The Priestly Office of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 7:1-3)
Rev. Myung-Sin Choi
“1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated ‘king of righteousness,’ and then also king of Salem, meaning ‘king of peace,’ 3 without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.”
Introduction
I spoke to you in the pulpit message that our remnants organize the gospel message well. The reason why I am telling you this is because we clearly received the message of Matthew 16:16. Many people would be shocked when they heard that Jesus was the Christ. But now, many churches know that Jesus is the Christ but they don’t have much clarity anymore. We have spoken a lot about the six states of nonbelievers and the 7 blessings of a believer but we have forgotten about all of those things. The problem is that there are so many incorrect things, we get swayed with those things. When people give us questions, we don’t know how to answer. We need to hold onto the accurate gospel so that when people ask us questions, we know how to answer. We need to have the basics within our faith. Today, I will speak about the priest role of Jesus Christ. We say that Jesus is the Priest because He died for our sins and He forgave of our sins. How did He solve our sins? We may not be able to answer it. We need to be able to hold onto this accurately so that we can give the accurate answers.
1. Melchizedek the Priest
(1) Blessing Abraham
We see a man named Melchizedek but he was someone who blessed Abraham. And, it also describes him as the priest of the God Most High. I think Abraham knew of Melchizedek.
You know very well that during that time, there was a war between the North and South Israel in Genesis 14:17-18 “And the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley), after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him. Abram and Melchizedek 18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High.” - Assyria was in the North Israel and they were very powerful. They took over the kingdoms of the South and one of the kingdoms was the kingdom of Lot, the nephew of Abraham. When Abraham heard this, he couldn’t believe that his nephew was captured. So, Abraham took his troops and his men, and went to fight to get his nephew back. But the men of Abraham and his troops fought against the powerful nation of Assyria and won. This was a miracle. Abraham returned back home and took the captives too.
Genesis 14:18 - Melchizedek came and bought forth bread and wine to the victorious Abraham. Why did he bring bread and wine? He threw a festival with bread and wine. This shows a spiritual meaning. Bread and wine was the bread and wine that Jesus had with His disciples, the Last Supper. This was the festival that Jesus had with His disciples. This was the first time when Jesus’s flesh and blood was shared with His people (during the Last Supper).
(2) Melchizedek the king of justice
He was the king of justice and righteousness. He is also the king of Salem. Salem means peace so he was the king of peace. He is the king of justice and peace. This means that he represents Jesus Christ. It didn’t end there. Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek. This means that Abraham accepted and saw Melchizedek as the priest of God. This shows that Abraham paid tithe to Melchizedek. This was testifying that Abraham had victory because of God. This shows that God is the one who has victory. This was a scene when Abraham was giving glory to God. We keep seeing the word, priest, here.
2. Why Were the Descendants of Levi Not the True Priests (Mediators)?
(1) Melchizedek's identity
Verse 3 - During that time, Melchizedek was there but there was recording of him before this time. We see that he had no father, no mother, and no genealogy of him. No one knows when he was born. Who was this person? People were wondering who he was. It says that He was made like the Son of God. Many theologians researched into this. Who is Melchizedek? Some say that Melchizedek is the Shem, the son of Noah. Martin Luther also argued this as well. This was because Shem lived 600 years so this was during this time, Abraham was alive as well. After Abraham died, Shem lived 35 years longer. So people think that Melchizedek was Shem because Abraham looked up to Shem. But John Calvin thought differently. The Bible tells us that there is no genealogy of him so we shouldn’t guess who he is. We should just think of Melchizedek as just Melchizedek. We can see Melchizedek as an image and representation of Jesus Christ. We said that we can think of Melchizedek as a model of Jesus Christ.
(2) The ministry of the high priest
Psalm 110:4 “The Lord has sworn And will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.’ ” - We can see the similarity of Hebrews 7:3. The Lord, Himself is the Priest forever so was Melchizedek as described in this Biblical scripture.
John 1:33-34 “I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” - John the Baptist said this. When Jesus Christ came to earth, He was baptized. Why was He baptized? God baptized Him and allowed the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, to come upon Him. Only Jesus Christ was baptized with Jesus Christ and John the Baptist knew at that moment that Jesus was the Messiah that God sent.
Hebrews 2:17 “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” - When God came into this earth was to come as the high priest to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Why did Jesus have to come as the high priest? The children of Levites were all priests. Why did Jesus not come from the family of Levites? All of the descendants of priests were from the family of Levites but Jesus came from the high priest, Melchizedek. John the Baptist was the last priest of the Levites. After John the Baptist, the era of priests from the family line of Levites stopped. When Jesus Christ, the new era of priests started. The baptism of Jesus Christ was the end of the Old Testament and the start of the New Testament. Both parents of John the Baptist were Levites. God commanded Jesus to be born as a Nazareth. God kept Jesus hidden and kept Him from sin. During that time, there were a high priest but God was not pleased with him. The priest that God raised after this high priest was John the Baptist. God chose John the Baptist to baptize Jesus Christ. This shows that the position of the high priest was passed unto Jesus Christ from John the Baptist. This means that we don’t need the temple anymore. In the temple, you had to give blood animal sacrifices but Jesus Christ, Himself, was the sacrifice. So we don’t need the temple anymore. This is very important. I watched a video clip on YouTube and in this clip, it speaks about how when 1,000 reign comes, Israel and Jerusalem will be restored. The temple will be restored. After Jesus Christ came, the temple is not needed anymore. That clip is an incorrect interpretation and saying. Why was Jesus not from the Levite tribe? Even though the Levites were priests of God, they couldn’t serve as the ultimate sacrifice. This was because they themselves were sinners so they couldn’t be the sin offering to God. That is why God raised up Jesus Christ from the order of Melchizedek, a person who was sinless. This sacrifice had to be the offspring of the woman, a person of no sin. Let me ask you a question. Why did the sinless Jesus Christ die if He is sinless? Can you die if you have sin? The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. This means that if you don’t have sin, you don’t die. But Jesus died. Why did He die? I asked a pastor this. He was a baptist pastor. The pastor told me that Jesus did for our sins. But Jesus had no sins so why did He have to die? Did Jesus die because He can just die? We need to be clear about this.
Matthew 11:23 “And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.” -
Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” -
3. Why Did the Sinless Jesus Die?
(1) Jesus became the guilt offering
The sinless Jesus died because of Isaiah 53:6 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” - Jesus bore all of our sins on the cross. God made it possible where Jesus could bore all of our sins. This was all possible because of God. God sent Jesus to do this.
Jesus came before John the Baptist to be baptized but when Jesus came, John the Baptist said that He was the Son of God so how could he baptize the Son of God? Rather John the Baptist said that Jesus should baptize him.
So Jesus responded to John the Baptist in Matthew 3:15 “But Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he allowed Him.” - We spoke about the righteousness of salvation and Zion. All of these things had to happen so that righteousness could be fulfilled. The only way to solve the wrath of mankind was to be forgiven was through Jesus Christ. This was God’s justice. During the Old Testament on the Day of the Atonement and the high priest would place all of the sins of the Israelites onto this one lamb. At that moment, the lamb that carried all of the sins of the Israelites is killed so the Israelites would be happy because their sins were all cleansed. This was why Jesus Christ came. The reason why the Day of Atonement was celebrated many years was to show what Jesus Christ would do for man on this earth. At that moment, John the Baptist was given the title of the high priest and baptizes Jesus Christ. And at that moment, all of the sins were imputed from John the Baptist onto Jesus. Because of that, all of the sins of mankind came upon Jesus.
John 1:29 “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, 'Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!' ” - Our Jesus took all of the sins of man. Jesus was not a sinner but He bore all of our sins. Jesus shed His blood because that was the price of our blood. All of our sins of curses, disasters, and consequences of mankind was put onto Jesus. When Jesus shed His blood on the cross, we were forgiven of all our sins.
Leviticus 17:11 “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” - When Jesus Christ died on the cross, all of our sins were forgiven and finished. This shows God as the righteous God and the righteousness of the cross. The moment you believe, the righteousness of Jesus Christ who resurrected is upon us.
(2) Jesus' ministry of atonement (the Day of Atonement)
Leviticus 16:8, 27 “Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat. 27 The bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the Holy Place, shall be carried outside the camp. And they shall burn in the fire their skins, their flesh, and their offal.” - The scapegoat represented Satan. But there was another goat that was offered to God. This was because of the sins of man. All of the sins of man was placed on the scapegoat and the other goat was prepared to be given as an offering to God. The sins of mankind the was placed on the scapegoat were the sins and curses of man. The moment of the death of the scapegoat was representing the death of Satan. A strange pastor spoke on TV saying that Rev. Kwang-Su Ryu believes that Jesus paid Satan a ransom for the sins of mankind. All of the sins, power of Satan, and curses were taken completely placed on the scapegoat and was taken into the wilderness. An a beast came and consumed that scapegoat. That beast represented Satan. All of the curses that mankind were supposed to receive, Satan received it all. And at that time, the head of Satan was crushed.
Leviticus 16:27 - We need to hold onto something from here. The blood of the goat that was shed but what about the rest of the body? The flesh, offal, and the skin? All of that was burned. This shows the complete death of Jesus Christ. Why was that? For our sins. The entire body of Jesus was completely dead. In other words, Jesus gave us everything without any conditions and did it generously.
Hebrews 9:12 “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” - We see the blood of Jesus and how He atoned for our sins. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, He was able to enter into the Most Holy Place. He is showing us our sins has been resolved forever. Our atonement has been fulfilled. May you receive this same grace.
Conclusion: The Greatest Gospel
Hebrews 2:14 “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” - The Son of the Creator God was sent to the earth to save us. That was the greatest gospel. He died for us so that He could face the judgment that we had to face. That is the greatest gospel. He broke the power of Satan who held the power of death. This is the fruit of the gospel. Then, how must we live? Hold onto Romans 14:8 “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” - May you live this life.
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