Introduction To the Book of Ruth

The Book of Ruth is a book about love. And, inasmuch as that is so, it reflects the theme of the Bible, because the Bible too is a book about love. The unifying message of the Scriptures is that God is love, and that God has loved -- loved with such intensity and depth that he gave his Son to die for a lost, sinful and unlovely world. Perhaps that is why Martin Luther said that the Bible in miniature could be read in John 3:16 -- the great statement that God loved the world to such an extent that he gave his only-begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The Old Testament tells us of how God prepared the world for the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. His life, death and resurrection were explained both by Jesus himself and by the apostles in Old Testament terms, and with Old Testament motifs. It is possible to begin with the Books of Moses, and to work through the prophetic literature and the rest of the Old Testament writings, and to find Christ there (cf. Luke 24:27; John 5:39).

Part of the thesis of this little work is to show that the Book of Ruth bears witness to the love of God which ultimately would show itself in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. Indeed, the Book of Ruth teaches us not only that God loves a lost and sinful world, but that he opens up doors of remarkable blessing through his redemptive love. It is a theme that is consonant with the whole message of the Old Testament.

In fact, it is interesting that the three great love passages of the Old Testament -- the story of Rebekah, who became the wife of Isaac (Genesis 24), Ruth who became the wife of Boaz, and the Shulammite who became the wife of Solomon -- are all related to the revelation of God's gracious saving covenant at different points of Old Testament history. It seems as if God is illustrating his covenant love for us in these stories which unite in the theme of love and marriage.

After the destruction of the world with a flood, God made covenantal promises to Noah. He had saved the family of Noah, thereby showing that families were to be integral to the saving purposes of his grace. One of the covenant promises God made was that the Japhethites (the Gentiles, who were strangers to the covenant line, or seed) would dwell in the tents of Shem (Genesis 9:27). In other words, it was God's immediate purpose in the Old Testament to reveal his covenant redemption to the Semitic, Jewish line; but it was his ultimate purpose in the world to extend the blessings of that covenant to those who ordinarily had no claim to the promises and privileges of the covenant of God's grace.

This aspect of the covenant was ratified with Abraham, to whom God promised that in him all the nations of the world would receive blessing (Genesis 12:1-3; 17:7-8). The favours of God's covenanted redemption would extend to all ends of the earth by sinners being brought in to the covenant family. The Old Testament thus plays on this immediate/ultimate theme: the Jewish people are those to whom the redemptive purposes and promises are given, with the end in view that the blessing of Abraham will extend to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ (cf. Galatians 3:13). It is this covenantal theme that unifies the Bible, and emphasises for us that although it is a book of sixty-six books, it is a book of one message.

The covenant of grace was revealed and ratified with Abraham, Moses and David. And in each case it is exemplified, applied and illustrated by the theme of love and marriage. Following God's covenant with Abraham ("the covenant of circumcision" according to Acts 7:8), we find Abraham sending his servant to Mesopotamia to find a wife for his son, Isaac (Genesis 24). It is surely significant that the longest chapter of Genesis is reserved for what has been called "the greatest love story ever told". Abraham is the father of Isaac, the son of his old age, and of the promise God made with him. Ultimately, as the New Testament argues, the focus of this promise is Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:16). The immediate focus is on Isaac, however, and God's redemptive intention is both illustrated and ratified by the bringing of Rebekah into the line of God's saving and redemptive purpose. She is domesticated in the line of Abraham, and becomes the mother of Jacob, through whom God will continue to reveal his saving purpose to the world.

The Book of Ruth is also a great love story with a similar theme. It is contextualised within the Mosaic covenant, written in the law code which God gave to his people. The law revealed to them the nature of sin against God, and acted like a fence within which they could enjoy the blessings of that covenant. In the case of Ruth, that law highlighted the fact that, as a Moabitess, she was naturally excluded from the fellowship of God and the blessings of his covenant. But the same law which revealed her natural alienation from God also made provision for her, as a widow and stranger, to enter into the covenant community of God's people. Her entrance into that new fellowship is sealed by her marriage to Boaz, and is another example of God bringing those who are outside the covenant into that very covenant.

In 2 Samuel 7, God further sealed his covenant redemption by making specific promises to David. These promises focus our attention on the Davidic line, from which the Messiah would come. It is not insignificant that the New Testament should open with a statement of Christ's descent from David (Matthew 1:1ff); nor is it insignicant that it should close with an affirmation that Christ is the root and offspring of David (Revelation 22:16).

The promise that David would have a son who would sit on his throne were fulfilled immediately in Solomon, but ultimately in Christ, the 'greater than Solomon'. The Song of Solomon, a powerful poetic celebration of the marriage of a Shulammite woman with Solomon, is at one level the greatest celebration of human love which we find in the Old Testament. But at a deeper level, it is a climactic revelation of the message which the Old Testament preaches in preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ: that God extends the blessings of the (Davidic) covenant to those who are outside by bringing them into that covenant.

Thus the marriages of Rebekah to Isaac, of Ruth to Boaz and of the Shulammite to Solomon, all illustrate the essence of the Gospel: that Jesus Christ, the Mediator of God's covenant, came to extend the blessings of Abraham to those who were 'without God and without hope', who were by nature the children of wrath, who were 'aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise' (Ephesians 2:12). This he did by bringing sinners, who are alienated and distanced from the mercy and grace of God, into a marriage, covenantal union with himself. The story of Rebekah, of Ruth and of the Shulammite, find their ultimate meaning and fulfillment in the Book of Revelation, when God says to us "Come here, I will show you the bride -- the Lamb's wife" (Revelation 21:9).

Thus while the narrative of the Book of Ruth is full of interest as a powerful story of choice, of love, and of blessing, its deeper meaning is to be found at the level of what biblical scholars call the 'metanarrative' -- the big story -- of the Bible. For at last, there is only one Gospel, and one covenant of grace. And sinners are saved because God is still looking for a wife for Abraham's great Son, the Lord Jesus. They are saved because the law has made provision for redemption through kinship, and there is one whose work is sufficient to bring us into the bond of the covenant. They are saved because David's greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, loved his church and gave himself for it. The love stories of the Old Testament, understood against the backdrop of the covenantal unity of the Bible, point forward to the marriage of the Lamb.

It is in this context that we must approach the story of Ruth. In these studies I hope that we will uncover something of the hidden depths of meaning and significance of this great book of the Old Testament. May the Lord open our eyes so that we will see the love of the Saviour displayed and illustrated in the story of Ruth.