The Law of the Kinsman Redeemer has been on my mind over the last few days. It’s an often overlooked concept that is buried deep in the pages of the Old Testament, most notably in the book of Ruth. In ancient Israel, slavery was a common part of everyday life. The children of slaves were destined to be slaves. Neighboring enemy nations would pillage, and those people they didn’t kill, they would take captive as slaves. If an Israelite fell on hard times and declared bankruptcy, they had to sell themselves into slavery in order to pay their debts and save their families from starvation.
The only hope that those captive to the bonds of slavery had was a kinsman redeemer. This was the only way that they would ever be able to live a life of freedom. There are 4 requirements in order to fulfill this Old Testament law:*
- He must be near of kin. (Leviticus 25:48; 25:25 Ruth 3:12–13)
- He must be able to redeem by being free himself.(Ruth 4:4–6).
- He must be willing to redeem (Ruth 4:6)
- Redemption was completed when the price was completely paid (Leviticus 25:27; Ruth 4:7-11).
Christ is our kinsman because he took on flesh. He was 100% man while still being 100% Divine. He became our kinsman not just in the sense that he had a physical body. He also experienced the grief, betrayal, temptation, and anguish that we do. He is a God who can relate to our tremendous struggles.
For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:18).
Christ was able to redeem us because He is free himself. He was the only man on earth who was not in bondage to sin. In order to pay the debts of all mankind, it wasn’t enough for the kinsman redeemer to be merely free in the physical sense. He had to be a sinless, divine being. That’s the only ransom that would cover the debts of a bankrupt humankind.
Of all of the requirements of the kinsman redeemer, the one that astonishes me the most is that He was willing. Mankind was the equivalent of a ruined pot of soup, the logical solution would have been to feed it to the dog, scrub the pot, and start again. Instead, God the Father was willing to sacrifice His own Son to redeem it.
I am overcome by how radical Grace is. It literally upended the law of the universe. It is undisputed natural law that you reap what you sow, that what goes up must come down, that you get back what you put in. And then…Grace shatters everything we know about karma. Suddenly, we get what we don’t deserve. Because of love, Jesus gives His perfect, sinless, precious life to heal us, to buy us back, to redeem us. We are worth the Son to the Father.
He goes to the cross, the grave, and then the very pit of Hell until our ransom’s paid. And if that were the end of the story, it would be no story at all. Satan and all his minions could not keep Him under. Because He resurrected He not only bought us back into freedom, He abolished slavery forever.
“He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes, we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
Rejoice this day in your Kinsman Redeemer-The hope of all mankind! The price is completely paid. He lived, He died and most imperatively, He rose.
*If you would like to read an in depth essay on the Law of the Kinsman Redeemer, I loved this site.
We live in a dangerous world. Whether it’s more dangerous now then it has been in the past is debatable in my mind. I think our perspective on the level of danger in the world is skewed by the speed at which information travels. A child is abducted and we receive an Amber Alert text message within minutes. A tsunami hits, and we see near live footage of the wave hitting the shore 2000 miles across the sea. This world has always been brutal, terrifying, deranged and desperately wicked.
An Irish Blessing-
