Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 03 Mar. 2019
In my last sermon, I surveyed the 12 nominative words in the first three verses of Hebrews chapter 7 to develop a picture of who Melchizedek was.
In my conclusion, I said that we need to be like the author of Hebrews who was so fixed upon Christ that an obscure Old Testament character like Melchizedek got him thinking about Jesus.
I also said that we need to be like Melchizedek and point others to Christ.
Now, in this sermon, my application is that we need to be like Abraham and go to the better priest of the order of Melchizedek.
A few years ago, I met a man who told me about a TV show he had seen a while back where the celebrated electric guitarist Jimmi Hendrix was being interviewed. At one point in the interview, Jimmi was asked what it was like to be the greatest guitarist in the world. Do you know what he replied? He said, “Ask Phil Keaggy.” Hmm! Now if you’ve heard of Jimmi Hendrix but never heard of Phil Keaggy, what would you be thinking about Phil Keaggy after hearing that? Well, if you like electric guitar playing, you’d say, “I’ve got to check this guy out!” (And, if I can add my own personal recommendation, Phil Keaggy is indeed worth checking out!)
A similar scenario is painted by the author of Hebrews concerning the celebrated patriarch Abraham and the obscure mystery-priest Melchizedek.
The meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek in Gen. 14 was an event worthy of careful thought and consideration. Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish nation, THE patriarch who could build his own altar and offer his own sacrifices (Gen. 22:13), paid tithes to somebody else!
And it wasn’t just a fairly-divided 10% of the spoils of the battle; the Greek phrase εκ των ἀκροθινίων indicates that it was the “top” ten percent of “off the piles” of plunder – the best of the spoils! (When you give to the Lord, do you give of your best, or do you give away stuff you didn’t want in the first place?)
Now question might arise, How could Melchezidek be a legitimate priest?
Well, about ten generations previous to Abraham, they were all descended from Noah, so it is possible that some true information about God was passed down from father to son. We know that Job and Baalam - from around the same time period - knew about the one true God, even though they were not Jews.
It is also possible that Melchizedek was not a Caananite but had come to minister as a priest among Caananites. Puritan commentator Matthew Henry wrote, “Mr. Gregory of Oxford tells us that the Arabic Catena, which he builds much upon the authority of, gives this account of Melchizedek, That he was the son of Heraclim, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, and that his mother's name was Salathiel, the daughter of Gomer, the son of Japheth, the son of Noah.”
But why would the greatest tribal chief of the Jewish nation show so much respect to another man, unless this other man was even more important than he was? That should make any person (Jew or Gentile) sit up and take notice!
Note that the tithe predated Mosaic law, for, as we see here, it was practiced hundreds of years before Moses by Abraham1. This should instruct us today that giving a tenth of our profits to God was not abrogated when Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic ceremonial law; it still applies to us today (cf. Matt. 23:23).
God commanded Moses that Levi’s great-grandson Aaron - and Aaron’s descendants - must be the ones who led worship in the tabernacle. This was “in the law:” Numbers 3:10 “And thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons over the tabernacle of witness; and they shall keep their charge of priesthood, and all things belonging to the altar, and within the veil; and the stranger that touches them shall die.” (Brenton, cf. Exod. 29:9, 40:15)
So Aaron was a member of the tribe of Levi, and the rest of the tribe of Levi was appointed to help him with the priestly duties. (Numbers 3:5-6 “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Take the tribe of Levi, and... set them before Aaron the priest, and they shall minister to him...” ~Brenton)
The Levites’ reception of tithes – things dedicated to God alone – from the other 11 tribes of Israelites was also part of the law God instituted under Moses, for instance in Deut. 14:22 “Thou shalt tithe a tenth of all the produce of thy seed, the fruit of thy field year by year… 26:12 thou shalt give the... tenth to the Levite... and they shall eat it in thy cities...” (Brenton)
Anyone who – even accidentally – ate some of that holy food was considered to have stolen from God and had to pay it back with interest. Leviticus 22:10-16 “Now, as for any foreigner, he may not eat holy stuff. Neither a tenant of - nor a contractor for - a priest may eat holy stuff... 14 Now, if a man happens to eat a holy item in error, then he must give the holy thing to the priest and add his twenty-percent over-and-above it. So they must not violate the holy things of the children of Israel which they offer up to Yahweh and thus cause them to bear the guilt of iniquity…” (NAW)
The Levites alone could get away with taking food and money from the Israelites, even though the Jews were their own relatives, and even though the Jews were of a distinguished ethnicity as descendants of Abraham.
(The Greek wording here describing how the Jews came from Abraham indicates an accurate knowledge of physiology and genetics. It seems strange to me that the editors of the NAS, NIV and ESV omitted the word here from their translations but didn’t omit it in v.10, but I think it shows how viscerally the Jews felt their connection to Abraham.)
Now, as for pronouncing blessings:
up until Melchizedek, nobody but God had blessed anybody.
After that, the patriarchs are recorded as taking that liberty,
but when God gave the law to Moses, He told the priests to bless God’s people: Numbers 6:23-27 “Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘Thus ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying to them, “The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face to shine upon thee... and give thee peace.” And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I the Lord will bless them.’” (Brenton)
Now, it was possible for non-priests to speak words of blessing (Deut. 24:13), but this special kind of blessing spoken by the Levitical priests was basically speaking as an agent of God to say that God would bless, so it required a special connection with God. Deut. 18:1 “The priests, the Levites, even the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel; the burnt-offerings of the Lord are their inheritance, they shall eat them... 5 because the Lord has chosen him out of all thy tribes, to stand before the Lord thy God, to minister and bless in his name, himself and his sons among the children of Israel.” (Brenton)
Deuteronomy 14:29 specifically connects the giving of tithes with blessings in return, “And the Levite shall come, because he has no part or lot with thee, and the stranger, and the orphan, and the widow which is in thy cities; and they shall eat and be filled, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works which thou shalt do.” (Brenton)
Yet here is Melchizedek, receiving a tithe and pronouncing a blessing upon Abraham! (Abraham is the “one who had the blessings” already promised in God’s covenant with Him referenced back in Hebrews 6:14 "Of course I will really bless you and I will really multiply you." (NAW, cf. Genesis 12, 15, 17, 22)
The point is that there appears to be an incongruity if Melchizedek, “who was not genealogically-recorded among the [Levites]/whose descent is not counted/ whose genealogy is not derived or traced from” Levi – or even from Abraham, got away with doing what only a descendant of Levi could do, namely, accept tithes designated as gifts to God Himself, and speak blessings from God to humans.
Our apostle is trying to rock the Jews back on their heels and get them to scratch their heads and ask, “How did he do that? Why ever would God have approved? And he begins to answer that question in the next verse.
You might not think of it in terms of blessings, but think in terms of endorsements:
When I wrote a book on Christian apologetics, who did I ask to write an endorsement for my book? Josh McDowell was one of the first guys I asked. Why? Because he is one of the best-known authors and speakers on Christian apologetics. Now, Josh McDowell didn’t give me the time of day, but I counted myself blessed that his son Sean gave me a positive comment that I could print on the back of my book!
But even though I have now published a “great” book on apologetics, neither Josh nor Sean McDowell have asked me to write an endorsement for their apologetics books. Why? Because I am an inferior in that field. An endorsement from me would be practically worthless towards the end of selling more books (as witnessed by how few copies of my own book have sold)!
Now, my son Amos let me endorse some of his first books because I am his Dad and he saw me as superior, but if he could have gotten a truly great person in the field of fiction like Frank Peretti or C.S. Lewis to endorse his book, that would have been of much greater benefit to him because their good judgment in writing Christian fiction is so widely known (although I’d be suspicious if I saw an endorsement from C.S. Lewis on a book by Amos Wilson, since they were not alive at the same time)!
The word “Better/greater/superior” is a theme throughout the book of Hebrews:
1:4 - better than the angels
7:19 - a better hope
7:22 - a better covenant.
8:6 - better promises.
9:23 - better sacrifices
10:34 - a better and more-enduring possession
11:16 - a better, that is, a heavenly country
11:35 - a better resurrection.
And here, Melchizedek is better than Abraham because he blessed Abraham.
Not only did he bless Abraham, he took tithes from Abraham!
The Levitical priests were mortal, and the scriptures record their deaths and burials.
In fact, the Greek translation of Deuteronomy 2:16 uses this exact same Greek participle [ἀποθνῄσκοντες] to describe the Israelites who came out of Egypt and died in the wilderness, never entering the Promised Land.
There were Levites among those dead, most notably Nadab and Abihu, the first priests appointed under Aaron. Leviticus 10:2 “So fire went out from before the face of Yahweh and consumed them, and they died before the face of Yahweh.” (NAW)
But our contrast person, Melchizedek, has no record in Scripture of when he died or where he was buried. This curious silence regarding Melchizedek’s passing, together with the cryptic comment in Psalm 110:1&4 “The LORD said to my Lord... ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.’” (NKJ) leads the reader to think of a priest who lives forever, whether or not Melchizedek himself actually was that Priest.
Most of the commentaries I read did not consider Melchizedek to have been actually immortal, but rather that the Holy Spirit kept information about his death or the succession of his priesthood from entering the Bible so that Melchizedek could be thought of as a type of the truly eternal Christ who was yet to come.
Jesus said of Himself in Revelation 1:18 "I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.” (NKJV)
The word “father” could be used loosely to mean an ancestor who was further back than just your father. Abraham was Levi’s great-grandfather, so we might say Levi wasn’t even a gleam in his parent’s eyes when his great grandpa tithed to Melchizedek.
The argument so far has been that if Abraham tithed to Melchizedek, Melchizedek had to have been greater than Abraham,
Now the argument is brought home that since Abraham was greater than any of his descendants, Melchizedek must be greater than Levi too, therefore Jews should look for God to provide a system of relating to Himself that would supersede the Mosaic law.
This statement was quite a jarring slam against Judaism - with its idealization of the Levitical system under Moses, and for this reason, the apostle uses a special expression in Greek2 - translated in English “so to speak” or “one might even say” - to soften the blow.
It has also been noted by some commentators (such as Spicq and Hughes) that all the perfect tense verbs in this passage (“has received tithes, has blessed… has paid tithes…”) call attention to the permanence of the consequences of these events.
There is another player in this scene who is silent, and that is the King of Sodom. Notice that he does not pay attention to Melchizedek.
God gave the King of Sodom all the revelation he needed in the person of Melchizedek in order to get right with God, but Sodom didn’t take hold of it.
The invasion of Sodom by four foreign kingdoms should have woken the King of Sodom up to his need for repentance, but he was heedless.
Furthermore, Abraham’s miraculous rescue of the people of Sodom and his thanksgiving to God afterwards should have turned the heart of the King of Sodom to worship this God too, but he didn’t turn.
So, when we read of the terrible judgment that fell from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah five chapters later in Genesis, we should keep in mind that this was not a harsh judgment from a capricious Old Testament deity; this was justice for conscious rebellion against God despite the graces He had already offered them.
This is the very sort of warning of the book of Hebrews. You who know about God and have experienced graces from Him will be held to a higher standard of accountability and a stricter judgment, so it is all the more important that we throw ourselves upon Christ and receive eternal mercies. The stakes are awfully high. Don’t depend on yourself, and don’t look for other powers to bring the world to rights. Instead...
Be like Abraham who went to the greater priest.
Abraham was the top dog in Canaan after beating off Chedorlaomer’s army, and yet he humbled himself and paid homage to an obscure priest because he worshipped the one true God whom Melchizedek represented. Are you willing to humble yourself, no matter how great you are and pay homage to God through whatever representatives God has put in your life, no matter how obscure they are? It might mean attending a small, unpopular church simply because they are faithful.
Abraham gave of his wealth to the Lord by giving 10% to Melchizedek.
Will you follow Abraham’s example and tithe to the church and missionaries?
Furthermore, will you give God your best – “off the top,” like Abraham did, instead of your leftovers?
Abraham knew which priest to go to because he knew the covenant relationship he had with God. Abraham was blessed by God with promises and God had called him to be a blessing to the nations. Do you realize that you are in the same sort of covenant relationship with the same God? That you have the same promises and the same calling? That’s what the New Testament tells us:
2 Corinthians 6:8-7:1 [Speaking to a group of gentiles in Europe] “I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the LORD Almighty." Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit...” (NKJV)
And we too are commanded in God’s law of liberty to bless others, for instance in Romans 12:14 “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” (NKJ, cf. 1 Pet. 3:9).
This is because Jesus has made us priests! 1 Peter 2:9 [speaking to Gentiles in Central Asia] “Y'all, however, are a select kind, a priestly royalty, a holy ethnicity… that y'all might extol the virtues of Him who called y'all out of darkness into His marvelous light” (NAW, cf. Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6)
If you know God’s promises and His calling on your life, you will go to Jesus!
So, like Abraham, go to the better priest, whom Melchizedek typified; go to Jesus
The Apostle James ended his epistle with a picture of what it is like to go to Jesus in every circumstance: “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:13-14, NKJV)
So often, we live as though it says, “Is anyone sad? Let him turn on iTunes and take pills. Is anyone cheerful? Let him snapchat or throw a party. Is anyone sick? Let him wallow in self-pity and go to the hospital.” I’m not saying that any of these things are necessarily bad, but none of them are going to Jesus. We need to go to Jesus first when we’re sad, when we’re happy, and when we’re sick. Go to Him first rather than using all these other things He created to be your idolatrous go-to’s.
If we understand how much better Jesus is, we’ll want to go to Him first.
The
Righteous King (Hebrews 7:1-3) - by amoswilson
The
righteous king, the prince of peace, Melchizedek, the priest of
priests.
Before the Levite he held claim, To intercede in
Yahweh's name.
A priest who was not circumcised, Yet Abraham
paid him the tithe.
No father, mother, progeny, His birth and
death a mystery,
But he appears in the record, As though
eternal, like our Lord.
A priest forever – as the
Christ, Though neither of them were Levites,
By right not of
his father earned, But by the call of God confirmed.
He
demonstrates the greater plan, That God prepared when time
began:
Not through the Levites to redeem, But by a greater
righteous king.
Melchizedek then was a type, Of what would be
revealed in Christ.
A priest to reign continually, A king who
will bring peace to be,
A prophet who will teach God's word,
Which word predates the Law's record.
One – Spirit, Son,
and Father – three, The prophet, priest, and righteous king.
Greek NT |
NAW |
KJV |
4 Θεωρεῖτε δὲ πηλίκοςB οὗτος, ᾧ καὶC δεκάτην ᾿Αβραὰμ ἔδωκεν ἐκ τῶν ἀκροθινίωνD ὁ πατριάρχηςE. |
4 Now, observe what a great man this is to whom even Abraham our first-father gave a tenth off the tops of his piles! |
4 Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. |
5 καὶ οἱ μὲν ἐκ τῶν υἱῶν Λευῒ τὴν ἱερατείαν λαμβάνοντες ἐντολὴν ἔχουσιν ἀποδεκατοῦν τὸν λαὸν κατὰ τὸν νόμον, τοῦτ᾿ ἔστι τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτῶν, καίπερ ἐξεληλυθότας ἐκ τῆς ὀσφύος ᾿Αβραάμ· |
5 So, on the one hand, those receiving the priesthood from among the sons of Levi have, according to the law, a command to collect tithes from the people, even though they (that is, their brothers) had come out of Abraham’s middle, |
5 And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they X come out of the loins of Abraham: |
6 ὁ δὲ μὴ γενεαλογούμενος ἐξ αὐτῶν δεδεκάτωκε τὸν ᾿Αβραάμ, καὶ τὸν ἔχοντα τὰς ἐπαγγελίας εὐλόγηκε·F |
6 but, on the other hand, the one who was not genealogically-recorded among them has accepted a tithe from Abraham and has blessed him who had the promises! |
6 But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises. |
7 χωρὶς δὲ πάσης ἀντιλογίας τὸ ἔλαττον ὑπὸ τοῦ κρείττονοςG εὐλογεῖται. |
7 Now, it is beyond any controversy that the more inferior one is usually blessed by the more superior one. |
7 And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better. |
8 καὶ ὧδε μὲν δεκάτας ἀποθνῄσκοντες ἄνθρωποι λαμβάνουσιν, ἐκεῖ δὲ μαρτυρούμενος ὅτι ζῇ. |
8 And here, on the one hand, dying men receive tithes, but there, on the other hand, it is witnessed that he is living! |
8 And here men that die receive tithes; but there [he receiveth them, of whom] it is witnessed that he liveth. |
9 καὶ ὡς ἔποςH εἰπεῖν, δι᾿ ᾿Αβραὰμ καὶ Λευῒ ὁ δεκάτας λαμβάνων δεδεκάτωται· |
9 And, so to speak, through Abraham, even Levi, the one who receives tithes, has tithed, |
9 And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. |
10 ἔτι γὰρ ἐν τῇ ὀσφύϊ τοῦ πατρὸς ἦν ὅτε συνήντησεν αὐτῷ ὁI Μελχισεδέκ. |
10 for he was still in his forefather’s middle when Melchizedek met up with him. |
10 For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him. |
1and Jacob, cf. Genesis 28:22
2Albert Barnes quotes a “Prof. Stuart” as saying that καὶ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν “...is a ‘softening down’ of an expression which a writer supposes his readers may deem too strong, or which may have the appearance of excess or severity. It amounts to an indirect apology for employing an unusual or unexpected assertion or phrase.”
AThe
Greek is the Majority text, edited by myself to follow the majority
of the earliest-known manuscripts only when the early manuscript
evidence is practically unanimous. My original document includes
notes on the NKJV, NASB, NIV, & ESV English translations, but
since they are all copyrighted, I cannot include them in my online
document. Underlined words in English versions indicate a
standalone difference from all other English translations of a
certain word. Strikeout usually indicates that the
English translation is, in my opinion, too far outside the range of
meaning of the original Greek word. The addition of an X indicates a
Greek word left untranslated – or a plural Greek word
translated as an English singular. [Brackets] indicate words added
in English not in the Greek. Key words are colored consistently
across the chart to show correlations.
BOnly used two other times in the Greek Bible: Zech. 2:6 (how big the measurements of a city) and Gal. 6:11 (how large the handwriting in a letter).
CThree of the six oldest known mss omit this word, and several ancient versions are also split about this word.
DHapax Legomenon. Literally “top-of-pile”
EAlso used of David (Acts 2:29) and of the 12 sons of Israel (Acts 7:8-9) in the NT.
FTwo of the six oldest known mss read -ghsen, an Aorist form, which would not be much different in meaning from the Perfect tense of the vast majority.
GThis word was last seen in Hebrews 1:4 “Having become to such an extent superior to the angels...” (NAW)
HHapex Legomenon meaning “a word”
IFive of the six oldest known mss omit this definite article, but it makes no difference in meaning because Μελχισεδέκ is already definite.