In the natural realm, to see the substance of a shadow as it is cast upon the ground, be it a cloud, an airplane, a bird, or a tree, one must look up. Of greatest importance in this exposition of Ruth is the author’s proof that it is no less so with the example and shadow of heavenly things (Spiritual things) cast from the story of Ruth and Boaz. As the Lord Jesus Christ spoke in parables, so the prophets of old speaking before Him, spoke through types, shadows, and pictures—metaphors. As author Tim James states in his introduction, the Book of Ruth is not so much about Ruth and Boaz as it is about Boaz the Kinsman-Redeemer (Christ) and Ruth’s redemption as his bride (the church). Clearly, his desire is for the reader to see Christ with the eyes of faith, high and lifted up, sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Some may suppose that he sees Christ where he is not, but the Lord Jesus Christ declared Himself to be the subject of all the Scriptures in saying, “They are they which speak of me.” Tim’s expositions from Ruth take on the style of Christ, who after having spoken in parables to the multitudes, then revealed the sense of them to his disciples. Concerning the parable of the sower, Christ revealed to his disciples, “The seed is the Word.” On another occasion He taught emphatically, “He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one.” By that example, Tim runs immediately to say, Boaz is Christ—our kinsman redeemer and great Savior. Ruth is the bride of Christ—the church, the people of God, the elect. How could the fact that Boaz was the son of a whore (Rahab the harlot) have anything to do with things concerning Christ? What things of Christ can be learned by Ruth’s entrance into Boaz’s bedchamber to lay at his feet asking that he spread his skirt over her? What things of Christ are taught by the nearer kinsman to Ruth being unwilling to redeem her and, in his refusal, removing his shoe? “All these things happened unto them for [examples]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11). What things can be gleaned from these metaphors? They are things of Christ, precious things; gracious things; comforting things; merciful things for sinners who have need of a great Savior!
