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The book of Ruth is the shortest among the historical books of the Old Testament, yet the story recorded in it concerning Ruth and Boaz carries great spiritual and typological significance. A Gentile, even a Moabitess, was joined to the holy elect of God and became an heir to partake of the divine inheritance through her union with the person among the holy elect who redeemed her. This is a complete prefigure of the Gentile sinners’ being brought with Israel, God’s elect, into the divine inheritance through the redemption of Christ in their union with Him.
Ruth’s ancestor was Moab, who was the fruit of Lot’s incestuous union with his daughter (Gen. 19:31-38). She was a descendant of a people who also did not take care of the children of Israel in their hard journey out of Egypt and instead hired Balaam to curse them. They were prohibited by God from entering the holy congregation of Jehovah, and God did not allow Israel to seek peace and prosperity with them (Deut. 23:2-6). Ruth was not only a Gentile sinner but also a descendant of a people born in incest and rejected by God. She was a person of low birth, and she had nothing to do with God, having no God and no hope.
Ruth 1:1-4 presents a record of Elimelech, a man from Bethlehem in Judah who went down to Moab to escape famine. Ruth became a part of Israel because she married one of Elimelech’s sons and partook of her husband’s inheritance.
Both Ruth’s husband and his brother died without leaving any descendants, and her husband had no other brother who could marry her to bear children for her husband. Nevertheless, she followed her widowed mother-in-law to the land of Judah to be a citizen of Israel and to receive the God of Israel as her God.
When her mother-in-law urged her to return to her people and to her gods, Ruth said, “Do not entreat me to leave you and turn away from following after you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you dwell, I will dwell; and your people will be my people, and your God will be my God” (v. 16). Ruth chose the goal of God and His kingdom in order to participate with God’s elect in the enjoyment of Christ. Eventually, she became an important ancestor of Christ, one who helped bring forth Christ into mankind (Matt. 1:5).
Regardless of who we are and what our background is, we are in a position to be accepted into the birthright of Christ as long as we have a heart that seeks God and His people.
Ruth returned to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law at the beginning of the barley harvest (Ruth 1:22b). However, they returned empty, having nothing, and thus became needy ones among God’s elect. According to God’s loving care, when the children of Israel reaped the harvest of their land, they were not to completely reap the corners of their field, neither were they to gather the gleanings of their harvest; they were to leave them for the poor and the sojourner (Lev. 23:22; 19:9-10). If they forgot a sheaf in the field, they were not to turn back to gather it; it was for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow (Deut. 24:19). Ruth came to the good land, and according to her threefold status as a sojourner, a poor one, and a widow, she exercised her right to glean the harvest. Her gleaning was not a begging; it was an exercising of her right. Ruth, a Moabitess, a heathen sinner, alienated from God’s promises (Eph. 2:12), was privileged to partake of the crumbs under the table of the portion of God’s elect children (Matt. 15:25-28).
This portrays that sinners have the way, the position, the qualification, and the right to participate in Christ and to enjoy Christ. According to God’s ordination, we have been qualified and positioned to exercise our right to enjoy Christ. We do not need to beg God to save us. We can go to God to claim His salvation for ourselves. This is the highest standard of receiving the gospel. We have the position, qualification, and right to claim salvation from God.
Ruth not only had the right to partake of the rich produce of the inheritance of God’s elect, but under the prodding of her mother-in-law, she also sought a resting place (Ruth 3:1). According to God’s ordination in Leviticus 25:25, “If your brother becomes poor and sells some of his possession, then his redeemer, the nearest relative, shall come and redeem what his brother has sold.” Moreover, according to Deuteronomy 25:5-9, if brothers dwelled together and one died and had no son, the wife of the deceased man should not become the wife of a stranger outside the family, but her husband’s brother should take her as his wife to bear a child for his deceased brother. Therefore, according to her mother-in-law’s charge and based upon the God-ordained way (Ruth 3:6), Ruth approached Boaz, who was a kinsman of her deceased husband. She was accepted by Boaz and received his promise and generous care (vv. 10-15). Eventually, she was married to Boaz and was redeemed by him to be his wife (4:9-10). Her actions were witnessed and blessed by the people and the elders in the gate. She was also blessed by God to conceive and bring forth a son. Thus, she became a crucial ancestor in the genealogy of Christ to bring in the royal house of David to continue the line of God-created humanity for the incarnation of Christ to accomplish the eternal economy of God.
Ruth typifies the church of the Gentiles, composed of Gentile sinners who were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and without God in the world, yet who are now fellow citizens with the saints, having God as their God (Eph. 2:11-13, 16, 19).
Being a woman in Adam in God’s creation and a Moabitess in man’s fall, Ruth typifies the church in her status as the old man before salvation in two aspects—as men in God’s creation and as sinners in man’s fall (Rom. 6:6). Ruth had an incestuous background, and we all have the same background. Adam and Eve joined themselves to Satan; that is, they married Satan. This was the initiation of incest. Hence, the Moabites typify all sinners, because all sinners are born of incest.
Ruth, as the widow of the dead husband, was redeemed by Boaz, who cleared the indebtedness of her dead husband to recover the lost right to her dead husband’s property. In this aspect Ruth typifies the church, whose old man is her crucified husband (7:4a), being redeemed by Christ, who cleared away the sin of the old man for the recovery of the lost right of her natural man in God’s creation.
The believers’ old man is composed of the natural part created by God and the fallen part corrupted by sin. This old man has been crucified with Christ. The crucifixion of Christ has redeemed the natural part and destroyed the fallen part, clearing away the sin of the fallen part. Christ did not redeem the fallen part of our old man; He terminated it. He redeemed the God-created part in order to recover us.
Ruth’s becoming a new wife to Boaz after being redeemed by him typifies the church’s becoming the counterpart of Christ after being saved through the regeneration of her natural man (v. 4b). Our natural man was created by God to be God’s counterpart, taking God as our Husband and Head, but in the fall our natural man put God aside and made himself the husband and head, thus becoming the main part of our old man. After being redeemed and regenerated, our natural man, not including our fallen part, becomes our new man and takes Christ as our new Husband in a divine organic union with Him (v. 4b). Ruth typifies the church being saved through the regeneration of her natural man. This makes the church a new creation to be a new maiden, a new wife. Hence, the church becomes the counterpart of Christ in an organic union with Christ.
Ruth’s being united to Boaz typifies the Gentile sinners’ being attached to Christ so that they may partake of the inheritance of God’s promise (Eph. 3:6). Once we are joined to Christ, we enjoy God’s promise. Hence, we are God-created persons, fallen persons, redeemed persons, and regenerated persons. We have become a new creation in our organic union with Christ through regeneration. God has allotted us the all-inclusive Christ, typified by the good land, to be our eternal portion and has transferred us into Him to participate in Him (Col. 1:12; 9, 1 Cor. 1:30). Hence, we can produce a home for rest in Him, and we can bring forth Christ and spread Christ.
Ruth 2:1 says, “Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a man of great wealth, from Elimelech’s family; and his name was Boaz.” Boaz belonged to a renowned family of Judah and was rich in wealth. Furthermore, he was a relative, even a kinsman, of Ruth’s father-in-law, Elimelech, and was qualified to redeem Elimelech’s property (4:3-6). As a kinsman of Mahlon, the dead husband of Ruth, he was willing to redeem the lost right of Mahlon’s property, and he took Mahlon’s widow, Ruth, as his wife to bear a son for the establishing of her husband’s name (vv. 9-10). In all these things Boaz typifies Christ.
In Luke 19:12 the Lord Jesus likened Himself to a man of noble birth. This signifies that the Lord Jesus, who is of the highest status, is the God-man, both honorable in His deity and noble in His humanity. Hence, as a man rich in wealth and generous in giving, Boaz typifies the Savior Christ, who is rich in the grace of God. His divine riches are unsearchable (Eph. 3:8; 2 Cor. 12:9), and He takes care of God’s needy people with His bountiful supply (Phil. 1:19b).
The first kinsman of Ruth’s deceased husband, Mahlon, typifies our natural man, who cannot and will not redeem us from the indebtedness (sin) of our old man. Boaz, the second kinsman of Ruth’s deceased husband, was qualified and willing to redeem the lost right of Mahlon’s property and took Mahlon’s widow, Ruth, as his wife for the producing of the needed heirs (Ruth 4:9-10, 13). Hence, Boaz typifies Christ, who partook of blood and flesh to be like us and who has become the believers’ Kinsman (Heb. 2:14). Having shed His blood to accomplish redemption for us, He can and will redeem us from our sin, recover the lost right of our natural man in God’s creation, be our new Husband that He may have a divine organic union with us, and take us as His counterpart for His increase (Eph. 5:23-32; John 3:29-30).
Ruth and Boaz are a complete prefigure of the Gentile sinners’ being brought with Israel, God’s elect, into the divine inheritance through the redemption of Christ in their union with Him.
Ruth was one of the Moabites, who were forbidden to enter the holy congregation of Jehovah, yet she became a part of Israel and partook of her husband’s inheritance through marriage. She chose God and His kingdom and exercised her right to glean the harvest of God’s elect and partake of the rich produce of the inheritance of God’s elect. Eventually, she gained a redeeming husband, and she conceived and brought forth a son to bring in the royal house of David. Thus, she became an important ancestor in the genealogy of Christ to continue the line of the God-created humanity for the incarnation of Christ to accomplish the eternal economy of God. She typifies the Gentile church, before her salvation, as men in God’s creation and sinners in man’s fall, yet the church with her old man as her crucified husband was redeemed by Christ for the recovery of the lost right of her natural man in God’s creation. Furthermore, after being saved through the regeneration of her natural man, the church became the counterpart of Christ. The Gentile sinners were thus attached to Christ to partake of the inheritance of God’s promise, producing a home for rest and bringing forth Christ and spreading Christ.
Boaz was a man rich in wealth and generous in giving. Furthermore, he was a kinsman of Ruth’s father-in-law, Elimelech, and he was qualified and willing to redeem the lost right of Ruth’s deceased husband’s inheritance and to take Ruth as his wife to bear a son for the establishing of her husband’s name. In all these aspects Boaz typifies Christ, who is of the highest status, is rich in God’s grace, has the unsearchable riches, and takes care of God’s needy people by His bountiful supply. Christ partook of blood and flesh to be like us and became the believers’ Kinsman. He shed His blood to accomplish redemption for us, and He can and will redeem us from our sin, recover the lost right of our natural man in God’s creation, and take us as His counterpart for His increase.
