the harvest time activity by which the grain was removed from the husk.   The husk represented the tares (or false grain) when it was separated from the actual usable good pieces of the plant.  It really does not matter how this is done for this story, just the fact that it is being done is the part that is significant to what we need to know.  If you study the words of Jesus you find that there is another coming harvest of people in the world in Matthew 13.  Jesus informs us that the world is the field and that the wheat is the children of the kingdom of God.  The tares are the children of the evil one.  So we can see the Book of Ruth is prophetic in nature and speaking of something, an event that is coming soon.  You should go and read Matthew 13 and find out the pattern of things to come.  Then you will better understand the shadows contained in the book of Ruth.

Rth 3:3  Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor: but make not thyself known unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking.

Obviously Naomi knows the law of Moses and tells Ruth to clean up herself really good and dress in her best garments and then to go to the threshing floor to meet Boaz.  You can see that this is the picture of the church given to us in Revelation 19:7 where it says “his wife has made herself ready”.   But, she tells her not to do anything until after he has eaten and finished drinking.  It almost sounds like wait until the party is over and then do the following:

Rth 3:4  And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down; and he will tell thee what thou shalt do.

Here is where it gets complicated to understand.   Maybe Naomi knows something I don’t, but Ruth is instructed to uncover Boaz’s feet and then to lay down and wait for him to wake up or return to a sober state and see what he has to say and then do what he says.  The best that I have been able to figure out is that in Leviticus 18 God tells people not to uncover and make nude certain relatives for sexual purposes.  God gives us a long list of individuals including your children and your grand children and says the reason why is if you see them naked, it is your nakedness that you are looking at because they came from you.  What we can deduce from this, is that the practice of uncovering someone even partially is for sexual reasons and it is only OK for the husband and the wife.  So in effect, Ruth is saying you are my husband, I have seen you naked.  I know she only uncovered his feet, but it is a symbolic gesture that he realizes when he wakes to find her there at his feet.

Rth 3:7  And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn: and she came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down.

So Ruth told Naomi that she will do what she has spoken and that is exactly what she does.   Remember Naomi is the one that knows the law and Boaz is the one that is suppose to follow the law and fulfill his obligation to the dead.  So Naomi is in effect speeding up the process and making it happen.  It would appear that Boaz is either dragging his feet (figuratively speaking) and not doing what he is required or there is more to the story than we know right now.

Rth 3:8  And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet.

Now midnight comes around and we can assume it has been at least a couple of hours.  Ruth must have went to sleep also at the feet of Boaz waiting for him to wakeup.  Midnight is a very specific hour.  It is the 6th hour of the night, the beginning of the 3rd watch of the night and represents the middle of the darkness.  It is interesting to note that this is the hour when people are easily frightened and become scared.   It was around midnight when the death angel visited in Egypt and killed the firstborn who did not have the blood of the lamb on the doorposts.  It is also interesting to note that in Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the 10 virgins.  It just so happens that the bridegroom shows up at midnight and 5 of the virgins had oil and 5 of the virgins did not and were called foolish.  So there is some significant parallels being given to us.  Jesus Christ is called the “bridegroom” and the church is His bride.  We can again see the connection between Jesus and the man called Boaz.

Rth 3:9  And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.

The word that is interesting in this verse, is the word for “skirt”.  This word actually refers to the wing of a feathered bird like an eagle and is translated like that many places.  It is also used to refer to the hem of a garment or robe.  The priests were required to sew tassels on the hem of their garments.  Then there is this reference in Deuteronomy that seems to be in reference to an elicit sexual encounter.

Deu 22:30  A man shall not take his father’s wife, nor discover his father’s skirt.

You can see that the man’s father and his father’s wife are spoken of in terms of being one.   By the son uncovering his father’s wife he is said to uncover his father.  So obviously Ruth must have learned something about the law herself.  Boaz wakes up and is startled and asks who are you in the middle of the night.  Ruth tells him I am Ruth and you are my near kinsmen redeemer.  Now here is the other part that you miss reading the English part of the translation from the KJV Bible.  This word “skirt” also occurs in the previous chapter, but is translated in a completely different way:

Rth 2:12  The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.

Reading this verse we can better understand what Ruth was trying to say to Boaz.  Ruth was telling Boaz you are God’s answer to my problem, spread your wings over me and I will put my trust in you.  If this is not a marriage proposal I do not know what you would call it.  Wings are spoken of as a covering, and a place of safety in the O.T. Bible like in the Psalms.   Many times this is God’s people under the wings of God’s protection.  This is the picture of Ruth and Boaz as well as the Church and Jesus.

Look at this verse in Ezekiel and see if this is not what the woman Ruth is saying for her Redeemer to do to her.

Eze 16:8  Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.

God says to Israel, when I looked upon you I spread my skirt over you.  You can again see the reference to nakedness and being unclothed.   In association with these words God says I have entered into a covenant with you and you have become mine by marriage.   This is a very clear picture of Christ and the church.   If you recall in the N.T. the church is said to be clothed with Christ.  We wear Christ as a symbolic garment.  This is a covenant marriage description when the husband covers his bride.

 Rth 3:10  And he said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my daughter: for thou hast shewed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich.

A reference to the kindness of Ruth is exemplified by Boaz.  She is also portrayed to be a woman of character and integrity who is not doing things just for her on good.  Her thoughtfulness and the fact that she followed her wiser mother-in-law’s instructions all proved that Ruth was a great candidate for a wife.  We do not know how old Boaz is, but by implications given he is not a young man.  Based upon him potentially being one of Elimilech’s brothers who has already died, we can assume that he is closer to Naomi’s age than to Ruth’s age.  Nevertheless, Ruth is commended for doing what she has done.

Rth 3:11  And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman.

Boaz says that the whole city knows that she is a virtuous woman.  Of course remember we are in Bethlehem, the future birthplace of Jesus.  The Hebrew word translated as “Bethlehem” means the House of Bread.  Another symbolic term for God’s spiritual house.  Boaz commits to Ruth to do whatever is  necessary to  accomplished what she needed to satisfy his Lawful duty.  Boaz has committed to do whatever is necessary to make her his wife.  This is a marriage commitment and a verbal contract.  Boaz has committed to redeem his dead brother’s debts and to raise up an heir for him, by marrying his dead brother’s son’s wife.  This is the law of God, but also the wisdom of God and a picture of Christ and the church.

If you would like to continue this series of lessons, you can go to “Part 4“.

The Book of Ruth, Introduction to the Redeemer! Chapter 2

(Ver 1.1)  In chapter one of Ruth we were introduced to many of the characters of the story of Ruth, but not all.  If you did not read Part 1 of this series I would suggest that you go back and read the foundation and introduction and all of the information that I covered in chapter 1.  I will not normally repeat myself so if you missed it, you just missed it.

So far we have seen that Naomi and Ruth have returned to Bethlehem during the time of the Barley Harvest and that they are in desperate shape financially.  All of the men in their family have died and they have great needs just to survive.  So let’s get into chapter 2 and the introduction of another primary character that will come to save the day.

Rth 2:1  And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband’s, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz.

We are immediately introduced to some new concepts and a new character in the very first verse of Chapter 2.  Boaz is described as a near relative of Elimelech, the dead husband of Naomi.  This is where it starts to become important to learn and know what the law says.  Because of God’s wisdom, the law provided for the situation that Naomi and Ruth now were facing.  The law says that if a man should die without leaving any heirs, that a brother or near relative of the dead man was required to marry the widow and to have a child by her to become the heir of whatever was owned by that man who died.  This would also mean that the dead man’s family name would not perish from the face of the earth.  One of the men that was qualified to fulfill this requirement was a man who just so happened to be a very wealthy man and his name was Boaz.  Here is the law of Moses that pertains to this matter:

Num 27:8  And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.

Num 27:9  And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren.

Num 27:10  And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father’s brethren.

Num 27:11  And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.

What we see is an order of precedence and responsibility being established by the law of God.  God declares a specific inheritance order when a man dies.  God does this by design and for a purpose, that I will not get into in this blog.  Let’s look at the order and analyze it, the order is always from the firstborn son, then the next born son, until the youngest son.  If the man who dies has no sons, then his daughters can inherit in the same order from the firstborn to youngest.  Next, if he has no living children, then the inheritance goes to the brothers of the man who died, again from the firstborn to youngest in that order.  If he has no living brothers you go up the family tree to your father’s brothers, from oldest to youngest.  The responsibility is thus passed to whomever is still living in the family from oldest to youngest,  to inherit the dead man’s possessions.  But, of course it is more complex than that.  You also get the man’s debts and you must pay off those debts and redeem them.  You just don’t get to take whatever he owned and make it yours, especially if his wife is still alive.  Because she was also his and by the law of marriage she was one with him.  So she has now also become your responsibility and there is more to it than that also.  Here is more of the Law concerning widows and the brothers obligations:

Deu 25:5  If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.

Deu 25:6  And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.

Deu 25:7  And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.

Deu 25:8  Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;

Deu 25:9  Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house.

Deu 25:10  And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.

This is some very strange stuff, however as you continue to read in Ruth you see that they definitely follow these rules and protocols as the law of God dictates.   God says that if a woman is a widow it is up to her husband’s brother to marry her and raise up an heir for his dead older brother.  If you recall it was the eldest who inherited everything anyway and the younger son would have had to work for the older son because he would have inherited it all from their father.  This was just how it was in the Law.  By the younger son refusing to marry the older son’s wife they had legal recourse to take it to the elders and thus the reputation of the younger son who refuses to take his brother’s wife, his name would be disgraced and he would no longer be a person of any significance within the House of Israel.  They would change his name to “Him that has his shoe loosed”.  We will talk about this more later as we go through the rest of the chapters of Ruth.  For now let’s go to verse 2 of chapter two:

Rth 2:2  And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter.

Obviously Ruth and Naomi are hungry and in need of food.  Ruth asks Naomi if she can go into the field and glean to find food for them to eat.  Fortunately for Ruth and Naomi God also provided for them in the law of Moses.  God wrote a commandment that establishes a principle that we should probably even be following today:

Lev 19:10  And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.

God told the children of Israel not to pick their crops totally bare.  Harvest time was a time to go and reap the crops, but it was also a time to leave some for the poor to come and get also.  However, this was not a welfare system like a US government type of program.  God did not give anyone anything for free.  If the poor wanted to come and work and pick the crop to eat, they could eat, but if they wanted to have someone come and drop it off at their feet, they would go hungry.  We can clearly see that Ruth had to go into the field and work to gather their food supply.  Being a lone individual, she was unable to get rich from what she picked, but at least they could eat and not go hungry.  Ten times in chapter two, it speaks of Ruth going into the harvest field to glean.  Boaz happens to own the field that Ruth is working in and he sees her and asks his people who is this and they tell him Ruth the Moabitish who returned with Naomi from Moab.   Boaz makes some commands and grants Ruth some extreme favor and grace.   He commands his workers to help her gather and not to touch her.  She is granted the ability to rest in their facilities and to drink from their water pitchers.  This Gentile woman has found extreme favor with the right man and she does not even realize it yet.  However, Ruth has one quality that exemplifies her beyond any other that might also be gleaning, she is humble.  Humility is always the key to receiving grace. 

Rth 2:10  Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?

The Bible says “God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble” (James 4:6).   This is a Bible law and an established principle for receiving what you need.  Boaz speaks further to Ruth and tells her that she has done well to stay with her mother-in-law and to live with a people she did not know.  In other words Boaz was telling her that she had made the right choices:

Rth 2:12  The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.

Boaz now tells Ruth that she is trusting in the God of Israel.  Because she has placed her confidence in the true God, God will reward her.   Another way to say this is there are benefits to trusting in God.   Ruth left her relatives and walked away from her old familiar life into a place she did not know and she has now found the favor with God.   What made Ruth different than the other hundreds of widows that were in the land at that time?   Ruth had faith, she trusted God.   I really have not discussed applications of any of these scriptures up until this point.  I have told you that the book of Ruth contains many significant types and shadows, which are natural examples of spiritual truths.  I guess you might have already noticed that Ruth appears to be a type of the church.  Those who have left their old lives and followed after the living God, trusting in His grace by faith.  Does this sound familiar?  It ought to if you are a Christian.

Rth 2:14  And Boaz said unto her, At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left.

Continuing through the 2nd chapter we see another pattern being discussed.  Boaz invites Ruth to eat with him and gives her bread and vinegar.   Did you know that in Bible times you did not eat with someone casually, because by eating with them you were entering into a covenant with them.  Simply by sharing bread with someone a covenant is established.  If you do not understand covenants, this is not something you do with your enemies by accident or chance because it could cost you your life.  A covenant is a marriage in the eyes of God so that is why you do not enter into them by accident.  Boaz obviously likes Ruth a lot and has decided by this action to enter into a covenant with her, for her to become his wife.  After all of this Boaz commands his reapers to grant her even more favor and let her pick anywhere she wants, even from the parts they are working in.  The reapers are further ordered to leave handfuls on purpose for her to get easily.  I would say Boaz has a plan.

Ruth goes back to Naomi and tells her all the good news that she knows so far.  How she met a man named Boaz and what he had said to her.  Naomi becomes ecstatic and almost can’t contain herself and says the following:

Rth 2:20  And Naomi said unto her daughter in law, Blessed be he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen.

Naomi realizes and knows the law of Moses and God.   She recognizes now that God has not forgotten them or their dead husbands.   It is important to note what Naomi says next about this man named Boaz.   She calls him a near kin.  That means he is not a distant relative.  It could place Boaz in the category of a brother to Elimilech.    She then calls him “one of our next kinsmen”.   It is interesting to note now that she does not say our next kinsmen, just one of the next kinsmen.   What’s the difference?  Remember God had a specific order of priority and the oldest always had first responsibility to fulfill the law first.  Now here is the introduction to one of the keywords found in the this Book of Ruth that you definitely need to know.  The word “Kinsmen” is a Hebrew word that means a “Redeemer”.

What is a “Redeemer”?   Obviously a Redeemer is someone who redeems?  So what does that mean?   It is often compared to someone who visits a modern pawn shop and sells a valuable item for cash.  The owner of the pawn shop usually pays them pennies on the dollar for their item in hopes of them not coming back to redeem their item.   To redeem your item means you pay the price to get your item back.  Does any of this sound familiar?  Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, he has paid the price for our sin and bought us back.  This is redemption by God from the fact that mankind sold themselves to Satan.

Isa 52:3  For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.

This is God’s message to the church.  God declares that we have sold ourselves for nothing and therefore we would be bought back without money.  In other words God was not going to pay any money to get us back, but that did not mean it didn’t cost anything.  You see Jesus Christ gave his blood and life to pay the price of our redemption and this was more valuable than any money, gold or natural wealth.

At the end of chapter two of Ruth, Ruth tells Naomi that Boaz asks her to only work his field until the time of the end of the harvest season.   I really do not know how you can read this story and not see the church and Christ throughout it.  Christ owns the harvest field and the church are the laborers that are working to bring in the harvest.   There is a coming time of the end of the harvest when it will be over.  Jesus said in the Gospels “the harvest is great, but the laborers are few”.   Jesus is not talking about a wheat or barley harvest or a natural crop.  I guess because the natural Jews do not know the New Testament, they do not see the types and shadows given to them so clearly.  It reminds me of a shadow portrait my son had done when he was young.  I could look at it and recognize his profile immediately even though it was just an outline and showed no facial details.  But, I could do this because I knew him and if you did not know him you would not know who it was a picture of.  This is how the Bible is to those who do not know Jesus Christ.   Because they do not know him personally, they do not recognize when they encounter a shadow that is projected and points you to him.

If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 3“.

The Book of Ruth, An in Depth Study of the Church and Christ! Chapter 1

(Ver 1.1)  I like the book of Ruth a lot.  It is a very unique book of the Bible and a story full of types and shadows of the Messiah.  The Bible is full of complex hidden information and this book contains some of the keys to information found in other places of the Bible.   While the early church started with only Jewish believers and the disciples of Christ, today the church is widely considered to be a Gentile majority.   There certainly exists Jewish Messianic believers and they are very valuable in the church, but yet they are a clear minority.  These Jewish believers are called the “Remnant” in the book of Romans.   What makes the book of Ruth unique, is the fact that the book is primarily the story of a Gentile woman.  The life of a woman outside of the covenant of God’s Old Testament family.  Why would God put a story of a Gentile in the Jewish O.T. Bible?  Why is this significant?    What information does it convey and reveal to us?  Is the book of Ruth a prophetic statement on events to come?  I will be going through this book of the Bible chapter by chapter and then wrap it up with a study of the typologies and symbolism given to us in the book of Ruth.  In the entire Bible the name of Ruth only occurs 13 times in 13 total verses.  There are 12 times in the book of Ruth and once in the book of Matthew.  So other than the Book of Ruth itself, there is no direct references to Ruth, except in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew.  God must have a special reason for naming this woman in the genealogy of Jesus our Savior.  You see in the Genealogy of Jesus in Matthew only 6 women are directly mentioned and only four by actual name.  One woman in the genealogy of Jesus is a symbolic spiritual reference.   These women are 1.) Tamar  2).  Rahab, 3). Ruth  4). the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba) 5). Babylon and 6).  Mary the mother of Jesus.  That is some very unique company, and a very honorable mention, isn’t it?  What does Ruth have in common with these other women that God included them all in the genealogy of Jesus?  I mean what a mixture of women they are, one is a deceiver Tamar who plays like she is a prostitute, 2) Rahab a woman who actually was a prostitute, 4) Bathsheba a woman who committed adultery with King David.   Babylon is called the Great Whore in Revelation.  Why mention any women and not all the women?  Why pick what seems like some of  the worst possible women to include in the Genealogy of Jesus?  Both Ruth and Mary seem like saints compared to the others.  You should really ask these kinds of questions, if you want to know the truth.  God does nothing by accident or chance in the Bible.  Every word, every name, every mention has a purpose and is designed to conceal or reveal information.  Obviously these women are all mothers, so they have that in common.  If it were possible and you could check the mitochondrial DNA of Jesus you would also see that Jesus’ DNA had signatures of each of the women encoded within His DNA.  It also appears on the surface that all of the women mentioned in the Genealogy of Jesus are also widows.  While it does not say that directly about Rahab, we can assume it.  It does call Tamar a widow, Ruth is a widow, Bathsheba became a widow.  Mary also became a widow.  These are interesting little points to keep in the back of your mind.  Perhaps we will get into more of the similarities between the women later, but for now let’s concentrate on just Ruth.

Let’s start by listing some of the characters found in the book of Ruth.  There is of course Ruth, but she is not mentioned at first.   What we discover is the underlying story is about a family from Bethlehem, the same city of the birth of Jesus.  We can already begin to see some implied meanings based upon the city of David being the originating place of residence.   The story starts with the mention of a famine being in the land around Bethlehem.   The book of Ruth mentions that this family of four is forced to move in order to look for food.  The head of the family is a man named “Elimelech” and his wife is called “Naomi”, and they have two sons, one is called “Mahlon” and the other is called “Chilion”.  The Elimelech family is a family who has descended from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah.  The book of Ruth starts by telling us that the story occurs during the time of the judges.  This would have been after the children of Israel had taken the promised land and before the appointment of Saul as their first King.  This would have occurred somewhere around 450 years after Jacob had his 12 sons.  We do know that Israel was in captivity in Egypt for approximately 400 years and they wandered in the wilderness for another 40 years.  So somewhere after that we can see that there came a famine in the land of Israel.

Elimelech decides to up and move his family to the land of Moab, because they have heard reports of there being food there.  Now Moab is a region where the descendants of one of Lot’s sons lived, also named Moab.  If you recall the story of Lot, Abraham asks God to spare him from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and God did.  However, as they were leaving the cities, the wife of Lot looks back and turns into a pillar of salt.  Now that only leaves Lot with his two daughters.  So the story of Lot is that his two daughters get their father drunk so that he could have children or sons through them and their father’s name and family could continue.  Not a very good story is it?   It seems like the more you dig into the book of Ruth the more strange things you discover.  What you must realize is that if there was no incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters there would be no story of Ruth.  So while I do not say incest is good, God can cause good to come from anything that man does, no matter how wrong.   So Ruth is a descendant of the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters.

The book of Ruth does not actually say how long they lived in Moab, but it implies that it was at least a little while, at the least many years.  We do see in Ruth 1:4 that after Elimilech died and the sons married that there was a span of 10 years mentioned.   We are not told how long it was before this or after this period of time is spoken of.   So Elimilech moves his family to Moab.   After a time there Elimilech dies and we do not know why.   After this his two son’s find themselves wives to marry from the women in Moab.   One wife is Ruth and the other wife is named Orpah and not Oprah!    It then declares that after another passage  of time, the sons also both die without having any children or heirs for the family.  All of this so far is the just the first 5 verses of the book of Ruth and it covers several years of information.

Let’s put into perspective the family of Elimilech and the given time frame of these events.  We know that Israel had departed from Egypt, being led by Moses and during this time period in the wilderness God gave Moses the Law.   God is establishing a covenant relationship with the natural nation of Israel.  God gives Moses the first 5 books of the Bible often times called the “Torah”.  We also know that during this time period of Ruth that it was during the time of the Judges.  So there were judges who ruled the people of Israel with the help of God’s prophets.   Judges represent a legal system that is based upon laws.  If anyone did wrong, they would face the judges.  Moses had been given patterns of the temple of God, the ark of the covenant, the inclusion of the Levitical priests and the origination of animal blood sacrifices.  So what do you think would happens if the covenant people of God would move away from all of this and go and live with a group of people who were not in covenant with God?  Could this be the reason they died?  I really do not know, but I can make logical assumptions based upon what happened, that it was at least related.

We know from reading the rest of the Book of Ruth that Naomi was familiar with the law of Moses.  So they did not move away in ignorance, they moved away knowing what they were doing.  However, since Elimilech was a descendant of Judah and not Levi, there were probably no more sacrifices being made for them.  Unless of course they traveled back to Jerusalem to the temple and there is no reference to this happening.  So Naomi, Ruth and Orpha are in a quandary.    A predicament of tremendous proportions.    Without any men left in the family they are doomed to a life of poverty and homelessness or either a life of prostitution.  Naomi of course is older and is in the worst situation.  Naomi tells her two “daughter-in-laws” to leave and go back to their families, thinking they have the best chance of finding new husbands with them.  Her daughter-in-law Orpah does that and returns to her family and to her previous gods.  However, Ruth demonstrates a different resolve, a different spirit of confidence.  Even after Naomi told her that she is too old to have any more sons for Ruth to marry, Ruth tells Naomi, “Where you go, I go, Where You Live I will Live, Your People will be my People, Your God will be My God”.  That if you do not realize it, is very strong covenant words for a lady who was not previously in covenant with the Almighty God.  Then Ruth makes this statement:

Rth 1:17  Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

I made mention earlier that the book of Ruth contains clues to other events in the Bible and this is just one of them.  The mention of death as a separating force is the only natural force that is capable of breaking a human covenant relationship.  When a man marries a woman, in many ceremonies that I have attended, there is a clause in the vows that says something like “till death do you part”.   In this statement, the participants are vowing to remain committed to the marriage covenant until one of them dies.  Death is the only legal separation allowed from the law of marriage.  Once you have sex with someone of the opposite sex you are legally married in the eyes of God and you are not separated legally until one of you dies.  Because, Ruth’s husband had died, she was free from the law of marriage and is now able to legally marry another man.  She could have chosen to go back to her family and find another man, but she chose to trust the God of her mother-in-law “Naomi” and the results of her faith was tremendously greater than she could have imagined.  Ruth was also married to the older firstborn son of Elimilech, meaning she has a significant advantage over the other daughter-in-law.  For Orpah to gain the same benefits as Ruth, would not have been possible according to the law, but we will get into that more later.

Let me briefly talk you through the law of marriage.  The law of marriage is given to us first in the book of Genesis, chapter 2.  God creates woman, a wife for the man Adam.  God makes the woman’s body from parts of the man’s body.  Adam saw Eve and said “She is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”.  In other words Eve was the body of Adam in a different form.  God then declares “that for this reason, shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh”.  That is the law of marriage covenants, between a husband and a wife.  Ruth was joined to her husband and the covenant of God, becoming one flesh with him.  Ruth was technically under the law by marriage.  However, since her husband died she was freed from the law.

Because Naomi had heard that God had visited the people of Israel and that there was again bread in the city of Bethlehem, they return back to Naomi’s former home city.  Upon arriving, the people still remember her and are excited to see her, but she is really down and depressed that she left full and came back empty with nothing and very little hope.  Naomi changes here name to “Mara” and tells people to call her that because it means “I’m bitter”.    It is funny how people will accuse God of doing something that was of their own making.  I never read anywhere that God told them to leave Bethlehem, so just because the circumstances didn’t look like they should stay, that did not mean they were suppose to leave.  Did you understand what I just said?

So this is some of the basics found in chapter 1 of Ruth.  Naomi and Ruth have returned to Bethlehem and it is in the time of the beginning of the Barley Harvest.  So we know that Naomi had returned in or around the time of Passover, which can occur somewhere near March or April.  In my next blog, I’ll talk more about the other primary character of Ruth that I have not introduced you to yet.  This character is named Boaz and he is called the “kinsman redeemer” and we will discuss why this is also.

If you would like to continue reading this series you can continue with “Part 2” where we talk about chapter two, the introduction to the Redeemer.

The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 7 The Book of Ruth

Ruth1(Ver 1.3) This is now Part 7 in the series of advanced Bible study on the subject of the True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12.  I hope and pray that you have been following it from the beginning.  If not please go to the beginning and start with Part 1, before you try to read this part of the series.  The message should make much more sense, if you take them in the order provided.  In the last lesson we scripturally pursued evidence for if the Bible says anywhere that Jesus could be a spiritual father and have a spiritual family with spiritual children.  You see if it says in the Bible anywhere that Jesus doesn’t have children or simply does not say that He can, then we would have no real foundational basis for the woman in Revelation 12 being the church covenant wife.  I believe we found a few good scriptures that Jesus can and does have a spiritual family and that this spiritual family can or is implied to have spiritual children.  One of these scriptures was a popular Christmas card verse about Jesus, with Him being called the “Everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6. This verse brought up a new good question.  Why would God need to qualify the noun “father” with the type of father adjective “everlasting”?  Here we have a noun (father) being limited in scope, modified or qualified using an adjective called “everlasting”.  Didn’t most of us always think that God the Father, was the Everlasting Father?  Everlasting means eternal or the one that lasts forever.  The only logical implication from that qualification is that God the Father is not the Eternal Father, Jesus is.  Is this true, or are we missing something?

This is what we will be addressing in today’s Bible lesson. Please remember that no one knows everything, except God. It is best, that we just read and study, the Bible the best that we know how. Then trust the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth as He said He would do in John 16:13. Please stay open to the Spirit of God, and if He wants to teach us something about the Bible, we do our best to listen.  Therefore, try to stay open and pay close attention to every word that is written.

In the last lesson we were also focused on the existence of patterns found in the Bible.  As you should recall a pattern is nothing but a model from which repeated occurrence can originate. This is truly a very significant topic used by God in the entire Bible.  God writes about real historical facts that did occur in human history but then He uses them to teach us about Jesus.  Remember what Jesus said to us in John 5:39, “Search the scriptures for in them you believe you have eternal life, but these are they that testify of me”.  Jesus just taught us everything in the Bible is focused upon Him directly or indirectly.  Jesus just claimed the Words on every page had something that would be a witness about His Life.  Wow, that is an awesome concept.

INTRODUCTION

I want to take a turn and explore this subject of a woman in Revelation from a completely different and fresh angle of perspective.  So many times, God when He answers prayer, He does so in a way that we were not expecting.  God gives us the answer to the prayer, but usually in a new way that was different than what we would have done, or the way that we would have like it to be done.  This is a lot of the time, the trouble with our Bible study techniques.  Instead of studying a subject from God’s perspective we want the Bible to fit our idea of the way we think it should be.  But we soon discover that God if He wanted us to know everything clearly could have written the Bible that way.  However, since God wrote the Bible in a concealed manner with a hidden O.T. Jesus we must learn to work with what He has given to us.  In doing this we soon learn that we need to change how we think.  God is not like us, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isa 55:8).  But that does not mean that we cannot change to learn His ways and think His thoughts.  It just takes a transforming and renewing of our mind to know and understand the spiritual things of God (Romans 12:2).

 I will start this lesson by saying that the child in Revelation 12 is God as we learned in Part 5 of the series.  Every male child in the spiritual family of God is always God.  Every female in the spiritual family of God is always the people in covenant with God.  So, if a spiritual woman has a spiritual male child it can only be God.  I just gave you some very basic concepts of spiritual things that are very important.  If you do not understand these, that does not mean they are not true, it only means you may need to learn something that you do not yet know. If you keep reading the lessons, we will eventually all get to a united knowledge of the truth, but it will take time and commitment for us all.

PATTERNS OF JESUS FROM THE BOOK OF RUTH

In this lesson we need to explore the Book of Ruth.  There is a Bible series on this subject that has more detail, but we will go through an overview to see how it applies to the woman in Revelation 12. The book of Ruth in the Old Testament has some absolutely fascinating information given to us in it.  If you have never read this book perhaps you should do that now, before you continue with my blog.  It is a short book, only 4 chapters so it will not take long to read through it and to gain a quick overview of it.  To those who have read it and think they know what it is about, let me briefly recap.  The primary subject of the book is a woman named Ruth.  This woman is a gentile woman, not in covenant with God, not born into or of the nation of Israel.   Ruth was a gentile woman not in covenant relationship with God or the Law.  This is very important to understand.

The book of Ruth starts with the story of one family that came from Bethlehem.  Already we can see some parallels being developed.  Where was physical Jesus born?  Jesus was of course born in Bethlehem.   The story of Ruth starts with this family from Bethlehem leaving their home because of a famine.    Famine is a state of or the absence of natural food to eat. Natural food parallels spiritual food and gives us insight into a greater spiritual problem, but I won’t go there right now.  Any way this family consisted of the following family members:

  1. Elimelech, the father
  2. Naomi, the mother
  3. Mahlon,  a son
  4. Chilon, a son

This family of four members, rises up and moves to a place called Moab to live because of a severe famine in Israel.  There in that land the father Elimelech dies, and the two sons marry gentile women, but they also die.  Now we have a family that consists of nothing but three women who were left as widows.  These three women were one Jewish mother-in-law with two daughters-in-law.  One of the daughters-in-laws leaves and goes back to her gentile family, but the other daughter-in-law made a much wiser choice.  This woman was named Ruth, and she said to her Jewish mother-in-law, where you go, I will go, where you live, I will live, and your people shall be my people and your God will be my God.  Ruth made a great choice and God honored her decision tremendously, by allowing her to become a great-great-grandmother of King David.  Please notice that there are only 4 women directly mentioned by name in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Ruth is one of them.  God bestowed a great honor upon this gentile woman named Ruth for her faith in trusting in Him and His Word.

We can see a great story unfolding of a gentile woman not in covenant with God, speaking covenant words to be joined into the family of God.  These words spoken are a pattern of another future spiritual woman that was to come.  In fact, all of these characters in this story I believe represent an allegory of a much higher spiritual reality.  God is giving us a look into the spiritual realm by analyzing this story.  This story is primarily about a gentile woman named Ruth and this woman is a model, type or pattern of the church.

Her mother-in-law Naomi is a type or pattern of the Nation of Israel.  Her Father-in-law is a type or pattern of God.  Earlier I told you that males in a covenant family normally always represent God, and the females represent women in covenant with God.  In this story of Ruth, we see that the father as well as the sons all die.  When Jesus died on the cross who really knew what this meant?  Obviously, Satan didn’t know (1 Cor 2:8).  I believe that when Ruth’s first husband died that this was a type of physical Jesus’ death on the cross.  Now as we read in Romans 7 her husband’s death allows us to legally be remarried without being called an adulteress.  But we have been introduced to this topic previously.

Now let me go into what the Book of Ruth is primarily about.  You see everything that God said up until this point is just the introduction to the main subject found in the book of Ruth.  The primary story line concerns God’s law of the “kinsman redeemer”.  If you read chapter one of Ruth, you saw Naomi make a statement to Ruth that she was too old to have children for Ruth to wait around and marry.  You see in Jewish families if a son married a wife and died without children it was the responsibility of the nearest relative, a brother to marry the widow to raise up heirs for his dead brother.  This is the foundational basis of the story of Ruth.

What hope does Ruth have by hanging around her mother-in-law?  Where does Ruth place her trust in for her destiny and future?  Ruth is placing all of her trust in the law of God.  God’s Word declared that a near relative was responsible to come into the picture and marry the widow to have children.  Notice what God just said?  The reason for the marriage was to have children for their dead relative.  This is so significant that we cannot even begin to imagine what it all means.  Ruth the widowed wife is a type of the church. Boaz is the kinsman redeemer, and he is a type or pattern of Jesus Christ, our near kinsman redeemer. This of course is the risen firstborn from the dead Son of God. It is very interesting typology to see how and where Ruth meets her Redeemer.  If you read the story, you know she meets him in a harvest field.  Jesus taught a lot about grains and harvests in the Gospels.  Jesus even teaches us to pray the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into the harvest field.  Wow, that is not a coincidence.

Boaz takes Ruth the gentile woman to be his wife with a covenant of marriage for the purpose of having children, and they become the great-great-grand-parents to King David.  This is amazing stuff if you are understanding the implications.  All of these pattern concepts are found in the law, in the book of Numbers and if you read through them closely you should begin to understand some of the spiritual implications to these words:

Num 27:6  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

Num 27:7  The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.

Num 27:8  And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.

Num 27:9  And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren.

Num 27:10  And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father’s brethren.

Num 27:11  And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.

You can see how God goes through a long discourse of how to distribute the inheritance of a family when the father dies.  Who is our spiritual Father?  Oh well I am sure I will have some say God the Father cannot die and I will not argue with you.  You either see it or reject it, you choose.  Any way in the law, if the father dies the inheritance begins to go to the children starting with the firstborn.  Then if there are no children it is interesting to note that we start with the nearest relatives, uncles and then cousins.  We can see a hierarchical order of inheritance being established.  God is establishing a law of precedence in the natural realm to demonstrate how He will do something later in the spirit realm.  I would like to ask those skeptics out there this question.  Did you ever notice in the New Testament that we, in the church are called the joint heirs with Christ?  What is an heir?  An heir is someone who inherits after someone else died.  Get it?  Uh oh?  Who died to leave us an inheritance?  What was it, that we inherited?  How did this inheritance follow the law in Numbers that we just read?  There are just so many questions to think about, isn’t there?

So, the story of Ruth is a natural pattern to a much greater spiritual truth.  We can see Ruth, who is the pattern of the church, marries the redeemer named Boaz a pattern of Messiah.  She does this in order to raise up children for her dead husband and his father’s name should not vanish from the face of the earth.  Let me briefly give you some scriptures in Ruth that may help you to understand this story better:

Rth 4:3  And he said unto the kinsman, Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth a parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech’s:

Rth 4:4  And I thought to advertise thee, saying, Buy it before the inhabitants, and before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know: for there is none to redeem it beside thee; and I am after thee. And he said, I will redeem it.

It was the responsibility of the nearest relative to buy back the land that belonged to and in their family name.  In this verse, Boaz approaches a nearer relative first to ask him to buy the land of their brother Elimelech.  But as you read down you find this nearer relative refuses, because it would mean that it would ruin his inheritance.  You can see in verse 4 that Boaz tells this other relative that if he didn’t buy the land that he would do it, because there are no other relatives that can legally do it.  But did you notice the term “redeem”.  “Redemption” is a New Testament term and one of the key works of Jesus Christ.

Rth 4:5  Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.

You can see in this verse of Ruth the problem that the other relative is faced with.  In order to redeem the land of Naomi, he must marry the gentile woman widow named Ruth and have an heir for his dead relative.  This is the law of God given to the nation of Israel and it is very significant to the story of Jesus and the church.

So how does all of this relate to other scriptures in the Bible?  I’ll end this lesson with this related reference found in the New Testament:

Rom 7:1  Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

Rom 7:2  For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

Rom 7:3  So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

Rom 7:4  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Here we have a passage related to God’s law of marriage.  These verses have widespread spiritual implications written all over them.  Did you notice who they were written to?  Paul writes these verses to those under the law.  He actually says those that “know” the law (Rom 7:1).  To “know” something is a statement related to a covenant relationship.  I’ll try to do a lesson in the future explaining that statement in more depth.   We can see that Paul is writing these verses to his natural brothers of the nation of Israel.  So, while the book of Romans was written to the church, these verses pertain only to the natural Jews.  It is very important to see this.

The law stated that a woman who was married could not be married to another man as long as the first husband was alive, or she would be called an adulteress.  But the woman whose husband is dead is free to marry another (Rom 7:3).  So what does God say to those who were under and in covenant with the law?  God told them that they are now free to marry another, and this one that they should marry is the one that God raised from the dead, Jesus Christ.  Are you following the reasoning and logic of these statements?  Because Jesus Christ was crucified, these verses claim that their former husband was killed or died.  That is what Romans 7:4 is telling them.

The crucifixion of Jesus has now freed them from the law to be in covenant with the risen from the dead man Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  A marriage to the Son, and not the Father.  We can clearly see that these verses do not apply to gentile believers because they were never under the law, or in covenant with God.  The gentiles were never in or under the law and therefore were free to be married to whomever they choose.  However, the natural nation of Israel was given the law on Mt Sinai through Moses and this law established many boundaries that they are forced to abide with as long as they refuse to accept their Messiah.   Let me briefly go back to the book of Ruth and tell you about a statement that Ruth makes that reveals to us the principal of these statements in Romans 7:

Rth 1:17  Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

Ruth makes a statement of truth that has widespread implications.  You can see from the statement that death represents a dividing line.  Death causes a separation of one connected person from another person.  Only death can separate us, Ruth said.  This is an incredible revelation if you apply it correctly and understand it fully.  Ruth gives us a secret to how God will separate himself from Satan.  Only by Husband’s death will the wife be freed from the law of her husband.  Death represents a division between two connected in covenant individuals.  Through death a legal and permanent separation occurs between two people who were in an eternal marriage covenant.  It is important to know that God does all things in a legal, orderly and just manner.

There is so much more that we could discuss about these verses, but I wanted to show you another set of verses that speak about God experiencing death for us.  The death of Jesus has so much more meaning than we have ever imagined.  That means we have an inheritance that must be distributed according to the law.  Ruth is a story that has so many great truths in it, that I did not get to them all in this lesson.  Hopefully you will continue to study the book and see the other details that God reveals to us.   For example, Boaz must go to a closer relative and ask him if he wants to marry the gentile woman.  The closer relative refuses to marry Ruth because it will mess up his inheritance, so he thinks.  Who is this closer relative representative in the spiritual realm?  How does this pattern fit into the redemptive work of Christ?  Then there is this fact found again in the genealogy of Jesus.  I told you earlier this list only contains the names of 3 or 4 women, and they all have significance and meaning to Jesus.  Boaz was a type of Jesus.  Who is Boaz’s mother?  Boaz is the son of Rahab the harlot.  That is also very significant in the typology analysis.  Who was Jesus born of?  Jesus was born of the natural seed named Mary, that came from the tribe of Judah of Israel. The nation of Israel is also called a harlot in Old Testament books like Hosea.  There are so many more things to consider.  If you dig really deep you can find so many valuable truths.

CONCLUSION

So, I have attempted to give you scriptures that show why the woman in Revelation 12 is pregnant, and who this child is and why He must be delivered.  The child in Revelation 12 has widely been taught to be Jesus Christ, but the typology and symbolism found in the Old Testament, and in the rest of the chapter 12 does not fit the natural birth of the Messiah.  So, we have to look for spiritual truths and spiritual reasons to identify the male child and hopefully I have pointed you in the right direction.  We have discovered is that the reason for every covenant marriage between a husband and wife is for the purpose to have an heir.  This heir is the person that will continue the family’s named. God commanded this in Genesis 1 when He told them to be “fruitful and multiply”. This too was a divinely designed pattern of creation.

I know I did not cover everything in its entirety, and I know there is absolutely no way that I could do that even if I wanted to.   Only God knows everything, and we only see things through a glass darkly and only truly understand what God wants us to understand, when He wants us to understand it.  I believe that we have so much more to learn.  Thank you for reading this series of lessons and studying the Bible with us.  I appreciate your prayers and your diligent Bible study faithfulness.  God Bless you.

If you would like to continue in this study series, please go to PART 8 now.