The Mystery of Melchizedek (Part 2 of 4)

The writer of the book of Hebrews is a fascinating parallel between a royal priest named Melchizedek and our great high priest Jesus Christ. This connection has significant implications for us today as we rely on Jesus to represent our cause before the throne of God. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg teaches from Hebrews chapter 7 about the mystery of Melchizedek.

Take the opening phrase of verse 1, add it to the closing phrase of verse 3, and you've got the essential picture. This, Melchizedek, was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. Like the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

He was a type, and the way in which he is described for us in the Bible is in such a way as to focus only on that which provides for the fulfillment in the totality and reality of Jesus himself. So, if we take it in context, clearly he didn't come from nowhere. If he was a mere man, he had parents, and he lived, and he died. Well, then, you say, why does it say, without father or mother and without genealogy?

Well, again, the context is the answer. For the Levitical priesthood, genealogy or ancestry was everything. Now, Melchizedek, in contrast, had no reference to genealogical records. He is not introduced to us on the basis of his genealogy. He appears in the Scriptures as if from nowhere, disconnected in his description from his realistic origins as a mere man, but described in a way that attaches nothing to his origins and provides us with no record of his ending.

Why? Because he is a type of the one who was to fulfill a priesthood which had nothing to do with genealogy and which would go on forever. And so in order for him to be a fit type of the fulfillment, it was necessary that he would have this shadowy depiction within the pages of Scripture.

Now, learn this in passing. Even the silences of Scripture are pregnant with meaning. What it doesn't say about him teaches us something. For the Levitical priests could only begin at the age of twenty-five. For five years they were allowed to do a kind of interdisciplinary priestly function amongst themselves, and then from the age of thirty they could begin ministering to the congregations that gathered.

But that only lasted for twenty years, and at the age of fifty it was done and gone. So nobody out of the Levitical priesthood would be able to provide the type of the Lord Jesus Christ. It would have to be somebody with another kind of priesthood—namely, Melchizedek—who, unlike the others, is not introduced to us on the basis of these things, nor is his priestly function limited by these time frames which were part and parcel of the others. Melchizedek's priesthood was not founded upon his genealogy but was derived from his personal dignity.

It was not limited to a prescribed period. There is no record given of it coming to an end. It obviously came to an end, but he doesn't have it described as coming to an end because of the purpose for his existence in Scripture. And in this respect, he foreshadows the superiority of Jesus' priesthood, because the priesthood of the Lord Jesus rested upon the eternal dignity of his sonship. The priesthood of the Lord Jesus was not on the basis of his lineage. The priesthood of the Lord Jesus was on the basis of his personal worth. If you just cast your mind forward to verse 13, he of whom these things are said belong to a different tribe—that is, Jesus belonged to a different tribe—and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. For it is clear that the Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. So in other words, if the priestly function of the Lord Jesus is going to be traced to genealogy, he doesn't have the genealogy. He has no earthly right to perform the functions which were the functions of the Levitical priesthood. So the priesthood of Christ must, like the priesthood described for us in Melchizedek, emerge not from ancestry but from personal worth and dignity.

From verse 4 to verse 10, the writer now goes on—and again, to imply arguments that are not immediately familiar to us, but stay with it—to employ arguments to reinforce the superiority of Melchizedek to Aaron and the Levitical priesthood. Now, some of you are saying, Does it really matter? And the answer is, Yes, it does, but it'll take time for the penny to drop. So for now, it does matter, therefore, pay attention.

It's the same thing you asked in calculus. Excuse me, sir, I'm planning on being a grocery store manager. Does this really matter? And the chap said, Yes, it does matter. Shut up, sit down, and pay attention to what I'm telling you.

And that was what you should do. So, in a far more gracious way, I'm encouraging you along those lines. How, then, does he establish the fact of Melchizedek's superiority over the Aaronic and Levitical priesthood? Well, he does it essentially in two ways. It takes six verses to do it, but this is what he does. First, he says, if you want to realize how superior Melchizedek and his priesthood is, well, then, think about this, verse 4.

Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder. You say, Aha! Is that it? Yeah! Wow! You say, That's interesting. I don't know what it possibly means, but it is interesting.

Well, let me tell you. In verse 5, the law requires the descendants of Levi, who become priests, to collect a tenth from the people. So when you became a priest of the order of Levi, you were on the receiving end of the tithes of the people.

They sustained your life physically. And you got it from your brothers, even though your brothers were descendants of Abraham—who is, if you like, if I may say so reverently, in the mind of the Jew, the daddy of them all. So you were a Levi, and you received tithes from those who were your brothers, and all of us, whether giving or receiving, had this in common, that we were, as it were, underneath Abraham, who was the great and key figure. But Melchizedek received tithes from the father of them all, proving to the Jewish mind that whoever this Melchizedek was, he was greater than these Levitical priests who had emerged down through the corridor of time. A far higher honor attached to him, because the sacred dignity of the offering of these gifts was made by Abraham himself.

Now, let's just turn to Genesis 14 and set the historical record there. Abraham went to rescue his nephew Lot, and in the rescuing of Lot he secured a significant victory over a fellow by the name of Kedor Leomer. And after he'd given him a drubbing, he was heading back to his own territory, and in verse 18 it says, Then Melchizedek the king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, Blessed be Abram by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hands. Then Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.

So, first he says, I'll tell you why and how great he was, because Abraham tithed to him, and secondly, because it was Melchizedek who blessed Abraham, and it was an Abraham who blessed Melchizedek. Now, again, we look at one another, and we say, Well, so what? I mean, what does it matter if you say, Hello, first, or I say, Hello, first? You know, hello, hello.

Say, Good morning, good morning. Is it that kind of thing? No, it's clearly not. As verse 7 makes clear, the bestowing of blessing was always something which came from the greater to the lesser. So the father blessed the children, the grandfather blessed the children's children.

The grandchildren did not bless the grandfather. And in the mind of the Jew, the first-century Jew, they might assume that it would always be Abraham who was bestowing the blessing, because after all, in their mind, there was nobody really greater than Abraham. That was why they got into such difficulties with Jesus in John chapter 8. Jesus says to them, Before Abraham was, I am. And they took up stones to stone him.

Why? Because they were so proud of the fact, Abraham is our father. We have never been slaves to any man. Jesus had looked him in the eyes and said, He that sins is a slave to sin. And they came back, choosing to miss the point, and arguing on the basis of their religious heritage, Hey, cut out the sin stuff.

Don't you know where we're from? Abraham is our main man. Jesus says, I'm gonna tell you something, before Abraham ever was, I am.

I existed. And Melchizedek bestows the blessing on Abraham, thereby advancing the way in which his type points forward to the anti-type, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So the tithes were being paid, verse 8, to priests and men who die.

Not only do they die physically, but they're priests who died at the age of fifty. But Abraham, he says, paid tithes to a priest who lives on, or, in the NIV, to a priest who is declared to be living. Since no death is recorded of Melchizedek, his priesthood is typically eternal.

See? The reason that he is provided for us in Scripture, without this beginning and without this ending, is in order that he might typify the one who is to come. Melchizedek was, if you like, the facsimile of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the reality. What he's going to go on and point out is that Jesus is the only priest who is alive forever more. And on the basis, verse 16, of his indestructible life—one who 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. Now, you've got to understand how important this was to these first-century Jews.

They had been brought up in all of the significant heritage of Judaism. They had been brought up to believe, indeed, to depend upon the ceremonial law and the sacrificial system to provide them with any possibility of having their sins forgiven and of being brought into the presence of God. Now, as a result of the preaching of the gospel, they had turned their back on all of that ceremonialism and of all that had represented religious and spiritual security to them, and they had stepped out in obedience on the strength of the claims of the apostles that this Jesus Christ had made an atoning sacrifice for sin once and for all, that he had torn the curtains to make it possible for men and women to go into the very holy of holies, and they needed to leave all of that behind and go on. Hardly surprising, as they began to gather in little groups, that when the seeds of doubt, the times of difficulty came, and the pressure of those around them was upon them, that they were tempted always to look back over their shoulders, always to say, You know, there's nothing really here. What is it that we're really doing? We don't have an altar, and we don't have a sacrificial system, and we don't have robes, and we don't have bells, and we're not swinging incense, and we're not doing any of these things. Do we really have anything at all, you see? they would be saying to themselves. We used to rely so much on the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16.

We relied on the fact that our high priest went into the holy of holies, offered sacrifices for his own sins, and then went and offered for us. But now what have we got? You remember what the writer is saying? He says, Listen, the ones who stay the course are the ones who are really his.

If we hold firmly to the end, we'll be saved. And as they're buffeted by all these things, the writer comes to them and says, Listen, I know that many of you are struggling with the issues of what you've left behind and what you've now embraced, and I know you're tempted to believe that you've given up the whole priesthood and that there's nothing there at all, but I want to tell you, the priesthood to which you have come in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is a far more significant priesthood than that of the Aaronic Levitical priesthood. It is a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. And if you're wondering about Melchizedek, he was actually greater than your father Abraham, because Abraham tithed to him, and they would have said, Well, you know, that's true. And also, he was the one who bestowed the blessing on Abraham, and it is always from the greater to the lesser, and they would have said, Well, that is true.

And they would have been putting the pieces together in a way that isn't common. That's why many of us are standing on the outside looking in. We're saying, Well, this must have been very important to somebody. But is it really significant to us?

I'm going to show you in conclusion that it is. What the writer is affirming is the absolute sufficiency and reality of the priestly function of the Lord Jesus Christ. And just before he moves on, in verses 9 and 10, he has a super little P.S. He says, You know, you could even say that Levi, who represented the great collector of tithes, he was at the head of the line in terms of the priests. If anybody was on the receiving end, it was Levi. So the writer says, You know, you could actually say that Levi, the big collector of tithes, paid a tithe, in the sense that he was still, as the King James Version says, in the loins of Abraham—that Abraham was his representative. He was the progenitor, and Levi was to come from the seed of Abraham, and he would be the one who received the tithes. But, says the writer, if you think this through in terms of solidarity, you realize that the Levi to whom we gave so much was himself bestowing tithes to this mysterious Melchizedek. Now, what he then does in verses 11–19 is to go on to display that what is foreshadowed in Melchizedek is provided in all of its perfection in the priesthood of Christ. Look at a phrase there in verse 19. In fact, verse 18, the former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless. For the law made nothing perfect, and a better hope is introduced by which we draw near to God. Here's the question. How do sinful men and women draw near to God?

We were to go out in the streets and ask that question, we get all kinds of answers. Well, they draw near to God by going to church. They draw near to God by trying to turn the other cheek and living by the golden rule. Some would say they draw near to God by being baptized. Some may say they draw near to God by engaging in religious ceremonies. Some may say they draw near to God by listening to the Bible preached, and whatever it might be. But the real question is, how does an individual draw near to God?

And the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is this. Verse 17, if perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood, why was there still need for another priest to come? If the Levitical priesthood answered the questions for men and women about forgiveness of sin, about knowing God personally, about being adopted into his family, then the sheer logic of it makes it clear that if that was possible in that way, then there was no need for another priest after the order of Melchizedek to come. But, says the writer, all of that was ultimately, in the final analysis, weak and useless—hence the absolute necessity of a pure, spotless high priest who would make a once-and-for-all, atoning, substitutionary sacrifice of himself for his people, and invite those who knew themselves to be distant from God to come and meet him at the very place of sacrifice—at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you're here this morning, and all that you know, to this point in your life, is external religion, then we'd love to introduce you to the reality of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Some are here this morning, and this is who you are. You recognize that your life hasn't been going the way it ought to go, for whatever reason, and you decided that you would clean up your act a little bit, and you found that religion was a help to that end, and so you've begun to get yourself involved in a process, and you have replaced one external way of life with another external way of life. And you're calling that conversion.

That's not conversion. The gospel is not an invitation to imitate Jesus Christ. The gospel is an invitation to be transformed by Jesus Christ—to be born again of the Spirit of God in a way that transfers any sense of dependence we might ever have had upon our religious professions, upon our righteousnesses, upon our good deeds, upon who we are or what we bring, and brings us unreservedly and helplessly before the cross of Jesus Christ—the fulfillment of the shadow cast down through the corridors of time by this mysterious man, Melchizedek. This is Truth for Life, and our teacher, Alistair Begg, will close our program with prayer in just a minute. Earlier, we heard Alistair talk about someone being born again by the Spirit of God. If you're ready to learn more about what that means, we want to invite you to watch an online video. It's called The Story.

It's not long. With clarity and creativity, this animated video explains what Jesus did to free us from sin and to offer us salvation. There's no way any of us can earn God's saving grace. Becoming born again is a free gift to those who believe. If you'd like to watch this video or if you'd like to send the link to a friend, go to truthforlife.org slash the story. Sharing the link is one creative way for you to begin a conversation about Jesus with a friend or a loved one.

Sometimes breaking the ice on this subject can feel awkward. Today, we want to offer you a combination of books that will give you creative ways to talk to people about Jesus. The first book is called Have No Fear.

This book will help you deconstruct whatever barriers you've built that seem to get in the way of sharing your faith, things like fear of rejection or feeling inadequate. The second book is called The Word One to One. This is actually a booklet that is very easy to use, carefully laid out in a way that makes it easy for you to sit down with a friend, to read through John chapter 1 together, and then it includes thoughtful questions and answers to make the process of looking at this passage more engaging. Plus, when you request The Word One to One, we'll send you two copies, one for you and one to share with a friend. This unique offer of three books will be sent to you when you support the ministry of Truth for Life.

You can do that right now by going to truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can call 888-588-7884. Now, let's conclude today's message by joining Alistair for a moment of prayer. Well, God our Father, teach us by your Word, we pray. We're glad that the writer acknowledged that some of these things are hard to explain and understand, and we feel that we've done a fairly good job of making that clear. But we know that your Spirit is able to take your Word and bring it to bear upon our lives in a way that is supernatural in its impact. And we ask you to do that as we spend time in this day and have opportunity for reflection. We pray that we may put down spiritual milestones in our lives as we grow in clarity in our understanding of Scripture, as we grow in submission to the lordship of Christ, as you bring us from the confusion of externalism to the reality of personal faith and trust in this one who was a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Thank you that he has gone through the curtain into the very sanctuary of heaven itself and there to speak on our behalf. What a wonder! What grace! We bless and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm Bob Lapeen. Thanks for joining us today. Hope you can join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in Hebrews chapter 7 from a series called Fix Our Eyes on Jesus. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.