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Genesis 14 and Psalm 110 in Hebrews 7

Hebrews 7

Listen or read the following transcript from The Gospel Coalition as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Biblical theology from Hebrews 7.


In this last session, we’re going to study Melchizedek. Now, I have to tell you, I still do quite a lot of university missions and the like. If I was doing a university mission, I would not begin by saying, “My topic tonight is the great priesthood of Melchizedek.” Not because it’s not important, but precisely because both priesthood and Melchizedek are categories that are virtually incoherent in the contemporary world.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting down with Stuart Townend and Keith Getty and his wife, who are dear friends. I was in Britain for something or other. These people regularly sit people like me down and say, “Tell us. What themes are we inadequately putting into our songs?” Isn’t that a great question? There are not many contemporary songwriters that ask theological questions. They’re asking them. One of them is the priesthood of Jesus. I can think of one really good one on the priesthood of Jesus in the last 50 years, but only one. Yet when you think how much emphasis that theme receives in this book, we just don’t think much in terms of priesthood.

Now if we come from a strong Roman Catholic background, then we might have a category for priest, and perhaps some in this room have that sort of background. Nevertheless, even those with Catholic backgrounds have the category of priest, but it might be associated with all kinds of interesting things nowadays. There have been enough scandals in that respect, or it might just be associated with a certain kind of authority in a parochial school and not much more. It might not have a heavy theological structure to it.

But in the ancient world, in the world of the New Testament, in the world of the Old Testament, in the pagan world, and in the Christian world, the category of priest was transparently obvious and astonishingly important, because you have to have somebody who goes between the gods and us in the pagan world or between the one high God and us.

Whereas today, we have become so familiar, sometimes in a godly sense and sometimes quite frankly in cheap sentimental twaddle sense, we think about the great God and we saunter into his presence as if it’s sort of a sovereign right. “Hi, God. Good to see you this morning.” We even talk as if that sort of intimacy marks our deep spirituality, whereas somewhere along the line we’ve forgotten what it cost the eternal Son of God to make boldness of access into the presence of the living God a privilege and a right. These themes are bound up with the gospel.

If I was speaking evangelistically in a university setting, which I often do, I have to set the stage for these kinds of things nowadays, but I’m not going to do that with you. You’re Christians. I’m sure most of you are mature Christians. I’m not even going to set the stage in terms of a whole lot of allusions to the Old Testament priesthood and so on. There just isn’t time.

What I’m going to do instead is take you through three passages. First, Genesis 14; second, Psalm 110; and third, parts of Hebrews 7. The aim, because it’s part of this series, is to show you how Hebrews uses the Old Testament. It’s to show you how the Bible works, how it coheres. We will derive spiritual theological personal gain from this as we proceed, but my first desire is to understand how these references to Melchizedek work.

1. Genesis 14

Let me remind you of the setting. Abram and Lot have separated. Lot has chosen Sodom-Gomorrah area. Then in chapter 14, we are introduced to an alliance of kings. Genesis 14:1: “At the time when Amraphel was king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer, king of Elam and Tidal, king of Goyim, these kings went to war against …” Another whole string; that is, four kings against five.

Now, when we think of going to war and kings, we’re thinking of nations and huge armies. We’re thinking of perhaps a confrontation on the plains of Europe involving Panzer tanks and so on, huge movements of divisions and so forth. You must understand that a lot of the battles at this time were a brief confrontation and then a kind of running fight, with the losing side running off and the other side chasing them.

You could be a king of a town (it was called a city) which had only 5,000 or 6,000 or 8,000, and that would be a pretty good-sized town. You were a king. You must think small-town mayor rather than king for many of these people. You have an alliance of four kings, four small-town mayors.

The cities could be bigger. They could have 50,000 or 60,000. You’ve got the soldiers from all of these towns coming together, and you have a sizable group, but you’re not thinking division after division after division of Russians being shot up in Stalingrad here. That’s not what you’re thinking of. These are relatively small by the history standards of World War I and World War II.

Nevertheless, these raiding parties were not just 30 or 40 guys; they were pretty terrifying at the time. They begin their raids and they are gaining territory and eventually in the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer (verse 5) and the kings aligned with him went out and defeated some people much closer now to the hill country of Judea where Abraham is.

Verse 8–9: “Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah …” Now don’t forget Sodom and Gomorrah are just towns, so these are big-city mayors, big city by their term of big city, with their troops. “Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) marched out and drew up their battle lines in the Valley of Siddim against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim …” And so forth, “… four kings against five.”

Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits, and in the struggle that ensued, Kedorlaomer and his bunch defeated Sodom and his bunch, and typical of these raids, they took the women and children off, they took the cattle off, they took anything that was transportable off. It was a raid in which not many men would have died. They would have started running for the hills at this point. Everything else was transported, and now these chaps are heading back north, way north of what became to be called Damascus, a long way north.

Verse 13: “A man who had escaped came and reported this to Abram, the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the great trees of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshkol and Aner, all of whom were allied with Abram.” Now we’re going to discover that it’s Abram and the people aligned with him, too. Abram is not alone in the raid that follows. These chaps are apparently city kings for their small towns, too.

“When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” That’s using the later term. At that point the tribe of Dan was not established there, of course, so at that point, Dan wasn’t born. It’s using the later geographical term as this is written up by Moses. That is edited again even later in terms of labeling the geographical area so that the later readers could know exactly what parcel of ground you are talking to.

It’s like me mentioning Montreal and how it was founded, except that when it was founded, it wasn’t founded as Montreal, it was founded as Hochelaga. Do you see? But I will mention it now as founded as Montreal because that’s the name by which everybody knows it today.

“During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people.” Now he didn’t do this only with the 318. If you look down at the bottom of the chapter (verse 24), “I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me—to Aner, Eshkol and Mamre.” You know that theses chaps and their troops went with them. Do you see?

When the text says that Abram had 318 trained men, you’re not thinking US Marines here. I have a son who is a US Marine. Yes. We used to roughhouse just a little, but maybe two or three years ago I punched him in the shoulder about something or other. He put his whopping big arm around me, and he smiled sweetly, and he said, “Dad, do you have any idea how many ways I could kill you with my bare hands?” Talk about the gift of intimidation! Whoa! Of course, he is right.

The Marines have what they call MCMAP, Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. What it does is it finds all the most lethal forms of all the other martial arts programs in the world, and he trains people up to black belt in this MCMAP. Do you see? He wasn’t just pulling my leg. In fact, if he had, I wouldn’t still have it. He has been up and down the mountains of the Hindu Kush, stopping insurgents coming in from Pakistan, carrying 110 pounds on his back above 11,000 feet. He’s seen AK-47 rounds bounce off his body armor, blown up in Humvees. He’s seen it all. These guys are trained.

When it says 318 trained people, it doesn’t mean that. It means they know how to handle a stave. They’re fit. They’re country people. They know what they are doing. They can handle themselves. That’s what it means. It doesn’t even mean they have nice plates of body armor or the like. It means they can run about 150 miles north. That’s what it means. It means things like that. Still, it’s a pretty good-sized raid. If he has 318, then we don’t know how many the others have. Maybe all together they have 1,000, maybe even 2,000, but it’s not division level or anything like that.

Verse 17: “After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings aligned with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).” Skip down to verse 21. “The king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself.’ ”

Now Sodom was not being generous. That was the protocol in the ancient Near East. If people went off and actually did a reverse raid and got the goods back, then their payment was they kept all the produce and the goods and the people came back. Sodom was not being generous saying, “Oh! Oh! Thank you so much! You can have everything; just give me my people back.”

He was merely speaking in terms of what was the protocol for the day. My point in dropping verses 18–20 is the storyline flows nicely if you drop 18–20. Did you see? You don’t need them there to make sense of the storyline. The storyline is terrific and makes perfectly good sense without it.

Verse 22: “But Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, “I made Abram rich.” I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me—to Aner, Eshkol and Mamre. Let them have their share.”

Drop out verses 18–20 for a moment, and you can see how the flow works. Abram and his chaps, along with those that belong to these other three, go north, and in a successful raid, chasing them beyond Dan, all the way to Syria, Damascus, they manage to collect everything back together, they bring it all back, and Sodom gets the people and he says, “You can keep the goods.”

Abram says, “I have taken an oath before almighty God. I can’t do that. I’ll only accept what goes to my colleagues here and the actual food support that’s necessary to keep my chaps alive on this excursion, but I won’t accept one red cent because I don’t want you ever to be able to say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ ” A solemn oath before almighty God.

In the flow of the narrative of Genesis, what that does in part is stand in fantastic contrast with the previous chapter where Lot has made precisely the other choice. He wanted all the goods, and he didn’t care about the morality or the separation or where it came from or what compromise of moral overtone.

Abram will trust the Lord, he will maintain his integrity, and he will not enter into the kind of allegiances that sully his desire to please the living God. It all makes sense, doesn’t it? Except we’ve got verses 18, 19, and 20. They are so positioned that they actually break up the narrative.

Sodom is introduced in verse 17. “After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings aligned with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh, (that is, the King’s Valley).” Verse 21: “The king of Sodom said …” Now this does not seem like a really smart place to introduce another character. Sodom has been introduced, and then, “Sodom says …”

Instead, that’s broken up to insert three verses and introduce another character, Melchizedek. Sodom is introduced, and next we read, “Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram saying, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.’ Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything. The king of Sodom said …” And then you go on.

Well, these are astonishing verses. On every hand, they are astonishing verses. They’re astonishingly placed. They’re astonishing in their content. They make any reader of the book of Genesis who has worked through the text a few times stand back and say, “What on earth is going on here?” Let me unpack just a few points.

First of all, Melchizedek, the name, means something. A lot of names in the Bible mean something; they point, thus, to something. It’s literally made up of two roots: the melek root and tsedeq root in Hebrew, which means the name itself literally means, king of righteousness. That’s what the name means. But, that’s his name. His title is, in fact, king of Salem. Salem, S-L-M. Those are the letters for shalom; hence, king of peace. Modern Arabic, salaam.

Now I doubt that Salem was a real place. In fact, there were a lot of towns in the ancient world that were something or other Salem, including Jeru-salem, and many have thought with a fair degree of likelihood.… I think this is highly likely, though it can’t be quite proved … that this particular Salem is what ultimately becomes David’s Jeru-salem.

He’s king of righteousness, according to his name. He is king of peace, shalom. Not just psychological peace, but well-being. He is king of well-being. The town of Jerusalem, but of well-being … that’s what the name means. He brings out bread and wine. We’ll skip the bread and wine a moment, though I’ll mention it briefly in a few moments. He was king, but he was also priest, priest of God Most High. He is a king-priest. In the ancient world of the time, that wasn’t all that uncommon.

The sharp distinction that you get between king and priest under the Mosaic legislation, amongst the Jews, was still to come. It’s not until the time of Moses that you have the priesthood clearly established, and it’s not until the time of David, centuries after that, that you have the Davidic dynasty from the tribe of Judah clearly and unambiguously established. Already from the time of Moses the priest is from one tribe, Levi, and then David and his clan are from another tribe, Judah, and never the two shall mix. Saul, in fact, loses the throne before David because he wants to be king and priest.

Melchizedek is already king and priest, and he blessed Abram. Clearly, he is a monotheist; he believes in one God. “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand. Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.” Wow. Clearly in the context, if Melchizedek blesses Abram and Abram pays him the tithe, in terms of pecking order, Melchizedek is up there, and Abram is the junior. Is that clear?

But the most astonishing thing initially that strikes a reader of this book is that we don’t know anything else about him. Everybody who’s anybody in the book of Genesis is tied to the account by genealogy. There are some relatively minor figures in this book whose genealogy is not mentioned. We don’t know where they came from, some relatively minor ones. We don’t know where Sodom came from. Don’t need to know, don’t even want to know, but he is there. Anybody who is anybody in this book is connected by genealogy.

Now along comes somebody who is so important that even the ultimate patriarch, the patriarch of the patriarchs, the head of the entire Israelite heritage, actually offers him obeisance and pays a tithe to him. What do we know about him? Of his origins? Of his mummy and daddy? Of his family? Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Not a word. He just pops up, and he disappears. In other words, without trying to think christologically or see deep significance here or just from a literary point of view, this is really odd.

It makes you start wondering who on earth this Melchizedek character is. Now historically, many, many Christians across the centuries have argued that this is a preincarnate visitation of Jesus. Many Christians have argued that position, and it’s possible, but I doubt it. The reason they do so, of course, is because they connect him to the Melchizedek in Hebrews, and there the Melchizedek in Hebrews, the priest in the order of Melchizedek, is unambiguously Jesus, as we’ll see.

But we should not go for immediate preincarnate visitation unless there’s really good evidence for it. There are some visitations of God through Angel-of-the-Lord language and the like that are real visitations in space-time history. I’m not denying that it can be. I’m not saying that those who hold that this is a preincarnate reference to Jesus are necessarily wrong. I just don’t think it’s necessary or helpful. I don’t think it’s right. Let me give you at least two or three reasons.

First of all, there is no hint here, as there is in special Angel-of-the-Lord visitations, of a confusion between the angel of the Lord and Yahweh. For example, when an angel of the Lord visits Abram and starts talking about how in a year’s time he is going to have a baby, and so on and so on, the pronouns go back and forth when this angel speaks, between the angel speaking and Yahweh speaking.

Just back and forth all the time. You start getting confused. Is this the angel or is this the Lord speaking? Is this the angel of the Lord just speaking for God, or is it God himself speaking? It’s really confusing. There’s no confusion like that here. Melchizedek says his bit, and Abram says his bit, and that’s it.

Moreover, there is no reason to think that they are not some other people in the world besides Abram who are monotheists. Why should we think that he is the only one? Even when Abram is called, he is not pictured in Ur of the Chaldees as being a pagan who then suddenly is saved by God and turned into a monotheist. That’s not part of the story.

He seems to belong to a family that already believes in God in some sense. Why shouldn’t there be others? We’re not all that far from the flood, from Noah, from the spectacular debauchery of chapter 11 and the Tower of Babel and so forth. There have to be some people around in the world still who haven’t sunk again into more paganism.

In other words, we should not buy into the common view of Old Testament religion in which you start off with animism, then you rise to paganism, then you start thinking maybe there’s one super-duper god amongst all the pagan gods, and then finally, eventually, the Israelites have a wonderful idea: monotheism. It worked the other way. You start off with one God, and then you rebel and make more gods. Do you see? It’s not too surprising if they’re still some cultural memory of some people who really do hold that there’s one God.

This person, Melchizedek, he does not use the covenant name by which God is known, Yahweh. He uses the name, El, a very common word for God. El-Elohim. He’s the God Most High. “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and praise be to God Most High.” Abram himself can use very similar language, can’t he? After all, he says (verse 22), “With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the Lord …” Yahweh. That’s the name by which he knows God. “… God Most High.”

That’s the same name that Melchizedek uses to refer to God. It’s common language for the Sovereign God, the Supreme God. But I think that the most convincing reason why this is not likely to be Jesus in preincarnate visitation is because of what Hebrews actually says. When it describes Melchizedek, as we’ll see in a few moments, it says, “Like the Son of God, he remains forever.” It doesn’t say he is the Son of God but that he’s like the Son of God. We’ll see the passage in a moment.

That is to say, he is not literally without a mummy and a daddy, but he is literarily without a mummy and a daddy. That is, so far as the account goes, he doesn’t have a mummy or a daddy. He doesn’t come from anywhere, he doesn’t go anywhere, he’s not born, he doesn’t die … he’s just there. Literarily, in a book where everybody who is important does have a mummy and a daddy and a genealogy, this is quite important. It is literarily important.

You come to Genesis 5, so and so lived so many years, then he became the father of so and so, then he lived some more years, and then he died. So and so lived so many years, and then he became the father of so and so, and then he lived so many more years, and then he died. So and so lived so many years, and then he became the father of so and so, and then he lived so many more, and then he died. Everybody is connected.

This chapter is not connected, not necessarily because he is literally not connected, but because he is literarily not connected. But because this literature is the Word of God, then the silence is loud. Arguments from silence are usually weak, unless you expect a noise.

Is anybody here a Sherlock Holmes fan? Do you remember the incident of the dog barking in the night? Do you remember that particular Sherlock Holmes story? The significance of it was that the dog didn’t bark in the night. The dog always barked when strangers came, and because the murderer, as it turned out, didn’t make the dog bark, it couldn’t have been a stranger. The silence was deafening because you expected the noise.

Silence is not significant unless you expect a noise. Literarily, when you are introduced to somebody as important as someone to whom Abraham pays a tithe, you expect some noise. You expect some establishment of this chap’s credentials. But there’s no noise, and the fact that there’s no noise, thus, is symbol laden. It’s raising a red flag, saying, “Pay attention. Listen up here. Look,” without necessarily saying much more about Melchizedek than that.

Moreover, in the initial account here, just as we’ve seen Abraham in chapter 14 is the foil to Lot, with Lot siding in with Sodom, and Abraham remaining apart from Sodom, refusing to receive anything from his hand, so also, Melchizedek is a foil to Sodom, because when Abraham brings back this loot and all the people from Sodom and Gomorrah, and so on, when Sodom approaches Abram and says, “You can have all the stuff,” he says, “Absolutely no way.”

When Melchizedek approaches Abram, he’s bringing bread and wine. He’s bringing supplies. He’s bringing food to sustain him. There’s some sort of alliance. There’s some sort of recognition, some sort of respect, and Abram pays him honor as if he recognizes in him a certain kinship. He’s a fellow monotheist and a local petty monarch, a king and a priest before this one God, El-Elohim. He’s actually the one God of all, El-Elyon. This one sovereign God, El-Elyon. That’s all it said here. That’s it. There’s no more said.

There’s nothing said in Exodus or Leviticus or Numbers or Deuteronomy or Joshua or Judges or Ruth or 1 or 2 Samuel. Nothing is said. That’s it. But can you imagine how many people read the Pentateuch, the first five books, read the books of the Law after Moses’ day.… They’d be reading through this and know the story again, and then you come to Melchizedek. “What on earth is he doing there?” Just tuck that away in the back of your mind. Now we come to the second passage.

2. Psalm 110

This chapter is the most frequently quoted Old Testament chapter in the New Testament. It’s quoted more often than Isaiah 53. It’s quoted more often than Psalm 69. It’s the most frequently quoted Old Testament chapter in the New Testament, which surely has to be some sort of sign that we need to pay attention to it.

The superscription tells us it is “Of David. A psalm.” There are a lot of literary critics that insist that those superscriptions were added later. There is not a shred of textual evidence to support that. In fact, in the Hebrew manuscripts that have come down to us, the superscription is actually part of the psalm.

In my printed Bible I have “Of David. A psalm.” Small print, in italics. Then I come to the words of the psalm, and it’s bigger letters, Roman lettering. Now I’m in the psalm itself. But in the manuscripts that have come down to us, there was no font flag. They were written by the same hand. They were just part of the psalm. There is no reason to think to think that the superscription is false, and in fact in this particular instance, the Lord Jesus insists that it’s true.

Do you remember the passage? Keep your finger in Psalm 110 (I don’t want you to lose that), but in Matthew 22 in parallels, in this case Matthew 22:41–46, Jesus himself refers to this psalm and to its Davidic origin. We read, Matthew 22:41, parallel Mark 12, “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ‘What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?’ ‘The son of David,’ they replied.”

Now this is going back to 2 Samuel 7:14 that we looked at last night. Because David becomes the king, in that regard he becomes the son of God, but he’s also the son of David. The Messiah is going to come from that line, because that passage promised that eventually there would come one who would reign forever. He’s the son of David. Jesus asks, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him, ‘Lord’? For he says …” And now he quotes the opening line, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand.” ’ ”

I want you to flip back and forth here for a minute so we just don’t lose where we are. Keep your finger in Matthew 23 and look at Psalm 110. In almost all of our Bibles when we read, “The Lord said to my Lord,” the first “Lord” is in capital letters. Have you noticed that? That signals Yahweh, the name of God.

“Yahweh says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ ” Now if that were written by a courtier, somebody in the royal court, then the way to take it would be, “The Lord [Yahweh] says to my lord [the king]: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ ” He is honoring the king if it were written by a courtier.

But supposing it’s written by the king? Supposing it’s written by David, which is what the superscription says. Now it’s David, the king, who is writing, “The Lord said to my Lord.” So who is “my Lord”? You’re running out of people to refer to, which is why Christians, and some Jews across the centuries, have argued this must then be referring to the ultimate David, to the ultimate King, to the ultimate Sovereign who is coming.

There have to be overtones along these lines for this to make sense. That whole argument depends on David being the author. That’s what is picked up (keep your finger in here and go back to Matthew) by Jesus. We don’t see it in the Greek New Testament because the Greek New Testament doesn’t distinguish with capital letters when you have Yahweh standing behind it.

You read, “The Lord said to my Lord.” It’s not quite clear in English, but that’s Jesus’ argument. If Jesus is simply the son of David, how is it then that David himself, speaking by the Spirit, calls him, Lord? For he says, “The Lord [that is, Yahweh] said to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand.’ ” That has to be the Messiah, and if he’s David’s son, then why is David referring to his son as Lord?

To get the power of that argument you can’t think American. In our culture, every generation becomes sort of quasi-independent. Here in the South there’s still some respect for the older generation. There are people driving me here and there who call me, “Sir.” The only people who call me “Sir” in the entire world are people south of the Mason-Dixon line and military people. They’re the only ones. Of course, in their own home they refer to the father as “Sir” and to the mother as “Ma’am.”

There’s a certain sort of structured respect in the very society itself. Isn’t that right? If I go to China, I am never less than the Reverend Professor Doctor Carson. If I go to Australia, 10-year-olds say, “Hi, Don.” I’m not even saying one way or the other is right. All I’m saying is there are different ways of marking these things culturally.

By and large, in the West, in a youth-driven culture, being old is not really good; it’s not really hot. But about 18 months ago in a highly Chinese environment before an assembled crowd of thousands, it was duly announced to the people that, “Our speaker today has just turned 60.” Can you imagine anybody in the West introducing me as just having turned 60? Do you know what they were saying? “Carson is finally worth listening to. He’s 60.” That’s what they were saying.

In the West, “Carson has just turned 60” means, “He’s no longer worth listening to. You don’t send him to youth conventions any more; send him to old age pensioners. That’s where he belongs. He’s over the hill. He’s on the downward slope. The grave is next. Not worth listening to.”

But in a society where you honor the older people, which is a very biblical society, then you might start being worth listening to when you are 60 or 70 or preferably 80 or so, so long as Alzheimer’s hasn’t kicked in, and even then you make sure you treat them with respect, and that means no father is going to address his son as “Sir” or “Lord.” It goes the other way around.

If the Messiah comes from David’s line, and David is referring to the Messiah in Psalm 110, what on earth is he doing by saying, “Yahweh says to my Lord,” if he is David’s son, and the power of that argument turns on the fact that David is himself the author of that psalm.

Don’t misunderstand Jesus. Jesus is not denying that he is the son of David. What he is saying is the Messiah just being the son of David and nothing more doesn’t make sense of the Old Testament texts themselves, because the Old Testament texts themselves, as this Davidic line begins to be unpacked, raises anticipation that this Davidide, this person in the Davidic dynasty, is going to be more than just another son.

We saw that already last night, didn’t we? From the prophecy of Isaiah? Isaiah 9: “He will be sitting on the throne of his father David …” He’s a Davidide. “… but he will also be called the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.” David is not thought of in those terms normally. In other words, Jesus wants his readers to know that this messianic figure may well be the son of David, but he’s more than the son of David. Even David himself, borne along by the Spirit, refers to him as “Lord.”

Now you can forget Matthew 22. Just stick now for a moment with Psalm 110. Psalm 110 is divided into two parts: there’s an oracle, then an explanation, then an oracle, then an explanation. The first oracle has to do with the fact that this Davidic, messianic figure is going to be absolutely victorious in his reign. “The Lord says to my Lord …” This messianic figure coming. “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” That’s the oracle.

Then it is explained. “The Lord …” God, himself. “… will extend your mighty scepter …” That is, the scepter of this messianic figure, “… from Zion …” From Jerusalem. “… saying, ‘Rule in the midst of your enemies!’ Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, your young men will come to you like dew from the morning’s womb.” In some ways this sounds a bit like Psalm 2 that we looked at last night, doesn’t it? That is, God himself stands behind the Davidic king and all of the enemies are crushed.

But now there’s a second oracle. “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.’ ” Whoa, where does that come from? Now you have a priest-king. The royal from the tribe of Judah, from the line of David, messianic king who rules is now going to be, according to Yahweh himself, by Yahweh’s own decision, by his own solemn oath …

He is going to make him a priest as well as a king. Not a priest in the order of Levi, he can’t do that because he’s not from the tribe of Levites; he’s from the tribe of Judah, but he’s going to make him a priest in another order, according to the order of Melchizedek.

I have been worrying away at how the New Testament uses the Old Testament for decades now, worrying away at it a little bit here and a little bit there, a little bit here and a little bit there, pondering what on earth to make of this. You see, the way the Scriptures are inspired varies. I’m not denying inspiration; I’m saying the mode of inspiration demonstratively varies from place to place.

For example, in the book of Jeremiah, God gives the word, somehow, to Jeremiah. Jeremiah dictates them to his secretary, and his secretary writes them down. Eventually when the enemies come along and take the half-finished scroll and tear it up and put pieces in the fire, and tear it up and put pieces in the fire, you the reader today in the twenty-first century are supposed to be having a really good belly laugh.

If I was writing a manuscript, and somebody came along and tore up the sheets and threw it in the fire, and I didn’t have backup on the computer, or if somebody came along while I was writing and passed a whooping big magnet over my laptop, I’d be upset. I don’t remember most of what I write. I’d have to figure it all out again. I don’t know this stuff. It would be tragic. You’re not supposed to laugh; you’re supposed to cry. But it has come from God. Do you really think he’s forgotten it? God has given it by dictation.

Now these pagan people are defying God. They destroy the manuscript and they think, “This’ll fix you, you stupid prophet.” Jeremiah is thinking, “I wonder if God has forgotten.” Big joke. The only that happens is God has to give it to Jeremiah again and the scribe has to write it all down again. That’s the only tragedy in it. God doesn’t forget it. Because sometimes God gives his material by dictation, just plain dictation.

But God doesn’t give all of the Old Testament by dictation. When David writes Psalm 23, it’s not as if he comes in from a hard day out there, and he comes in, is about to stretch down on his bed, and then a voice comes to him and says, “David, not yet. Pick up your quill pen. I’ve got some dictation.” “Okay.” He gets out his quill pen and dips it in the ink. “Ready?” “Yes.”

“The Lord …”

“The Lord …”

“… is my shepherd.”

“… is my shepherd.”

“I shall lack nothing.”

“I shall lack nothing.”

There’s no way on God’s green earth you’re supposed to view Psalm 23 as being written that way. It’s still inspired by God, God the Holy Spirit is behind it, but it is worked through the experience of David so that when David writes these things, he means them. This is his testimony. This is his pleasure. This is his joy. Do you see?

Then sometimes there are other modes, like Daniel, who can actually take things down in a vision and not have a clue what they mean. I’ve had one or two secretaries like that. Especially when I’m trying to dictate something, some complicated theological something to somebody or other who is writing for me in a project and so on, I discuss something and put it all on a Dictaphone and give it to her, and she types it up the best she can.

I discovered that in a secretarial pool some years ago they used to have a joke a day: Carson’s word for the day from the Dictaphone, where they all had a mad scramble to look it up in a dictionary to figure out what it meant and how to spell it. They didn’t know. It’s not because they were not smart people. They were, but I’m the one with the advanced training in theological education. They were the ones with advanced training in typewriters. Yes, they used typewriters in those days. It was somewhere near the oxcart period.

But they didn’t understand it half the time. In fact, I had one particularly good secretary who was very, very fast, a remarkably good speller. She made jokes afterwards about how little she understood of what she was typing. It sort of went from her ears to her fingertips without passing through her brain.

That was Daniel’s experience. After he received some things, he said, “Lord, what’s this one about? What does this mean?” God basically told him, “None of your business. It’s for a later generation. Seal up the book Daniel. It’s not for you. It’s for somebody later.” Do you see how there are different modes of inspiration in the Old Testament?

I asked myself, “What kind of mode is this in Psalm 110? Does David understand what he is writing? Where does this come from? Is this just dictated? It’s oracular in form, an oracle, something given by God. Does David have a clue what his psalm is about? Or is this just something given that is only going to be unpacked later?”

For the longest time I wrestled over that. I thought about it and wondered, and I came to the conclusion that probably it was oracular and David didn’t really understand it. I’ve changed my mind. I think he understood it. Not in the full-orbed way that Hebrews 7 does, but on the right track, on the right trajectory.

Do you know why? I started thinking again about 2 Samuel 7 and the chapter that came before it. That’s why I drew your attention to it last night. Do you remember how I pointed out that 2 Samuel 6 comes before 2 Samuel 7? Not just in number, but that there’s a reason for it coming together like that?

That is, 2 Samuel 6, if you recall, has the ark of the Lord and the tabernacle coming to Jerusalem, and chapter 7 establishes the Davidic dynasty, so the first time in all of Holy Writ you have the priesthood and the royal line in the city of Jerusalem all together. Now you’re under the Mosaic covenant here. You can’t make the priest the king. You can’t make the king the priest. When Saul tries, he loses the dynasty; nevertheless, they’re all together for the first time.

Now imagine David. He has become king. He’s reigned in Hebron, now he’s reigning in Jerusalem, and he’s king over the whole nation. He’s king. There is also a high priest. The institutions are right there in the one city, and he’s having his devotions. You know what he is reading for his devotions? The Pentateuch. Yes, don’t let people tell you that it was only invented several centuries later in the time of Josiah.

He was reading his Bible, and as he’s reading along, he comes to Genesis 14. Put yourself in David’s place now. Now that he’s become king in Jerusalem, and he’s come to Genesis 14, what does he think? He’s thinking, “You know, I’ve read this many times before, and I’ve always wondered what this dude Melchizedek was doing there,” but now for the first time he sees it afresh.

“He’s king of righteousness. Well, that’s what the king is supposed to be. That’s part of what it meant to be son of God as king, to reflect God’s righteousness in your rule. He’s king of Salem. Yes, Jeru-salem. In some ways he’s my predecessor, except he’s king-priest, I’m just king. The priest is down the road. But this Melchizedek is king-priest, and he’s jolly important. Even Abraham recognizes him.”

You can see how the pieces are coming together in his mind, and borne along by the Spirit of God, he cannot help but wonder if one day this messianic figure will not only be the king but the priest. He can’t be a Levitical priest, but a priest maybe in the order of Melchizedek? I don’t know how much farther he went from that, but just from 2 Samuel 7 and the preceding chapter, 2 Samuel 6, that begins to make sense already in David’s own experience. He picks up a pen, and borne along by the Spirit of God, he gives us Psalm 110.

3. Hebrews 7

I’m not going to go through the whole chapter in detail, but let me show you the flow of the argument and direct you to one important connection that is absolutely stellar. It helps you put together the whole Bible. The author of Hebrews has introduced Melchizedek several times and has never been able to unpack him because he’s always had some other things to say first, but now he finally comes to his unpacking.

Hebrews 7:1: “This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means ‘king of righteousness’; then also, ‘king of Salem’ means ‘king of peace.’ ” So far, this is just unpacking what’s there on the very surface of the text. Do you see? Nothing clever or deeply symbol laden.

“Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God …” Or resembling the Son of God. “… he [this Melchizedek] remains a priest forever.” Did you see? He doesn’t say that he is the Son of God; that’s why I don’t think he really is the Son of God. He resembles the Son of God insofar as there’s no father, there’s no mother, there’s no genealogy, there’s no beginning, there’s no ending. In that sense, he seems to be son of God beyond a Davidic son, beyond someone who merely comes to the throne. He’s son of God in some deeper sense than that. Do you see? So far so good.

Have you noticed he’s recounted the event in detail except for one little bit that he’s left out. The only thing that Genesis 14:18–20 mentions that is not picked in Hebrews, the only detail, is that what Melchizedek brought out to Abraham was bread and wine. Now if our writer of Hebrews was someone sort of Sacramentarian, he couldn’t possibly have avoided that one, but there’s no connection made between Melchizedek and the Lord’s Supper. None. Have you noticed that? Silence speaks again, doesn’t it?

Verse 4: “Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder. Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people.” That’s centuries later, of course. Abraham is about 2000 BC. So depending on what date you date the exodus, you’re looking at more than half a millennium in any case.

Half a millennium later, at the time of Moses, the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people. That’s what the Mosaic code said. This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi. Of course not. He was more than half a millennium earlier. Yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. That’s how great he was.

We don’t see that unless we remember the hierarchical structure of the ancient world. Old is good. Grandfathers are better than fathers. Great-grandfathers are better than grandfathers. Great-great-grandfathers are better than great-grandfathers. You’ve got to see that. In other words, the line gets weak as you go on. That’s the assumption. Just ask any Chinese. That’s the assumption here as well. Yet without doubt, the lesser is blessed by the greater, and Melchizedek blessed Abraham.

In the one case the tenth is collected by those who died; that is, the Levitical priests. They collect money, but they all die. In the other case, by him who is declared to be living. Declared to be living because there’s no mention of his death. There is no mention of his origins, no mention of his departure, no mention of his genealogy, no mention of his coming or his going. He’s symbol-laden. He’s out there.

One might even say the language suggests … this is pushing the argument, and yet there’s something to it … that Levi, who collects the tenth (that is, in his day … from all the other tribes), he paid the tenth to Melchizedek through Abraham because the priests all come from Levi. Levi was in the loins of his father, in the loins of his father, in the loins of Abraham, and Abraham pays the tenth. Do you see? There’s some sense in which Levi is himself transparently inferior to Melchizedek, because when Melchizedek made Abraham, Levi was still in the loins of his ancestor. Now so far this is merely a pretty obvious exposition of the Old Testament text, isn’t it?

Verse 11: “If perfection could have been obtained through the Levitical priesthood …” Now the next line is hard to translate. The NIV has, “… (for on the basis of it the law was given …)” The TNIV has, “… and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood.” I’ll come back to that in a moment. It’s in parentheses or it’s in dash. Follow the logic before you get there, and then we’ll come back to that one and we’ll show you how important it is.

“If perfection could have been obtained through the Levitical priesthood, why was there still need for another priest to come … one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron?” Drop down to verse 14, “For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one 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.”

Now the argument is very tight here. Let me outline it for you, and then we’ll go through the text again and you’ll see that it’s right there. The argument is this: You’ve got Melchizedek back here, 2000 BC. Then, you’ve got Moses, and under Moses, God establishes the Levitical priesthood. Melchizedek back here. Now the Levitical priesthood, which is for all of the tribes.

In all of these tribes, all of these tribes have to pay homage and temple tax and tithe and so forth to the Levitical priests. That’s what they have to do. They’re the mediators between God and human beings. They’re the ones who are responsible for the tabernacle. The high priest, part of the Levitical crowd, is the one who actually offers the sacrifice, the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, both for their own sins and the sins of the people. That’s all established by God. That’s what the Mosaic covenant is about.

Then, several centuries after that, about 1000 BC, you have Psalm 110, which says, on oath from God himself, that the royal Davidic king is not only going to be king, but a priest in the order of Melchizedek. Whoa. We already have a priest. We don’t need another one, thank you. We’ve got the Levitical priest, don’t we? But then what is Psalm 110 doing there?

Psalm 110 is promising a priest-king not in the order of Levi. Not in the order of Levi; in the order of Melchizedek. Way back here. What is that saying about the Levitical priesthood? If God wants to establish a king-priest in the order of Melchizedek, when the law of Moses says if you’re king you can’t be priest, in any case, the priesthood is in the order of Levi, then what on earth is Psalm 110 doing? Isn’t it saying, “Well, I guess the Levitical order of priesthood isn’t enough?”

Now go back and put in this parenthesis again, and you see that the argument is more powerful yet. If perfection could have been obtained through the Levitical priesthood (and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood; the priesthood was, in fact, the very basis of the law) why was there still need for another priest to come in the order of Melchizedek, which Psalm 110 promises? “For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also.” Underline that. Write it in red. It’s crucial for understanding your whole Bible. “When the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also.”

Let me explain. When we think of the law of God, most of us think, most of the time, about moral law. You know, “Don’t commit adultery. Have no other god before me. You mustn’t steal.” That sort of thing. Because our minds gravitate immediately to what we call today moral law. But now start having your devotions through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Start with Exodus, at the time of Moses. What do you get right after the Decalogue in chapter 20? In chapter 20 you have the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue. Then what do you get in chapter 21? And chapter 22? And chapter 23? And chapter 24? And chapter 25? And chapter 26? And so on. Do you know what you get? You get instructions on how to build an ephod, what a priest is supposed to do, what the tabernacle looks like. Chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter of it.

Then you turn to Leviticus. What do you have? You do have some moral things about loving your neighbor in chapter 19, but basically it’s what a priest is supposed to do when there’s mold on the wall, and what the Day of Atonement looks like, what sacrifices are offered, and who is clean and who is not clean. Chapter after chapter after chapter of it.

Today we say, “Oh, [yawn] I know I’m supposed to have my devotions, but this is a bit much,” and you sort of skim those bits really, really fast and wait until you get to the good bits again. Am I the only one who has ever done that? But do you hear what this author is saying? “Don’t you understand?” he says. “The entire law is based on the priesthood. It is so tied up that if you change the priesthood, you change the whole law.”

We like to think that the law is basically the morality, and the priesthood stuff.… Well, that’s sort of tacked on. It’s not all that important. Now that Jesus has come we can sort of shunt it aside. But put yourself in the position of those ancient Israelites. The amount of material, the quantity of material, the position of the material, the repetition of the material, the detail of the material. It all has to do with the priesthood, the tabernacle, the sacrificial system.

Do you know why? Because it has to do with how rotten sinners get reconciled to God. That’s done with sacrifice, and God stipulates the sacrifice. God stipulates the priest. He stipulates the approach. He stipulates who can come into his presence, who can offer the blood of the bull and goat before him, because it’s the only way that guilty sinners are going to be accepted before this Holy God. Chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter, and then along comes Psalm 110 and says, “Oh yeah, but I’m now talking about another priesthood.”

Implication? God is about to change the entire law covenant. You can’t abstract the entire sacrificial system from the Mosaic law. It’s bound right up with it. You’re supposed to read it that way … thoughtfully, carefully. Now Psalm 110 comes along, and God is announcing another priesthood that is effectively saying not only that the Levitical priesthood is, in principle, obsolete but that, therefore, the entire law covenant is, in principle, obsolete.

Reread this verse. It’s stunning. “For when the priesthood is changed …” The Levitical priesthood, bound up with the law covenant. When that’s changed, “… the law must be changed also.” Already 1000 BC you’re announcing the old covenant religion cannot indefinitely continue, because God himself has announced that the messianic king in David’s line will also be a priest. Not in the order of Levi, in the order of Melchizedek.

Indeed, “He of whom these things are said [Jesus], belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry …”

That is, he has to descend from Levi. “… but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.” Without mother, without father, without genealogy. He patterns himself after that priest. “For it is declared: You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” There it is, Psalm 110. “The former regulation …”

That is, the regulation about Moses and Levi and Aaron and those priests. “… is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.” And it was not without an oath! Others …” That is, the Levites. “… became priests without any oath.” Those from the family of Aaron, from the tribe of Levi.… There was no oath involved in the ceremony that made them priests.

“… but [Jesus] 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.” ’ Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant …” A new covenant, which is where chapter 8 goes. “Now there have been many of those priests [the Levitical priests] since death prevented them from continuing in office.”

Supposing you had a really, really good priest. He got old and died, and then you might have a son who was a really, really bad priest. Just ask Eli’s sons. Well, they got old and died too. Do you really, really feel secure approaching God on the basis of sacrifices offered by Eli’s sons? Even if they are God-ordained, they are busy raping women out the back door. “… but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”

Let me conclude. There is a hermeneutical lesson (that is, how you interpret the Scripture) and a pastoral lesson. The hermeneutical lesson I want you to see is this: The entire validity of the argument of this chapter turns on the chronological sequence on history. That is, Melchizedek is way back there, then the Mosaic covenant, which establishes everything, bound up with Levi and Aaron and the ancient priests, and then later than that, about the time of David, Psalm 110, you have the announcement of a king-priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Because you’ve announced that after the Mosaic covenant, in principle you’re saying, the Mosaic covenant and its priests cannot last forever. In other words, more than a thousand years before the coming of Jesus, the Old Testament has already announced the principial obsolescence of the entire Mosaic covenant. Do you hear that? It’s already there, and the validity of that argument depends entirely on sequence.

So along come some liberal scholars today and say, “You know what? I don’t think that Moses wrote much at all. I think that the giving of the law was probably invented about the time of King Josiah. Maybe even later, about the sixth century.” Do you know what that means? That means that not only is the Old Testament account untrue, it means that this argument for the coming of Jesus is not true in Psalm 110. If Psalm 110 was written in David’s day, it’s got to come after the giving of the law for the argument to be valid.

And what this means is that if you read the Old Testament account chronologically, in sweep, just as we saw yesterday with a certain kind of typology, there are trajectories that follow through that lead you to Jesus. They lead you powerfully, finally, completely to Jesus. You’ll learn how these texts work together, and you’ll discover in text after text after text after text of the Old Testament when you follow the trajectories, you get drawn right to Jesus, again and again and again.

A great deal of our training of preachers ought to be training preachers how the trajectories work through the whole Bible, because if you understand them aright they bring you to Jesus. And that is the nature of the massive structure that establishes Jesus not only as our Sovereign King before whom we bow as Lord, the ultimate David, the ultimate Son of God, but he’s also the ultimate priest, the mediator between a holy God and sinful beings.

And his covenant can never end. This is a new covenant, because he has an endless life. He’s offered the once-for-all sacrifice, and now he can be the once-forever priest. He always lives; therefore, the salvation he brings and gives us is absolutely secure, as secure not only as his cross work, but as his eternality. He is the priest in the order of Melchizedek. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we confess that in a generation that wants theology in teaspoon-sized droplets, such massive lines of thought are alien to us, but we hunger to know more of your Word. We hunger to see how it’s put together. Above all, we hunger to see Jesus.

Give us such a hunger, Lord God, that we reread and reread your Word to see how these lines of thought are there, how in your infinite wisdom you prepare the way for explaining how Jesus could be king and priest, what it would mean, by giving us countless generations of kings and priests, who though some of them tried hard, were ultimate failures.

Priests who themselves were sinners as they bore the blood of bull and goat to the Most Holy Place. Kings like David, who could be called a man after God’s own heart, but who, nevertheless, comes to adultery and murder. What hope for us is there in mediation like that until, in the fullness of time, all of these lines come together, and we are given one who is a perfect king.

One who pursues righteousness, who has all authority, but who will not crush the bruised reed or snuff out the smoking wick. A priest who is himself offering the sacrifice and who is himself the sacrifice, and who is himself the temple, the great meeting place between you, our holy Maker and Judge, and us, your sin-stained image bearers.

Open our eyes, Lord God, that we may trace out these structures right through Canon, right through your most Holy Word, until what we see in every page clearly is Jesus, portrayed in advance, in symbols, in types, in lines of thought, portrayed in the Gospels, thought about in the epistles, and real in space-time history.

The king-priest, dying on the cross, offering up himself, bearing our sins in his own body on the tree that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, and coming again, introducing us to the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness to which we press. We, too, join Christians in every generation and cry, “Yes. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” In his name we pray, amen.

 

 

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.