In the previous newsletter we introduced the person of Melchizedek, his character as king of righteousness; his royalty as king of Salem; and his job as priest of the Most High God. The book of Hebrews further elaborates on the mystery man and his importance as priest of the Most High God. Since Psalm 110:4 connects Melchizedek’s role as priest to that of the Messiah, it is appropriate to examine the priesthood of Christ during the time of Easter.
Before we begin we must understand why Jesus is not a priest in the order of Aaron as established by the law. To be a priest one had to be born from the tribe of Levi (one of the twelve sons of Israel) and born from the house of Aaron (meaning one of his descendents, see Ex. 28). The high priest has further qualifications in that he must be called by God. Jesus does not fulfill the role of high priest according to the old covenant because he is from the tribe of Judah and the house of David. However, he was called by God the Father to be our high priest; therefore, Christ must come from another priesthood.
There are two main qualities that make the order of Melchizedek stand out, and those qualities are that the order is eternal and that it superseded the order of Aaron. Melchizedek’s order is different from that of Aaron’s in that the order did not change from the death of the high priest. F. F. Bruce writes, “nowhere is it related that Melchizedek lost his priestly office by death, whereas we have the record, generation after generation, of Levitical priests who dies and had to hand on their dignity and duty to their heirs.” The author of Hebrews claims that Melchizedek was, “without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever,” (Hebrews 7:3). The fact that Melchizedek’s birth, death and family is not recorded does not mean that he is some angelic being, for it’s not what the Scriptures say, but what they omit that makes Melchizedek significant. For what the Bible speaks about Melchizedek and also what it omits makes him a type of Christ. It is not the human side of Jesus that is being focused on; it is the fact that He is the eternal Son of God.
A second quality of the order of Melchizedek is that it supersedes the order of Aaron. This is found in Genesis 14:18–20 where Abraham, from whose loins the Aaronic priesthood would later come from, was blessed by Melchizedek. Also, Abraham paid a tithe to Melchizedek. Both of these things, the blessing and the tithe, reveals the superiority of the priesthood of Melchizedek over the Aaronic priesthood. For the Word of God says that the lesser person is blessed by the greater (Hebrews 7:7).
Dale Health sums this up by stating, “The priestly sons of Levi, in Abram’s ancestral line, tenth-takers from their brethren by law, even they, in their father Abram, paid tithes to this priestly forerunner of Christ. Thus further evidence for the greatness of Melchizedek is shown by the tenth-giving Levites, the long-legalized tenth-takers in Israel who, in Abram paid tithes to the greater Melchizedek, and with Abram received a blessing from this ‘priest of God Most High.’”
In conclusion, Melchizedek, the great mystery man of the Bible, was both priest and king and who was a type of Christ. The Aaronic order is inferior to that of Melchizedek’s order because it was temporal, in that it ended in death.Also, the Aaronic order was subjected to Melchizedek becuase the Levites received from their brethren tithes, who in turn had already tithe to Melchizedek through the patriarch Abraham.
In today’s society, where technology changes in a blink of an eye and the world proclaims of no absolutes, the believer can rest assured that he has not only the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but also that he has a high priest that endures forever. A high priest that can never fail, nor die but is continually before the throne of God, pleading His clients case, in order to one day bring the client to a complete sanctifying work of the Father through the Son.