How Does Melchizedek the High Priest’s Story Relate to Jesus?

How does Melchizedek the High Priest story relate to Jesus? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Melchizedek is not an...yeah, that's right.

Melchizedek is the great and mysterious Mel of Genesis. Well, this is CORE Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and we take your calls here every day on the Bible, the Christian life, the Old Testament, the New Testament, Mel's life, whatever it might be. You can call us at this number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

You can also email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Steve calling in from Minnesota. Steve, we understand you're on a camping trip right now. Yes, yes.

Heard you driving southern Minnesota. Nice. Are you camping alone or with family? Well, my dog is with me. I'm actually going to go pheasant hunting, so it's that season. Oh, right.

Well, I hope that you're successful and that you have a great time and that you stay safe, brother. What's your question? Yes, it kind of ties into the inerrancy of Scripture, which I believe in 100%. I'm just curious, some of the dialogues, especially with Jesus, that he had, for example, with Nicodemus, I'm curious how those were recorded by the author of the book of John, and how did they know that this was inerrant? Did someone have ears listening in these conversations?

Something I just haven't understood. Yeah, great question, because there are all sorts of situations in the Gospels where Jesus was alone, and we have recorded dialogues. You think of the temptation, for example, Jesus in the wilderness. How do we know what was happening as he was in this heated dispute, battle, with Satan himself?

And so a couple of things. One, you think about the work of the early disciples, writing these things, investigating these things, making careful inquiries. You think of, for example, Luke's Gospel in Luke chapter 1.

I mean, that's essentially what he says. This is a careful inquiry, an investigation that I've done. Many of these were eyewitnesses and people who walked with Jesus Christ himself, and so presumably, you know, the period of time, three-plus years that Jesus is with his disciples, they're having conversations, and Jesus is filling them in on the things that are happening. We know, even with regard to the miracles that our Lord Jesus did, his teaching, everything, John says that if everything had been recorded, all the books in the world couldn't contain what had happened, what the disciples bore witness to and had heard from the lips of our Lord. And so I think that's one way of looking at it, and of course, we also believe that these individuals were inspired by the Holy Spirit as they wrote, that they were given supernatural insight, divine insight, as they wrote these things down for our benefit, for our good and edification. And so it seems to me like there's a lot of room for Jesus to have had, you know, conversations with the disciples, filling in the gaps, and letting them know what was happening in those conversations or those instances. Even with an individual like Nicodemus in John chapter 3, it seems like he was favorable to our Lord. There's the hope that he was converted.

And so, you know, there would have been more opportunity there also for discussion and for learning, and certainly these conversations were talked about and shared. Yeah, and so I think that's probably the best answer I think that you're going to get, recognizing that these men were inspired by the Holy Spirit, but also that our Lord continued to speak with him about these events and about these conversations throughout his earthly ministry. And so, Steve, thanks for reaching out to us, and again, man, safe travels, and I hope you have a great time camping and hunting. Okay, Steve, thanks so much for listening to CORE Christianity Drive Safe. We'd love to hear from you. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, you can leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day at this number, 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Viola, who's calling in from St. Louis, Missouri. Viola, what's your question for Adriel? Hello, Pastor Sanchez and Bill, I really appreciate your ministry. Just want to ask about Saul, who was the anointed king of the children of Israel, first one. After Saul's continuous disobedience to God, would you say God gave Saul over to a reprobate mind? And could you explain the lesson we should learn from Saul's life? And I'm referencing 1 Samuel 16-14 and Romans 1-28.

Thank you. Yeah, what a scary story. I mean, that account with King Saul, where he's disobedient to the word of God, he doesn't follow the Lord, and he loses his office. The kingdom is stripped from him, and he falls under this terrible torment, the passage that you brought up. 1 Samuel 16-14 says, The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. And by the way, Viola, this is, I think, one of the reasons why King David, in Psalm 51, says things like, take not your Holy Spirit from me. In particular, he's alluding to the reality of what had taken place with his predecessor, who had lost the kingdom, who had the kingdom stripped from him because of his disobedience, that office removed. And so David is saying, God, God, forgive me, don't do that to me.

But it does seem like Saul perished as a reprobate, coming to the end of his life, continuing to disobey the word of the Lord, the command of the Lord, not truly turning to the Lord and trusting in God, but instead going his own way time and time again. And the other text that you brought up, Viola, was Romans chapter 1, where the Apostle Paul talks about that hardness of heart being given up, verse 24 of Romans chapter 1. Therefore, now this is speaking about, just to give some context, the Gentile nations, the pagan nations, that reject God's word.

In particular, his word in creation, the general revelation that we all receive that testifies to the fact that God is the creator, that he's glorious, that he's all-powerful, and we know that just through nature, through the created order. And Paul says, look, what we do in our idolatry and in our sin is we suppress the truth of God in our unrighteousness. And so Paul then says, for this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. And then earlier in verse 24, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. In other words, God gave them what they wanted. He said, fine, if that's what you want here, you can have it. And so what do we learn from these stories?

I would say a couple of things. One, just how serious we need to take hearing God's word and listening to him. And God help us. God help us not to silence the voice of God's spirit in our lives, not to push aside the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but to take God seriously, to take his word seriously. And maybe as you're listening right now, you've been doing that. You've been hardening your heart against the Lord, turning away from him. And you can tell that your conscience has grown more and more seared, that you're not convicted about the things that maybe you were once convicted about, that you don't have that same concern for God, for his word, for fellowship with other believers.

And whereas at one point in your life, that was a deep feeling, a deep concern you had as you slowly drifted, you don't even notice it anymore. I would say to you, friend, confess your sin to the Lord and come to him and say, God, forgive me. Forgive me for closing my ears to your word. Forgive me for turning away from that which I knew was true and hardening my heart. That's what the author of the Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 3 and chapter 4. Exhorting the Hebrew church is to take care, brothers, that there not be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart in departing from the living God, but encourage one another day by day as it is called today, lest we're hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Let me just encourage you right now not to harden your hearts against the Lord, but to hear his word and to turn to him and to say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Fill me with your spirit. Help me to obey you and to follow you and to walk with you. And that's what these individuals rejected. That's what Saul rejected. That's what the people in Romans chapter 1 rejected. And again, in Romans 1, Viola, Paul's point there and in the chapters there at the beginning of the Book of Romans is to highlight the universal sinfulness of mankind, how all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, so that he might point us to the grace of the gospel in Jesus Christ.

Getting to Romans chapter 3 verse 21, Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And so the exhortation to us is, believe. Believe and receive that grace that is yours in Jesus Christ. Come to God, confessing your sins and receiving his mercy.

And maybe, again, I always want to take the opportunity to do this on the broadcast because it's so important. I know so many are listening from so many different places, not just geographical places, but spiritual places. And maybe you listening right now, hearing that word, to believe. Turn from your sins and to Jesus and to believe and to receive his grace and do that. Don't harden your heart and receive his grace and pursue him with all of what's inside of you. Pursue him because he's good and merciful.

And again, that's what Saul didn't do. That's what God invites us, you, to do. Thanks for reaching out to us. Wow.

Great word. Thank you for that, Adriel. This is CORE Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We receive e-mails here at the CORE every day and you can e-mail us your question. Here's the e-mail address. It's questionsatcorechristianity.com.

Here's an e-mail from one of our listeners named Greg. He says, I've been a member of a large and growing non-denominational evangelical Bible church for many years. They've always been very strongly rooted in solid Bible teaching. Recently, they rolled out a new initiative for all members of the congregation to sign a partnership agreement.

I'm not sure why they suddenly felt the need to do this. The rhetoric of the agreement itself isn't weird. However, they're really pushing people to sign it.

They've started having meetings and lunches for only those who've signed the paper and are now telling members that they're rebelling against leadership if they don't sign it. It all seems very divisive and it totally doesn't fit with the church's long history of very clear Bible standards. Any thoughts on church leadership asking people to sign an agreement like this? I know that there are solid churches that do this kind of thing.

I don't agree with it. I'm not really in favor of churches that make people sign membership covenants and you're saying, okay, I pledge that I'm going to give this much money and that I'm going to do such and such. I do think churches should have membership, and that does look like something.

I think we have to go to scripture to define what that looks like. What I've found is oftentimes with some of these membership covenants, they can add extra biblical things to the membership covenant. If you're going to be a member, you have to covenant that you're going to volunteer in the nursery, and you have to volunteer in these other ministries too, or you have to be a part of this community group or that community group. If you're not a part of a community group, then you can't be a member, those types of things. I'm not saying that community groups are bad or that volunteering in the nursery is bad. Well, I don't know. I know a lot of people have a hard time with it. It's the poopy diapers.

Yeah, that's right. Maybe that's why so many churches feel like, man, we have to make this a part of membership because people just don't want to volunteer. But I just think we have to be really careful when we're asking people to sign off on extra biblical things. Not bad things, but they're extra biblical things, and we're sort of drawing the lines of membership. And I don't know this agreement that your church is rolling out, what all that entails.

I'd be curious to see it. If they're just saying members have to agree to live as becomes the followers of Christ and so forth, well, yeah, I don't have an issue with that. But these kinds of things can be divisive in the life of a church, and so I think when churches make these kinds of decisions, there has to be a lot of communication, there has to be a lot of grace. I've just seen this in my own life as a pastor now for ten-plus years. When you're doing something new as a church, you really have to communicate a ton because people can be suspicious or concerned about what exactly is happening here. You want to bring people along, and so maybe part of the issue is just there wasn't a lot of communication. And it's an opportunity for you, friend, to talk with the leadership of your church and say, can you explain this a little bit more? Are these things extra biblical things that I'm having to sign off on just to be a part of the church?

I feel like I'm being excluded, or is it something else? And so I just want to encourage you. I don't want to condemn this church or speak against this church.

I don't know what exactly this agreement all entails. Generally, I'm suspicious of those kinds of things. And so I think you're going to have to have conversations with the leadership of your church and search the scriptures together with them. And as you have those conversations, as I always encourage people, when you're going to talk to your pastor or your elders, approach them with humility and with love and prayerfulness.

It's not an attack. It's an opportunity to ask questions, and may God bless you as you do that. Really good counsel.

Thank you for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We have both Protestants and Catholics who listen to this program. And a lot of times people are confused about the two differences in theology and doctrine between those two faith traditions. And sometimes we hear from Protestants who have Catholic family members, and they get into some heated discussions about what they believe. So we've created a great resource that will help you have those discussions and to do it with charity.

That's right. Yeah, we're not trying to add fuel to the fire. We want to—and hopefully you get this from listening to the broadcast. We love having good conversations about theology, talking about the Word of God, recognizing that there are differences within the Christian church. And some differences are pretty significant.

When we're talking about the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics, there are some really significant differences. That's why we made this resource What Still Divides Us. It's not a super long booklet.

It's just about 70 pages or so. But it'll get you into the heart of the issues. And so I hope that you'll get ahold of us and get ahold of this resource. You can access it over at corechristianity.com forward slash radio.

And again, it's called What Still Divides Us. Well, we do receive voicemails here at CORE Christianity. You can call us anytime, leave your question for Adriel on our voicemail system. Here's a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners named David in Kansas. My question for Pastor Sanchez is, I have been studying my Bible. And in the book of Hebrews chapters 5, 6, and I do believe 7, they mention Melchizedek as the high priest or high order or to the order of Melchizedek. I was just wondering, where does Melchizedek fit in the relationship with Jesus and God our Father?

Thank you very much. So, Melchizedek, there are some people who think, well, you know, Melchizedek first appears in the book of Genesis, and he blesses Abraham. It's this really interesting scene. He brings out bread and wine, blesses Abraham. Abraham pays a tenth of the spoils of war, basically gives a tithe to Melchizedek. And that's what the author of the Hebrews is going to be unpacking in Hebrews chapter 7. And there are some people who think, well, this is a pre-incarnate appearance of the word of God, Jesus Christ.

That's not my view. My view is that Melchizedek was a person just like you or me, but that the way he's depicted in God's revelation is as a type of the coming Messiah, the great high priest, the everlasting high priest. And that seems to me to be what the author of the Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 7, where in verse 3 he says, speaking of Melchizedek, he is without father or mother or genealogy, which is actually significant when you're thinking about the book of Genesis, because Genesis has those long genealogies you think of earlier in Genesis, the long genealogy that's given there. And the Old Testament, you know, the Torah, many different genealogies.

And so it's not common for a really important figure to be introduced without saying, hey, this is who his mom and his dad were. But Melchizedek just sort of comes on the scene in Genesis without any background. And in that sense, the author of the Hebrews says, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues his priest forever.

That word resembling just means to be like or similar to something else. And so it's not that Melchizedek is Jesus, but that he's a type of the Son of God there in Genesis, the one who brings out bread and wine and blesses his people, the everlasting peace and king of peace and king of righteousness. And so it's just one of those ways in which the Scriptures in the Old Testament are foreshadowing the great redemptive work of Jesus Christ. And this is one of the beautiful things about the Bible, is the Bible's a big book, 66 different books, actually, you might call it a library of books. And yet, all of God's revelation is guiding us to Jesus. It's like the prophets, the Torah, right? The wisdom literature is taking us by the hand and leading us to Jesus Christ.

Isn't that beautiful? I mean, Jesus himself said it in John 5 when he was speaking to the religious leaders. He says, look, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And these are the very Scriptures that testify of me. Moses, he was writing about me. And so we see that, we see that as early as Genesis, and certainly with this figure, with this Melchizedek, who the author of the Hebrews talks about or tells us about there in chapter 7. And so thank you for that question, and I appreciate you calling us. You said his name really good, too. Yeah, that's right. I just stick with Mel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Let's go to a voicemail that came in from Michael. My question for Adriel is, do you believe that man's interpretation of God's word is perfect? If not, do you believe that there is room for more accurate interpretations of God's word?

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, some are better at interpreting God's word than others, and there are principles of interpretation that we should use when we want to come to the proper understanding of Scripture. Some of those principles are letting Scripture interpret Scripture, and in particular letting the clearer passages of Scripture interpret the less clear passages of Scripture.

I think that's really important. One of the attributes of Scripture we say is that the Scriptures are perspicuous, the perspicuity of Scripture. That means that they're clear, especially when we're talking about God's revelation as it pertains to the Gospel.

But what do we need to be saved? That's something that's so clear that even children can understand it. That's why Jesus said at the end of Matthew 11, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to the babes. The Gospel is for the children. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't hard things to understand in the Bible, things that are going to require more work and thought and prayer. But when it comes to the Gospel, there's that perspicuity. God's Word is meant to illuminate our path. You see this over and over again in Psalm 119. The entrance of Thy Word giveth light, giveth understanding to the simple. And so we're called, as the followers of Jesus Christ, to seek to interpret the Bible well. I think of the Bereans in Acts 17, verse 10. The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the Word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. We should examine the Scriptures.

We should study them. We should meditate upon them. How often is that an exhortation that we find in the Scriptures themselves, to meditate upon the Word of God, to chew on it, and to grow in our understanding?

And if we don't do that, then we're going to have a hard time interpreting the Word of God. And so God help all of us, by the grace of His Holy Spirit, to hear His Word, to receive it, to obey it, and to fall in love with it more and more. God bless. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, go to corechristianity.com forward slash radio. Or you can call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, let us know how we can be praying for you. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.