He Must Be Free Himself
The Kinsman Redeemer #4
Submitted by Ted Mock
May 21, 2025
Heb 2:14-16 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; 15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Boaz met the qualifications as the kinsman redeemer by virtue of his near relationship to the Elimelech family, his willingness to redeem, and that he had the ability to pay the price of redemption.
But he could never redeem if he himself were not free. Scripture tells us he was a rich man who never had to mortgage any of his lands, or to sell himself into bondage to pay unsettled debt. He was a free man—free from bondage and free from the curse of a Moabite Gentile. He was of the tribe of Judah, part of the godly line that stretched from the Garden to the Cross. His hands, not shackled by slavery and of the promised line, he had the riches to redeem.
When Eve delivered her firstborn son, she thought he might be the one to break the curse of sin. But instead of being the redeemer, he would be the first murderer. Every child born of Adam would bear the seed of sin from their father. The only exception would be the promised One, born not of Adam, but the very Son of God, born to Mary. Gabriel told Mary, “That holy thing…shall be called the Son of God.”
Jesus Christ was our sinless Saviour who was not subject to death because He was free from the penalty of sin. He went to the cross, not because of His sin, but because of my sin, and the sin of the world, to pay the price of redemption.
Our Kinsman Redeemer was born an Israelite, a son of Abraham, the second Adam, and our near kinsman. He willingly went to the cross to pay the price of our redemption.
Christ was not born under the slavery of sin, for He knew no sin and was never subject to it. On the cross, being sinless, our Redeemer was free. It was the slavery and the sin of man that our Redeemer bore on the cross.
He was free, and died to make us free—free indeed!
Consider – The way of the cross leads home. The way of the home needs to lead to the cross.
