LESSON THIRTY-FOUR

RUTH AND BOAZ

OUTLINE

1. Ruth:
   1. Being one of the Moabites, who were forbidden to enter the holy congregation of Jehovah.
   2. Becoming a part of Israel and partaking of her husband’s inheritance through marriage.
   3. Choosing God and His kingdom.
   4. Exercising her right to glean the harvest of God’s elect.
   5. Gaining a redeeming husband.
   6. Typifying the church of the Gentiles:
      1. Before her salvation, as men in God’s creation and sinners in man’s fall.
      2. With her old man as her crucified husband redeemed by Christ for the recovery of the lost right of her natural man in God’s creation.
      3. After being saved through the regeneration of her natural man, becoming the counterpart of Christ.
      4. The Gentile sinners being attached to Christ that they may partake of the inheritance of God’s promise.
2. Boaz:
   1. As a man of noble birth.
   2. Typifying Christ, as the Kinsman of the believers, being qualified and willing to redeem the believers as His counterpart.

TEXT

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.

I. RUTH

A. Being One of the Moabites,
Who Were Forbidden to Enter
the Holy Congregation of Jehovah

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.

B. Becoming a Part of Israel and
Partaking of Her Husband’s Inheritance
through Marriage

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.