Hebrews - Part 17 Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:1-10)

All right, thank you for praying, Jason. Before we begin, I want to share a quote that I hit last night in my studies that I particularly like. This is on Proverbs 7, 14. This is the woman that's dressed as a prostitute, and she's wily at heart, and she catches the simple man. and remember she had come to him and she said that she had made sacrifices and offerings that day and John Gill said she was she was properly a holy religious harlot he said as the word sometimes signified that was a Hebrew word in there I couldn't read it he says and such is the church of Rome which makes great pretensions to devotion and religion and yet is the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.

I get a kick out of how some of these reformer guys, they could take any passage and bring it back to Rome's abominations. Always cracks me up. I guess we all have our own little hobby horse. All right, Hebrews 7. we have looked at the first six chapters of Hebrews. And what we want to remember about Hebrews is that it's primarily a book about Jesus Christ being better than everything.

But in particular, the things that Old Testament Jews or any New Testament Jew that was still a little too focused on the Old Testament forms of things. Jesus is better than all those things. It's also a comparison of faith over works. That's not as evident maybe in this section. But Jesus Christ being better than everything is the theme. And the author of Hebrews seems to take side notes a lot where he'll be writing about one thing or talking about one thing.

And then he'll sort of take what looks like a whole different path. He'll start going on a different path. And then he kind of brings it all back. And so in Hebrews 7.1, he is bringing it back to the priesthood that he began describing in chapter 5. Really, the end of 4, he starts talking about Jesus as that high priest. Chapter 5, he starts describing the priesthood.

And then he goes on kind of that side note about temporary believers and the warning in chapter 6. But there in chapter seven, he's going to come back to the priesthood, and now he's trying to make a point. And what he wants these people to understand is as high as they consider the Levitical priesthood, as important as it is, as meaningful and powerful as Levitical priesthood is, he's trying to communicate to them that their own scriptures testify to the fact that the priesthood that Jesus is part of is a greater priesthood than the Levitical priesthood.

So if you're faced with a choice between the Levitical priesthood or a priest after the order of Melchizedek, it would be nonsense to choose the Levitical priesthood. And so he's going to just give us a bit of a description here of these things in the first 10 verses. So Hebrews 7, verse 1, for this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him.

And to him, Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the son of God he continues a priest forever see how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils and those descendants of Levi who received the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people that is from their brothers though these are also descended from Abraham.

But this man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. In the one case, tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. One might even say that Levi himself who receives tithes paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.

So that was a reading of God's word. That's the ESV. I'm still trying to figure out whether I'm going to switch over to the Legacy Standard Bible. I'm starting to become inclined to stick to the ESV for the New Testament simply because of my own familiarity. Maybe try the LSB for the old because I do like the rendering particularly of the name of God better But in Hebrews 7 1 through 10 the argument that there a number of details here and these are the juicy ones that are really interesting, like who's Melchizedek?

What does it mean that he has no father or mother? What did he do? And we'll look at that in Genesis 14. but the basic argument being made, we don't want to ever miss that. One error we make in Bible, I won't say it's an error in Bible interpretation, but sometimes an error we make in Bible teaching is we get really focused on some detail that maybe has a big distinction with something else, but it really doesn't change the way we're going to live.

It doesn't change whether somebody can join a church or not. It's not going to help somebody's marriage a whole lot. Practically speaking, we at least can't see how maybe getting that one little point right will make a huge difference in the lives of Christians. And we end up missing the forest for the trees. So I want to start with the basic argument being made here.

And that argument is that Abraham, the father of the Jews, the one that they all look back to, the one who God blessed himself, this man paid tithes to this other guy, Melchizedek. And it was Melchizedek that we see in verse 4 where the author says, see how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils. So Abraham, we're going to go back and read this in a minute, but Abraham Abraham basically went to a battle.

He went to a war of sorts with some king who had conquered Sodom, where his nephew Lot was dwelling. Abraham loved Lot dearly and took a band of men to go save Lot out of that, 318 men, I think it said. And he rescued his nephew. And then along with that, he rescued, I suppose, a bunch of Sodomites. And when I say Sodomites, I simply mean people who were from Sodom.

But they probably truly are Sodomites as well, based on the proximity to the chapter where we start hearing what they were doing there. But Abraham saves his nephew and he's got some spoils of war, we'll call it. and he doesn't want to keep any of these things himself. He didn't get them for himself. He was just helping Lot. But Abraham meets this man, Melchizedek, and he gives him a tenth.

And when he gives him the tenth of what he had received, what he's showing is that this other man is greater than he is. It says in verse, nine one might even say that levi himself who receives tithes paid tithes through abraham for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when melchizedek met him so the argument is this you guys are bringing sacrifices to the levitical priesthood you are offering sacrifices according to this priesthood of Aaron, which is the Levitical priesthood, which they're descendants of Levi. Levi's a descendant of Abraham, and Levi was in fact still in Abraham's loins.

He hadn't yet been even produced in any sense of the word in our world when Abraham found a priest that was greater than him. So the idea is that Abraham is sort of above Levi, and so he's over the whole priesthood of Aaron, and then Melchizedek is an even higher priesthood than Aaron. In Hebrews 7-6, we're reminded that this man who does not have his descent from them, Melchizedek, received tithes from Abraham.

It says, and blessed him who had the promises. And the author says it's beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. I think that's a great line because everything's under dispute in our world now, and you just kind of get tired of it. It's nice that there's something beyond dispute. Hey, this is obvious. If you want to argue about this, you're arguing with the word of God.

Now, when it says the inferior is blessed by the superior, we need to be careful because we say things like, bless the Lord, oh my soul, right? And the idea here is, is that in this case, when Melchizedek blessed Abraham, he was above him in that sense. He was the superior. He had access to God as a priest of the Most High God that Abraham didn't yet totally have the understanding of.

This was God's way of showing us very early in the Old Testament that there was something greater than basically the nation that would come from Abraham and be God's people. So ultimately, this is all going to build up to the end of this section when we get starting to verses 11 and going on, that the priesthood of Melchizedek is clearly revealed by scripture and inherently better than the priesthood that these Jews were clinging to. remember the goal of the author of Hebrews is to get these people to focus on Christ and what he has done in his everlasting priesthood So let turn to Genesis 14 and take a quick look at some details in this story, because the pressing question that everyone should have is, who is Melchizedek? Because that's the fun, interesting thing to try to figure out. trying to take a sip of coffee.

I'm trying to do it very quietly because my wife says that if she listens to the recording, it's too loud. It's like those ASMR videos. So anyway, Genesis 14. If you want to read the context, you can go back to the beginning even of the chapter, but we'll start in verse 17 suffice to say that at this point Abraham has rescued Lot so verse 17 of Genesis 14 after his return from the defeat of Cheder Laomer and the kings who were with him the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shaveh that is the king's valley.

So Abraham is met by the king of Sodom. And the king of Sodom will appear again in verse 21. And he'll say to Abraham, give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself. He's like so grateful that they were saved. He's like, here, you can have all our stuff. And Abraham says in 22, I've lifted my hand to Yahweh, God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say I have made Abram rich.

So basically, he's just letting them know, I don't want your stuff. I don't want anyone to say that my wealth is from sodomites, basically. I don't want to be associated with you. I'm not going to be made rich because of what you've profited by. I came to save my nephew. and and maybe in in abraham's mind he wanted to save those people as well i i don't get that impression abraham wanted to help his nephew and he says i don't want any of your stuff just you know almost like just leave me alone you know just just he says i will take nothing but what the young men have eaten and the share of the men who went with me and then he mentioned some names.

But in between verses 17 and 21, where the king of Sodom specifically speaks to Abram, which makes sense because that's where Lot would have been. It would have been Lot's group. There's a description of Melchizedek. It says, and Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High. And I remember the first time I heard about Melchizedek, and then I saw that he was mentioned in Genesis 14, and I remember being shocked, because I had read Genesis before and had no recollection of Melchizedek.

It's such a small little aside, it's almost like if you've ever watched one of those movies, and there's a crime at the beginning, and then at the end, they show you how the bad guy was at the crime scene at the beginning, but you didn't even notice him, because he was just the guy that asked for a drink of water or something random like that. It's almost like Melchizedek is hidden in plain view for us, because we will read a passage like Genesis 14, 18 through 20, and we'll see something happened. And we won't notice the immediate significance of it because we can't really tell it until the author of Hebrews explains it to us.

And we'll almost forget that it happened. And I think that that is part of what these Jews were suffering from, is they were missing some of these details of even their own scripture that should have helped them identify the Christ. Because he is mentioned later in Psalm 110. But it says, and he blessed him. So Melchizedek blessed Abram and said, blessed be Abram by God most high possessor of heaven and earth or creator of heaven and earth.

And blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And then it says, and Abram gave him a tenth of everything. so what's interesting at this point is one this guy's a priest of the most high god keep in mind at this moment in time as far as we know historically the only human that god has really spoken to and revealed himself to after the after the flood and in a significant way is abram this guy somehow exists somewhere and he's a priest of god meaning he's an intercessor between god and man he's a person who takes sacrifices on behalf of people to god and brings acceptable sacrifices so that god may forgive the people abram gives him a tenth This is before the tithing laws in Leviticus And this is also a couple verses before Abraham Makes it clear that he's not going to take any of Sodom's stuff So it interesting that he still gives this guy a tenth Like hey these spoils are God And I going to give God a portion and I going to do that through giving it to this priest that is not mentioned anywhere So we don't have any history, like Abram and Melchizedek were buddies in verse 12 of a different chapter or anything like that. This is just out of the blue to us, but he gets a tenth, and like the author of Hebrew says that it was as if Levi was paying tithes through Abraham because he was still in the loins of his ancestor the other thing that's most interesting is that Melchizedek the king of Salem brought out bread and wine and I cannot not see the significance of that with the Lord's Supper There are people who have scathingly written that to make that association is nonsense, that this is just nourishment after a battle.

I find it difficult to see an Old Testament priest of the Most High God who's without father or mother or genealogy, who has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but who resembles the Son of God, who's called the King of Righteousness and the King of Salem, King of Peace. I find it hard to look at a guy like that and see him bringing out bread and wine and not associate that with Jesus's use of the bread and wine to signify his body and his blood. so when he brings out the bread and wine in my mind what we see is he's showing forth he's foretelling what's going to happen later which is that there will be the sacrifice of christ's body and blood this is a priest this is someone who is a priest of god most high who makes these sacrifices to God. So back in Hebrews 7 now, we kind of have the context of Melchizedek.

And I'm just going to turn my Bible to Psalm 110, because in Psalm 110, the Old Testament, once again, is going to tell us about Melchizedek. But in Hebrews 7, we have Melchizedek, king of righteousness and king of peace. These are titles of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the king of righteousness and the king of peace. He's predicted to be the king in Psalm 2 in particular, but Psalm 110, Yahweh says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Yahweh sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter, rule in the midst of your enemies, Jesus Christ is the king. And, of course, he is not only righteous himself, making him the king of righteousness, but he's the king over all righteousness as well. He's the king of peace. He brings peace to the world with God for those who trust in him for salvation. It says in verse 3 of Psalm 110, your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power.

In holy garments from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. He has given people salvation in such a way now that they freely come to him. So we argue about this in Calvinist circles a lot, you know, things like free will and all that stuff. The way the gospel works is that the Holy Spirit regenerates hard hearts that cannot even understand the things of God.

And when they have some concept of that understanding, would refuse to submit to God. And the Holy Spirit actually grants people the faith and makes their hearts different in such a way that they do by their own choice come to Christ. A lot of people will take exception with that phrase, but that's the way God works. Now, our own choice comes as the result of our regeneration. but we are also now willingly wanting to come to God as Christians.

That's the way salvation works. So we offer ourselves freely on the day of his power. This is a prediction that he will come and draw men to himself, which is what he says later when he's on the earth. in verse 4 of Psalm 110, Yahweh has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. This was one of the phrases disputed by the Pharisees, you know, what's he talking about?

And Jesus clearly says this is about himself. I am the priest after the order of Melchizedek. I am the one who's going to rule in the midst of my enemies. I'm the one who, verse 5 of Psalm 110, will shatter kings on the day of my wrath. I will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.

I've heard that translated differently as well, is that the judgment is his judgment that he endured. That God executed judgment on his son among the nations. and I've heard it say filling them with corpses. It sounds like dead bodies everywhere, like judgment at the end. One guy translated that in a way where it was filling them with bodies, basically filling his body with the bodies of people, the body of Christ.

The idea being that it was his judgment that was actually going to produce salvation for so many. And I actually prefer that translation. Yeah. and it says in verse 7, he will drink from the brook by the way, therefore he will lift up his head. One of the ideas being that as he is raised from the dead, ascends into heaven, his head is lifted because of the body of Christ with Jesus as their head.

He is the exalted head of the people. well so the question is is melchizedek who is he and people have argued about this and i have to admit i don't understand the arguments because i think that melchizedek is so clearly jesus christ that it's beyond dispute just to use the hebrews author's phrase um king of righteousness king of peace no father or mother or genealogy having neither beginning of days nor end of life i i don't see how it could be anyone else um some of the authors i read these uh I read the, you know, John Gill and John Calvin and some of those guys when I study, you know, they said all these things like, well, it's impossible that it was Jesus because, like, what do you mean? It's almost like you're fighting against what the text says. when it says he's without father or mother genealogy one person argued well that can't be Jesus because he had a mother but even if you go to Jesus the son he has a father and I thought no the point is just they're letting us know that he is he is God this Melchizedek who is a real man on the earth that was spoken to by Abraham he was a person that they saw that he was God. This was a theophany or a Christophany.

This was one of those pre-incarnate appearances of Jesus Christ. And him being without father or mother genealogy is a reference to the fact that this is the son of God who has come into the world. And he's making an appearance in the Old Testament, which he's done on other occasions as well. having neither beginning of days nor end of life that describes no one but god i'm in hebrews 7 3 if you were forgetting where i was i bounce around sometimes and it says but resembling the son of god he continues a priest forever i can't understand why anybody would think that we need any other priest but jesus christ Melchizedek is obviously symbolic language to describe the priesthood of Jesus Christ there is no one that's eternal but Jesus Christ there's nobody greater than Jesus Christ there's no priest that that it's not the idea that we go to Jesus Christ is our high priest but then there's still some other priest Melchizedek I think is senseless and so I'll tell you that Melchizedek is Jesus Christ, and if anybody tells you otherwise, they're entitled to that opinion.

So, this is one of those ones I'm not going to argue about real hard with people. I find great joy in just seeing this point to Jesus in that way. I don't see a whole lot of practical application of that knowledge. I don't see it as something that I would separate with someone over because they really thought that he was some man that was actually a king at that time of a city that may have been Jerusalem or may have been a city closer to Sodom.

That's not going to make a difference in my life or yours. And if you can see a difference, then I guess explain it. But I think it's exciting to think that Jesus Christ himself appeared in the person of Melchizedek. He blessed Abraham before Genesis 15, when these promises were given to Abraham, right before that, in fact. He received a tithe from Abraham, you know, and our tithes, when you think about tithes, they truly go to God.

The money we give to church in the New Testament era, what you're really doing is you're making an offering to God The church or in some cases maybe a ministry is really just the instrument by which you making an offering to God Now you may give the money directly to the church You know I don write my checks to God but what I doing is I offering to God a portion of what God has given me, and I'm doing it through the instrument that he's given, the church. In the case of Abram to Melchizedek, I believe he was giving a tenth directly to God. Melchizedek is a priest of the God Most High he has blessed Abraham because he is the superior thus showing that he is the priest of God forever and that the priesthood that was temporary the Levitical priesthood is subservient to that priesthood and ought to be treated that way.

I will stop there and I will see if you guys have any questions or comments now. Hey, Michael, question for you. Have you ever heard of the the the claim i suppose i'll say that references to the angel of the lord in the old testament are they refer to or they they in fact themselves are theophanies christophanies references to christ appearing to individuals in the old testament yes and there's sometimes that the angel of yahweh or the messenger of yahweh is very clearly a christophany i think uh i think when he appears to what manoa samson's parents i think when he appears to joshua there's a clear reference to it but i don't know if i would say every time you see angel of Yahweh it it now means a Christophany but you know like in in Psalm 34 says the angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear him and delivers them well who's the angel of Yahweh that encamps around those who fear him I mean that's Jesus right so there's a sense where even if it's even if in in one case you could argue well we don't know for sure that that's a reference to jesus himself the instruments that god uses if he uses an angel it's still god doing it right so it's kind of you know i had an argument a long time ago with somebody about whether an angel so in Exodus where it says the angel of the Lord went and killed the firstborn of Egypt, right?

And I had some guy argue really hard with me that it was the Lord that killed him. And my point was well, okay, I guess I agree with you too, but if the Lord used an angel to do it, it's still the Lord doing it. Right. So I thought that was, and I actually got caught up in that one once and argued with someone else about it. I kind of regret it now. But yeah, I've heard that.

And I think it's, I think there's a lot of credibility to it. I guess the thought that comes to my mind then is if, if this if Melchizedek was indeed Christ appearing to Abraham um why why would the Old Testament author of Genesis name him Melchizedek this one-off name that we don't see anywhere else instead of um instead of using the name the angel of the lord well i think i don't know the why answers to a lot of things god does right but in particular the the name melchizedek king of salem is just so packed with meaning already that it's just another way of describing who Christ would be. So he's a messenger of God.

He's an angel of God in a sense, but he's also, he's the king of righteousness. He also a priest of God most high And so this is a man in this case When you see the angel of the Lord sometimes there's no reason we have to believe that it's a man, right? But our high priest needs to be a man. We can't have an angel as our intermediary between us and God.

We need a high priest who's a man. so you know there's a lot of types of christ throughout the old testament and i think that god has given us all these different pictures of who christ is so that we might recognize him when he came in the flesh and when it was revealed in the new testament he could have called the he could have called him jesus christ too right he could have you know God has given us hundreds of clues of who Christ is in the Old Testament so that we'd recognize him and we're without excuse so the people that Jesus spoke directly to he pretty much accused him of evil because they didn't recognize who he was and we're no different we should be able to see this now Now, again, if Melchizedek's just some guy, I mean, I just don't see it. But if he's just some guy who happened to exist, who somehow knew about God, who made sacrifices to God, who Abraham knew the guy well enough to know that he should give him a tenth. I mean, the whole thing is just kind of strange looking to me to think that there's some place called Salem with this righteous king over there.

I don't know. seems a little too coincidental yeah well i mean it just seems it just seems kind of kind of strange but i read somebody say oh yeah it's certainly a real man it's not christ it's just a somebody that and you know one of the commenters are but it's like well of course he had a father or mother it's just said he doesn't have one in hebrews 7 so that that it's unknown so that it points us to Christ or something like it's almost deceptive in that case so so yeah I don't I don't care if you leave today and you say well I don't think it was Jesus that's fine with me I do either way he clearly has met the point to Jesus of course and he's clearly a type of what Jesus would do, who would offer, in this case, bread and wine to those who, you know, had just gone to battle. He offered the, you know, Jesus offered the bread and wine to us in the Last Supper before he broke his body and spilled his blood to make the sacrifice that was needed. and in the case of Abraham he brought the bread and wine to him to nourish them and to give them help after the deliverance of Lot from from the other king and I just see it as such a clear reference to something later I guess I don't know thanks for that appreciate it yeah good question it is interesting when you read the old testament you see angel of yahweh to start thinking thinking about it as as maybe a christophany and christophany if anyone didn't hear that word i think or know that word before it's just a word for an appearance of god before christ is incarnate appearance of Christ. A theophany is when God appears somehow.

Although God is spirit, I mean, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove. God does things in creation and in time that are contrary in a sense to his nature, but done in a way that reveals him to us where we can understand. Because God is altogether separate, totally holy, and he's spirit, we actually can't even know him unless he would reveal himself to us in terms we can understand, which will always be in space and time where he doesn't actually exist in any revealable sense to us by his nature So he has to in some way condescend to always reveal to us himself in a way that only approximates his true self because he can only be comprehended by himself which is part of what makes him god yeah good job michael appreciate it oh you're welcome thank you brother this is the exciting part of Hebrews for us covenant theologian guys definitely well Robert you want to pray then since you're unmuted sure gracious father in heaven Lord your kindness to us through your son Jesus Christ is sometimes more than we can take in Lord we are so thankful Lord for these pictures that you gave us all throughout your word of our Lord Jesus Christ these understandings of who this great king would be so that when he comes his people would in no way misinterpret who he is Lord given that you have granted us your Holy Spirit, Lord, that we could clearly understand your word and understand these things.

It is a kindness for which, oh God, that we could never repay, but only say thank you, oh God. Thank you for your wonderful mercy. Thank you for your gracious word. Thank you for our great King in heaven, oh God, who rules over us and defends us, who is our King, who is our priest, who is the great prophet, who in these last days has spoken to us and spoken to us in his word.

So Jesus, we say thank you. Help us to be faithful stewards of what you've given to us. Help us, O God. Help us to be like your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to look to him. Help us, O God, by the power of your spirit to be like him in our walk today.

Help us, O God, to have your word on our minds today. Let your word be in us today. Help us to follow, O Lord, your word. Help us to do it in spite of the corruption that's still within us. Let your word and by your grace be stronger than the corruption of sin that's within us still, Lord. Help us to be putting off sin.

Help us, Lord, to be understanding that this righteousness that our King has clothed us with, O God, is worth putting off sin, worth repenting, and turning to Christ in obedience to him. Help us to preach this word, O God. Help us to tell it to our families. Help us, O God, by the power of your spirit to give this gospel in very uncomfortable circumstances, maybe with coworkers or other family members or just people in our community, Lord.

For Christ, this king is worthy to be proclaimed. and so Lord help us to do that today as men in the spheres of influence that you've put us in so Lord help us oh God to continue to be men of God loving our wives living with them in understanding ways not being bitter towards them lest our prayers be hindered to our great king and so help us oh God to be humble submitted to your word with hearts that are ready to repent hearts that are softened oh God hearts that are ready to embrace the commands of our king so lord let us do that in all faithfulness so god that you're willing to supply to us by your spirit amen man have a good day guys see some of you sunday okay eisenberg you gotta come visit us sometime man also uh april 16 for those of you who haven't heard that's the ohio state spring game we will be down there giving out the gospel for the latter half of the morning so anybody that wants to go to ohio state and do evangelism that's april 16 it's a really fun day real family friendly day as well bye everybody alright we'll see you thanks a lot Michael thank you for listening to Be A Berean with your host Michael Coughlin I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website michaelcoughlin.net you can contact me by emailing me michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.