The Pledge

Ruth ... I have bought as my wife

Ruth 4:10

In Ruth 3, as we noted, Ruth received the promise and pledge from Boaz, that he would undertake all the duties of a kinsman-redeemer on her behalf. The threshing floor in Scripture is the place where great moments occur and things of great weight and destiny are transacted. For Ruth the threshing floor of Boaz becomes the place where she receives an undertaking from Boaz in whose fields she has gleaned, that he will provide security for her. And she leaves the threshing floor not empty-handed, but with six measures of barley as his pledge to Ruth.

The great issue for us is -- do we have any barley in our veil? Do we have anything to assure us personally of the pledge and the undertaking of Jesus Christ to be our Saviour and to our redeemer? Is there anything in our lives to which we can point and of which we can say that these demonstrate to us the particularism of our redeemer's love. We do not believe in a general love on the part of a capable redeemer. We believe in a particular love and a particular devotion that reaches down to sinners of a lost mankind with a definite undertaking to save each one of them. There are people who have great problems with the Calvinistic emphasis on election and on the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in the salvation of sinners. Many prefer to take another approach to the Scriptures, an Arminian approach, and to say that God loves all men and the Gospel is decided on the freewill choice of men. But a kind of universal love that saves no-one in particular and that leaves wide open a door to anyone to come is not the love that is spoken of in the Bible. The love of God for his people throws wide open the Gospel door, and it comes into the hearts and minds and experiences of individuals with a discriminating, personal, particular love. In Christ, God gives measures of barley to his people, so that they can look into their hearts and souls, and they can say, "This is God's pledge to me, that he will act the part of a redeemer on my behalf through Jesus Christ."

And it is to the climax of that work of redemption that we come in Ruth 4. These opening verses of chapter four point us to the closing movements of the Book of Ruth. Ruth has come to Boaz, to the threshing floor, with a request that he will undertake to do a specific work for her. She has received his pledge to her, and she now anticipates that now he will perform all that he has pledged to do.

Ruth came to Boaz looking into the future, anticipating that Boaz would undertake to redeem her. But we do not come to Jesus Christ hoping that he will perform a work of redemption. Christ has done that work, and has completed that work. All that is necessary for the redemption of the church has been done finally and completely on the part of Christ. Here, in the heart of the Old Testament, that great redemptive work which Christ performed at Calvary is foreshadowed by the action of Boaz. This is not a spiritualizing of the story of Ruth -- it is bringing us to the very heart of its meaning.

Perhaps a word on Bible interpretation is in order here. There is such a thing as typology -- we see the unity of the Bible in the way in which the Old Testament prepares and anticipates the events of the New, and the way in which the New Testament so magnificently and precisely fulfills the Old. There were things which were symbolic to the people of God in the Old Testament of the realities of the New. For Ruth, the action of Boaz as a redemptive agent was a potent symbol of the security Jehovah was providing for her; and what was symbolic for Ruth becomes typological in our reading of the Bible. Boaz is a 'type' of the redemption that is to come. What Ruth waited for, we know has been fully accomplished for us in Christ.

If I can go a little further, I would say that Ruth herself is a symbol of the whole of the Old Testament church. Just as she came to her redeemer, and waited for the moment when he would make the transaction guaranteeing her security. She had his promise and his pledge. The church in the Old Testament also received God's promise and pledge that a redeemer would come and that in a future moment the great work would be done. The difference between Ruth and us is that we can look back on a work to which Ruth looked forward.

Naomi said to Ruth, "He will finish the thing". The Gospel says to us that our redeemer has indeed finished the thing. We do not come to Christ anticipating that he will redeem; we come to one who has already said "It is finished". He has done all that is necessary in order to redeem. Of course, this will be of no benefit to us unless we come to the threshing floor, to do business with God on the basis of that accomplished redemption, and on the basis of a redeemer who is equipped and able to save because all that is necessary has been transacted in his person on behalf of his own church.

The Work of the Kinsman Redeemer

You remember that the one thing Ruth wanted was the pledge that Boaz would be her kinsman. The Old Testament sheds light for us on the duties that fell to the kinsman. This person was a near relative to the family. Back of the law regarding the kinsman is the emphasis on the family unit. As you know, in the Old Testament the emphasis on the family unit is very marked. There were some circumstances that could arise in the course of family life in the Old Testament that required the services of a kinsman. If, for example, the blood of a member of the family was shed -- if someone was murdered in the family, it was the most serious responsibility of the kinsman to avenge the blood of his relative. It was the kinsman that pursued the murderer. God set apart six cities in Israel to be cities of refuge, to which the slayer of blood could run for refuge and sanctuary. But the slayer of blood was pursued constantly by the kinsman who was going to avenge the death and the blood of his relative.

There were also instances where a member of the family became so poor that he had to sell himself into slavery. It was the responsibility of the kinsman, if he could, to secure a ransom price that would release that person from his slavery and give him freedom.

The particular duty of the kinsman that is highlighted in the Book of Ruth dealt with property. There was a threefold duty of the kinsman to respect the blood of his relative, to respect the liberty of his relative and to respect the property of his relative. And if for some reason that property or that land was forfeited by the man who owned it and was lost to him because he was poor, it was the duty of the kinsman to try and redeem it until the year of jubilee, every fiftieth year in Israel, when the land was restored to those that originally possessed it. But in order that the land would remain within the family unit, the kinsman had that responsibility.

In the case of Ruth, there was this issue of property, this issue of inheritance, arising out of the deaths of Elimelech and his sons, one of whom was Ruth's late husband. Ruth was a widow, she was a Moabitess, she had nothing of her own; the property of Elimelech would have passed to his son, her husband Mahlon, and now he too was gone. There was no-one to keep alive the name or the property of the family or to maintain the inheritance. Ruth needed someone who would stand in the breach and do the duties of a kinsman for her; perhaps too she is contemplating the death of Naomi, which would be additionally disastrous for Ruth.

The great contribution of the Book of Ruth to the theology of the Bible and the revelation of God's salvation is that it sheds light on us for what it means to need a redeemer and to secure the services of a redeemer. Ephesians 2 reminds us that we are by nature foreigners from the inheritance of God's people. "We are aliens," says the Apostle Paul; we are strangers to God and to the promises of his covenant and to all that he has ever done for his people. By nature we do not belong, we have no rights, no lot, no inheritance. And it is because of our poverty and our bankruptcy and our need that we require the work of a kinsman redeemer. He needs to identify with us, to belong to our race. Again and again throughout the Bible, God is the redeemer of his people. The great psalms of redemption shed light for us on the redemptive work of Christ; there is plenteous redemption with Him (Psalm 130:5). This is God's work in Christ, this is what he has accomplished, this is what he is able to perform, he and he alone is the redeemer of the church.

Indeed the Shorter Catechism describes him in no other way. Did you know that the word 'Saviour', for example is not in the Catechism? It's the word 'redeemer' that the Puritans used to speak of the glorious work of Jesus Christ. There can be no salvation unless there is redemption. The redeemer, the only redeemer of God's elect, is the Lord Jesus Christ (see Shorter Catechism Question 21). Ruth needs a redeemer and she finds a redeemer in the person of Boaz.

Let me put it another way. Ruth 4 is going to see Ruth and Boaz marry. Their union will be sealed, and now there is no more doubt and no more uncertainty; now the past is forgotten in the new and higher glory of the marriage union with Boaz. But there can be no wedding unless there is redemption. One of my duties as a minister is to perform marriage ceremonies. People complain, however, of the high cost of getting married. It seems quite ridiculous in our culture that this most basic, fundamental aspect of our society, that a man and a woman should get married, costs so much financially. How much does a wedding cost? Well -- that's the very question that is answered here in Chapter Four of Ruth!

How much does a wedding cost? How much does it cost for a soul to become united to the Saviour? How much does it cost to secure the marriage union of Christ and his Church? How much does it cost to bring these two parties into an unbreakable union and an indissoluble bond? What is the cost of this greatest wedding of all between a saved sinner and a saviour? The cost of that wedding is the price of redemption. And there can be no rejoicing without redemption. There can be no release without redemption; there can be no relief without redemption; there can be no marriage, no union, no marriage blessing, no security for Ruth, no hope apart from this one great transaction for which she is utterly and completely dependent on the movements and the goings of Boaz. She cannot contribute to the work of redemption: she can only wait on what Boaz will do on her behalf. And it is what he will do for her that will secure her union with him.

That is how the Gospel shines through this great Book of Ruth. There can be no union with Christ unless there is a redemptive price paid, and unless the redeemer first does his work. Then, and then only can sinners be saved. So let us just note four aspects of this work in Ruth 4: the person, the place, the price and the purpose of this great redemption.

The Person Who Redeems

All Ruth's interests focus now on one single individual. There are many men in Bethlehem-Judah, there are many field owners in Bethlehem-Judah, there are many men coming and going at the time of harvest but there is only one man whose interests will secure the hope and the security that Ruth needs. All that will be done by way of redemption focuses exclusively on that one person. This is a point that has been emphasised time and again in the course of this great Old Testament book.

Jesus Christ will not share his position as Redeemer with any other. Every sinner who ever came into His Kingdom and who ever found salvation and liberty through the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ found it because he became their everything and their all. And the New Testament church was still in its infancy when that exclusiveness of redemption by Christ was threatened. The letter to the Galatians was one of the earliest of the New Testament documents, and the picture Paul paints there is of a situation in which the exclusiveness of Christ's redeeming work was compromised. False preachers had come into the Galatian churches and instead of preaching 'Jesus only' they began preaching 'Jesus plus': a gospel that was no gospel, a message of Jesus supplemented -- by works of the law, by services of the law, by circumcision, by baptism, by all these other things that were important in their own right. But when these things detract from the exclusiveness of Jesus Christ they endanger the very Gospel itself. It must be Jesus alone, not another, not Jesus in addition to someone or something else, not supplemented by anything else, but Jesus only. It was a lesson the disciples needed to learn on the Mount of Transfiguration, late into Jesus' ministry. Even after having listened to him preach, the lesson needed to be reinforced there. A cloud had to come and take Moses and Elijah away, so that they would be left with no man but Jesus only (??).

What it was about her redeemer that gave encouragement to Ruth? It was this: the words of Naomi to her when she returned home. "Sit still my daughter, until you discover how the matter will fall, for the man will not rest until he has finished the thing this day." It's an interesting thing that there are three different Hebrew words translated 'rest' in the Book of Ruth. The first is in Ruth 1:9, when Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, on the road from Moab, "The Lord grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband." The word rest there simply means "a place to stay". So Orpah went back there, and found a place to stay in Moab. But Ruth could not do that. The rest she wanted and needed was a deeper rest.

At Ruth 3:1, the word 'rest' means 'a place to stand'. It's the same word we have in the story of Noah when the dove came back with the leaf because she could find no rest, no 'standing place' for her feet. But here at the end of Chapter Three we have another word: "The man will not be in rest." This time it means a place of quiet, where there is no more business to be done. It signals that everything has been accomplished; there are no more words to be spoken, no more actions to be performed, everything has been finalised and settled. Ruth found no rest in Moab. Naomi wanted Ruth to find a place of standing in Israel. But that was impossible until Boaz rested from his labour as the redeemer of Ruth.

And the great portrait that we have of Christ in the Gospels is of one who would not rest until he had done all that was required for his people and their salvation. They needed rest. They needed a place of standing, because for sinners there is no standing in the presence of God. In order to secure a standing for them, their redeemer would not rest. Throughout his life, Jesus is restless to perform the work that has been given him to do. He has been swallowed up with zeal for the house of Jehovah. He set his face like a flint towards Jerusalem and nothing would detract him or distract him from his great purpose. "I am baptized" he says, "with a baptism. I am straightened until its accomplished" (??). And even when Peter said to him, "Be this far fromyou," Jesus replied "No, the Son of Man must go to Jerusalem and he must suffer and he must suffer at the hands of the Chief Priests and be crucified and rise again" (??). There is a 'must' about it all. And at last in the garden of Gethsemane, when the shadows of Calvary flit over the human soul of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no avoiding the cup, no distraction from it nor dilution of it. What he is given is an unmingled cup to drink. God required that Jesus Christ experience wrath unmitigated, undiluted, unmixed. He must take it as it is. And he is not going to rest until he secures a ransom price for his church.

Shall we say that the glory of the Gospel is to be found in our restless Redeemer, to whom has been committed the work of redemption on behalf of his people, and who will not rest until he can say, "It is finished." The thing is finished, the last word is spoken, the last act performed, the last sacrifice offered, he is the last great High Priest. He has effected the transaction, the thing is over. And only then, does he rest in the grave on the Sabbath day as he did when he created the world, worked for six days and rested the seventh. The Lord did the same. On the evening of that Friday on the cross of Calvary, he said, "It is finished." And all day Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, he rested from his labour, in the tomb of Joseph. When he rose on the first day of the week, he left the old Sabbath in the grave, and he brought a new Sabbath out of the grave for his people in the New Testament. Unlike the church of the Old Testament, we no longer look forward to the Sabbath. In the course of our week, we begin with Sabbath rest. We begin with the sign of resurrection, of work completed, of victory and fulfilment by Christ on our behalf. This one has done all that was necessary for our redemption.

I must translate all of this for myself and ask "What does this mean?" It means that as far as the salvation of my soul is concerned there is nothing for me to do but come to the blood of Christ. The depth and the profundity of the Gospel are nowhere seen as they are seen in the simplicity of its invitation. You must come to a perfect redeemer with a finished redemption.

The Place of Redemption

And then I want you to notice the place of this redemption. Where did Boaz go in order to redeem? He went to the gate of the city, and he gathered there with the elders of the city, who met there to transact the business of the city. It was at the gate of the city that all the official business was conducted and was contracted.

You remember that when Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel he did it at the gates of the city, where people went in and out. They looked for justice and someone to plead their cause. There was Absalom, waiting there to swallow them and to steal their hearts, at the gate of the city (??). You remember where Jehu slew the sons of Ahab -- he did so at the gates of the city (??). At the gate of the city was the place where justice and righteousness were upheld and where judgement was transacted. At the gates of the city the claims of God's law were applied to the lives of his people. Psalm 87 (??) tells us that more than Jacob's dwellings all, God delights in the gates of Zion, because he is a just God, and righteousness, justice and truth belong to him. God upholds truth and righteousness in every aspect of his being and in every aspect of his activity.

So it was to the gate of the city that Boaz went. He could not redeem Ruth in private. The law could not allow him to do so. What required to be done required to be done in full view of the elders of the city at the gate of the city. Indeed, there is the greatest contrast drawn for us in this book between the place to which Ruth came, and the place to which Boaz came. The contrast was this: Ruth could come to her redeemer in the quiet of midnight, when no other eye could see; and in the privacy of that meeting that she received from Boaz the pledge and the undertaking of his redemptive work.

But in order to redeem, he had to go in the light of the morning sun to the gate of the city, and present himself to the elders in order to redeem her. So it is not insignificant that the writer to the Hebrews says of our great redeemer that "in order to sanctify the people with his blood, he suffered outside the gate" (Hebrews 13:12). That's where he went. He could not die in private. Eyes had to be on him when redeemed his church. The eyes of God were upon him: when he dealt definitively and finally with the sins of his people, he was before the bar of God in full view of the throne of Heaven. He was in full view of the princes of the earth, who did not know what they were doing; for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8). The eyes of humankind looked and stared on Jesus, just as the Psalmist had prophesied: "Upon me they look and they stare" (Psalm 22:17).

Boaz went to the elders of the city in order to do for Ruth what she could not do for herself, and in order to transact business that would secure hope and blessing, not for him but for her. He goes there as her representative, in her place. And were you to ask Boaz as he makes his way to the entrance of the city, "Boaz, who are you thinking of?" he would say, "I am thinking of Ruth." And if you were to ask him as he sits there with the elders transacting business, "What are you thinking of?" he would say, I am thinking of Ruth the Moabitess. If, in the middle of the transaction, you were able to uncover the heart of Boaz, you would find Ruth.

Let me take you to the cross of Calvary, to the death of Christ, to the finished work of the Saviour. Let me be so bold as to uncover the heart of Christ, as he is crucified between two malefactors. What do I find when I uncover his heart? I see there his church. When I uncover his affections, I see there his bride. And when I uncover his purposes, I see there his beloved. He is not thinking of himself. He is thinking of the church that he came to redeem. Powerless to redeem herself; he is there for her. Do you know what it is to have such a saving interest in Christ as to be able to say, "He loved me and that's why he gave himself"?

But there's more. Boaz is going to show favour to Ruth. He is going to redeem property, in order to provide security for Ruth, and he can only do it on the grounds of law and of righteousness. Grace, as the New Testament reminds us reigns through righteousness (Romans ??), and upholds the demands and the dignity of law. Although it is true that from one angle a righteousness apart from the deeds of the law has now been made manifest (??), the concept of righteousness has no meaning apart from law. So what Paul means is that there is now a righteousness for us that does not depend on law-keeping on our part, since that is the very point at issue -- we are sinners and, by definition, law-breakers. If we are to be accepted and declared righteous in the sight of God, we need to rely on the righteousness -- the law-keeping -- of another.

So Boaz comes to the gates of the city where justice is upheld. Boaz was probably one of the elders himself -- he certainly cut a large and important figure in Bethlehem at this time. But that apart, it is only in terms of the law of God that redemption can be effected. In the same way, the Lord Jesus Christ, my redeemer, and Saviour, does not secure my pardon except on the grounds of righteousness. He has upheld God's law, he has made it honourable; and, what is more, every claim that the law of God ever made upon me he has satisfied by upholding all that the law required. He has not simply wiped out all my debts -- it would be no Gospel for me to be told that all my debts had simply been overlooked or somehow forgotten. No, the Gospel does not say to me that he has wiped my debts away, the Gospel says to me that he has actually paid them and upheld righteousness.

But there is more. Not only does Boaz show favour to Ruth on the basis of righteousness at the gate of the city, but he does so once and for all. Boaz is here so that Ruth will not need to come here. He is here so that Ruth will not need to come here after this. He is here so that Ruth will not have to come here ever again. He is here in order to secure the redemption once, and if it is redemption once it's redemption for always. Once there has been a transaction, here is no possibility of retraction, because he effected it without distraction. The glory of the Gospel is that was done once was done once for all. He went to the cross and offered an unrepeated and unrepeatable offering to deal with our sins in the presence of God.

The Price of Redemption

What was the price of redemption? There is no figure set upon the value of the life and property of Elimelech, which would have passed to Chilion and Mahlon, but one thing is clear. There was another man, another relative, who might have redeemed the property and married Ruth. Indeed, he was ready to do so (4:4) until he realised the greater cost -- the duty that would fall to him to marry Ruth and raise up a family in the name of Elimelech and his son Mahlon.

This, of course, adds a note of tension into the story. Naomi has advertised her intention to sell the property (4:3), and Boaz has indicated his willingness to buy it, and to perform the duties of a kinsman-redeemer. Back of both of these decisions is the obvious fact that Boaz has fallen in love with Ruth. Suddenly, his plans are jeopardised by the appearance of this contender. There is another option. It is not Boaz's preferred option (nor, by now, is it the reader's), but it is the option set forth in the law.

The story, of course, turns on the information Boaz supplies in 4:5 -- "the day you buy the field from Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth, the widow, to perpetuate the name of the dead man and retain the property in the family". We cannot underemphasise the importance of land in the Old Testament, nor the importance of ownership and inheritance laws. Perhaps the nearer relative only had his eye on the profit that he might accrue from the property, without paying regard to the laws regarding its future possession, and the requirement to retain it within the family of Elimelech. The issue is settled when this player in the drama concedes the redemption right to Boaz. Willing though he may have been to secure possession of the land, he is unable to do it. "'I can't redeem it', the family redeemer replied, 'because this might endanger my own estate. You redeem the land; I cannot do it'" (4:6, NLT). This probably meant not that he was not sufficiently wealthy at present to afford the purchase price, but that to obtain the land would threaten the inheritance of his own children. Supposing he were to marry Ruth and father children in the name of Mahlon, he would only complicate the inheritance and future possession of his own estate. He might gain the land, only for his descendants to lose what they already have.

The statement that he was willing for Boaz to fulfill the duties of redeemer was followed by the strange sandal-ceremony of 4:7-8. There may be a connection with the law of Deuteronomy 25:5-10, although the stipulations of that passage seem slightly different to the situation here. One commentator suggests an interesting connection with the uncovering of the feet in 3:4,7. However, the idea is probably rooted in the fact that ownership was often signified by setting foot on the land, as in the case of Israel in Joshua 1:3, who were told that they would possess those parts of Canaan upon which their feet would tread. To remove one's sandal, therefore, may have represented a forfeiting of possession rights, or, in this case, may have been a statement of non-interest in possession of the land.

In any case, the symbolic gesture was enough to allow Boaz to declare his purchase of the land and his intention to marry Ruth (4:9-10). The deed was done. The obstacles were overcome. The threat was not realised. Love had triumphed.

We must be careful that, in interpreting the symbols of the Old Testament legitimately as typology, we do not go to the opposite extreme of an unwarranted spiritualising or allegorising of the text. It will not do to try to spiritualise the role of the nearer relative, who threatens to spoil the love story. On the other hand, the point is clear: the total act of redemption could not be performed by anyone but Boaz. His contender could not afford all that was required in the redemption price.

There are many contenders out to obtain control of our lives and souls, but every one of them will falls short. There was someone here who declared an interest, but who could not secure redemption. The claim of Boaz, however, was enough. And the price Boaz paid was sufficient when every other price fell short of what was required. He paid what secured the redemption of the property. And here he foreshadows the great Redeemer of the New Testament, the Son of Man who came not be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom (Mark 10:45). Christ uses these images and categories of redemption for interpreting his own mission and life. The rest and security that his people need can only be provided upon payment of a sufficient ransom (cf. Job 33:24). Less than the giving of himself was not sufficient; more than the giving of himself was not required. Christ has paid the redemption price which redeems and releases a soul from sin.

The Purpose of Redemption

So what was the purpose of this redemption? Why did Boaz do what he did? He did it in order to buy all that was Elimelech's, to buy all that was Chilion's and Mahlon's and more than this, to purchase Ruth to be his wife. In his public statement of 4:10, there is an echo of times past. Boaz names her Ruth the Moabitess. And she is thus named for the last time! Boaz redeems Ruth in order to have her to be his bride, not so that she will remain a Moabitess but so that she will come into the family of the covenant people of God. He redeems in order to marry, and when he marries Ruth, the Moabitess is no more. Ruth is his, and his alone.

Union is effected on the basis of redemption, and a new day dawns. Old things pass away, and all things become new. Love has found a way to wipe out every trace of the past, and to wipe away tears forever. There was a day when Ruth buried her love in Moab. Now love buries away Moab forever, and Ruth is brought into the covenant bond through her marriage to Boaz. She becomes an heiress of God and a joint-heir with Boaz of all the promises God covenanted to his people. She has truly been born again.

© Iain D. Campbell 2001