×

Part 4: Jesus’ Priesthood is Better Than Aaron’s (Hebrews 7; also 4-5)

Hebrews 7, Hebrews

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the person of Christ from Hebrews 7.


The theme, Jesus’ Priesthood is better than Aaron’s, occupies such a broad swath of Hebrews that I cannot possibly do justice to all of the passages. It is a wonderful theme. What I shall do is read chapter 7, the entire chapter, but then in a few moments, I shall summarize the argument of the end of chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5 where the theme is first introduced in a significant way. It’s first mentioned in chapter 2, returns in chapter 4 and 5, and then we’ll jump to chapter 7.

Tomorrow night, we’ll go back to chapter 5 and 6 and fill in that apostasy passage before we jump to chapter 9. So I’m trying simultaneously to handle the text in a roughly expository fashion while nevertheless, linking together some of these large topical themes. Hear then what Scripture says.

“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, his name means ‘king of righteousness’; then also, ‘king of Salem’ means ‘king of peace.’ Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever.

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 is, their brothers—even though their brothers are descended from Abraham. This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without doubt the lesser person is blessed by the greater.

In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living. One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor.

If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the people), why was there still need for another priest to come—one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law. He of whom these things are said 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 but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. For it is declared: ‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.’

The former regulation 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 became priests without any oath, but he 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 guarantee of a better covenant.

Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 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.

Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Have you ever played that word-association game in a group? You don’t want to have too many people doing it at once; it’s too noisy, but if you have 8, 10, 12, people.… One person calls out a word, and everybody is mandated to reply with the quickest word association they can think of. It can be a word or a phrase, but they must answer within about a second and a half. Have you ever played it? It’s very interesting and reveals a lot. Here we go …

Pennsylvania.

Audience: [murmurs]

Don: I imagine there would be a lot of answers even for something like that. I heard the other day that Pennsylvania is the state with Pittsburg at one end, Philadelphia at the other, and Alabama in between.

Canada.

Audience: [murmurs]

Don: There are all kinds of ways you could answer: That little place up near Alaska. Snow. Paradise.

Let’s get a little more religious. Let’s imagine, now, that you pop out with these words with this sort of game amongst secularists on the street of Philadelphia or New York City. What will they say? I’ll give you three seconds now instead of a second and a half.

Now you must answer not with what you would say, but with what they would say, what an average secularist in Manhattan would say or some secularist down near Tenth in Philadelphia.

Temple.

Audience: [murmurs]

Don: “University” is not bad. Some people might say, “Taj Mahal.” Or if they live right next to Temple Baptist Church in some town or other, they might pick up that. I doubt if anybody is going to say, “Jesus, the fulfillment of the Solomonic temple.” Or supposing you said in the same framework …

High priest.

Audience: Melchizedek.

Don: No, no. You’re not a secularist if you say, “Melchizedek,” brother. You may be a lot of things, but you’re not a secularist!

Audience: “Drunk?”

Don: Drunk? Yeah, that’s right. “What are you, some kind of religious nutter or something?”

The thing has no associations, does it? It doesn’t have any associations. When you stop to think how massively important the author of the epistle to the Hebrews thinks this theme is, and when we start to talk about it to people on the street, and in fact, let us speak quite frankly, to most of the people in our churches, they go, “Yeah, yeah. Okay, convince me.”

There’s no resonance. There’s no instant connection. There’s no mental association. It’s just religious domain for creeps and other idiosyncratic, eccentric types that are the fringe of our fundamentalist right wing. Yet here the author assumes that the category of high priest is extraordinarily important, and therefore, who the high priest is is of ultimate importance.

I suggest to you that if we’re preaching this sort of passage in a secular society, if I’m dealing with this sort of thing in a university mission or something like that, then far from plunging in, which is what I’m going to do here, I would take quite a lot of time to build a frame of reference in which to show that the passage is important.

Part of the preacher’s job is so to understand the audience that the preacher knows how to make the passage blisteringly important even though all the categories may seem entirely alien, entirely peripheral, at best tangential to anything that goes on in the real world. But because of whom I’m speaking to, I don’t have to do that tonight.

So there’s a sense in which I want to say rather strongly that some of my own modeling, in effect, in preaching at a conference like this, you should not adopt, because I’m going at a speed and in a coverage and with a paucity of illustration that I would not do if I were involved in a university mission on a campus in this country.

I’m speaking to pastors who already know what the categories are and don’t have to be convinced that the high priesthood theme is important and so on. I say that for your warning, because I really would feel very, very embarrassed if people used the sort of approach that I’m taking and just tried to transfer it into a local church. It’s not quite the way I handle things at a local church. Do you see? That bit was free.

Somewhat analogous to the manner in which the author developed the rest theme, the author now aims to show that the Old Testament Scriptures themselves relativize and announce the obsolescence of the very priesthood that most Jews thought was most important. That’s very important. You see, to most of the readers when they said, “high priest,” they would think instantly of the Levitical high priest.

That was in their life’s blood. It was their heritage. It was their reading of the Old Testament. It was all that was important. I think, in my dating of Hebrews, the temple was still standing as well, and now what the author intends to do is to relativize that understanding and to show that their very own Old Testament Scriptures, their old covenant Scriptures themselves, announce the principled obsolescence of that priesthood with some huge entailments.

Now Hebrews has introduced this theme of Jesus as high priest several times already. The first time explicitly at the end of Hebrews, chapter 2, where we’re told that Jesus had to become a human being so that he could be a high priest to represent us. If he is going to be a mediator between God and us human beings, he must partake of both sides, as it were; he must bring the two together if he’s going to be the ideal mediator. So his incarnation, his humanity, is bound up with this priestly function.

So we read, 2:17: “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God.” Then in chapter 4, verses 14 and following all the way through to chapter 5, verse 10, the theme is reintroduced. We are told since we have this great high priest (verses 14–16); therefore, we should be encouraged.

After the warning of verses 12–13 that God stands over against us in judgment and God’s Word is not to be played with and it can bring judgment as well as the gospel; nevertheless, on the other hand, there is a tone of great encouragement in verses 14–16. We do have a mediator, a “high priest who has gone through the heavens …” There’s that heavenly theme again that we’ve already discovered again and again.

“… Jesus the Son of God …” In the light of this great privilege. “… let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For [after all] we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” That theme, too, has already been introduced at the end of chapter 2. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence …”

Let me pause here just for a moment. This is the word of encouragement, but it is worth stopping to think about what this means, Jesus being tempted in all points as we are. I don’t think it means that he faces every single individual temptation that we face. Was he tempted both heterosexually and homosexually? Moreover, a lot of my temptations are temptations to repeat performance. That he never faced.

So we must not understand this the wrong way. The point is, rather, that the fundamental categories of sin that snooker us are all fundamentally bound up with the de-Godding of God, the overthrowing of God. That’s what the temptations were in the account of Matthew 4 and Luke 4. They’re all bound up with a deep selfishness that dethrones God and that despises the other.

He was tempted across the whole realm. “Worship me, and I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the earth,” Satan says to him. That one comes to us all the time, doesn’t it? The deepest temptations we face all have certain commonalities in them. The first and second commandment, “Love God with heart and soul and mind and strength,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself,” are the only two that are always broken every time you commit any sin. You cannot commit any sin without breaking those two. You cannot do it. That’s why they are foundational.

It’s not that you can derive by a process of logical dialectic all other commandments from those two; rather, the point is, those two always get broken every time you break any of the others, and if in the new heaven and the new earth we are so transformed that we observe those two completely and perfectly, there is need for no other, because, in point of fact, all others inevitably are protected if those two are perfectly adhered to.

In that sense, Jesus was tempted fundamentally in the sweep of things just as we are. He was tempted to de-God God as Adam and Eve were, but they fell and wrought our destruction. He was obedient and wrought our redemption. So there is encouragement in verses 14–16. Then, in verses 1–4, the author argues that the consecration of the high priest in the Old Testament is based on kinship and the sovereign call of God … those two things.

That is, the high priest had to be one with those whom he represented and he could not appoint himself to this task. God had to appoint him by God’s own decree because, after all, he must represent God as well. So it’s not an elective office. In that case, he could only represent human beings, so he had to be appointed by God, so he represents God, and he’s got to belong to the human being clan, in this case the tribal structure of Israel, or he cannot represent both sides.

Now the kinship criterion has already been discussed with respect to Jesus in chapter 4, verse 15 and in chapter 2. Now the call of God is worked out in verses 5–6 with respect to Christ, and that includes these Old Testament quotations, one of which I already cited yesterday, Psalm 2:7. We saw how that works out.

The other one, “You are priest forever in the order of Melchizedek,” is from Psalm 110, and we’ll see that it comes back in chapter 7, so we’ll look at it there. Then in verses 7–8, we are given some brief glimpse of the conflict of Christ, and in verses 9–10, the consummation of Christ’s own work by which he then is designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

The author gets that far, and then there is this next big excursion that we’ll look at tomorrow night. “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.” It’s nice to know that there were slow learners in the first-century church as well. We’ll come back to that passage tomorrow. I’m not sure if it’s an encouragement or a discouragement.

Now we come to chapter 7. The author actually slides into the subject again very wonderfully at the end of chapter 6. After talking about the faithfulness of God’s promise in 6:12, that triggers in his mind God’s fundamental promise to Abraham that in him and in his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed and that God would give him many descendants.

This is a promise that cannot be changed. It’s a promise that God took on oath, as we’ll see tomorrow, and this then leads to real confidence that we have in this God, a real confidence because our hope is firm and secure. It is anchored behind the curtain, that is, in the Most Holy Place.

We’ll look at the argument tomorrow where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. Thus, you return to the priestly theme. You see how he sidles right back into this priestly theme again and again? “He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek,” and now he has taken us back, in effect, to 5:10.

Now we start with Melchizedek. I wish I had time to unpack those earlier sections on the priesthood, but let me press on. What we shall do now is look at the first of only two Old Testament passages that mention Melchizedek. There are only two. So we will begin with that review and observe how Hebrews reviews that passage for us in chapter 7, verses 1–3.

First of all, Genesis 14:18–24 then Hebrews 7:1–3, and then after that review of the data which the author is then going to exegete for us, we’ll see what he does with this passage as he reads it very carefully in four steps. Genesis 14:18–24. Abram the Hebrew has learned about the raiding of Sodom and Gomorrah, and as a result, Lot captured, and so forth.

“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. 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.

After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). 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 blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.’ Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

The king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself.’ ” That was the standard way of paying off a rescuer in those days; he wasn’t being generous. “But Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an oath 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, Eshcol and Mamre. Let them have their share.” ’ ”

Now quite apart from later considerations, quite apart from the way this is used in Psalm 110, quite apart from Hebrews, if you’re just reading the book of Genesis, reading it through at a sitting, right through, don’t you have to ask yourself, “What on earth does this contribute to anything?”

How greatly impoverished would the storyline of Genesis be if you ripped out this section? Not much. Or supposing you have Abraham defeating the kings, all right, and then refusing to accept any goods from the hand of the king of Sodom, wouldn’t that say enough about Abram and his character and his commitment to righteousness and all of that?

What on earth does this little snippet, really just verses 18–20, have to do with anything? And if Melchizedek is so important, why, in a book like this where everybody who is important is connected by genealogy to other important people, does he just pop out of nowhere and then disappear? It is an odd account.

If you’re reading it in Hebrew, you also discover there are all kinds of word links between this little section and the next chapter, and the next chapter, 15, is one of those great covenantal turning points. Chapters 12, 15, and 22 are all linked in this great covenantal structure with Abraham, and this little bit has all kinds of word links that hook it right into chapter 15. I wish I had time to unpack them. It’s an odd passage. So it’s not too surprising that in the history of Jewish exegesis there are all kinds of really colorful, inventive approaches.

There’s a document that is found in the eleventh cave at Qumran, 11QMelchizadek it’s called. You can read it in English translation. Read it sometime. You discover it is really screwball compared with anything you find in the New Testament. You think the New Testament is hard to understand? This passage manages to talk about Melchizedek based on a sort of exegesis of three Old Testament passages, none of which mention Melchizedek.

At least, you see, when our author to the Hebrews talks about Melchizedek, he makes a point of reading and exegeting the only two passages of the Old Testament that actually talk about Melchizedek, namely Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, as we’ll see in a few moments. You find other very colorful interpretations in Philo and elsewhere. It’s the very enigmaticness, if I may coin a word, of this passage that calls forth an extraordinary array of speculative readings.

Now let us see how our author summarizes this account. Hebrews, chapter 7, verses 1–3. This is still by way of review: “This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High.” All he’s done so far is say what the text says: he was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. In Hebrew, El Elyon. That is, it is Abraham who uses the covenantal word, Yahweh, on his lips. This Melchizedek simple uses the more generic word for the High God, El Elyon, priest of God Most High.

“He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him …” That’s merely summarizing. “… and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.” Merely summarizing. “First, his name means ‘king of righteousness …’ ”

In Hebrew, Melchizedek means precisely that. “Melch-,” from the melek root, means king, and “Zedek” is from the tsedeq word group for righteousness or justice.) Then, he’s actually, by title, called “king of Salem.” Now in Hebrew, they originally didn’t have the vowels in, so the S-L-M is exactly the same root as shalom or, in Arabic, salaam.

It means he’s king of peace, but not just peace in a psychological sense, of well-being, of fundamental well-being in the universe before God. It’s a word that is evocative as well as just a sort of hello word. It’s a word that is used for greeting, but it has this deeper connotation to it. All he’s doing is merely exegeting the obvious. Historically this Salem may well be Jeru-salem, but that’s not quite provable; it’s highly likely.

Then we are told, verse 3: “Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever.” Now it is this verse that has convinced many thoughtful Christian readers that the Old Testament Melchizedek is in fact a preincarnate appearance of Jesus. Whereas I respect those who take that view, in all fairness I think they’re deeply mistaken.

For a start, the text does not say that he was the Son of God; he was like the Son of God. What the author is doing is directing your attention to the historical details of that text. “Read the text,” he says. You read it for Abraham; you know who his parents are. You know how he descended. You know where he went. You read something about Joseph; you know what his links are. That’s the way the whole account of the family runs.

But, for this man, he’s without father. There’s no mention of his father in the text. Without mother. He’s not saying he literally has not father or mother; he’s just saying that so far as the record goes, there is no one there in a text where you expect them. “There is no genealogy,” he says. In fact, like the Son of God, he just continues forever. There is no mention of his death either, unlike, for example, chapter 5.

What do you read in chapter 5? So and so lived so many years, then he begat so and so, then he lived so many more years, and then he died. So and so lived so many years, begat so and so, lived so many years, and then he died. So and so lived so many years, begat so and so, lived so many years, and then he died … and he died … and he died … and he died. Melchizedek? No account of his death. In a book like Genesis, that raises a flag. “What are you supposed to do with this?” he is saying. Do you see?

Now if you ask historically, “What’s going on?” and if that is the case, if he’s not the preincarnate Jesus in some sense, how are we to understand this? What’s he doing there? Historically, how do you make sense of this? You see, we are not to think that the only person this side of the flood who had any memory of the one Sovereign God, the God Most High, El Elyon, was Abraham. We’re not to think that.

I think that what happens, rather, is that Abraham is called by God into this land. He meets all kinds of people, but the one whom he recognizes as having a certain kind of kinship with him is this monotheist, this petty king over Salem, maybe Jerusalem …

This petty king who really does believe in El Elyon and is functioning not only as a petty king over this town (most of the kings in those days were a bit like glorified mayors, in fact, over small villages), and he’s not simply king, but he has a kind of priestly function in the sense that he’s trying to explain this king to his people or offer sacrifices to this God on behalf of the people.

So he’s both a priest and a king, and Abraham recognizes a kinship in him. So when he comes and meets him afterwards, he gives the man honor, and the man himself blesses Abraham back and recognizes a kinship back. I suspect this hints at all kinds of deep relationships that have been going on for some time.

But that’s not the point. The point is, not the psychology of friendship in the life of Abraham. The point is.… What’s he doing in the Genesis account? In the Genesis account, there is no father, there is no mother, there is no genealogy, there is no mention of beginning of days, there is no mention of end of life. So like the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

Of course, he didn’t remain forever. He’d still be around. He wasn’t there in Moses’ time as far as we know, and as far as we know, he wasn’t there in Joshua’s time. He doesn’t literally remain forever. It’s just so far as the account goes, there is no record of his ending. The author sees there is something pregnant and significant within the Genesis account itself.

Now before he then makes the next leap to the next passage in Scripture, which actually refers to him, namely Psalm 110, where the most important theological deductions are made, he pushes a little farther on the exegesis of Genesis 14 itself. That brings us, then, to the lessons that the author wants us to learn from Scripture.

They are Learning from Scripture: Melchizedek and Abraham, Learning from Scripture: The obsolescence of the Mosaic covenant, Learning from Scripture: The stunning announcement of Psalm 110, and Learning from Scripture: Working out the implications. Those are the steps that he takes bit by bit as we work through the following verses.

1. Learning from Scripture: Melchizedek and Abraham

Verses 4–10. The author now draws out certain lessons entirely from Genesis 14. You are not dependent here on anything else apart from a sort of general understanding of the history of Israel.

“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 …” The law which came centuries later. Abraham is about 2000 BC. So more than half a millennium later, the law is given through Moses and stipulates what’s to be done. The tenth is to be given by the people to God to the Levites who collect it. That’s what the law says. The descendants of Levi became priests and collected a tenth from the people.

“… that is, their brothers—even though their brothers are descended from Abraham.” The Levites had no intrinsic superiority, but they did collect the tenth. “This man, however, [Melchizedek] did not trace his descent from Levi …” He was not authorized to collect a tenth because he was not descended from Levi. That gets the chronology all wrong. You’ve got to read it in historical sequence. This is before there is a Levi. Levi isn’t even a twinkle in his daddy’s eye yet. He’s not on the scene. You’re dealing with Abraham, the great-grandfather.

At that point, the whole law given to the Levitical heirs six or seven centuries later hasn’t come on board either. So Melchizedek is not collecting this money because he’s a Levite, not because he’s operating according to the law of Moses. “Yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.” That is, by this time, the promises were already given. (Genesis 12)

The promises are then in Genesis 15 reemphasized and a covenant is cut. You remember how that fire passes through the cut animal and Abraham passes through it as well? Abraham is that Abraham, and yet, Abraham pays him the tithe. “And without doubt the lesser person is blessed by the greater.”

Small excursus here. It’s worth pausing to reflect on the fact that both in Hebrew and in Greek, this is not always so at the linguistic level. God blesses us, but we bless God, so we say, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” In that sense, it’s clearly not the greater who is blessing the inferior.

This is not an argument from linguistics. The reason why that works linguistically, both in Hebrew and in Greek, is because the notion of blessing is fundamentally bound up with the notion of approval, so that when I approve God, granted that he is God, it is a form of praise. I’m delighting in who he is, what he has done, what he has said, and because I approve it, I offer him my praise.

All my approval of God is necessarily praise, which is why the blessing of God, when we bless God, is equivalent to praising God, but when God blesses us, he is approving us, too. But that is always a mark of condescension. It’s not that God is saying, “Yay! I praise you, Don Carson!” That’s not what’s going on. Rather, he is blessing me in the sense that he’s approving me out of his grace, out of his generosity, out of his bounty.

He approves and pours out some blessing in my life. That’s always an act of condescension, so that although there is a linguistic reciprocity, there is a fundamental difference in the notion, and it’s the notion that has captured him here. So the objections of some that clearly this dear man does not know his Hebrew or does not know his Greek or does not know his linguistics, are rather misguided because the author is not arguing at a merely linguistic level.

Rather, when somebody blesses another, not in the sense of praise but of conferring something or granting something or pouring out something, then it’s always the benefactor on the benefactee; it’s always the greater on the lesser. That’s the point. Without doubt, the lesser person is blessed by the greater.

“In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die …” Further point: The Levites die generation after generation after generation; new people are put in their place. “… but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living …” By him who according to the account, has no mention of death whatsoever.

“One might even say …” If you want to push this far enough, the author says. “… that Levi, who collects the tenth …” According to the law of Moses. “… paid the tenth through Abraham.” In the sense that he was in the loins of his great-great-granddaddy when Abraham was paying all of this.

Now all of this is designed to point out the greatness of Melchizedek historically and his availability for being a figure who is in some sense typological or a model of something or anticipating something, but none of it is yet worked out. That depends on the next text of Scripture.

So that I’m not even sure that Abraham would have been able to tell you, “Well, of course, Melchizedek is a great type of the coming Redeemer.” I’m not sure that is what you have to infer from this. I’m not sure that Moses got that. Rather, the next great step of revelation that mentions Melchizedek explicitly awaits David’s time with Psalm 110.

2. Learning from Scripture: The obsolescence of the Mosaic covenant

Here the author assumes that his readers remember that he has already introduced Psalm 110. That was back in chapter 5. I mentioned it on the fly. Do you recall? In chapter 5, verses 5–6. God said to the psalmist in the first instance, and thus, typologically to Christ, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” And he says in another place, “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

That’s Psalm 110. That is a messianic psalm. We’ll come to that in just a moment. He assumes that the readers know about that. He’s quoted it. He knows that the Christians believe that Jesus is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. That’s already the given. Now he works out the argument then in chapter 7, verses 11–16.

These two verses, 11–12, are some of the most important verses in the entire epistle, and in our rendering, the NIV, which I’m using, perhaps the most staggeringly important clause is the one in parentheses. It is often overlooked. “If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood … why was there still need for another priest to come …” (We’ll skip the parentheses for now.)

In other words, if the ultimate revelation about how priesthood would work came with Levi and the Mosaic code.… If that was the high point, why, then, is there need for another priest to come? “… one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron.” You see, the assumption now is that he is remembering Psalm 110. Psalm 110 is a Davidic psalm. It’s almost half a millennium after Moses.

Now God is talking about a priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek when the law of Moses says you mustn’t have priests from any other tribe but Levi. If you’re not allowed to have any other priests than priests from Levi, and now God himself is announcing some priests according to the order of Melchizedek, in principle you’re announcing the obsolescence of the Mosaic priesthood, of the Levitical priesthood. “For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.”

Now go back to the parenthetical clause in verse 11. This is stunning. “If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the people).…” Did you get that? That is precisely how most of us do not look at the law. Most of us think of the law as basically deeply, foundationally moral. Then we’ve got these ceremonial and civil bits attached. Now we come to Jesus, and we can detach those because we’ve got the central bit.

That’s not how this writer sees it at all. He sees that more foundational than anything is the priestly structure, and on the basis of the priestly structure, the entire law covenant was given. Do you see that? When you stop to think about it, if you just read through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, where is most of the attention put? On an exposition of Exodus 20? I don’t think so.

It’s on the little silver knuckle from the left. It’s on the priestly garments. It’s on what you do on Yom Kippur. It’s on what you do on this festival and that festival. It’s on what kind of animal skins you use to build the tabernacle, and on and on and on. The great burden of the entire Mosaic code is deeply priestly, and on the basis of this priestly function, the whole law covenant was given. That’s what the text says. That’s what the text says in the parenthesis of verse 11.

The conclusion, therefore, follows in verse 12. Granted that is the case, if you then change the priesthood, you have to change the whole thing. You have to change the law covenant. You don’t have any choice. It’s not a question of lopping off the inconvenient ceremonial bits, because those ceremonial bits, so-called, lie at the heart of the whole structure of the thing. Do you see? The whole priestly structure lies at the heart of the Mosaic covenant.

When there is a change of the priesthood, therefore, there must also be a change of the law. I think law here simply means law covenant, the whole Mosaic Torah. Now then, “He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe …” Both the author of Hebrews and his readers know that Psalm 110 applies to Jesus, and they know he comes from Judah. “… 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 …” Like the Levites. It was God’s regulation as to their ancestry. You had to come from the tribe of Levi, and if you’re a high priest, you had to come from the Aaronic family. That’s the regulation, but this priest does not establish his right on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry. “… but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.”

That means you don’t need a tribal connection going on and on and on anymore. The whole Levitical system is now principally obsolete because you don’t need an ongoing priest, who replaces a previous priest, who replaced an earlier one, who replaced a still earlier one. You don’t need that. You’ve got one who now has a genuine endless life. After all, isn’t that what that great messianic text said, “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

That’s the argument. The text is arguing on the basis of the flow of Scripture that when you put together the only two passages that actually explicitly mention Melchizedek, then the later one, whatever else it does (he’s going to mention some more things in a moment), because it comes after the inauguration of the Levitical priesthood, renders that priesthood obsolete in principle.

If the priesthood is rendered obsolete in principle, the law covenant is obsolete, because it is on the basis of the priesthood, verses 11–12 say, that the entire thing hangs. That’s very strong language. Yet I hasten to add that it is no stronger than what you get in the next chapter, which we’re not going to have the time to deal with at length tomorrow. I’ll mention it only briefly, but I draw your attention to it now.

In the next chapter, Jesus is presented as the high priest of a new covenant, and he begins by quoting Jeremiah 31:31 and following. Hebrews 8, verse 8: “ ‘The time is coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant …” And then the inference is drawn. Verse 13: “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.”

Now no matter what position you approach this text from, you simply have to stick that in your systemic structure and smoke it. That’s what the text says. If you can’t say that the Mosaic law covenant is obsolete and about to disappear, then you’re not very biblical. That’s what the text says.

3. Learning from Scripture: The stunning announcement of Psalm 110

Now he does closer exegesis on Psalm 110, verses 1–2. Let’s take a look at Psalm 110. So far we’ve been quoting it, but we have not actually looked at it. I’ve mentioned already that this is the Old Testament chapter most frequently quoted in the New Testament. It’s quoted by the Lord Jesus himself, of course, in a remarkable argument in the last six verses of Matthew 22 and parallels.

Now if this psalm had not been written by David, if it had not been written by David, if it had been written by a courtier, which is what many critics think today despite what the superscription says, then the whole meaning of the first verse changes. If this had been written by a courtier despite the fact that the superscription says, “Of David. A psalm,” then if the courtier is saying, “The Lord,” which in Scripture is shown in capital letters, meaning Yahweh. “The Lord says to my Lord …” he would be addressing the king.

The courtier is addressing the king. “The Lord [Yahweh] says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ ” It would sound like any other enthronement psalm. That’s the way you would read it. But in fact, the superscription says it was written by David. If David, as king, now says, “The Lord [Yahweh] says to my Lord …” the question is, “Who is my Lord?”

To whom does an autocratic king refer when he’s not referring to God himself as Lord and still is addressing someone as, “My Lord”? You’re running out of options. Thus, this has driven many people, both Christians and for that matter Jews, to observe that this is an oracular messianic psalm. Not everybody uses that terminology, but I find it useful. Let me explain what I mean by it.

There are many messianic psalms that are messianic in virtue of the typological argument. We’ve seen some of them already. I would argue that Psalm 2 is like that, which we studied last night. But in oracular messianic psalms, what is being argued is that this is given as a direct oracle to the writer and the immediate referent, the person immediately referred to, is not David or a Davidic king with a typological connection to the messiah; the person immediately being referred to is the messiah.

It’s given by direct revelation as an oracle. Whether or not David has all the pieces together or not is irrelevant because just as all the pieces were not explained to Daniel when Daniel was given direct oracular revelation and wanted to understand more, and God said, “No, no. Seal it up. Seal it up, Daniel. It’s not for you. It’s for a later generation.”

So it’s not important in an oracular psalm whether David understood all he wrote or not. In a typological structure, he is speaking from his own heart. He is expressing his own doubts and his own fears and his own hopes and his own confidence. In that sense, the psalms are regularly psalms of experience, but when there’s a typological messianic psalm, those psalms of experience, because of the whole Davidic connection, point forward to someone beyond David.

But in an oracular messianic psalm, the person being referred to is himself immediately the messiah, and there are some of those as well. This is the most important of them. David, then, looking ahead, anticipating by God’s own revealed Word, says, “The Lord [Yahweh] says to my Lord …” This expected Davidic figure, this figure expected, no doubt, even in part on the basis of the promise in 2 Samuel, chapter 7, given through Nathan that from this line would ultimately come a kingdom that would never die, a king who would never perish, who would sit on the throne forever.

“ ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth.”

Then, verse 4: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.’ ” That is as spectacularly out of nowhere as Melchizedek in Genesis 14. It’s further reason for thinking that it’s an oracular psalm. Some people read through the psalms and each verse is taken in a sort of a bitty way, but in fact, most of the psalms you can follow the flow very nicely.

The psalms, by and large, have a really good flow when you pay attention very closely. Sometimes it’s a cyclical flow and sometimes there are parallelisms, but you can follow the flow of thought in the psalms. They are not like a lot of postmodern poetry where you throw in a thought here and a thought there and a thought somewhere else and they are not connected in any linear sense; they are just sort of random thoughts for our edification. It’s not like that.

Most of the psalms have some kind of coherent flow. So that means that when you come across this out in left field, “The Lord has sworn … you are a priest forever …” you wonder what on earth is going on. That’s what the writer to the Hebrews is also asking. “What is going on?” For the fact of the matter is, these are the only two places in all of the Old Testament where Melchizedek is mentioned.

If you believe God wrote it, it’s significant, it’s important. Melchizedek is clearly important in Genesis 14. What makes him even more important is (granted how important he is) he just pops up. Now he pops up again in an oracular messianic psalm so that the one who is promised as the ultimate King, the one whom even mighty King David addresses as “my Lord,” is now addressed by Yahweh himself under sovereign oath and says, “You are a priest forever,, according to the order of Melchizedek.”

That is, not like the order of Levi, which is under the Mosaic covenant, where the priest is replaced and replaced and replaced, but in the order of a man whose origin and ending are not mentioned, who receives tribute even from Abraham and who is priest already in Genesis of El Elyon, God Most High. You’re a priest in that order, forever, and the Lord has sworn it.

Now you see the author, therefore, is not doing anything highly creative. All he’s doing is seeing that if you take this text on its face value seriously, that must mean that the Levitical priesthood can’t be the last word. It can’t be. The messianic figure himself doesn’t appeal to the Levitical priesthood. He unites in one office king and priest, and according to Hebrews, chapter 1, prophet as well: “For in the past God spoke through the prophets; now he has spoken unto us as we’ve seen en huios.

Thus, Jesus is now clearly in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews prophet, priest, and king, but if he’s doing that, then he’s overturning the Mosaic covenant in all of its priestly structures where those offices were kept very distinct, thank you very much! If you overturn the priestly structures, you’ve made the law covenant obsolete. Thus, it is worked out for us now explicitly.

Verse 18: “The former regulation is set aside …” That is, establishing the Levitical priests. “… because it was weak and useless …” Oh, it doesn’t mean that it had no power at all or no strength or no virtue or there wasn’t good, but in terms of ultimately bringing salvation to the people, it just wasn’t designed for that. It couldn’t do that. The law made nothing perfect. Oh, no. “… a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.”

This is not saying that people who lived and died under the old covenant could, therefore, treat the sacrificial system of the old covenant with impunity. It doesn’t mean that. It clearly was the case that if they genuinely had faith in God and lived according to the revelatory Word that had been given up to that point, then they were to offer those sacrifices.

Those were the condition upon which forgiveness was meted out, clearly, but the question is, “Do you read those structures as an end in themselves or place them in the stream of redemptive history?” If you place them within the stream of redemptive history, you quickly perceive that they did not have saving virtue, sin reckoning virtue in and of themselves.

That’s the argument of the next step, which is taken in chapter 9 that we’ll look at tomorrow night. It’s no less important. It’s the argument that says, in effect, “Can you really believe that the blood of bulls and goats finally deals with sin? Give me a break!” That’s like paraphrase, but you get the idea.

That’s exactly what the author is saying in chapter 9, as we’ll see tomorrow night. So although it was important because God stipulated it at this point, nevertheless, you must see that in the stream of redemptive history, that regulation cannot possibly be considered ultimate, and the old covenant Scriptures themselves announce their obsolescence.

More wonderfully yet, “It [the institution of the new priesthood] was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath …” There’s no oath connected with the establishment of the high priest in the Old Testament. “… but he 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.” ’ ”

Now elsewhere in this book in a section we’re not going to have time to cover, we are told that God, by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, gave a promise and an oath, and it’s worth thinking through this business of oaths for a moment. Because after all, the Lord Jesus himself has some rather shocking things to say about oaths, didn’t he?

He says in Matthew, chapter 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Don’t swear at all, neither by the temple nor by the gold in the temple. The same argument comes up in Matthew, chapter 23, “Don’t swear by your head or by the hair on your head. Whatever you say, more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is sin.”

Well, if whatever you say more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is sin, then what’s God doing taking an oath? What’s the point? The point stems, and it’s very important to understand this, from Deuteronomy 6. In Deuteronomy 6, the people of God are actually commanded to swear by the Lord. The reason they’re commanded to swear by the Lord, to take their oaths in the name of the Lord, is because people always take their oaths by the highest thing they know.

So in an age and time when God’s people were tempted with polytheism, it would be rather disturbing if God’s people were suddenly taking their oaths in the name of the Baals or taking their oaths in the name of Asherah. That would be really disturbing, so God commands them, “Take your oaths in the name of the Lord.” It becomes a mark of covenantal faithfulness because it is saying, in effect, that their highest good is Yahweh himself. So they take their oaths in the name of the Lord.

The trouble is that by the time you got down to Jesus’ day, there was a whole lot of theological debate going on about how sanctified each level was. “So, yes, we all know when you take an oath in the name of the Lord, which binds you. That’s holy.” Suppose it’s the name of the temple, and the consensus was, “No, not unless you’re facing the temple.” In fact, in the Greek text of Matthew 5, when it mentions the temple it changes the preposition.

That was part of the rigor going on. If you take your oath by the altar, it’s not binding. By the sacrifice on the altar, that’s binding. Thus, you see, what they’re trying to work out is a whole level of what’s sacrosanct. It’s a bit like the kid who says, “Oh, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die,” and then, “Ha ha. Doesn’t count. Crossed my fingers.”

Thus, you see the whole business of oaths really becomes a wonderful excuse for evasive lying. Instead of the principle of oath-taking, pointing forward to a whole world where truth-telling is paramount, in fact, the whole system is degenerated to an excuse for endless deceit. At that point Jesus comes along and says, “Let your ‘no’ be ‘no.’ Whatever more than that is sin.”

In other words, oath-taking does not give us the right to lie elsewhere. Oath-taking is not a mechanism by which we are absolved of deceit when we’re not taking oaths. Ideally, in a world where there really is integrity, oath-taking is a way of giving confidence to the hearer. That’s why God puts himself under an oath, not because you can’t trust God, not because he would lie otherwise.… “Dear old God is going to slip one over on us really quickly unless he puts his hand on a Bible and swears.”

That’s not the idea at all. It’s horribly pagan to think in those terms. Rather, God gives us a promise and we’re such doubting fools that he puts himself under an oath so that our faith will be enhanced, so that by two immutable things, by which it is impossible for God to lie, both the promise, how could God lie with respect to his own promise, and by the oath that he puts himself under, we might have confidence.

Now that’s the frame of reference that the author brings to the text when he comments that when this high priest is announced, God swears, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” Thus the whole sweep of redemptive history is altered by this sovereign oath in an oracular messianic psalm. “Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.”

The old law covenant has to go. Its obsolescence has been announced, and that forms the connection then to the next chapter, which announces the new covenant. In fact, that had already been announced years before Jesus as well, six centuries, at the time of Jeremiah, and Ezekiel says as much as well.

You see how the author is building a cumulative argument to show that if you read the Old Testament Scriptures themselves faithfully, the Mosaic structure within the old covenant Scriptures themselves is announced to be obsolete. That brings us, then, to the last point.

4. Learning from Scripture: Reflecting on the implications.

Verses 23–28. These verses really require another hour. Instead, they will only get 2 or 3 minutes. They are wonderful passages. “Now there have been many of those priests [Levitical priests] since death prevented them from continuing in office …” We’ve already seen that. “… but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.”

That is already modeled on Melchizedek, of whom there is no end reported. It is already predicted in an oracular psalm a thousand years before Christ. “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” But there is a pastoral implication: “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him …”

Not only has he offered the one perfect sacrifice that doesn’t have to be repeated (that comes up in chapters 9 and 10 as we’ll see), but because of that, he is an enduring priest, an enduring high priest. So he saves completely. He doesn’t get so far with the job and then die himself and therefore pass on the right to the next generation of priests, and so it goes. No, such a high priest meets our need. He meets our need in chapter 2 because he’s one with us. That’s so important.

He has to be one with us to represent us. But now he meets our need because he’s one with God, perfectly. He is holy, he is blameless, he is pure, he is set apart from sinners, because otherwise he would be like the Levitical priests who offered their sacrifices both for their own sins and for the sins of the people. In that sense, such a sacrifice could never be final, because there’s always more sin.

But for this priest, he is set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. “Unlike the other priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day …” Morning and evening, and then on the seventh day special ones and special grain offerings and then the ones at the High Feast and the Passover and Yom Kippur. He doesn’t have to do any of those things. No, no.

“… first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He is set apart from sinners. He is holy. He is blameless.” No, “He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.” Thus, he is not only the perfect priest; he is the perfect sacrifice. Elsewhere, he is the perfect temple. Elsewhere, he is the perfect feast.

“For the law …” That is, the Mosaic law, the law covenant. “… appoints as high priest men who are weak …” They sin, and then they die. They sin, and then they die. They sin, and then they die. “… but the oath …” The oath of Psalm 110. “… which came after the law …” Notice that salvation-historical understanding. It came after the law. That’s what renders the law principally obsolete. It came after the law. “… appointed the Son …”

The son par excellence. So David was a son, but this is the son par excellence. “… who has been made perfect …” That is, perfect in his priestly function. “… forever.” That is why you and I, knowing something of the sinfulness of sin in our own lives, the way it comes back and sneaks up on us again and again and again, can go to bed and sleep at night.

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong, a perfect plea;

A great High Priest, whose Name is Love,

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

Do you sing that in this country?

My name is graven on His hands,

My name is written on His heart;

I know that while with God He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart.

Or in the words of Michael Bruce …

Where high the heavenly temple stands,

The house of God not made with hands,

A great high priest our nature wears,

The guardian of mankind appears.

He who for men their surety stood,

And poured on earth His precious blood,

Pursues in Heaven His mighty plan,

The Savior and the friend of man.

Though now ascended up on high,

He bends on earth a brother’s eye;

Partaker of the human name,

He knows the frailty of our frame.

Our fellow sufferer yet retains

A fellow feeling of our pains:

And still remembers in the skies

His tears, His agonies, and cries.

In every pang that rends the heart,

The Man of Sorrows had a part,

He sympathizes with our grief,

And to the sufferer sends relief.

Brothers and sisters, while it is desperately important to understand this sort of passage so as to understand how our Bibles are put together, God forbid that our argumentation should then engender a new round of polemics instead of adoration and worship.

With boldness, therefore, at the throne,

Let us make all our sorrows known;

And ask the aids of heavenly power

To help us in the evil hour.

Let us pray.

What an immensely perfect salvation this is: My sins paid by another. His righteousness reckoned mine. His wounds the perfect eternal plea that I should stand acquitted before the bar of your justice.

What wisdom is this that across untold centuries has put together a plan of salvation that has disclosed glimpses of what holiness look like, what sin is, what sacrifice means, what mediation is like, what law must be faced, what curse must be borne, what blessing truly is, what bliss must be, and then in the fullness of time, you sent forth your own dear Son, born of a woman, made under the law to redeem those who were under the law.

What grace is this

That brought my Savior down.

That made Him leave

His throne and crown.

What a wonderful thing, Lord God, that we may enjoy freedom of conscious, boldness of access before you, not because we’ve had such a wonderful day and we’ve been so holy today, but because we have the Great High Priest who intercedes on our behalf so we dare to approach the throne of your glory and pray in Jesus’ name.

Give us grace, Lord God, we beg of you, not only to understand, but also to learn how to communicate these glorious truths to a new generation that has no category for priests, High Priest. Make us, we beg of you, to be able ministers of the new covenant. For Jesus’ sake, 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.