[Prayer]
Today’s message is from Hebrews 7:1-28—the entire chapter. This is a continuation of what the writer of Hebrews has been saying right along—that Jesus is our high priest. His point is (and God’s point is) that we have our salvation through Jesus—that if we follow Jesus, we are secure in our eternal salvation. How important is salvation? From our standpoint, it’s the most important thing there is (although we tend to forget it when there are distractions all around us). And from God’s standpoint how important is salvation? Well, he’s not willing for any to perish, but wants all to come to repentance.
As we read the passage, remember, as always that we are reading the word of God. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17)
Also, as always, I encourage each of you to read your Bible every day. Think carefully about what God is teaching you. Go over it in your mind after you have read it. Ask our Heavenly Father to give you understanding. If anything seems especially significant, underline it so that you can come back to it later.
Now let’s read the passage—Hebrews 7:1-28:
Melchizedek the High Priest
1This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, 2and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” 3Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever.
4Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! 5Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people—that is, their brothers—even though their brothers are descended from Abraham. 6This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 7And without doubt the lesser person is blessed by the greater. 8In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living. 9One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, 10because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor.
Jesus Like Melchizedek
11If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the people), why was there still need for another priest to come—one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? 12For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law. 13He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. 14For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. 15And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, 16one 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. 17For it is declared:
“You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
18The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19(for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. 20And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, 21but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him:
“The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’”
22Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. 23Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
26Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever. (Hebrews 7:1-28)
Last week I talked about chapter 6 verse 13 through the end of the chapter, verse 20. The NIV translators gave this passage the title The Certainty of God’s Promise. The writer used God’s promise to Abraham, I will surely bless you and give you many descendants, to illustrate the certainty of his promises to us. God also promised Abraham that through his offspring (singular offspring—just one offspring) all nations on earth would be blessed. That offspring, of course, is Jesus.
God had made his promise to Abraham earlier, but when God tested Abraham and determined that he was willing to sacrifice his son, his one and only son whom he loved, God confirmed his promise with an oath. The writer of Hebrews says, “God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.” The two unchangeable things are the certainty of God’s promises and the certainty of his oaths. God does not lie! His promises and his oaths are certain!
God made his promise to us through Jesus. Listen to this:
8But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” (Romans 10:9-11)
If we trust in Jesus, if we flee to Jesus for refuge, we will never be put to shame. God confirmed his promise by not withholding his Son, his one and only son, whom he loved. God further confirms his promise to each of us in our hearts when we trust him and obey him.
The last two verses of last week’s passage are:
19We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:19, 20)
The first two verses in today’s passage are:
1This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, 2and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” (Hebrews 7:1, 2)
The writer of Hebrews is making a big point of the fact that Jesus is our high Priest. I’ve said that this letter (Hebrews) is written to us, and it is. It’s for all believers, in fact. But the writer is writing with Jewish believers in mind. Priests and priesthoods and inner sanctuaries may not mean much to us—if you study the Old Testament, they’ll mean much more—but they were the very heart and soul of God’s relationship with the nation of Israel. So we have to have some background in the history of Israel and God’s interaction with Israel to begin to see how important these things are.
The writer is talking about Abraham. Abraham is the father of the Jewish nation. Everyone who belongs to that nation is either descended directly from Abraham or is descended from someone who has accepted the Jewish religion—the religion that God established for his chosen people, the nation that he build from one man, the nation he built from Abraham.
God called Abraham to leave his country and go to a foreign land, a land he didn’t even know where it would be until he arrived there. It was the land where the nation of Israel exists today. Abraham left his own land with only the promise that God would show him the land where he was to go sometime after he left.
When Abraham arrived, the land wasn’t empty. It was occupied. But Abraham lived there. And there God promised Abraham that he would make from him a great nation—descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky or the sand of the seashore. God also promised Abraham that through his descendant—through his one very special descendant—through Jesus, in fact—every nation on earth would be blessed.
Later, after the nation of Israel had been established in the land of Egypt—after they had been multiplied under slavery in the refining crucible—God brought them out of Egypt. At Mount Sinai, he gave them his law through Moses. They were not able to keep it. (We have not been able to keep it either.) God told the Israelites this: “Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.” “The man who obeys them will live by them.” That means that if you want to live and not die, you have to obey God’s decrees and laws. The Israelites didn’t obey God’s laws and we haven’t either.
Through the Law of Moses, God established the Levitical priesthood. The priest had to be descended from Levi, one of the 12 patriarchs of Israel. It was through the priests that the Israelites were to approach God. The priests were the intermediaries between the Israelites and God. The high priest went into the inner sanctuary once a year to offer the blood of a sacrificial lamb to God on his own behalf and the behalf of the nation of Israel. This was the procedure established by God. But it didn’t work.
Well, it should have been fairly obvious to anyone with any common sense that the system that God had established through the Law of Moses wasn’t working. By Jesus’s time it should have been obvious. The Pharisees tried to pretend that the law was working. But it didn’t work. Men were still sinners.
And you know what. I don’t think God expected it to work. I think he wanted the Israelites to be looking for something better—to be longing for something better. I think this because I know that God had in mind something better right along. God had in mind Jesus who was the sacrificial Lamb of God who was slain before the creation of the world. It was God’s plan from the beginning.
According to the Law of Moses, the high priest entered the inner sanctuary with the blood of the sacrificial lamb once a year. No one else could do it—only the high priest. If he didn’t do everything just exactly the way God had prescribed, he was dead (and so was anyone else who tried to enter the inner sanctuary).
That inner sanctuary that the high priest entered once a year was the inner sanctuary in the earthly tabernacle. The earthly tabernacle (and later the earthly temple) was only a representation of the heavenly temple. Jesus entered the real inner sanctuary, the most holy place, in heaven with his own blood to make atonement for our sins once for all time. And because he entered, we are able to follow him there. We are able to follow Jesus and to approach God without the need of a human priest. Jesus is our high priest and we are all priests ourselves. We are “a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5) We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that we may declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)
The writer of Hebrews, in these last three chapters, is comparing the priesthood of Jesus with the priesthood of Melchizedek. He did so in Hebrews chapter 5 and again at the end of chapter 6: “He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 6:20)
Who was (or is) Melchizedek? He is only mentioned two other places in the Bible—in Genesis chapter 14 and in Psalm 110 verse 4. In Genesis chapter 14, Abraham met Melchizedek. Abraham had just returned from a battle. An army had conquered and plundered the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and carried off all their inhabitants. Abraham’s nephew Lot had been one of the inhabitants of Sodom and was carried off along with everyone else. Abraham had an army of his own and went after them and recovered all of the people and all the goods—and Lot. Let me read from Genesis chapter 14. This is from verses 18 through 20:
18Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, 19and he blessed Abram, saying,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.
20And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything. (Genesis 14:18-20)
This is all that it says about Melchizedek. He seems to have just appeared out of nowhere. He was the king of Salem (which the footnote in the NIV says is Jerusalem). The writer of Hebrews points out that Melchizedek means king of righteousness. Also, Salem means peace (Shalom). So Melchizedek is also the king of peace. (Remember Isaiah 9:7: “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this?”) When Melchizedek met Abraham, he brought ought bread and wine just as we do every Sunday when we remember that Jesus went to the cross for us. And he blessed Abraham. And Abraham gave Melchizedek a tenth of everything. Melchizedek was the priest of God Most High.
Giving a tithe (a tenth) to the priesthood is part of the Law of Moses (but God didn’t give that law until several hundred years later). In the Law of Moses God commanded that the Israelites give a tithe to the priesthood. And we know that God regarded this giving of the tithe as giving to him. Here’s what God says. This is from Malachi 3:8-10:
8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, 'How do we rob you?'
“In tithes and offerings. 9You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. (Malachi 3:8-10)
The tithe belongs to God. Abraham gave the tenth to Melchizedek.
The three verses I quoted from Genesis about Melchizedek are the only place in the Bible where Melchizedek actually appeared. However, as I’ve said, his name is also mentioned in Psalm 110 verse 4. The writer of Hebrews quoted from that verse back in chapter 5 when he said, “And he says in another place, ‘You are a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.’” (Heb. 5:6)
Now let me read from Psalm 110. I’m going to read verses 1 through 4.
1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”
Who’s this Psalm about? Whom did the Lord tell to sit at his right hand until he made his enemies a footstool for his feet? Who’s mighty scepter will extended from Zion? And just where is Zion, anyway? (It’s in Jerusalem. When we sing We’re Marching to Zion, we are singing about the New Jerusalem that came down from heaven in Revelation. “There’ll be singing, there’ll be shouting when the saints come marching in...in the New Jerusalem.” Remember those hymns?)
In addition to telling us that Melchizedek’s name means king of righteousness, that king of Salem means king of peace and that Melchizedek was the priest of God Most High, the writer of Hebrews also says this: “Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever.”
Let’s look at verses 4 through 10 in today’s passage. I’ll read them:
4Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! 5Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people—that is, their brothers—even though their brothers are descended from Abraham. 6This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 7And without doubt the lesser person is blessed by the greater. 8In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living. 9One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, 10because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor. (Hebrews 7:4-10)
So who is Melchizedek? In verse 8 it says, “...by him who is declared to be living.” Some say that it was Jesus himself that appeared to Abraham to serve the bread and the wine, to bless him and to collect the tenth from him. It sounds like it. But the writer of Hebrews seems to talk about Melchizedek as a separate person, so I’m not sure. In any case, the point is that what the writer says about Melchizedek applies to Jesus. (And by the way, “without beginning of days or end of life” in verse 3 is a pretty clear statement that Jesus always existed and always will.)
Now, let’s look at verses 11 and 12:
11If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the people), why was there still need for another priest to come—one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? 12For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law. (Hebrews 7:11, 12)
“...there must also be a change in the law.” There has been a change in the law. We talk about it most Sundays. The old covenant was the covenant from Mount Sinai, the covenant that God made with the nation of Israel through the law: “If you do these things, you will live by them.” No one—no one except Jesus, that is—has kept the law. We were all dead in our sins and transgressions. But now we have a new covenant. And by the way, in case you didn’t know, covenant and testament are the same word in Greek. So when we are talking about the New Testament, we are really talking about God’s new covenant that he made through the blood of Jesus, a covenant that doesn’t depend on whether or not we keep the Law of Moses perfectly, but on God’s grace through Jesus’s sacrifice. There’s been a change in the law. It’s been a change to grace.
Let’s look at verses 13 through 16:
13He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. 14For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. 15And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, 16one 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 (Hebrews 7:13-16)
Jesus became a priest based on the power of an indestructible life. He is without beginning of days or end of life. And he confirmed that by rising from the dead! And you know what? We have the power of an indestructible life, too! We too will rise from the dead! Should knowing this affect the way you do things—the way you make decisions? Jesus said, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” (Luke 12:4, 5) How does the knowledge that we have an indestructible life affect your thinking? (Or how does the knowledge that you don’t have an indestructible life affect you? If you don’t have an indestructible life, don’t delay. Come to Jesus now.)
Let’s look at verse 17 through 25:
17For it is declared:
“You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
18The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19(for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. 20And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, 21but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him:
“The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’”
22Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. 23Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Hebrews 7:17-25)
Verse 18 says, “...the law made nothing perfect.” That’s because no one has kept it. We were promised by God in the Old Testament that he would send the Messiah. We were promised a Messiah who would make everything perfect—who would take away all that wasn’t perfect. God does not lie. He does not break his promises. But to confirm his promise he also made an oath: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’” Jesus is the guarantee of the better covenant. (The writer says, “better covenant,” but that is an extreme understatement. The old covenant was death and hell. The new covenant is life and joy and peace—forever! Jesus is completely able to save. He always lives to intercede for us.)
Let me read verses 26 through 28, the last three verses:
26Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever. (Hebrews 7:26-28)
I’m not going to say much about these verses—it’s self-explanatory—except to note that the last verse says that Jesus has been made perfect. It’s not that Jesus ever sinned. (We talked about these things back in chapter 2.) It’s because before Jesus became a man he had never experienced any of the things we have, but now he has. He is able to understand all of our struggles. Isn’t it true that if you are trying to help or encourage someone who is undergoing some kind of severe trial (or even a more mild trial) that it’s much easier if you have experienced the same thing that person is going through? If you have never gone through what that person is going through, you can quote scripture that seems to apply. You may even be able to point out other people who have gone through something similar and overcome. But it’s hard to have the same assurance as you would if you had gone through it yourself. Jesus has gone through all of the stuff that we might ever be called to go through and more. He is able to understand what we are going through and he is able to intercede for us. Jesus is our Lord and our Savior. He is our high priest. He is our intercessor. Amen!
[Prayer]