Read Hebrews 7
Who begins a chapter like this: For
this Melchizedek? In fairness, the author didn’t assign the chapter breaks, but
still, it’s an unusual way to begin a paragraph or a sentence.
The Greek word here is gar. We translate it as for.
Gar or for often indicates a
statement or argument built upon what precedes. We know this.
For
God so loved the world…
For God did not send
his Son into the world…
It is like the word oun or therefore in
that it is a conjunction that connects related thoughts.
Why choose one over the other? Gar suggests the building of
something. What?
Hope. Consider how we left the
previous chapter. We have this hope that is an anchor for our soul. Jesus is
our Great High Priest and is already in the inner sanctuary waiting for us.
He is a high priest forever in the
order of Melchizedek. Continuing now into the current chapter: For this Melchizedek.
It’s a way of talking about someone
who is obviously important but perhaps not as widely known as Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Joseph, or Moses. Everyone knew
who they were.
For this Melchizedek is something of
an enigma.
It’s almost like the author is talking
out of the side of his mouth. Now this character Melchizedek… For this so and
so… Now this guy…
It’s just not how you begin a chapter
in the Bible unless it’s chapter 7 of Hebrews.
For:
Jesus is the
way to the Father.
Our salvation is in Christ
alone.
Jesus is greater
than Moses.
We need to move
from milk to meat. We need to build upon this wonderful foundation that we
have.
We have a great high priest. He is
Jesus. He knows our trials and tribulations and intercedes for us with God the
Father.
And this high priest is different from
all of the rest. Priests came from the Levitical order, that is the Tribe of
Levi. They received no territory but were dispersed among the tribes. Each
tribe had a complement of priests.
These priests were human and they sinned.
They had to make a sacrifice for their own sins before they could make a
sacrifice for the people’s sins.
If you were one of those people, you
hoped that the priest on duty did everything right. You didn’t want to waste
your sacrifice because the flawed, human priest had too much to drink the night
before and botched the whole sacrifice and atonement process.
Your atonement depended in part on
another human.
I have put my life in the hands of
others before. There were many times in the Marine Corps, a few times with
doctors, and I am sure there were times that I was unaware of people doing
things behind the scenes.
I have lived to tell about it, but you
can’t bat 1.000 forever, at least not with other humans. But Jesus is different in so many ways.
He is God.
He is Love.
He is Savior.
He is Lord.
He is exalted on high.
He is already in the presence of holy God.
He doesn’t have to go behind the curtain. He is beside the Father already.
He is our Great High Priest and the
only priest that we will ever need.
Human priests come and go, serve and
die, do things exactly as prescribed by the law, and take a few shortcuts on occasion.
If you lived long enough, you might go
through a few or many different priests in the course of your annual trips to
the temple for atonement or for other feasts or sacrifices throughout the year.
Jesus is different in another way. He
was not qualified to be a priest according to what was prescribed through Moses
for all earthly priests came through the order of Levi. Well, except one that we know little about.
Jesus came through the line of Judah.
Melchizedek was not a priest in the
order of Levi. There was no Levitical order at the time when we were first
introduced to Melchizedek.
Abram, after rescuing Lot and
defeating four invading armies, made a tithe of the spoils to this unique
person we know as Melchizedek. The author
here notes that in an extended sense, the progenitor of Levi had made the tithe
to Melchizedek.
So there were two priestly orders. There
were those in the order of Melchizedek, of which there were only two. Both were
of heavenly origin.
There were those in the order of Levi,
all of whom were human and flawed, and would die someday.
Since the time of the death and resurrection
of Jesus, we have only one priest. He is a great high priest in the order of
Melchizedek. Melchizedek means King of Salem, which we know as Jerusalem.
That title means King of Righteousness.
It means King of Peace. Now the King of
Kings is also a Great High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.
So, why in this twenty-first century,
do we care what order the priesthood of Jesus is? Why?
The message has not changed. We must move
forward.
Jesus is greater than Moses and the
Law that came through him.
The salvation of the Lord is greater
than the annual atonement that once governed.
Jesus is the only priest that we will
ever need, and he is a priest forever.
What does that mean? The law as people
knew it back then had no more power to provide a way to atonement. Yes, it
still noted our sinful nature but its power to atone had fulfilled its limited
purpose. Atonement was now in the blood of Jesus. It was and is a once and
for all deal.
The law was not bad. It was not
discarded. It still provided value as to how to live a godly human life, but
atonement was in Christ alone.
As far as atonement goes, the law was
useless. Ouch! That seems a little harsh. C’mon, God created the law. It was
and is
good. It was given for
our own good.
If you wanted right standing with God
and sought it through the procedures prescribed by the law, the truth says, “You
can’t get there from here.”
It’s the same God. It’s the same law.
It’s the same heaven and the same earth. These have not changed, but we now
know a:
· New Great High Priest.
· New Covenant.
· New Creation.
One day we will know a
new heaven and a
new earth, but for now, we can live in the Kingdom of God. We can have
peace now. We live in God’s righteousness now.
We can pass from
death to life now.
Our salvation has already begun. We
don’t go to the grocery store looking for formula and baby food for our diet.
We don’t start over building the house
from the foundation up when a neighborhood kid hits a baseball through a
window. We fix the window, and we
probably even give the kid his ball back.
We move forward.
We put the words of
our Master into
practice and when we miss the mark, we
confess and get back in our race.
Our Great High Priest understands our
circumstances firsthand. Unlike the priests in the Levitical order who also understood
human experience, Jesus
did not sin.
Our Great High Priest is not looking
for a reason to kick us to the curb. He is helping us move forward to abundant
life.
Our Great High Priest wants us to approach
his throne of grace with confidence.
For those who stay awake for most of
my sermons, have you noticed that I seldom do hellfire and damnation? It’s not
that there isn’t a hell. There is.
Typically, it’s because I am preaching
to the saved and that means a message of discipleship. There’s another reason,
even when I’m speaking or preaching to people are not saved.
I just find that the effectiveness of
trying to get someone to heaven by scaring them out of hell isn’t the best
approach. Sure, it might be a last resort but surely not the first course of
action.
Why?
People who receive Christ out of fear
don’t truly understand the love of God. They don’t understand the abundant life
that awaits them. They are just trying to avoid eternal punishment.
Many think that when they profess Jesus
as Lord, their race is over. They have reached the finish line. Call me when
they give out the medals.
They just don’t understand that they are
only in the starting blocks of their new race. We are new creatures. We have a
new life before us. Our salvation is secure but we have discipleship ahead of
us.
It is a race where we don’t care how
we finish with regard to others. We just want to run the best race that we can.
We want to move forward towards abundant life now as well as what is in
store for us in the heavenly realms.
We don’t shy away from an angry God
who could have thrown us away at any time and maybe still will. We approach the
throne of grace with confidence knowing how much God loves us and that he will
never disown us, even when we think we have deserved some disowning.
God has wrath, but it is not for us.
We no longer fear
punishment.
God created us and he loves us.
He sent his Son into the world to save
us and now that Son serves as our Great High Priest interceding for us for, he
knows the life we live.
The Spirit lives within us.
We get this whole moving forward
thing.
And when we have trouble with it, we
go to our Great High Priest for he is forever on our side as we navigate this
world on our way to fully embracing him, his Father’s kingdom, and our eternity
with him.
Amen.
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