The Order of Melchizedek

Genesis 14:

18And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.
19He blessed him and said,
Blessed be Abram of God Most High,
Possesor of Heaven and earth;
20And blessed be God Most High,
Who has delivered your enemies into your
hand."
He gave him a tenth of all.

Melchizedek is an intresting guy. Not a whole lot is said about him. In fact he is not mentioned before this passage, and after he does this to Abraham he is not mentioned again...In Genesis.

The premise here is that Abram has just gotten through killing the fleeing kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, and getting Lot back from them. Melchizedek now comes to bless Abram. The important thing to note is the parts highlighted in Yellow from the passages. King and Priest, Melchizedek was both of them.

According to Jewish Law given by Moses, the same person could not be a king and a priest. Priests were to be descendants of Levi, they were not allotted land because their inheritance was the Lord:

Deuteronomy 18

2They shall have no inheritance among their countrymen; the Lord is their inheritance, as He promised them.

And kings were to be descendants of the tribe of Judah.
There is only one other person besides Melchizedek who was a priest and a king, and of course that is none other than Jesus Christ.

Psalm 110

4The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind,
"Your are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek."

Now basically Melchizedek was a prefiguration of the person of Jesus Christ, who is both king and great high priest. It is very interesting, and just to take it to the next level we also see Joshua as a type of Christ. In Zechariah:

Zecheriah 6

12Then say to him, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, "Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is; and He will build the temple of the Lord.
(The Branch being Christ, and the temple is the millennial temple that will be constucted from which Christ will rule.) Continued:
13Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the Lord, and He who will bear the honor and sit and rule on His throne. Thus, He will be a priest on His throne, and the cousel of peace will be beteen the two offices.'"
(The two offices being king and priest that the Messiah will occupy. But only Levi's can be priest right? No, because Christ is of the Order of Melchizedek not a descendant of Levi. But he is a desecendant of Judah, which means he has right to the throne.)

It speaks more of the Order of Melchizedek in Hebrews...

Hebrews 7

1For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him,
2To whom also abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.
3Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he reamains a priest perpetually.
4Now observe how great this man was to whom abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the choicest spoils...

12For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.
13For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar.
14For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests.
15And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek,
16Who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life.
17For it is attested of Him,
"You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek."
18For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness
19(For the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

21(For indeed became priest without an oath, but He with an oath through the One who said to Him,
"The Lord has sworn
and will not change His mind,
'You are a priest forever'")
22So much the more also Jesus has become the guarentee of a better covenant.
23The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing,
24But Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood forever.
25Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

28For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

Heres a basic point to get from all this.. because its starting to get late and I got to be up early. To understand the superiority of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Are you depending on an earthly priesthood to bring you eternal salvation? The truth is that only one priesthood can bring you eternal salvation and it is an eternal priesthood. The only eternal priesthood that exists is that of Christ, the king and high priest. When you acknowledge your sin before Him, and trust in His person and work on the cross, you will instantly be brought into a enternal relationship with Him, completely cleansed of your sin.
Melchizedek is simply a figure of Christ in the Old Testament, he had no beginning of genealogy and no end. We know nothing about him except the person that he symbolized. Christ is appointed by God as King and High Priest enternally according to the Order of Melchizedek. There is plenty more on this subject, it's still something that I am looking into, i merely wrote this to spark a slight interest perhaps in the person of Melchizedek, but more importantly in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the eternal King, Priest and Savior. Praise God for that.



Citation
*Sermon given by Gil Rugh in 1978
*Wikipedia.org
*NASB Bible