In these messages on Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, my emphasis has been on our gaining Christ, experiencing Christ, and enjoying Christ so that we may be the church. In this message we will consider how Boaz and Ruth typify Christ and the church. Boaz is a type of Christ, and Ruth is a type not only of the seeking saints but of the church. Ultimately, Ruth typifies the church.
At the beginning and at the end of the portion of Israel’s history from Joshua to Ruth are two prominent persons typifying Christ (Josh. 1:1; Ruth 4:21). These persons are Joshua and Boaz, who signify two aspects of one person.
At the beginning Joshua typifies Christ in bringing God’s chosen people into God’s ordained blessings (Josh. 1:2-4; Eph. 1:3-14). As typified by Joshua, Christ has brought us into the good land, has taken possession of the land for us, and has allotted the land to us as our inheritance for our enjoyment. Christ has gained the good land for us, and eventually He is the good land for us to enjoy.
At the end Boaz typifies Christ in other aspects. In particular, he typifies Christ as our Husband for our satisfaction.
Boaz typifies Christ in two aspects.
As a man, rich in wealth and generous in giving (Ruth 2:1, 14-16; 3:15), Boaz typifies Christ, whose divine riches are unsearchable and who takes care of God’s needy people with His bountiful supply (Eph. 3:8; 2 Cor. 12:9; Phil. 1:19b).
Sadly, in their experience many of today’s Christians do not have Christ in His riches, and they do not have Him as the Husband. In the church we have Christ as our riches, and we also have Him as our Husband. In Ephesians Paul speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ (3:8). He speaks also of Christ as the Husband of the church (5:23-32). In Revelation our Husband is unveiled as the Lamb, the redeeming God (21:2, 9). The Bible reveals, therefore, that Christ with His unsearchable riches is our Husband. In the last two chapters of the Bible, we see that Christ, the Lamb, is our Husband and that we, the believers in Christ, are the Lamb’s wife.
As a kinsman of Mahlon, the dead husband of Ruth, who redeemed 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), Boaz typifies Christ in redeeming the church and making the church His counterpart for His increase (Eph. 5:23-32; John 3:29-30).
Ruth, being a woman in Adam in God’s creation and a Moabitess in man’s fall, thus becoming an old man with these two aspects, typifies the church, before her salvation, as men in God’s creation and sinners in man’s fall being “our old man” (Rom. 6:6). Ruth became a Moabitess not because of man’s fall but in man’s fall. The Moabites, an incestuous people, typify all sinners, because all sinners were born of incest (John 8:41, 44a). This means that Ruth was not the only one with an incestuous background. We all have the same background. Adam and Eve joined themselves to Satan; that is, they married Satan. As human beings created by God, we should have married our Creator, taking Him as our Husband (Isa. 54:5), but instead we married a fellow creature, Satan. This is incest.