Hello once again in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord!
In my last post, I introduced the doctrine of Melchizedek and talked a bit about Spiritual maturity. While I had originally just intended to post on maturity, this gave me the idea of really delving into the doctrine of Melchizedek as a mini-series for the blog. The next few posts will be focused on identifying Melchizedek, king of Salem, so we can then exegete the rest of the Hebrews text which uses Melchizedek to teach of Jesus’s priesthood as a better priesthood than the earthly Levitical priesthood.
There are two major texts in the Old Testament that have something to say about Melchizedek: Genesis 14:19-24, and Psalm 110:4. Let’s look at each of them separately.
In the Genesis story, Abraham had just finished rescuing his kinsman, Lot, from the hands of Chedorlaomer and the three kings who were with him. Upon his return, the king of Sodom as well as the king of Salem, Melchizedek, came out to meet him. Before we jump into the text, let’s look at the etymology of Melchizedek and the city he rules.
There is quite a bit of significance in the name of Melchizedek as well as in the name Salem. The name Melchizedek is a name comprised of two Hebrew words, מלך meaning, king; and צדיק meaning, righteous. Together they come together to mean “king of righteousness.” This is similar to the name Adonizedek (Lord of righteousness) which we see in Josh 10:1,3. The kingdom of Salem, which Melchizedek rules over, may remind us of the name “Jerusalem,” which means “possession of peace.” Many believe that this mention of Salem is actually the old name for Jerusalem, as used in Ps. 76:2 (Keil & Delitzsch). So Melchizedek ought to be understood as “The righteous king of peace.”
Now getting into the text of Genesis, Melchizedek comes with bread and wine (v18), likely to feed Abraham’s soldiers as well as to bless Abraham for his success in securing peace for the surrounding nations (the surrounding kingdoms served Chedorlaomer, v4). Melchizedek says this to Abraham in v9:
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”
Upon receiving this blessing, Abraham gives him a tenth of everything. This makes it very clear that Abraham not only serves the same God that Melchizedek does, but also that Abraham recognizes Melchizedek’s priesthood as legitimate and truly divine. Further, when Abraham speaks to the king of Sodom, he prefaces it by saying “I have lifted my hand to the LORD, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth…” which would identify himself as a follower of the God of Melchizedek.
In Psalm 110, we see a prophecy concerning the coming Messiah and King. 110:1 is quoted in Hebrews 1:13, so this particular passage in Psalms is already in the mind of the reader of Hebrews when we get to Hebrews 5 regarding Melchizedek and the quotation of 110:4 in Hebrews 7:17. So we ought to be familiar with it before getting into Hebrews. But looking specifically at Psalm 110:4, we see a revelation given to David, that a divine priesthood of a higher order exists and will one day be restored in the coming King. This coming King is described as “a priest forever,” which should remind the modern reader of Hebrews 9 and the copies and shadows of the heavenly reality. The priesthood prophesied here is the divine priesthood, without beginning or end: a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. This was revealed to David, to be recorded as prophecy.
Hopefully, this post gave a primer to the source texts that are foundational to our understanding of Hebrews 5-7. A lot of what is taught in these passages will be further fleshed out in the coming days. In the next post we will look at some different excerpts in Hebrews and toss around some ideas about the identity of Melchizedek.
Grace and Peace,
Joel
No comments:
Post a Comment