(Genesis 14:17-20, Psalm 110:1-4; Hebrews 7:1-22)
My grampa was a preacher with a really corny sense of humor. So is his second son, my uncle. I am the third generation, on at least one of those. With Grampa, one of the ways that showed itself was a real affection for bad Bible puns. Where is baseball mentioned in the Bible? Genesis 1, “In the big inning . . .” What did Jesus drive? A Honda—“The disciples were all in one Accord.” Who were the shortest people in the Bible? Knee-high-miah and Bildad the Shoe-height.
And then there was the one I never thought quite kosher: who’s the only person in the Bible without parents? “Joshua, son of None.” Because to that one, the author of Hebrews would rise up and say, “Wrong—it’s Melchizedek!” And while he’s sort of punning on this as well, he’s also trying to make a serious point. The high priests in Jerusalem received their position because they were part of the priestly tribe, descendants of Levi and of Aaron, according to the law God gave through Moses. Jesus wasn’t, so how could he be a high priest? And in truth, to be a greater high priest than those in Jerusalem, to be the high priest of a greater covenant than that given in the Old Testament law, wouldn’t he need a better claim than theirs? This isn’t the sort of thing we tend to think about, but to those steeped in the Old Testament, it was an important set of questions. Hebrews answers them by appealing to Psalm 110 and the story of Melchizedek.
It’s rather a strange one; in fact, the whole chapter is rather strange. If you go back and look at the first part of Genesis 14—this is after God has called Abram into the promised land, but before God has made his covenant with him and renamed him Abraham—war breaks out in the land. It’s rather confusing, because there are so many names, but some of the cities are serving the king of another city, and they rebel, and they lose. Among the losers are the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is a problem for Abram, because when he followed God to Canaan, he took his nephew Lot with him, and Lot’s been living in Sodom; when Sodom loses, the winners take Lot, his family, and all his stuff, as part of the spoils of their victory. Abram hears about this, takes all his servants, and sets off after those kings; he launches a night attack on them—quite a tricky one by the sounds of it; he would have made a good general—and he beats them and drives them off a long way north. It’s a remarkable victory.
On his way back home, he meets up with the king of Sodom, who’s understandably grateful, since Abram’s just gone out and won his battle for him; in fact, he’s so grateful, he heads north to meet Abram partway, in the King’s Valley, just south of Jerusalem. As Abram pauses there, something equally remarkable happens. The local king comes out from the city to the valley to play host, bringing bread and wine. He’s not worried about the presence of these armies; instead, he comes down among them to serve them, and to bless Abram.
This king is identified here in three ways, and we’ll look at these slightly out of order. One, he’s identified by his city, but by a shortened form of its name: he’s named as “king of Salem.” “Salem” is the Hebrew shalem, which is a form of shalom, which is the word for “peace”—and specifically used for the peace of God. “Jerusalem” means “city of peace,” but here the king is identified simply as the king of peace. Two, we’re given his name, Melchizedek, which means something like “my king is righteous” or “righteous king”—or, as Hebrews takes it, “king of righteousness.” And three, Melchizedek is named as a priest of God Most High. How that happened, we have no idea; indeed, we have no explanation for him at all—he just is. He blesses Abram in the name of God, and from the context, it’s clear that he also has Abram swear to take nothing from the king of Sodom except the necessary provisions for his expedition. Abram responds by tithing to Melchizedek, giving him a tenth of the spoils of his victory.
We have here, then, a completely unexplained person—we are told nothing of his lineage, or how he came to be here; he’s never appeared in the story before, and never will again—who is identified as a priest of the one true God, king of righteousness by his name and king of peace by his city, which will in the end be the city of God, who blesses Abram and to whom Abram bows and pays tribute. The founder of the nation of Israel acknowledges and honors him as priest—and in doing so, Hebrews argues, commits all his descendants to do the same. Thus Melchizedek stands as a higher authority and a superior priest to all the priests established under the law of Moses, which is yet to come; and this is confirmed in the declaration of Psalm 110, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”
In the application of Psalm 110 to Jesus, the author of Hebrews finds his justification for declaring Jesus the greatest high priest and the guarantor of a better covenant than the old priests could offer. Like Melchizedek, Jesus received his priesthood not by inheritance under the law of Moses, but direct from the hand of God; he received a priesthood which existed before the law, which Abraham himself had acknowledged as superior, and he received it because of his perfect life and the perfect sacrifice which he offered, to do what the law could never do. The story of Melchizedek, coming at the very beginning of the story of Israel, even before God has made his covenant with Abram, is a sign that the law and the priesthood which are to come are not God’s final plan, but merely steps along the way; however great Abram is, there is someone greater. In Jesus, that sign is fulfilled, as God’s final plan is revealed.
And look at verses 18 and 19 of Hebrews 7: “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.” Now, that “useless” might seem rather strong—we may argue with individual laws, but typically we think of law as useful; and I think our standard assumption is that the people of the Old Testament were saved by the law, and now we’re saved by Jesus, and so the law was at least useful for a while. But consider that parenthesis: “the law made nothing perfect.” Perfection is what the holiness of God requires; only Jesus is enough for salvation because only Jesus can make us perfect before God, through his sacrifice on the cross. The law couldn’t do that, so ultimately, yes, it was useless. Its usefulness wasn’t real, only apparent.
The key here is a question Hebrews doesn’t elaborate on, probably because Paul had already done so in detail: if salvation came through the law, then what about Abraham, who lived hundreds of years before the law was given? The answer, Paul says, comes in Genesis 15, which declares that Abraham believed God, and God counted him righteous because of his faith; and we see it reflected here, as Abraham accepts the blessing and direction of the priest of God. The law did not, could not, save; its sacrifices were not sufficient for that purpose. The law simply provided a mechanism for the people of God to worship him, to bow to his authority and accept his will.
Just as the priests served under the law to mediate between God and his people, so the law in a broader sense served as a mediator: in the time before Christ had come to die for his people, the law and its structures mediated his sacrifice to them, offering them a way to express their faith in God, and their gratitude to him. It wasn’t the law that saved them; they too were saved by the sacrifice of Christ, they just didn’t know it yet.
In other words, even in the Old Testament, though the people of God were under law, they were still saved by grace, and were called to live by faith; you can see this all over the place, and especially in the prophets. Again and again, the prophets of God denounce the people, not because they aren’t performing the sacrifices and keeping the outward rituals of the law—they are—but because they’re doing so in the wrong spirit, for the wrong reasons. They think that simply doing the rituals is enough, and that if they just do them well enough, God will have to bless them—and that’s not the idea at all. In fact, that whole idea is paganism in a nutshell. God wants more; he wants their full devotion. He wants them to obey, not in expectation of earning a reward, but because they love him and trust him and are grateful to him for all he has done.
The supremacy of Christ, the supremacy of his high priesthood over all pretenders, is the supremacy of grace. We cannot please God merely by keeping laws, and we cannot live a good life merely by keeping laws. Looking good on the outside, keeping up appearances, measuring up, having success in the world’s eyes—none of that matters, none of that is what God is on about with us. The world is happy to play church dress-up and tell you that Jesus came to give you your “best life now,” that if you just follow the right rules you’ll be good enough to get everything you want—but that’s not the gospel, and that’s not Jesus.
We can’t be good enough, and God didn’t send Jesus so we can be; he’s about something far deeper than that. He’s about changing us from the inside out, making his love in us the deepest, most fundamental reality of our hearts and lives; he’s about teaching us to live by grace, to live in his love, both accepting it when we sin and when we fall short, and giving it to others when they sin and fall short. He’s about making us true Christians—not “nice people,” but little Christs.