Kinsman Redeemer. That’s not a term you hear used in today’s language at all. Perhaps you’ve never even heard of the term. It is a concept found specifically in the Old Testament but appears in the New Testament though only as a backdrop of a bigger picture. In fact, it may actually be lost among other “Christianese” and theological terms that we are more familiar with. I’ve been writing a commentary on the book of Ruth recently though for school and the concept is painted beautifully there.
So what in the world is this? A kinsman redeemer, spoken of in Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 25, was a close male relative who “had the privilege or responsibility to act on behalf of a relative who was in trouble, danger, or need” (GotQuestions.org). Such an individual was responsible to: marry the childless widow of a dead brother (Deut 25:5-10), buy back family land that’d been sold (Lev 25:25), buy back a family member sold into slavery (Lev 25:47-49), and look after needy and/or helpless family members (Lev 25:25).
In the book of Ruth, Boaz becomes that person, the kinsman redeemer. He rescues Naomi & Ruth who were both widows as well as poor and in great need. He does so by purchasing the family land & marrying Ruth to provide an heir for the family line. This Sunday, being the first one of the month, we observe communion together as a church family. As I have been thinking forward to that day and working on this school project on Ruth, I keep thinking of Christ as our kinsman redeemer.
If you read Ruth 3, you see this concept unfold. Ruth approaches Boaz after having gleaned from his fields for the last couple of months. As she comes to him, “we see the beautiful and poignant picture of the needy supplicant, unable to rescue herself, requesting of the kinsman redeemer that he cover her wit his protection, redeemer her, and maker her his wife” (GotQuestions.org).
Now think to the Lord’s Table and the symbols used, the bread and the cup (1 Corinthians 11). The bread symbolizing his body given for us. The cup his blood shed for the forgiveness of sins. I wrote this some years ago: Jesus as a man was related to us, and as God He was able to pay off the [sin] debt for all mankind for all time in full (Rom 3:23; 6:23). Jesus gave himself as the purchase price for our sin that he might redeem us from sin’s curse and make us children of God to the glory of God the Father (Rev 5:9-10). He made us his bride, the church (Ephesians 5).
With those thoughts in mind, read through the book of Ruth sometime or again. You’ll never see those pages in the same light as they remind you what Jesus did hundreds of years later after they were originally recorded. We praise God that Jesus was both God and Man, our kinsman redeemer, who was able to rescue and redeem us, giving us life eternal. And we echo the living creatures and elders of Revelation 5 in saying, “All praise and honor and glory be unto Him!”