Hebrews
Melchisidec
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Conversations, Panels, and Sermons
Lesson: 14-33
Genre: Lecture
Track: 14
Dictation Name: RR198G14
Location/Venue:
Year:
Let us worship God. Oh Lord open Thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise. For Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, oh God, Thou wilt not despise. Let us pray.
Our Father we give thank unto Thee, that Thou has guided us day by day all the days of our lives. Thy hand has been upon us for good. Teach us to see how great Thy mercy and grace is. To thank Thee as we ought, to wait on Thee for all our todays and our tomorrows, knowing Thy purposes are altogether righteous and Holy. We come therefore to commit our burdens unto Thee, to commit our loved ones and our needs and our hopes concerning them, unto Thee. To commit our country into Thy hands, praying that Thou wouldst make us again a righteous nation. To pray that Thou wouldst work in Thy church, to reestablish the sovereignty of Thy son, and of Thy word and spirit. Grant us this we beseech Thee, in Christ’s name, amen.
Our scripture lesson is Hebrews 7:7-14, and our subject, Melchisidec. Hebrews 7:7-14.
“7And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better.
8And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth.
9And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.
10For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.
11If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?
12For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.
13For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar.
14For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.”
Precedents are cited now by Hebrews as establishing the superiority of the order of Melchisidec. The blessing of Abraham by Melchisidec in Genesis 4:19, made clear that Melchisidec was greater than Abraham. This is the essential point of these verses. As verse 7 says, and without all contradiction, the less is blest of the better. This is why Melchisidec is a problem for Rabbinical commentators. Then verse 8, to make the matter even clearer says: “And here men that die receive tithes, but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth.” The men who die that receive tithes are those of the Levitical order. But in Genesis 14 the priest who received them did not depend upon ancestry, nor was his priesthood voided by his death.
The priesthood of Melchisidec depended neither on birth nor was it ended by death. It was from God, and therefore the human limitations were not imposed on it. The priesthood in other words was God’s endowment on Melchisidecs person, not on his lineage. This raises questions that men cannot answer, but Psalm 11:4 is emphatic that the messiah is a priest after the order of Melchisidec, a God ordained priesthood radically different from the Levitical line.
In verses 9 and 10, we are told that Levi, yet unborn, paid tithes to Melchisidec in the person of his great grand father Abraham. This clearly establishes the priority of Melchisidec, and it tells us why his person must somehow be absorbed into that of Abraham, to preserve the priority of the Levitical priesthood. And this is why the Rabbinic commentators are determined to take away the force of the person Melchisidec. The Bible is clear about Melchisidec, and Abraham without hesitation acknowledges him as his high Priest. Clearly priority is not Levitical. All this complicated matters for those Hebrews who looked to Jerusalem and its High Priest. The messiah plainly had all nations in mind, as the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 makes clear. So that the king was king of more than Israel.
Now, the priesthood is taken from old Israel and given to Jesus Christ in the name of Melchisidec. One of the problems in the early church, dealt with at the council of Jerusalem, Acts 15; was a place of the gentiles in the church. Was it necessary for them to become Jews as a first step towards becoming Christians? The answer was no. And this troubled many. Now Hebrews negates the Levitical priesthood and declares it to be dead. So both the kingship and the priesthood are taken to a degree from Israel.
There was thus a radically changed situation, and yet a continuity was asserted, but with a displacement and a replacement. Perfection or a full maturity was not possible by the Levitical priesthood because its rites of atonement were typical, not actual. True and effectual atonement required a different sacrifice and a different priesthood. This required a new high priest, after the order of Melchisidec, rather than of Aaron. This meant a change in the law. Since the reference is to the priesthood and to the sacrifice the change in the law has to do with the same. Antinomians make this change general, they see it as abolishing the law in full, which is absurd. Theft, murder and adultery, and all the law, were as much law after the crucifixion as before. And of course this poses a problem for the antinomians. If you challenge them saying “You say the law is dead now. You mean murder is legal? Adultery is legal? Theft is legal? False witness is legal and so on?” Well, this irritates them because they have no answer for it. And yet they insist on taking these texts about the law in Hebrews and elsewhere and generalizing them. But they clearly have to do with the law of the priesthood, and of sacrifice.
When Christ died on the cross the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, according to Matthew 27:51. Signifying the end of the validity of Aaron’s priesthood and the old sacrificial system. God himself had desecrated it by this act. Now what follows in verse 12-14 of our text makes this very clear. Because God changed the priesthood, verse 12 tells us, there is made of necessity a change also in the law. Now this is very specific. The new high priest requires a different law because His is a greater and a totally efficacious sacrifice. There is no reference here, for example, to any change in the laws of weights and measures.
To make large claims about the law as a whole as though it were all set aside is to re-write the Bible by false exegesis.
In verse 12 we are told that the priesthood is being changed or better transferred to another order. This transfer to another priesthood was in order to secure efficacious atonement, and to create a people capable of obeying Gods law. The atonement clears the redeemed from the law as a death penalty against us, as a hand writing of ordinances that condemn us, into obedience to the law as a way of life to the Godly. It is not the law which is dead, but we having died in Christ are now dead to the law as a sentence of death against us. But we are alive to the law as our way of life.
Men can be freed from the law as a death penalty, or they can be free from the law to do as they please. The sad fact is, so much of the church has chosen the wrong side of that alternative. Jesus Christ was not of the tribe of Levi, but of Judah. And he was therefore alien to the old priesthood which in fact was responsible for his sentence of death, as verse 13 tells us. Jesus Christ was a member of the tribe of Judah, which had nothing to do with the priesthood, according to verse 14.
The Levitical priesthood is clearly and fully set aside. Those who cling to it will simply become part of an obsolete order. Hebrews cites the precedents which validate Christ’s priesthood. But it also negates the older form of the priesthood. The priesthood of Abraham was centuries old, and yet it was also a temporary one. Men cannot dictate the course of Gods work; man must follow Gods word, which alone gives authoritative direction. Psalm 110 tells us that the messiah King is also the world conqueror, and the priest forever for his people, a priest after the order of Melchisidec. Melchisidec preceded Aaron, so that God provides the precedent, and He tells us of it in advance of Christ’s coming.
Now consider the implications of what the Hebrews then were saying and affirming. And consider the implications today of those who have a like position in that they do not see that it is the law of the priesthood alone that has been changed. They have gone astray over the same issue, but at a different point. Is it not interesting that those who today call themselves evangelicals see the end of the law forever at the cross, not as a death penalty but as a way of life. And they want to see the temple someday re-built in Jerusalem, and sacrifices offered. And they see prophecies fulfilled in old Israel, and not in Christ and His people.
You see the consequences of failing to see the nature of the priesthood and what was changed; only the priesthood, and not the whole of the law. So they have jettisoned the law, and so they have to look forward to a rebuilt temple and sacrifices, and to a rapture, and they are antinomian to the core.
And what kind of gospel do they have? The disintegration of evangelicalism in our time is appalling. This morning I read of one very very large church, in which all kinds of stunts are performed in order to supposedly illustrate the gospel, including the pastor and the assistant pastor, carefully trained by a professional wrestler, wrestling in a ring set up at the front of the church. What idiocy! Of course they are going to resort to all kinds of stupidities when they have denied so much of the word of God. When they have failed to appreciate what Hebrews has to say, when they have taken the abolition of the old sacrificial law and the priesthood associated with it to mean the whole of the law, against the plain sense of the text. Obviously, they don’t want the law because they must be guilty, but the result is the destruction of evangelicalism. This is why Hebrews is so important. Let us pray.
Our Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast made clear in Thy word, Thy truth. And we thank Thee that by Thy sovereign grace Thou hast given us seeing eyes and hearing ears. That we might know and obey Thee, serve Thee, believe in Thee with all our heart, mind, and being. How great Thou art and how gracious unto us, and we praise Thee. In Christ’s name, amen.
Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes.
[Audience Member] Rush, do you believe that verses 8 and 9 refute the idea that the institutional church can monopolize the tithe?
[Rushdoony] I think it does, and of course never in the Bible is the institutional church the only source of the Tithe. It has been the Lords work. One of the clearest examples of that is the farmer who came to Elisha’s school of the prophets when they were without food and brought a wagon load of food for them. Now he tithed to the Lords work, not to the sanctuary which was corrupt, nor to any Levite, because Levites were then apostate also. The evidence is very, very clear that the tithing was to the Lords work.
[Audience Member] So verse 18 seems to be saying doesn’t it, that the tithe is given to the Lord, that it belongs to Him.
[Rushdoony-] Yes, and we have a matter which should trouble these people who want to restrict the tithe to the church, the church in our Lords day was the sanctuary and the synagogue, the temple and the synagogue, and yet there was a treasurer among the disciples to take care of the money given by people to the Lord rather than to the synagogue. We know who the treasurer was, but the fact is, people were giving directly to the Lord.
To hear some people talk it would have been illegitimate for them to give except through the synagogue or the temple. Yes?
[Audience Member] Christ while being of the tribe of Judah, inherited the scepter and lawmaking and kingship abilities, and therefore in fulfilling the law he could also re-write the Levitical law, to his own liking.
[Rushdoony] Exactly, the law at one point was very clearly set aside. While He was of the tribe of Judah, he was to be king, contrary to the Jewish idea, of all nations. Not as their conqueror, but as their man. He was to be king of the gentiles as the one representing them, as much as Israel. So, there the Jewish conception of the law was set aside. So this was a bigger step, the priesthood, but nonetheless equally valid. And you can see why this was a problem to those who had lost at the counsel of Jerusalem the Gentiles could become Christians without first becoming Jews, and now it was becoming obvious that step by step the faith was being made Catholic, universal. And that’s why the word Catholic came in so early, it means Universal. And it was used by the Jewish Christians very early on as against those of their own number who want to restrict the faith, and so the word Catholic has a very important history. It does not refer to a church, but to the universality of the faith, that it is for all tongues, tribes and nations. And this is why, by the way, the groups within British Israelism who want to restrict salvation and the kingdom, because some of them don’t have much ideas about salvation, to the Anglo Saxon peoples. They have to find a way of eliminating others, so supposedly the other races were what Genesis called beasts of the field. And this was their way of getting rid of that without having to deny the Catholicity of the faith. It is a stupid solution. And no solution at all. Yes?
[Audience Member] Rush, doesn’t then this obsession with the institutional church represent then almost a Judaising of the faith, the attempt to reduce it back down to a sort of external order?
[Rushdoony] Very, very important point. It is a Judaising of the church. It is saying, as for a time Rome maintained and the Feeneyites in Boston were the last to maintain it in the post World War 2 era. Outside the church is no salvation. Well, there are protestant versions of that, they will include all the Protestant churches, but no, if you are what they contemptuously call a para-church organization, you have no right to the tithe, you have no right to any of the claims of Christ, they are very very hostile.
Are there any other questions or comments?
As you can see, Hebrews is exceptionally appropriate to our time, which again I must say, accounts for the fact that it is the least studied, and so often wrongly studied, with limitations on the scope of its meaning.
If there are no further questions or comments, let us conclude with prayer.
Our Father, we rejoice in this Thy word. Thy word is true and righteous altogether. Thy word yesterday, today and forever applies to our problems, our needs, and gives us directions as to the way in which we should go. We thank Thee our father for Thy plain speaking to us.
And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.