Mystery of Melchizedek (Part C)

Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. He's got to be divine to do that. There's no praying to Peter.

That's blasphemy. We don't talk to the dead. We don't pray to human beings, ever. We pray to Jesus Christ, who is more than human. He is, of course, the eternal Son.

And therefore, He is the one that lives forever making intercession. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will conclude his study called Mystery of Melchizedek in Hebrews chapter 7. Now, this is his name by which he will be called, the Lord our Righteousness, Jehovah Tzidkenu. And Christ is fulfilling the role of the Righteous King and the King of Peace.

That is the point. It is there in their scripture. And it is in the New Testament. Therefore, having been justified by faith, Romans 5-1, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and no one else. It's magnificent how the scripture, all these different men writing on different days, different times, different cultures, saying these profound things that all balance in the end.

Balance like a balance sheet. You get to the bottom number and it's all correct. And it is done through the power of God.

I understand. When people say, well, I don't believe the Bible was written by men. Well, it should have been written by deer.

What do you mean? Do you want to see the hand of God come out of the sky and write it for you for every single person over and over? Why can't God just move people? If he's God, why does he have a problem with that? I'll tell you what God has a problem with.

You. God's got a problem with you. Your doubt, your faithlessness.

It's OK to say that to them. Well, he continues at the bottom of verse two and then also King of Salem, meaning King of Peace. And I have covered that. Ephesians 2.14, for he himself is our peace. Ephesians 2.14, verse three.

Hey, we made it. Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually. Now, all of the scholars and if you study scripture, you're a scholar. You may not be a scholar like some of the others, but you are a student of the word. But all of the big wigs and many of them great men of God, I don't want to take anything from them. They fuss over. Well, was Melchizedek an appearance of Jesus Christ, God the Son, in the Old Testament before his birth through Mary?

A Christophany. And some say no and some say yes. It is a mystery. But you cannot just dismiss it one side or the other, I don't think.

One moment I'm leaning towards the head. That was Christ. The next moment, well, I think it was just a figure that the writer picks up.

It's a mystery and we'll leave it at that. But this picture, this verse three, pictures Christ, self-existent and eternal. Those are credentials of deity, not a man. Now, you could say, which many do, the writer is just using Melchizedek as an example, a type, a parallel to the life of Christ that will fulfill it all literally. Well, that is true. But he still could have been Christ before Abraham. There are good arguments on both sides, but we're not going to take the time to go through it because all you got to do is listen to me and you'll be happy.

Especially when you fact check me and find I made a mistake. But this description of Melchizedek, of course, prefigures the eternal priesthood of Christ. And so he's saying to his audience, he's saying to them, we already have a model of this in our scripture and you're looking at Christ. You know he's the fulfillment of it. Why are you playing games? Why are you thinking you can go and offer a sheep again?

Because it was so much fun going with dad when you were a little boy, when you turned 12 and you went with your dad and you think you want to preserve these things. There's a better priesthood and it is the one of Christ and is one of faith and grace and truth and law, just not mosaic ceremonial law. And so like Melchizedek, Christ is both priest and king belonging to a priesthood independent and superior to Aaron and that's what they got to get.

Aaron's priesthood was fine for the dispensation, that period of Old Testament law, but it is now made obsolete because of the fulfillment. Like an acorn, an acorn is made obsolete once it sprouts into a tree. And you can see it, you can pluck up a little sprout of oak and you can still see the acorn attached to it and the root going down and the nut itself holding the nut. Going to the side and the tree coming up. That acorn will be obsolete once it's fulfilled its mission.

It's gone, you'll never see it again. But the tree, the tree remains. And so the law of fulfillment, the priest Melchizedek is given in scripture as one without human origin. That's his point, without mother, without father, without genealogy. The Jews were big on lineage when it came to the priesthood.

I mean they were fierce. If you could not prove you were a child of or of the line of Aaron, there would be no priesthood for you. And God, he put this proving of priestly pedigree into scripture so that we could reference it and see this fact, Ezra chapter 2. This is when the Jews are coming back to their promised land. They had been captive in Babylon for seventy years or so and now they're coming back with Zerubbabel and they're establishing their worship again and they want to find out, well who are our priests? And we pick it up there. There was a group that came and they said, well where of the line of Aaron?

And this is the response and record of it. These sought their listing among those who were registered by genealogy but they were not found. Therefore, they were excluded from the priesthood as defiled. Defiled from the priesthood, not defiled like you're just a rotten liar, not that. You're not a priest. And so you would be defiled if you entered into that office because you cannot prove you're from Aaron. So Nehemiah now, Nehemiah is about seventy, over seventy years after that event, Nehemiah 746, these sought their listing among those who were registered by genealogy but it was not found. Therefore, they were excluded from the priesthood as defiled. So you see the Jews wouldn't play with this.

You're either of Aaron or you're not. That goes back to his anticipation of their question. If Jesus was a priest, why is he not of the line of Levi?

Because that's very important to us. And so then he trumps them. He says to them, he has gone beyond Levi.

He goes back to Melchizedek which is a higher priesthood. You say you're repeating yourself. Well Hebrews is repeating itself. You can't get away from it. He's pile driving again, not the wrestling move.

But the pile driver that is driving on a construction site to find that bedrock to put the foundation on it keeps hitting it and hitting it until it won't move anymore. So, fact. Jesus Christ is not of the tribe of Levi but of Judah. That's a fact. Fact. There is a different priesthood greater than that of Levi and it is explained in Melchizedek. Fact. It is to be received as superior to Aaron's priesthood. Jesus belongs to that line. Fact. Scripture is the final authority, the final say so.

You either submit to it or you fight against it. And so the mysterious record of Melchizedek placed here just for this. Now where it says he has no father or no mother, he's without beginning.

Jesus Christ. Revelation 23 19. Jesus speaking, I am Alpha and Omega. I am the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

In other words, I'm self-existent. It's exclusive to deity. You have to be God to do that and he is. Micah 5 2. But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though you are little among thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me, the one, to be ruler in Israel. That is that prince of peace. That is that king of righteousness.

That king of peace. The ruler to be in Israel whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting. But how far back is everlasting? It's eternal past. There's no beginning to it.

It's just there. And so one more, Isaiah 43. If you love the scripture, this won't bore you. If scripture doesn't move you, you're probably deep into a dream about this time. Don't even hear me saying this, but I love the word of God. Even in my worst days, I know God's word is true and I know the time will come that whatever love I have for scripture in this life will be so dwarfed by the presence of Jesus Christ in eternity that you can't even write about it. That as much as you love Jesus now, you haven't seen anything yet to how you're going to love Him later. That the love of God is without measurement. This life clouds and fogs up and mars everything.

It is rotten, but it is necessary. But sweet will it be when you see the Lord Jesus Christ. So Isaiah 43, verse 1, speaking about Christ. Indeed, before the days was, I am He. And there is no one who can deliver out of my hand.

I work and who will reverse it? Before the days were, I am He. Before there was any such thing as time, I was there. And so when we look again at verse 3 and we listen to these words, without father, without mother genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, would made like the Son of God, a priest continually without interruption. He does not die, does not stop from being the one who puts us in touch with God.

That is the role of the priest. Made like the Son of God, he says here in verse 3. That could lock in for someone that Melchizedek was a type of Christ at the very least. At the very least, you read that, made like the Son of God. He is a type of Christ. He represents something greater that will be fulfilled. It is a prophetic moment. And then it was fulfilled in Christ. But at most, you could say Melchizedek was actually an appearance of Jesus Christ as I covered before. You see this in Daniel chapter 3. This is when those, you know, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego were in the fire. That sounded very Brooklyn-like. In the fire.

I know how to spell it. Look, he answered, Nebuchadnezzar, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. That's divine. Why didn't he say the fourth is like a human being too? Why does the superlative get put onto that? Because God was moving in his heart. And it was so important that God preserved it in the record.

And we have it to this day. See, there's so many other things in scripture that demand you not ignore it. The prophecies, the logic, the love, the way it moves you like no other book. You can read an espionage book or something and you get moved in a certain way, but you don't get moved by the scripture that way.

It moves you on a whole other level. Psalm 110, verse 4, again, David writing. This is where he remains a priest continually. He says at the bottom of verse 3, Psalm 110, Yahweh has sworn and will not relent. In other words, this is divine law. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Who could he be talking to? There was no Jew that could fit that except Jesus. And so his ministry is validated in verse 4 now. Now consider how great this man was to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.

So you read that and you say, just read it with prose. Now consider how great this man was to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. There's nothing there in that. But when you read it this way, think about it. Abraham gave a tenth to him.

That's what he is saying. That is the impact it would have because Abraham was that important to them. If it's a profound truth, you can whisper it and it is poetic.

If it is not much of anything, then it is boring. And so he says, now think about how this great man to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. Have you ever heard such a thing? Did Abraham do this to anybody else? Well, Abraham's fame was the instant once he conquered those kings. And it was not by mistake that God couples that story with Melchizedek.

When Abraham conquered the kings of the east, his fame went out everywhere as someone to be very careful about. He was a hero. He was a savior of the people. Not a savior of the soul, but a savior of their lives from the circumstances that were taking place. And it was no small matter that this hero would treat Melchizedek as a hero.

So you understand the logic there. For Abraham to say Melchizedek is the man, not me, and then to say to the Jews, this priesthood is the one God has chosen over Moses' priesthood. Because Abraham would never have tithed to Moses, Moses being the lesser, as far as scriptural rank goes in the record. Moses is 400 years away from that event.

And Levi is almost 100 years away from the events of Abraham. As I mentioned, the offering was entirely voluntary, that is critical. Your free will is who you are. It's who we are. It's what decides whether we go to heaven or hell.

You choose life or you choose to reject God and take the consequences there. There was no request from Melchizedek, no appeal, no brow beating, just a simple voluntary act of Abraham that is big. Verse 5, you run out of words, you know, you run out of verbs and adjectives to describe all of these things.

And when I get there, I go to the next verse. And indeed, those who are the sons of Levi who received the priesthood have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham. And so, this, incidentally, is a time stamp that the Jewish temple was still in existence, that the Romans had not yet destroyed it because he's speaking of the sacrifices in the temple in the present tense. And as we move through, through chapter 9, even through chapter 9, we'll be getting Jewish law concerning their sacrifices and their offerings and filing it down to fit the truth of the new covenant. Well, we won't be filing it down.

God will be bringing it into focus that way. Verse 6, but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promise. Now, I'm not going to be rushing through this, but there's really not a lot more here.

I've got out everything I have to say. There are some details here. Again, verse 6, he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham. We're talking about Melchizedek. He's not part of Moses, and he blessed him who had the promises. Abraham had the promises. God touched Abraham.

This is my man. And yet, that man who had that promise on him is submitting to Melchizedek. So he's keeping the rank in front of them. He's saying, Melchizedek's up here. Abraham is down here. Jesus is up here. Judaism is down here.

He's keeping them locked into his truth. And verse 7, now beyond all contradiction, the lesser is blessed by the better. Now this again, the spiritual rank of the high priest Melchizedek, superior to the rank of Abraham, as pointed out already. Verse 8, here mortal men receive tithes, but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives. Sometimes the writers of the New Testament, they need a course on writing because they're not always clear.

And you've got to do a lot of work sometimes. Like, what is he talking about? Well, here in verse 8, where he begins, here mortal men receive tithes. The present tense of the temple, he's talking about the Levitical order that was still in existence in Jerusalem when he wrote this letter. When he says there, he goes back to Melchizedek.

Here, Judaism today. There, Melchizedek and Abraham. So that is the here and there of verse 8. He also says in verse 8, whom it is witnessed that he lives. In other words, we have no record of Melchizedek ever dying. We have a record of Aaron dying, as made very clear in Scripture.

Aaron went up on the mountain with Moses and his son and they stripped him, the Bible says, of his priestly garments and they gave it to his son. And so that death of Aaron is matter of scriptural record. But there's no record of Melchizedek because his ministry is perpetual. It is eternal. It is locked in through Messiah, through Christ. And so we read Hebrews 7, 25. Who said we wouldn't get to verse 25?

Well, we're just touching on it. Therefore, he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. He's got to be divine to do that. There's no praying to Peter. That's blasphemy.

We don't talk to the dead. We don't pray to human beings, ever. We pray to Jesus Christ, who is more than human. He is, of course, the eternal Son. And therefore, he is the one that lives forever making intercession. And how does he do that?

Just by the cross. It's sort of like a standing order. You know, if you have a company and you put in a standing order on the first day of the month or whatever day you pick, this order ships. I don't have to call in and say, hey, can you send me five more sermons from Rick Gaston?

You just automatically ship them. That's a standing order. And it's automatic. And so is the grace, the recurrent grace that we receive. Listen, if the grace we have is so fragile that you can mess it up by stumbling because you're a sinner, then you don't have grace.

You're done. But if you've got something that is so powerful, so powerful is the stain of the blood of Christ that Satan can't wash it out. That is how powerful our salvation is.

And to walk around fretting over it is a waste of time. If you love Christ and you do, well, if you love him this way, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength, you say, well, I try that, but I'm too weak. But I want to love him that way. One of the profound lessons of David the King. David, God, I'm going to build you a temple. And God said no. But, God said, because it was in your heart, I'll take that as though you built the temple. I'm not going to let you do it. But you get credits for that.

In a language we can understand. The blood of Jesus Christ, it does not cleanse from some sins some of the time. It cleanses from all sins all the time for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation. That is grace.

Law is if you follow this rule. If you don't lie, if you don't have an impure thought, you can't control some of those things. There will be things that will pop into your head. You see somebody with a better doughnut than yours, the thought crosses your mind. All right.

We're going to be done in one minute. Verse 7, even Levi who receives tithes through Abraham, so to speak, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. Abraham was Levi's great-grandfather. Isaac was his great-great-grandfather. Isaac was his grandfather and Jacob was the father. Well, Isaac, he wasn't even a twinkle in Abraham's eye at this point. In other words, Abraham wasn't even, you know, ready to have it. He was ready to, but the moment had not come for him to conceive Isaac. And yet this map was already drawn out here. Levi is, when he says so to speak, he's saying he did not literally pay tithes, but spiritually speaking, Levi's DNA was trapped in Abraham's long before he was conceived.

And therefore, if you look at it that way, Levi was subject to Abraham who was subject to Melchizedek, which elevates Melchizedek and does not allow Levi's ministry to be better than the ministry of Jesus Christ, who is according to the order of Melchizedek. Did you get that? You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to CrossReferenceRadio.com. That's CrossReferenceRadio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at CrossReferenceRadio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews right here on Cross Reference Radio.