Heb No.15 Jesus and Melchizedek 7v1-28

Now, let's turn to Hebrews chapter 7, as we come to this rather intriguing study in which the character of Melchizedek is lifted out of the Old Testament and placed alongside that of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, we are given the view or views of these two remarkable men, and then squashed in between, so to speak, we look at the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament. So, here in this seventh chapter, we have three aspects of priesthood brought to our attention.

That of Melchizedek, that of the Levites, the priesthood that had its origin in Aaron, and that of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll see how the first one, Melchizedek, points forward to the last one. We'll see how the second one is reduced in stature as we compare it with the first one, and we'll see how the third one, that of the Lord Jesus, fulfills all that was expected by that of Melchizedek, until it can be said of our Saviour in a very real, a very wonderful way, that He is priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Now, this is going to be a difficult study, and to try to compress the teaching of these 28 verses that constitute this chapter into some 35 or 40 minutes is really to attempt the impossible. We have already been warned by the writer of Hebrews that what he has to share with the people is not for those of immature minds, those who are content like babies to be fed with milk, those who want just to be dwarfs in their understanding. What he's got to share, alas, it can't apply to these people, because what he demands of those who will study out what he wants to bring to their attention is concentration and a concern to come to grips with some of the wonderful but deep, profound teaching of God's Word.

You remember how he tells us of his concern earlier on in the fifth chapter that the people to whom he's writing might become more mature in the sixth verse and the ninth verse of the earlier chapters, he has that particular comment to make. A very difficult study, and he says in the 11th verse of chapter 5, we have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain, because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's Word all over again.

Well, he uses that as an introduction, perhaps to stimulate these people, perhaps to make them feel, well, we're not like that, we're not immature, we're not dwarfs in our understanding, we want to be men, we want to be spiritual giants, we want to have an understanding of the deep things of God's Word. So what he wanted to share in the fifth chapter, and just touches on by way of prediction, he now in the seventh chapter makes clear what he said was going to be difficult. He now seizes by the horns, so to speak, and brings it in front of his readers, and he's going to talk, as I've just intimated a few moments ago, about Melchizedek and the Lord Jesus and the Levitical priesthood.

Now, this character, Melchizedek, is really very, very interesting. There's only two mentions of him in the Old Testament, and were it not for the writer of Hebrews, you might think that though he's an intriguing character, he doesn't really have much theological significance. But when you come to the Hebrews, and you will find that this is the only reference in the New Testament to Melchizedek, a great superstructure, a great building of theology is erected on the person of Melchizedek.

And really, the argument of the writer to the Hebrews is this, unless you grasp something of the ministry of Melchizedek in the 14th chapter of the first book of the Bible, you will never fully understand just how exquisite is God's plan of salvation, and how unique is the person of Jesus Christ, because what Melchizedek anticipates, Jesus fulfills. I'm always amazed in Bible study, and I think this came out when I got a little bit excited last week, that in the Old Testament, the plan of salvation is latent. There, in the early chapters of Genesis, as you study the life of Abraham, you have a projection of the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith.

You remember how this is brought out in the sixth chapter of Hebrews. There, in the early part of the Old Testament, the gospel message is anticipated, and you come to the conclusion by the time that you have read Genesis, that God is more concerned about the faith relationship than that a man may have with Him than all the priestly practices that the Old Testament depicts the Jewish people as engaging in. Now, similarly, we will discover this evening, not only is justification by faith anticipated in the Old Testament, not only is it illustrated by Abraham's offering of Isaac as a sacrifice before the Lord, believing that God will bring back Isaac from the dead, if only to keep His word, but you'll discover that the high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ, in all its majesty, in all its glory, in all its eternity, is set forth in that mysterious figure of Melchizedek, who flits across the 14th chapter, as I say, of the book of Genesis.

Well, before I come to touch on Melchizedek with some detail, let me just take you through these 28 verses of this seventh chapter of Hebrews, lifting out one or two stepping stones, because unless we do this, then I think you'll probably fall into the stream and not really understand quite where our writer is going. I've lifted out, in the notes that I've given you, 10 stepping stones which will help you to get the whole thing into some perspective. In the first verse, we read that Melchizedek met Abraham after Abraham had indulged in a battle, and Melchizedek was given tithes by the patriarch.

We also discover, as our third stepping stone, that Melchizedek's name is extremely interesting. From the second and the fourth verse, you're driven to grasp the fact that the name Melchizedek, King of Salem, means righteousness and peace. Another thing that you are to grasp about Melchizedek, as you make your way through this chapter, is that we don't really have too much understanding about where he came from, nor where he went to, after his encounter with Abraham.

There seems to be very few details given about Melchizedek's background, indeed. Let's move on to what I list as the fifth stepping stone, which is found in the fifth and the eighth verses of our chapter. Abraham was obviously the father of the Levites, because the Levites were one of the 12 tribes of Israel which have as their ultimate ancestry Abraham.

So in one sense, Abraham, representing the Levites, the priesthood which was yet to come, paid tithes to Melchizedek. Something else about that Levitical priesthood, to which reference has just been made, in the eleventh and the fourteenth verses, we discover that it was an imperfect priesthood. Look at the eleventh verse as I read it to you in the NIV.

If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood, now skipping a sentence, why was there still need for another priest to come? So there's problems. As far as the priesthood that came out of the loins of Abraham is concerned, the Levitical priesthood. The next stepping stone that you have to bear in mind is that the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ is not traced back to Levi.

Jesus came from the tribe of Judah, not from the tribe of Levi, and that's going to be a very interesting point in the argument of the writer, as you'll discover in a few moments' time. The eighth stepping stone which I pick out from the sixteenth, seventeenth and twenty-first verses, your eyes will really be agile by the time you've finished the study this evening, flipping from one verse to another. The next thing to point out is that Jesus' priesthood is permanent and it's built on his indestructible life and God's oath.

The Levitical priesthood was not permanent. The ninth stepping stone is that Jesus' pure life enabled him to offer a sacrifice for sins which was unique and which satisfied God's justice forever. And the tenth stepping stone, well that indicates in the twenty-seventh and the twenty-eighth verses that the Levites were unable, the Levites were unable to do what the Lord Jesus had done because their lives were not perfect and they ultimately died, having endeavored to offer a sacrifice for their sins.

So then you've got these ten things to bear in mind. Don't, however, get too confused. Let's just go through one or two items again before I break it up, our study this evening, into three major headings.

On the one hand, there's this man Melchizedek, a remarkable man whose story we read in the early verses or the early chapters of the book of Genesis. We know very, very little about this man but what we are told is that he is a priest of the Most High God. Another thing that we don't learn, if you like, about this man is where he came from and where ultimately he went to.

He suddenly occurs on the pages of Scripture unannounced just like Elijah and he mysteriously disappears. And in that sense he's very much not like Jesus as the Son of Man but Christ as the Son of God on the divine level without mother and without father on the divine level and never dying. Now Abraham comes along and you remember what had happened to Abraham.

He'd been looking after Lot and Lot needed a great deal of looking after because he'd been taken prisoner by some kings and Abraham charges off into a valley with some crack troops from his own household and Lot is set free. And as Abraham moves back to his encampment he meets up with this mysterious fellow Melchizedek, this priest, and he does obeisance to him. He acknowledges him as being a servant of the Most High God.

So that's an interesting thing. Abraham who is the forerunner, the founder of the Jewish nation, offers tithes to Melchizedek who is a Gentile priest. Now I say that's going to be significant because Abraham obviously is a man who founded not only the Jewish nation but that part of the Jewish nation that gave us the Levitical priesthood.

So in one sense you could say that Abraham representing the Levites did honor to Melchizedek. Now that would have been a fantastic thought for the Jewish writers or rather the Jewish readers of this epistle. In effect the writer is saying you folks who are getting so concerned about Jewish tradition and Jewish history did you ever think of this that Abraham acknowledged a Gentile priest-king as being a servant of the living God and he paid him tithes? If Abraham represents Levi and the Levitical priesthood and he pays tithes and does obeisance to Melchizedek, does it not indicate that there is a priesthood superior to that of the Levites which is anticipated in the Old Testament by what Abraham did? And you see if you've got that picture in mind then you can follow through the main thrust of the writer's argument when he goes back to Melchizedek peeping over his shoulder and then he strains forward to the Lord Jesus and he said you Jewish people who are getting so concerned about the Levitical priesthood and the law and Moses and all that God did through Moses and through the priesthood, don't you realize that God has got something infinitely greater in store for us that the law and the Old Testament cultic offerings were just a temporary thing because the law could not save, because the priests were inadequate, the priests died, the priests were sinners, the priests in themselves could not act efficiently forever for themselves let alone anyone else.

Don't you realize that there must be something far greater than the Levitical priesthood to come? Someone far greater than Aaron or any of his successors and that person who is to come has been typified centuries ago not as a Jew but as a Gentile priest king, Melchizedek who points forward like John the Baptist was to point forward to the Lord Jesus. He points forward to the Messiah and all that is typified in the Melchizedek priesthood, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfills in a remarkable way so that it can be said of Jesus that He is high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Well I wonder if that's made it more clear than just those 10 stepping stones.

I hope so. Let's go back now over the three aspects of this chapter that open themselves up under the headings which I suggest to you on my outline. In the first few verses maybe going down to the 17th or rather the 22nd verse you discover the superiority of Melchizedek's priesthood argued for the superiority of Melchizedek's priesthood.

The writer will turn his readers not only to Genesis 14 but also to Psalm 110 in endeavoring to illustrate just how supreme, how important this priesthood is. And there are three things that he has to tell us in particular, one of which I've touched on already twice concerning this priesthood. He's going to refer to its ancestry, he's going to refer to the attributes of the priest, and he's also going to refer to the authority of Melchizedek.

As to his ancestry, well as I've informed you nothing really was known. Look at the third verse, Melchizedek is without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life. Like the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

Now the book of Genesis has many, many genealogies. You know what a genealogy is? It traces your pedigree back to your father, to your grandfather, to your great, great grandfather. I've always wanted to work out the genealogy of the sergeant household and I've got a cousin in the north of England who is at the moment studying it.

And if we dig up anyone who was really famous in our family tree, you can be assured that I will work it into a sermon illustration in the tabernacle. If however we dig up something that is not so nice and find that we have some rather infamous ancestors, then I'll say nothing at all. But as far as the ancestors of Melchizedek are concerned, we know nothing.

And as far as his future was concerned when he left Abraham, we know nothing. It seems as though the writer of Genesis, Moses, deliberately left us just with a fleeting glance, a fleeting glimpse of Melchizedek. As though in one sense, obviously not literally, but as though in one sense he had something of eternity within his priesthood.

Look at that quotation I give you from a theologian by the name of Delitzsch, which is spelt wrongly there in the notes. The actual historical Melchizedek no doubt died, but the Melchizedek of the sacred narrative does nothing but live, fixed as it were in unchangeable existence by the pencil of inspiration, and so made the type of the eternal priest the Son of God. As Jesus at the divine level has no ancestry because he ever exists, as at the divine level he never ceases to exist, so Melchizedek typifies this in regard to the Son of God.

And for his attributes, well, King of Righteousness we're informed in the second verse, again I'm working from the NIV, and then King of Salem, which means King of Peace. These two characteristics, righteousness and peace, are basic to the gospel, are they not? We're justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. We inherit his righteousness, and the person who does just that, they know peace with the living God.

So Melchizedek, who comes from Salem, which name in the Old Testament stands for Jerusalem, proof of that is in Psalm 76 verse 2, incidentally, though there's no need to check it up at this moment, you can just believe me. Melchizedek, who comes from Jerusalem, who, because he's anonymous, seems to be an illustration of someone who has an eternal characteristic also in his very names, speaks of righteousness and peace. And in those senses he typifies the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as for the authority of Melchizedek, well look how he's described in the first verse. He's King of Salem and Priest of God Most High. Do you know, I find this very interesting.

I'm having to watch the clock this evening and I can't allow myself too many little meanders. But is it not compelling that though Melchizedek was a Gentile, he still worshipped the living God? As though during the days of Abraham, there were still those who were not going to be Jews, not of Abraham's household, who nonetheless recognized who God was. You see, I believe that Scripture teaches, in the beginning, men knew that God was one, that men recognized that there was only a singular deity.

Why am I bringing this out? Because many critics would say that polytheism, the belief in many gods, is traceable back to the beginning of the human story, and that religion has been a gradual evolution through to a more sophisticated Trinitarian belief in the one God. But here, at the beginning of human history, there's a Gentile who is a priest, not of the chosen nation, the Jews, not out of Abraham's bosom, but a Gentile priest who recognizes who God is and worships the living God, and is ordained by God as a priest to serve Him. And Abraham appreciates the authority of this Gentile, and he offers him tithes, and as verse 6 makes out, and as I've spelt out already this evening, in one sense Abraham is offering tithes not just for himself, but for the Levitical priesthood which is yet to be born from his descendants.

So then, here's a superiority of Melchizedek's priesthood standing out for us in these opening verses of this chapter. Let's move on then, and we can dispatch this aspect of our study very quickly, as we look at the deficiency of the Levitical priesthood, the deficiency of the Levitical priesthood. Now, evidence for this is just scattered throughout the verses of this seventh chapter of Hebrews.

What would the Levitical priests really have liked to have been? Well, they would have liked to have been perfect men. That was the goal, as is mentioned in the eleventh verse of this chapter. If perfection could have been attained, it wasn't, but at least that was the goal that was set in front of the Levites, this group of priests who were the descendants of Abraham, and were to function in a remarkable way in the centuries which were yet to come.

They weren't perfect. They didn't achieve the goal. Let me read a little further on.

If perfection could have attained, this is verse eleven, through the Levitical priesthood, for on the basis of the law was given to the people, why was there still need for another priest to come? Well, the need was, because the goal wasn't achieved by the Levites. And so the writer looks back to Melchizedek, and then, as I say, he points forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. In spelling out the deficiency of the Levitical priesthood, not only does he say that they didn't make the goal, he also argues that they didn't keep the law.

Come down to the nineteenth verse, for the law made nothing perfect. Let's read from the eighteenth verse. The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless, for the law made nothing perfect.

It's not that the law itself had no value, but you see, the law wasn't kept. It wasn't kept by the priests. That's obvious, because they didn't score the goal.

They weren't perfect themselves. The law was like a lighthouse. If you're moving along in a ship and you see a lighthouse, what does it do at night when there's a stormy sea? Well, it will indicate danger, but it can't save you.

The lighthouse is not a lifeboat. It can't leave its foundation and move along to the ship and the crew that's in distress on board the ship and say, come along and let me save you. The lighthouse has value.

It points out danger, but it can't stop a ship from being shipwrecked. The law, it can tell men what to do. It can direct priests how they are to live their lives.

But if the priesthood fails, and if all men fail, then the law, far from being of help, it becomes a tyrant, because the law points out that the wages of sin is death. And there's nothing that the law can do for the guilty party. To go back to my nautical illustration, it cannot save.

It can only point the way. So, you see, these priests have got problems, as is brought out in the 23rd verse, the 27th verse, and the 28th verse. The high priests, look at verse 27, the high priests had to make sacrifices for sin for themselves.

The Lord Jesus didn't. Unlike the other high priests, Jesus does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people. Now, by implication, the writer is saying, Jesus didn't have to offer sins, offer sacrifices, but the priests did.

They were unable to keep the law, and when they went into the temple, and when they brought their sacrifices before the Lord, they had to confess that they themselves had done wrong. And the fact of the matter is, because of their sin, they died. So, when Aaron passed away, a new high priest had to be appointed.

When, generally speaking, the Levitical priests of one generation died, more priests came along and were appointed to the ministry. Now you see the point. Here were these Hebrews, the readers of this epistle, and they were rather fond of having recourse to the Old Testament history of their people.

Don't you know that we have the law? Don't you know we have the priesthood? Therefore, some of the new gospel teaching, it has to be tempered, it has to be qualified, because of all these blessings that we have in terms of the Aaronic priesthood, in terms of the Levitical priesthood. But the writer is saying, okay, let's examine that priesthood. What was its goal? Its goal was perfection.

But can you, from all the annals, from all the history of the Old Testament priests, find one perfect priest? What was the great blessing of the Hebrews in days gone by? It was the law that was given by Moses, or was given to Moses by the Lord and then passed on by Moses to the people. And with the law came the priesthood. But for the very priests who taught the law, and the very priests who looked after the priestly sacrifices and ordinances, they didn't keep the law.

And that's obvious, because had they kept the law, had they never sinned, they would never have died. So if you gather together the teaching, as the author of Hebrews brilliantly works it out, on the Levitical priesthood and the law, you'll find that it adds up to a big nothing. It's no use boasting in a priest who cannot save.

It's no use boasting in a law which actually condemns. So if the historic Hebrew community has only the old Mosaic law and the priests to pin their hopes of salvation on, they're of most men, they're of all men most miserable. Because there was never a priest who was able to make an offering for his own sins and never sin again.

So what does our writer do? Well, I've spelled it out for you at the beginning, anticipating the end of my study this evening. He takes us to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he does so with a back cloth of Melchizedek in view. And he tells us that what we have is a high priest superior to that of the Old Testament Hebrews.

We have a high priest who's able to save. Look at the 23rd verse. Now there were many of those priests, he's talking about the Levitical priesthood, since death prevented them from continuing in office.

But because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he's able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to make intercession for such. He's looking back to that strange figure of Melchizedek, and he's pointing out all that Melchizedek anticipates is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And all the shortcomings of the Levitical priesthood, Jesus makes good as he supersedes it. What can you say about Jesus's priesthood? Well look at the 16th verse of the NIV. Jesus, like Melchizedek, has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry, but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.

What was the qualification of the Old Testament priest? Well we were born as Levites. That was the only qualification, we happened to be born as Levites. But Jesus wasn't a Levite.

He wasn't born from that tribe at all, he was born from the tribe of Judah. What then is the basis of Jesus Christ's priesthood? It's not the tribe from which he was born, but it's the eternal nature of his very person. And so you see how Melchizedek anticipates this.

Go back to the third verse, he's without father, he's without mother. In that sense, not literally, but typically, he denotes something that always exists. Leap over the Levitical priesthood, come to the Lord Jesus Christ, think of him in terms of the Son of God, and the basis of his priesthood is that of the power of an indestructible life, one who always lived, one who was not held prisoner by death, even at Calvary, because God raised him from the grave.

So Jesus's priesthood has a better basis than that of the Levitical one. It's also got a better ordination. The 20th and the 21st verse take us back to Psalm 110, and in the 21st verse in particular, there is the ordination of the Lord Jesus referred to.

God the Heavenly Father has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever, forever and ever and ever and ever. God couldn't have said that of the Levites, they died. Aaron was carted off and buried, so were the rest of the priests.

But Jesus, there's no grave, there are no bones decaying somewhere in the Middle East of the Lord Jesus. He lives forever in the power of an endless life, having been ordained priest by God Almighty. And the third thing that's superior about the priesthood of the Lord Jesus is that it has a much, much better hope, a much better hope.

The Levitical priesthood brought nothing to perfection, verse 11, but as far as the Lord Jesus Christ is concerned, what does he do? Well, he stands in the presence of God, and he intercedes for his people. Look at the 24th verse, but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood, therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. He's the perfect priest, such a high priest who meets our need, one who's holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. So you see, how brilliant is the reasoning of the writer of the Hebrew epistle.

He takes the mysterious character of Melchizedek, and he analyzes it, and he says in one sense, he depicts that which always exists. He stands as the priest-king of Jerusalem, as a person who is for righteousness and for peace. Then he goes to the Levitical priesthood, and he shows all its imperfections and its temporary nature.

If that's our hope as Jewish people, then really the situation is diabolical. But looking beyond Moses and Aaron, back to Melchizedek, and thinking of that prophetic scripture in the Psalms, the writer appreciates and works out brilliantly how Melchizedek points beyond Levi, beyond Aaron, to Jesus Christ. And here he comes, the priest-king from Salem, the prince of righteousness, the king of peace, the one who will take in his own body the consequences for the sins of the people, the one who will be nailed to a gibbet.

And you think that's the end? That's going to be the end of the prince of righteousness, the king of peace? Not a bit. He came with eternity in his being, and death will not hold him in its power, for he will be raised in an endless life, and he will ascend into the glory as God's own son, the second person of the Trinity. Yes, but even more than that, even superior to that, even of greater wonder as far as humanity is concerned, he will return into the heavens as the high priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek, and he will make intercession for all those who trust him as Lord and Savior.

He'll be their priest always and ever. May God have helped you to have grasped something of the wonder of this teaching.