Hebrews 5:9
"And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec."
Then we drop Melchizedek, as not another word is spoken throughout all of chapter 6 or the rest of chapter 5 until we get to chapter 7. Now why? Well, the next verse in Hebrews 5 verse 11 tells us. These people were not ready for any teaching concerning Melchizedek. They were too unspiritual. They were still babes in Christ. They couldn’t comprehend this priesthood of Melchizedek, and I imagine that’s most of church people today. Most people haven’t got a clue as to this priesthood of Melchizedek. And who he was and what he accomplished. And here’s the reason:
Hebrews 5:11
"Of whom (he says) we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing you are dull of hearing."
They weren’t ready for anything concerning Melchizedek. And then he goes on and he brings them to task, that even though they should have by now had enough handle on all of these things to go out and teach others, could they? No. No, they couldn’t teach anybody, they didn’t know it themselves.
So, everything down through here and then all the problems that we covered with those who were apostate up in chapter 6 and all these other things, he had to bring them down to the place where we just finished now in chapter 6 that they now understood. They now understood that the way into the Holiest of all had been opened up because of what Christ had accomplished not only on the Cross in the flesh as the son of man. But also that which has been veiled in what we call the Lord's Last Supper. And so now then, if we understand that much, hopefully, we’re ready to study Melchizedek. Now that’s the way I have to look at it. All of a sudden, because they were carnal believers and still on milk, Paul had to drop the subject of Melchizedek in chapter 5, until he got to the end of chapter 6, and hopefully they are becoming more mature, and getting there, and ready to understand the mystery about Melchizedek. Now let’s look at chapter 7 verse 1.
Hebrews 7:1a
"For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God,…"
Now if you don’t mind marking your Bible, underline those three words. The "most high God."
Hebrews 7:1b-2
"…who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace;"
Which means in the Hebrew ‘Shalom,’ he was the King of Peace. Let’s go back and pick all that up in Genesis chapter 14. Here we will be introduced for the first time to this high priest of the Most High God. In the Hebrew I think it was El Elyon. Now, we’re going to take this rather slowly because, like Paul indicates, you can’t understand these things concerning Melchizedek if you don’t have a pretty good handle on mature spiritual things.
Genesis 14:17-18
"And the king of Sodom went out to meet him (that is Abraham) after his return from the slaughter of the Chedorlaomer, (who had invaded Sodom and Gomorrah and had taken Lot and all of his family with them) and the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh which is the king’s dale.”
Remember Abraham is coming back having been victorious, and had rescued Lot and his family. Here we see Abraham as a type of Christ as redeemer of Lot who now meats with the high priest-king another type of Christ.
Genesis 17:18
And Melchizedek king of Salem (The King of Peace, which of course are the last letters of the city of Jerusalem, and would be the city of Jerusalem in a later day) brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God."
Now the Most High God is a term that is never used concerning the children of Israel. The children of Israel were more acquainted with the term Yhovah, or El Shaddai but "the Most High God" you see, as I’ve stressed is the term of God that was not unique just to Israel, but to the whole of creation. He’s "the Most High God" of everything. Yhovah is primarily the God concerning Israel. But this is the "Most High God" and you’ll see this throughout Scripture.
I’m going to make a couple of points before we leave and chase down this title. We have this first introduction to Melchizedek with Abraham here at about 2000 BC. I say about, because we don’t know within a hundred years or so. But here we’re introduced to this high priest of the Most High God at about 2000 BC. Now we might as well follow the Scripture so if you’ll follow me there and then we’ll come back. Jump all the way up to Psalms 110, and I think it’s verse 4. There is no mention of him in between from Genesis to Psalms. And now the Psalmist writes:
Psalms 110:4
"The LORD has sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."
No comments:
Post a Comment