Chapter 17: THE SUPERLATIVE GREATNESS OF CHRIST
Chapter 16: THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST
"Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." Hebrews 7:17
VARIOUS fancies have gathered around the person of Melchizedek, investing him with extraordinary qualities; but it is better far to think of him simply as the head or chieftain of a large family or clan, which gathered around the site to be known, in after years, as the holy city." Already its name was shadowed forth in the term "Salem," which designated the clustered rude huts or tents. Amid the almost universal lawlessness and depravity which swept over Palestine, righteousness and peace seem to have fled for shelter to this little community, where alone due reverence was given to the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth.
How this oasis had come into existence amid the surrounding moral desert we cannot tell; but it may have been due to the commanding personal influence of the king, who, according to patriarchal custom, as father of the family, was not only the ruler of the family life, but leader in the family devotions; and thus, while Melchizedek was king of Salem, he was also priest of the Most High. Moreover, it would appear that he bore a special commission, and was raised up for a specific purpose, as the ordained messenger between God and men; and as embodying a striking portraiture of the priesthood to be exercised for man by the Son of God.
Note the significance of the words, made like unto the Son of God (ver. 3). Christ's eternal Priesthood was the archetypal reality, after the similitude of which that of Melchizedek was fashioned. It was as if the Father could not await the day of his Son's priestly entrance within the veil but must needs anticipate the marvels of his ministry by embodying its leading features in miniature. Let us now study some of them.
CHRIST IS KING AS WELL AS PRIEST (ver. 1). History gives its unanimous judgment against the temporal and the spiritual power being vested in the same man. In Israel the two offices were kept rigorously separate; and when, on one occasion, a king passed the sacred barrier, and, snatching up a censer, strode into the inner court, he was at once followed by the remonstrances of the priestly band, whilst the white brand of leprosy wrote his doom upon his brow; "and he himself hastened to go out, because the Lord had smitten him." But the simple monarch of whom we write, living before gathering abuses forbade the union, combined in his person the royal scepter and the sacerdotal censer. And herein he foreshadowed the Christ.
Jesus is King and Priest. He is King because he is a priest. He is highly exalted, demanding homage from every knee, and confession from every lip, because he became obedient to the death of the cross. He bases his royal claims, not on hereditary descent, though the blood of David flowed in his veins; not on conquest or superior force; not on the legislation that underpins the kingdom of heaven among men: but on this, that he redeemed us to God by his blood. He is the King of glory, because he is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. The cross was the steppingstone to his throne.
And he cannot fulfill his office as Priest unless he be first recognized as King. Many fail to derive all the blessing offered to men through the Priesthood of Christ, because they are not willing to admit his claims as King. They do not reverence and obey him. They do not open the whole of the inner realm to his scepter. They endeavor to serve two masters; and to stand well with empires as different as light and darkness, heaven and hell, God and Satan. There must be consecration before there can be perfect faith; coronation before deliverance; the King before the Priest.
The order is invariable first King of Righteousness, and after that also King of Peace (ver. 2). " Peace, give us peace!" is the importunate demand of men; peace at any price; by all means peace. But God, in the deep waters, lays the foundation of righteousness; "and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever." It is of no use to heal the wound slightly, saying, "Peace, peace," when there is none. Infinitely better is it to probe to the bottom, and to build up from a sound and healthy foundation to the surface of the flesh. And the King of Peace will never enter your soul until you have first acknowledged him as King of Righteousness, submitting yourself to his righteous claims, and renouncing the righteousness which is of the law for that which is by faith.
It is lamentable to find how few Christians, comparatively, are realizing the full meaning or power of Christianity. Joyless, fruitless, powerless, they are a stumbling block to the world, and a mockery to devils. And is not the reason here? They are not right. They are harboring traitors and aliens in their souls. They constantly condemn themselves in things that they allow. No doubt they excuse themselves, and invent special reasons to palliate their faults, so that what would be inadmissible with others is pardonable in them. What special pleading! What ingenious arguments! What gymnastic feats are theirs! But all in vain. Let any such who read these lines learn that it is peremptory to make Christ King, and King of Righteousness, before ever they can appreciate the peace which accrues from his Priesthood on our behalf.
CHRIST'S PRIESTHOOD WAS NOT INHERITED (ver. 3). This also comes out clearly in the history of the priest-king of Salem. The Levitical priest had carefully to trace his connection with Aaron, and hence the elaborate genealogies of which some parts of the Bible are full. The priests, at the time of the return from Babylon, who could not prove their pedigree, were suspended until a priest arose with Urim and Thummim. But Melchizedek's priesthood had evidently nothing to do with his descent. He was independent of priestly pedigree. Of course it is not necessary to infer that he really had no human parentage and that he knew neither birth nor death. This is neither stated nor assumed. The argument is simply built on the omission of any reference to these events in ordinary human life; and aims to prove that, therefore, this old-world priesthood was quite independent of those conditions which were of prime importance in the Levitical dispensation. It was of an entirely different order from that which officiated in the Jewish Temple; and was, therefore, so capable to represent Christ's.
As God, our Lord had no mother. As man, no father. He did not Spring from a family of priests; for it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning the priesthood. What was allegorically true of Melchizedek was literally true of Jesus; who has had neither beginning of days nor end of life. His Priesthood, therefore, is utterly unique. He stands amongst men unrivaled. There have been none like him before nor since. His functions derived from none, shared by none, transmitted to none. Made what he was from all eternity by the foreknowledge and counsel of God.
There never was a beginning to the priestliness of our Savior's heart. There is no date in heaven's calendar for the uprising within him of mercy and pity, and of the intention to stand as the Advocate and Intercessor for our race. Before the mountains were brought forth, or the heavens and earth were made, there was already in his thoughts the germ of that marvelous drama which is slowly unfolding before the gaze of the universe. He was Priest, as well as the Lamb slain, from before the foundation of the world. Love is eternal. Sacrifice is one of the root principles of the being of God. Priesthood is part of the texture of the nature of the Second Person in the adorable Trinity. There need be no fear, therefore, that he will ever desert his office; or lay it aside for some other purpose; or cease to have compassion on the ignorant and erring, the tempted and fallen.
CHRIST'S PRIESTHOOD IS CONTINUAL (ver. 3). The priests of Aaron's line were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But of him "it is witnessed that he liveth" (ver. 8). Hallelujah! a Priest has arisen "after the power of an endless life" (ver. 16). "The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a Priest forever" (ver. 21). "Because he abideth forever, his Priesthood is unchangeable" (ver. 24). "He ever liveth to make intercession" (ver. 25). "Consecrated forevermore" (ver. 28). What explicit and abundant testimony! Our High-Priest shall never ascend Mount Hor to be stripped of his robes of office and die. The secrets confided to him need never be told again to his successor. The tender love which links him and us shall never be snapped or cut in death. No one else will ever be called in to take his place in the superintendence of our souls.
This teaching rebukes two errors-(1) The error of those who teach sinlessness in the flesh. It is impossible to exaggerate the mischief which is being wrought just now by some who take advantage of the universal yearning for a higher experience, and are holding out to credulous souls the prospect of reaching a position in which they will no longer need to confess sin, no longer require perpetual cleansing in the blood of Christ, no longer be sensible of their sinnership.
They who speak thus confound sin and sins. They apply the term infirmity to acts and dispositions which the Word of God calls by blacker, darker names. This teaching lowers a man's standard of sin to suit the erroneous doctrine which he has imbibed. It is contrary to the distinct teaching of Scripture that the flesh in the believer may yet lust for the upper hand. It is in Opposition to all deeper experience of the Christian life, which goes to show that, even when we know nothing against ourselves, yet are we not hereby justified; because there may be many evils of which, for want of clearer light, we are completely ignorant, but which stand out patent enough to the eye of him who judges us, the Lord who searches the heart and reins.
The error of those who teach the perplexity if sacrificing priesthood. Of course all believers are priests, in the sense of offering the sacrifice of praise and prayer, the offerings of self-denying love. But there are many among us who persist in affirming that they are called, in addition, constantly to offer the perpetual sacrifice of Calvary, in the elements of the Lord's Supper. Amid the ceremonial of the mass, as offered in too many of our English churches by professed Protestants, claiming to be priests, it is hard to see any trace of the simple institution of the Lord's Supper. And it makes one tingle with righteous indignation to see the way in which these blind leaders of the blind are deceiving the multitudes to the ruin of their soul Sometimes one longs for the withering sarcasm of an Erasmus, the sturdy common sense of a Latimer, the vehemence of a Knox, to show up the unscriptural pretensions of these men, tricked out in the gaudy finery of pagan costumes, and going through mummeries which would provoke to laughter, if the whole system were not so inexpressibly sad. "How long, Lord, how long!"
But, after all, the true way to meet these errors is to insist upon our Lord's continual and unchangeable intercession and priesthood. Surely if he lives and continues his work, it is a piece of impertinent and arrogant folly to intrude upon his functions. We must revert to the earlier methods of Scriptural interpretation and exposition before ever we shall be able to forearm our young people against the monstrous errors of our times, or win back those who have been so disastrously led astray.
Chapter 17: THE SUPERLATIVE GREATNESS OF CHRIST
"Able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:25.
THIS chapter needs to be read under a deep sense of sin, to be properly understood and appreciated. It is the conscious sinner who needs the Priest. We can do very well with Christ as Teacher, Philanthropist, Ideal Man, until we see ourselves as we are in the sight of God; but when that vision is given to us, our hearts cry out with an exceeding great and bitter cry for the Priest, who can stand for us with God, and for God with us.
There is urgent need for a fresh consciousness and conviction of our sinnership, both amongst unbelievers and professing Christians. Light views of sin give slight views of the sacrifice of Calvary, of the need for propitiation, and of the dread future penalty on willful wrongdoing. Did men really understand what sin is, they would not talk so glibly of their complete deliverance from it; confounding as they do the few sins of which they are cognizant with the mass of evil that lies still in their nature, like the mud at the bottom of a pellucid lake, only needing to be stirred to show itself. And if men really felt their sins, there would be a unanimous rush to the precious Blood and to the only priest for absolution and pardon.
It is hardly likely that these poor words can affect the set of the current; yet, if it were possible to reach the great mass of the preachers of the present day, one would urge them to lay aside their literary essays, their arguments with evolutionists, their poetry and rhetoric, and to bring the trenchant teaching of God's Word to bear on human consciences and lives. Let them attack sin as sin. Let them deal with the sins of their congregations specifically, as the Boer marks his man for his bullet. Let them show what God thinks of the sins which we treat so lightly. And as soon as we get back to the old fashioned style of preaching, we shall see a revival of old fashioned conversions. It is of no use complaining, when we are ourselves to blame. Human nature is unaltered. The law of God is unchanged. The cry of the conscience is stifled, not silenced. Again shall we hear of multitudes pierced to the heart, and crying for mercy. And then the Priesthood of Christ, as described here, will acquire a new preciousness.
HE IS A GREAT HIGH-PRIEST (ver. 4). How great, appears from the episode here referred to. Flushed with victory, bringing with him all the captives and goods which Chedorlaomer had swept away from Sodom, the patriarch Abraham had nearly reached his own camp. But as he drew nigh to Salem, where peace and righteousness dwelt beneath the rule of Melchizedek, he was met by this saintly figure, bearing in his hands the sacred emblems of bread and wine: meet type of him who often accosts us on the road of life, when weary with conflict, or when entering into subtle temptation, and refreshes us with the bread of his flesh, and the wine of his blood. And Abraham knelt to receive a blessing at his hand, and gave him tithes of all (Gen. xiv. 19, 20).
Does not this prove the greatness of Melchizedek? The Levites and priests were indeed permitted to take tithes of their brethren; but this glorious priest feels no compunction to take tithes of one of another race. He rose above the narrow boundaries of race or blood, and was prepared to do his office with equal care for an alien as for his own. This unsectarian, cosmopolitan, large-hearted view of his obligations to man as man is a true mark of greatness. And in this he manifests a trait of the greatness of our dear Lord, whose Priesthood overleaps the limits which might be set by nationality or birth, and deals with man as man; with thee, reader, and me, if only we will come to him.
Besides this, since the greater must bless the less, it is obvious that Abraham, great and good though he was, the friend of God, and the recipient of the promises, must have felt that Melchizedek was his superior, or he would never have treated him with such marked respect (Heb. vii. 6, 7). Surely, then, this holy man was a fit representative of our blessed Lord, to whom all the noblest in heaven and earth bow the knee; confessing that he is Lord; and consecrating to him, not a tenth only, but the whole of what they have and are.
HE IS A GREATER HIGH-PRIEST THAN AARON OR HIS SONS. When Abraham knelt beneath that royal and priestly hand, he did not do so for himself alone, but as a representative man. First and head of his race, his descendants were identified with him in his deed. Levi, therefore, who receiveth tithes paid tithes in the patriarch; and, in doing so, forevermore took up the second place as inferior, and second best.
"Stop," cries an objector; "if you affirm this inferiority of the Jewish priesthood to that of Melchizedek, you are making an assertion so far-reaching in its results as to need some further corroboration. Are you quite sure that this is as you say?"
"Certainly," is the reply; "else, why should there be so emphatic an announcement made in David's Psalms of the coming of another Priest long after the Jewish priesthood had been in operation? 'If perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, what further need was there that another Priest should arise after the order of Melchizedek and not be called after the order of Aaron?'"
"But stay," again interposes the objector; "if you are going to supersede the Levitical priesthood, you are of necessity making a change in all that ceremonial law which rested on the priesthood as an arch upon its keystone. Are you prepared to sweep away a system so venerable, so religiously maintained, the bulwark of religion, the institution of God?"
"I am prepared for this," is the reply; "the previous commandments that relate to sacrifices and rites and ceremonies will have to go. They were temporary and imperfect. Types, not realities; molds, not the real vessels; shadows, not the substance. They made nothing perfect. Their office was to bring in a better hope; but, now that this is come, they may be annulled and laid aside."
It seems a light thing to us; but it was of the gravest import to those who were here addressed. To them the Jewish priesthood and ceremonial were more than a state religion; they were religion itself. Tradition, custom, ancestral veneration, personal admiration, and adherence, all these ties had to be rudely snapped, as they were compelled to admit the cogency of this inspired and irresistible argument. If Jesus were indeed the Priest spoken of by David in Psalm cx.- and of this there seemed no doubt because it was so often applied to him (Matt. xxii. 44; Acts ii. 34)- then there could be no doubt that his Priesthood was better than Aaron's; and that the whole system of which the Levitical priesthood was the essential characteristic must pass away before that system which gathers around the person and work of the Lord Jesus.
We must distinguish between the moral and the ceremonial law: the latter is transient, and was fulfilled in Jesus Christ; the former, of course, is of permanent and eternal force, written on the conscience of man and the government of the world.
We can only stay for a moment here to show how absurd it is for either the Roman or the Anglican priest to base his pretensions on the example of the Old Testament. To do so is to confess their inferiority to the only Priesthood which is recognized in the present age. They are in evil case. Press them for their warrant of existence. If they quote Rev. i. 6, then we all have an equal right to wear their dress and fulfill their office. If they quote Leviticus, then are they hopelessly undone; for that priesthood has been superseded. The time is coming when all his people will have to disavow connection with those men whose pretensions are baseless, or worse, delusive; and an unwarrantable intrusion into the sacred offices of Christ. Alas I poor souls, deluded and fleeced by them!
HE IS THE GREATEST OF HIGH-PRIESTS. Because he was made priest by the oath of God (vv. 20, 21). Ordinary priests had no such sanction to their appointment; but he by an oath. Jehovah sware, and will not change his mind. His appointment is final, absolute, immutable. It never can be superseded, as that of Aaron has been. Heaven and earth may pass away, but it will not pass away.
Because he continueth ever. His is the Priesthood in which throbs the power of an endless life (ver. 16). It is witnessed of him, that he liveth. "Behold," said he, "I am alive forevermore." What a contrast to all human priests, on whose graves this epitaph may ever be inscribed, "Not suffered to continue by reason of death." One by one they grow old and die: the eye, often filmed with tears, is closed; the heart stands still; the hands, often raised in absolution, crossed meekly on the breast, as if asking for pardon. But he ever liveth. And of this perpetual life there are two blessed results. On the one hand, he has an untransferable Priesthood (ver. 24); on the other hand, he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him (ver. 25). There is no limit to his salvation, no barrier beyond which he may not pass. Uttermost in time, and in character, and in desperation, you may be at one of the ends of the earth; yet you shall be lifted to the uttermost degree of glory. To the uttermost-from sins of thought as well as of word and deed; to the uttermost, in cleansing the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Because of his blameless character. Holy toward God; harmless toward man; undefiled in heart; separate from sinners in life. Not needing to offer up sacrifice for himself, as the priests did always before offering for the congregation; not requiring to make a daily or yearly repetition of that perfect sacrifice and oblation which was once made on the cross (vv. 26, 27).
Because of the dignity of his Person (ver. 28). The office of mediation is no longer entrusted to a man, or set of men, encompassed by infirmities. See! through the shining ranks of being there advances the Son, Light of Light, Fellow of Jehovah, Coequal with God, One with Father and Spirit in the ever-blessed Trinity. He is solemnly consecrated to this task of reconciling and saving sinners. All heaven hears and ratifies the oath. And surely we may well ponder what must be our worth in the thought of God, and what our destiny, when our case is undertaken, amid such solemnities, by One so August, so glorious, so divine, as the High-Priest, who now awaits the appeal of the humblest penitent of the human race. "Such a High-Priest became us."
"To THE UTTERMOST." Eyes may light on these words, weary with weeping, of those who have been reduced well-nigh to despair through the greatness and virulence of their sins. Not only does the record of the past seem too black to be forgiven, but old habits are perpetually reasserting themselves; ridiculing the most steadfast resolutions, and smiting the inner life of the soul down to the ground. At such times we are disposed to envy the vegetable and animal creation, which are not capable of sin; or the myriads of sweet children who have been taken home to God before the time of conscious rebellion and war could rend their infant hearts. But the greatness of our sin is always less than the greatness of God's grace. Where the one abounds, the other much more abounds. If we go down to the bottoms of the mountains and touch the heart of the deep, deeper than all is the redeeming mercy of God. The love and grace and power of Jesus are more than our unutterable necessities. Only trust him, he is "able to save unto the uttermost"; and he is as willing as able.
There are many in these days filled with questionings about the clean heart, the extent to which we may be delivered from sin, and such like speculations. To these we say: Cease to think of cleansing, and consider the Cleanser; forbear to speculate on the deliverance, and deal with the Deliverer; be not so eager as to the nature of the salvation, but let the Savior into your heart; and be sure that so long as he is in possession, he will exert so salutary an effect, that sin, however mighty, shall instantly lose its power over the tempest-driven soul that comes through him to God, the source of holiness.