Christ is our example to follow in all things. Christ sets the example and invites us to follow. He offers his salvation to all men regardless of race, cred, color, or any type of pedigreed ancestry. And herein lies a key to the example which the Savior has set in his own ancestry. But before we get into that ancestry parallel betwwen Christ's performance and the performance in his own ancestry, a little ground work about Christ's performance and how it works for our benefit is perhaps needed.

Christ's Vicarious Work for Us

Vicarious work is when one performs for one what another cannot do for themsleves. In the LDS Church we have an understanding of such vicarious works as we perform them in our temples every day. We perform baptisms for the dead. We perform inicitory and endowment work for the death. We perform marriages and sealings for the dead. All this we do so that those who have died in times past, who have not had access to the Gospel of Christ, may also have access to Christ's Gospel plan and atomement. But that brings us to the greatest vicarious work of them all.

Just like we perform vicarious ordinance work for the dead in their behalf so that they might receive the blessings of heaven, so has Christ once performs his great vicarious work which has made it all possible. Without Christ's universal vicarious performance, we would be confined to live forever in our sins. Christ has performed a great vicarious work for all mankind. He has taken upon himselves the sins of all the world, so that mankind may be redeemed from the fall of Adam. Without getting into a lengthy discussion concerning Christ's Atonement and how it works, for our discussion here it is enough to understand that Jesus has performed this great vicarious work for each of us. In our behalf, he has met the divine requirements of redeeming us from the sinful nature of the natural man which our mortal being has placed us within. Without that vicarious performance in our behalf, we would not be able to return to our Father in Heaven and live as his children in his kingdom again.

The point is that 'vicarious' or surrogate performances are legally and lawfully acceptable by God for the benefit of mortal man under God's rules and laws. Such performances are just as lawful, legal and rightfully obtained as though the 'redeemed' or benefitting party had performed them for themselves. Thus through Christ we may have our sins removed as if we had we had suffered for them ourselves.

Entrance into Christ's family is symbolically entered into by man being 'born again' or born anew in him. Whether Abraham be our father or not, whether we are of the House of Israel or not, by entering into the covenant of baptism, being born again, accepting Christ as our spiritual father of that rebirth, and living that rebirth in body and soul brings any and all into the family of Christ, We become his sons and his daughters. We become his children. And he Father's us into the Kingdom of God through his atoning sacrifice and gift of eternal life. No worthy particant is refused. All can become the sons and daughters of God, of Christ. We don't need to literally be his genetic offspring. We become his rightful and legal heirs and children by the vicarious performance on his part of being our redeemer. And by us receiving him worthly as being our father.

This rebirth in Christ is as legal and binding, even more so than any tie between a literal and genetic father and child. And this vicarious performance has it own forshadow, counterpart and type in the very ancestry of Jesus Christ himself. The forshadow, counterpart and typing is performed in the relationship between Obed, Boaz and Mahlon. Obed was literally the of the bloodline of Boaz a descentant of Judah. Yet it was by way of Obed becoming the son of the redeeming Boaz, that Obed became the rightful heir and legal inheritor of his rightful and legal parent under God's Law of Mahlon. So it is that by becoming the sons and daughters of Christ in his vicarious performance in our behalf that we can return to the Kingdom of God the Father and become his heirs of His Kingdom through our redeeming mediator Jesus Christ.

Thus in the life of Christ's ancestors and the relationship between Mahlon, Boaz and Obed is the performance of the redeeming gospel of Jesus Christ foreshadowed in how it is effected and brought about. John the Baptist taught that pride in literal ancestry is but a falst hope as he taught the Pharisees that 'even of these stones could God raise up seed unto Abraham.' And thus it was, it was not necessary for Obed to be genetically parented from Ephraim and Jospeh of Egypt for him to be legally and rightfully the seed of Joseph and the anticipated Messiah ben Joseph. By vicarious ordinances of God's law could one become the legal and rightful seed in the in the gospel of God.

Obed was the legal and rightful seed of Mahlon the Ephrathite by way of the vicaious surrogate performance of the parentage of Boaz. We can return to God the Father and his Kingdom as we become the sons and daughters of Jesus Christ and place into active effect his vicarious performance for us in our behalf of the redeeming atonement performace of Christ. And just as effective under the Law of God is the effects of Obed being the legal heir of Mahlon through Boaz's perfomance as it is for us to become heirs of God the Father through the mediating performance of our parenting malefactor redeemer, Jesus Christ.