Melchizedek—The Right Priest—Hebrews 7 (first part) | 48

Colleen and Nikki continue their discussion through the book of Hebrews. They discuss the first part of Hebrews chapter 7 where Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Most High God is presented. Transcription by Gwen Billington.

 

Colleen:  Welcome to Former Adventist podcast.  I’m Colleen Tinker.

Nikki:  And I’m Nikki Stevenson.

Colleen:  And we’re so happy you’ve joined us for another journey through Hebrews as we look at the Old Covenant through the reality of Jesus and His ministry.  But before we do that, I just want to remind you that if you have anything you want to write to us, ideas, suggestions, reactions, write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com.  You can also subscribe to our weekly email and our magazine, Proclamation!, by going to proclamationmagazine.com or you can donate there as well.  There’s a place to donate online to keep the podcast and the emails and the magazine going.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to them, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.  Well, Nikki, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been so looking forward to doing Hebrews 7.  This is perhaps the chapter that was the biggest ah-ha of my whole experience coming out of Adventism and figuring out who and what Jesus really is.  In fact, it’s so big that we’re going to take at least 2 weeks to go through this chapter.

Nikki:  Yes.  This is a good one.

Colleen:  So in this chapter, we’re going to revisit and become acquainted with a sort of murky, foggy, symbolic character from the Old Testament named Melchizedek, but he’s really, really important because Jesus’ high priestly ministry is after the order of Melchizedek.  I confess I didn’t know very much about him as an Adventist.  So, Nikki, would you talk to us a little bit about what you knew of Melchizedek, or what you’ve discovered about Melchizedek from an Adventist perspective.

Nikki:  Well, what I knew about him was really nothing.  He to me was just almost like another name in the genealogical lists that you have all over the Bible.  Like, I didn’t give him much thought.  When I did read through Genesis in my early 20s and we bumped into him, I thought he was a fascinating character.  I just sort of assumed he was like, I don’t know, another Job or he was evidence that they had the law and they were doing sacrificial systems, and it sort of supported my Adventist worldview, but it was never taught to me.  I never heard, really, an Adventist explanation for it.  So as I was studying for this podcast, I really wanted to know what on earth did the Adventists say about Melchizedek, and so I did a search online, and I was taken to the Ellen G. White – I think it was the White Estate page –

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  – and I read some quotes, and it was pretty disturbing.  Maybe this is bad of me, but it was kind of funny to me how –

Colleen:  [Laughter.]  I don’t think that’s bad.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]  – how they’re able to pull so many different verses together to build a completely fictional story.  I found these quotes from something called “The Cross and Its Shadow.”  It was written by a Stephen Haskell in 1914.

Colleen:  But importantly, I want to stress that this was on the Ellen White Estate page, so this is considered an official Adventist position from that period of time.

Nikki:  Because at first when I was reading it, I actually thought it was Ellen White.  It’s on the page.  But yeah, Richard was able to figure out who wrote it for us.  So it’s definitely promoted by them.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  And he says that when we study the Levitical priesthood we’re really studying the priestly work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  So he’s saying – and he said before that – that all priests, Melchizedekian and Levitical, they’re all types of Christ.  That’s why you can study the Levitical priesthood and learn about what Jesus is doing right now, and he had this really interesting theory.  He said that when Jesus led a train of captives to heaven at His resurrection, these people can be seen in John’s vision, and John sees 24 elders in heaven.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  And he says that these 24 elders are 24 high priests in the order of Melchizedek and that the great multitude in heaven are all people who work under these 24 different courses of Melchizedekian priests.  He says that we are to be Melchizedekian priests, that’s the goal.

Colleen:  See, I didn’t know any of this as an Adventist.

Nikki:  No, I didn’t either.  And he’s quoting from Peter, 1 Peter 2, talking about how we are to be a royal priesthood, and of course, they tag on “after the order of Melchizedek.”

Colleen:  Peter doesn’t say that.

Nikki:  No, no, no.  It’s not in there.  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  So I did a little more searching, and I found an article from Ministry magazine.  It was written in 1955 by Otto H. Christensen.  It’s entitled, “Why is Melchizedek Important.”  And he also uses 1 Peter 2 to say that we are to be Melchizedekian priests, and he suggested – from Hebrews 5:8, where it talks about Jesus learning obedience through suffering, he suggests that Jesus qualified to be a Melchizedekian priest on the basis of His character refinement, that is what qualifies one.

Colleen:  There you go.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.  So we are to be Melchizedekian priests who are constantly seeking after character refinement.

Colleen:  Oh, my.

Nikki:  It was actually pretty fascinating.  Also in John 16 when Jesus says, “I have many more things to teach you that you’re not ready for, the implication is that the Adventist remnant church have that information now and that we are to strive after this character perfection.  And he ends his article by saying, “Will we be priests after the order of Melchizedek or after the order of Levi?  This is our question today.  To solve it means Christ’s soon return.  To leave it unsolved mean further delay.”

Colleen:  And there you go:  Christ’s return is in our hands.

Nikki:  Yep.

Colleen:  Wow, Nikki.  I don’t know that Adventism teaches any longer that we are supposed to be Melchizedekian priests.  I think this is one of those beliefs that has quietly been swept under the rug, never renounced, never repented of, just quietly forgotten.  And yet as recently as 1955, Ministry magazine was repeating and reiterating this command, that we are to be Melchizedekian priests and thus hasten the return of Jesus.  So this business of Jesus being a priest in the order of Melchizedek was another way He’s our example.  We are to be Melchizedekian priests.  Now, two things I want to mention about this.  The first is, 1955 was about the time that Walter Martin was meeting with the Adventists to determine whether or not they were a cult.  It was in 1957 that the infamous “Questions on Doctrine” was published, which was supposed to convince Walter Martin that Adventism was orthodox doctrinally, that it really was protestant evangelical Christianity.  They parsed their words carefully and published this book in 1957.  I can’t prove this, but my hunch is that after that episode, this teaching was somewhat probably relegated to be in the distant past because I never heard of it, and I went to Adventist schools in the ’60s, Adventist elementary schools and Adventist colleges in the ’60s and ’70s.  So that’s my hunch, based on how the church altered the way it taught after Walter Martin, but as recently as 1955 they were saying this.

Nikki:  Well, and isn’t it interesting that now, in 2020, they have it published on their Ministry magazine website.  They felt it was important enough to get it up on the Internet.

Colleen:  Yes, it’s there for the public to find.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  It’s not like, “Oh, let’s pretend this didn’t happen and remove all traces.”

Nikki:  No.

Colleen:  It’s still there.  The other thing I want to mention, after we had briefly talked and you had told me that you’d done some fascinating research on Melchizedek, I decided I would look up the Mormon Melchizedekian priesthood because I know that the Mormons have active in their religion an order of priesthood called the Melchizedekian priesthood.  They have both Aaronic priests and Melchizedekian priests.  So I looked that up and discovered that within Mormonism a Melchizedekian priest is the highest order of priesthood and that a Mormon man may be appointed to the Melchizedekian priesthood from the age of 18 onward based entirely on moral perfection.  It said it does not depend on training, education, experience.  It’s based entirely on moral character, and the highest levels of apostleship and administration in the Mormon church are in the order of the Melchizedekian priesthood, and I want to say, these early Adventists spoke about the Melchizedekian priesthood in a similar fashion to the way Mormons think of it.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  It’s a moral attainment.  It’s something that the members can attain to on the basis of moral perfection.  This is complete heresy.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  And once again, there’s a similarity between Adventism in its historic core identity and Mormonism in some strange, odd way.

Nikki:  And we have another example of a system that refuses to repent for a false teaching –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – and only sweeps it under the rug.

Colleen:  So it’s no wonder that Melchizedek completely confused us, and this passage that we’re looking at today in Hebrews was just confusion.  I asked Richard this morning what he thought of Melchizedek as an Adventist, and he had to think.  And I confess, his reaction mirrored mine.  He said, “Melchizedek was just a puzzle.  I didn’t know what to think of Melchizedek.  What I understood was that he was this strange character back in Genesis to whom Abraham paid tithe, which just proved to me that Abraham was a really good man, because he kept the law and paid tithe to Melchizedek.”  But he said, “The man Melchizedek was just a puzzle.”  What it meant that Jesus was a priest in the order of Melchizedek, I didn’t know what that meant, except that perhaps he was eternal, because Ellen White had said things like that.  He is eternal, like the Melchizedekian order.  So it was confusion.

Nikki:  That’s interesting about the tithe because that was another thing that I saw on the Ellen White website.  She used the story of Melchizedek quite a bit to pressure people to pay tithe and not rob from God.

Colleen:  So that was his primary purposes, from her perspective, was to endorse the law, endorse tithing.

Nikki:  She did say that he came to reveal the truth of heaven and perpetuate the Law of God.  That was in Letter 190, written in 1905.

Colleen:  And you know, I have to say, perpetuate the Law of God, this is the Adventist myth because the Law of God did not exist, as the way Adventists define it, when Melchizedek was on earth.  They consider the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law to be the Law of God.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  But the Law of God that they think of didn’t come until Moses.  Abraham far predated Moses by 400 and some years.

Nikki:  And chapter 7 is going to completely undo any notion they have that Melchizedek upheld the Mosaic Law.

Colleen:  That’s so true.  In fact, it proves the opposite.

Nikki:  Yes, it does.

Colleen:  Why don’t we just jump into chapter 7, and we’re going to just cover the first ten verses today, and we’re going to take a little detour back to Genesis 14 to meet Melchizedek in the original setting in the process.  But, Nikki, would you read that, Hebrews 7:1-10, please.

Nikki:  “For 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, to 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.  Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.  Now observe how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the choicest spoils.  And those indeed of the sons of Levi who receive the priest’s office have commandment in the law to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brethren, although these are descended from Abraham.  But the one whose genealogy is not traced from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.  But without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater.  In this case mortal men receive tithes, but in that case one receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives on.  And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.”

Colleen:  A few years ago, when I was studying through Hebrews, I realized I had to go back to Genesis and remind myself exactly what this whole passage is referring to, and it’s kind of fascinating because the reference to Melchizedek in Genesis 14 is very brief, and the author of Hebrews, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, has taken this brief account and has fleshed it out to show us how this typology of the priesthood of Jesus, the eternal priesthood of the Lord Jesus, Melchizedek was a type of Jesus.  So the passage is the whole chapter of Genesis 14, which we won’t take the time to read, but you who are listening, I think you’d find it really interesting if you did read it.  Now, in terms of the time, in terms of Abraham’s life, it’s significant to notice Abraham was called out of Ur in Genesis 12, and God said He was going to make him a great nation.  He called him to go to a land He would show him.  Genesis 14 is the chapterbefore God makes the unconditional covenant with Abraham.  So in chapter 14, I’m sure most of us hearing this remember the story, because it was taught to us in the Bible stories, that Abraham and Lot decided between themselves where they would settle, because Lot had been part of the train of people leaving Ur with Abraham.  And when they came into the land that God was giving them, they had many flocks, and they couldn’t live in the same place.  So Abraham gave Lot first choice of where he wanted to settle.  Now, it was so interesting to realize, looking back at this chapter and the chapter before, where they actually divided the land between them, that Lot chose the Jordan Rift, essentially the plains of the Jordan River down near the Dead Sea, and at the time they settled, it was a fertile, lush, beautiful land.  It was before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, after which it has become a desert.  But it was a beautiful, rich land, and Lot chose the better, the most beautiful, the most productive portion, and then Abraham lived a little bit farther north, apparently.  We have this odd, strange story in chapter 14 of nine desert kings who somehow end up going to war with each other, and in the process of this war, they make war against Sodom, the city of Sodom, and that is where Lot had settled.  We all know that.  So it says in chapter 14:10, the Valley of Siddim, which was the old name for the Dead Sea, was full of tar pits.  It kind of makes me think of the old La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles that are famous worldwide for trapping animals that fell into them.  So the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell into them.  But those who survived fled to the hill country, and they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, all their food supply, and departed, and they also took Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and his possessions and departed, for he was living in Sodom.  So as part of this war of the kings, the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, fell into the tar pits, and these kings captured Lot and his whole household and possessions and took them as prisoners of war.  And then in 13 we hear that a fugitive from this war came and told Abraham – Abram, as he’s called in chapter 14, the Hebrew, and he was living near the oaks of Mamre.  Now, what’s interesting here that we learn – and who knew? – in verse 14, Abraham heard that his relative, Lot, had been taken.  He led out his – get this – trained men.  Abraham had a private army.  I mean, who knew that?  He had trained men, born in his house, 318, and he went in pursuit as far as Dan.  Now Dan is the extreme north portion of what is now Israel, way up in the north on the border of Lebanon and Syria, and it even goes on to say in verse 15 that Abraham divided his forces against these enemies he was pursuing, at night, he and his servants, and he defeated them, and he pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus.  Damascus was the capital of Syria, still Damascus today, Damascus in Syria.  And if you look at a map of the Middle East, Damascus is far north of Israel, so Abram went from the southern part of Israel, took his 318 men up into Syria, captured these people, and, it says in verse 16, he brought back all the goods, he brought back his relative Lot, with his possessions, and also the women and the people.  So Abraham went and rescued these people that king Chedorlaomer had captured.  Then we come to the part, and it’s very brief, about Melchizedek.  Nikki, would you read 17 through 20, please?

Nikki:  “Then after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).  And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.  He blessed him and said, ‘Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.’ He gave him a tenth of all.  The king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give the people to me and take the goods for yourself.’  Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have sworn to the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is yours, for fear you would say, “I have made Abram rich.”  I will take nothing except what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me, Aner, Eschol, and Mamre; let them take their share'”

Colleen:  So here we have all we know about Melchizedek from the Book of Genesis.  And it’s important just to notice the details because we’re going to go back to Hebrews 7 and see how the author of Hebrews expands and explains this.  In verse 18, what do we learn or who do we learn Melchizedek is?

Nikki:  He’s the king of Salem.

Colleen:  And we know from history that Salem is probably the same place where the City of Jerusalem is.  So the City of Jerusalem is built on a very old site that had been inhabited for centuries.  The very earliest manifestation of this city that we know of is called Salem.  So Melchizedek is the king of this place, which later became Jerusalem.  And then what do we learn, the second thing about him?  What did he bring?

Nikki:  He brought out bread and wine.

Colleen:  And besides being king of Salem, what else was he?

Nikki:  He was a priest of God Most High.

Colleen:  Now, remember, the law has not yet been given.  There is no Moses yet.  There is no Aaron.  There are no Levites.  In Israel, priests could not be kings, and kings could not be priests.  Why is that?

Nikki:  They came from different tribes.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  So the priests came from Levi, and the kings came from Judah.

Colleen:  Yeah.  And that was appointed by God, designated in the law.  That was how it had to be.  Never was a king a priest or a priest a king.  God had those offices divided by tribe, set aside, appointed by God.  So we know this is not a Levitical priest.  This is not a priest under the law.  This is a priest before the law, and he is both a king and a priest.  And then in 19 and 20, what did he do?

Nikki:  He blessed him.

Colleen:  Blessed Abraham.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Exactly.  What did he acknowledge?  It’s a fascinating blessing.

Nikki:  Well, he calls Abraham “one who is of God Most High,” so he recognizes that they worship the same God.

Colleen:  That’s a fascinating thing to me because God has not yet done the covenant with Abraham, although He has called him and promised that He would make him a great nation.  Somehow Melchizedek knows that Abram is of God Most High.  And he also acknowledges that this God Most High possesses what?

Nikki:  Heaven and earth and that He’s sovereign.  He is the one who delivered him from his enemies.  He delivered his enemies right into his hand.

Colleen:  Isn’t that interesting?

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  So it’s really clear that Melchizedek is not a pagan priest.  He is a priest who knows and mediates for the true God.  And then, at the end of 20, what does Abraham do?

Nikki:  He gave him a tenth of all that he had.

Colleen:  So of those spoils of war that he took, he gave Melchizedek a tenth.  We don’t have any other reference to Melchizedek in the Bible until we come to Psalm 110 and then until we come to Hebrews.  This is what we know of him from the Old Testament.  After this brief introduction to Melchizedek, let’s dash back over to Hebrews 7 and see what the author of Hebrews does with this.  It’s fascinating to me what we learn and how he applies it to our Lord Jesus.  In verses 1 and 2, let’s just read them again to remind ourselves what they say and talk about it a little, Nikki.  Do you mind?

Nikki:  “For 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, to 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.”

Colleen:  Okay.  So what does he tell us, and this is just a linguistic thing that this author is expanding on.  What does he tell us Melchizedek’s name means?

Nikki:  That he’s the king of righteousness and the king of peace.

Colleen:  I mean, who gave him that name?  We don’t know.  But he had a name that meant “king of righteousness” and “king of peace.”  We learn that Melchizedek, who was a priest of the Most High God, met Abraham as Abraham was returning from this battle, that Abraham paid a tithe to Melchizedek, and now we learn that there’s some rationale for doing this because this king that Abraham met is also a priest, and his name means “king of righteousness” and “king of peace.”  So what does that sound like?  I mean, does that sound like anybody else we know?  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  It sure sounds like Jesus.  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  It sure does.  [Laughter.]  And then in the third verse, this has caused translators and theologians some confusion over the years, but what does it tell us in verse 3?

Nikki:  Well, it says, “Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.”

Colleen:  People have said, was Melchizedek a Christophany?  Was he an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ or was he a real man?  It seems, just from the way the sentence is constructed, he was made like the Son of God, that he was actually a man, not Jesus, because he wouldn’t have been made like Himself if He was Himself.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  It seems that linguistically he can’t have been a Christophany.  He was a man.  But why do they say “without father and without mother?”  If he was a man, where would this idea have come from?

Nikki:  That’s a good point.  And he also – there was no record in Scripture of his genealogy.  We don’t know anything about him, whereas in the Levitical priesthood you can’t be a priest without that record of father or mother.

Colleen:  That’s so true.  Yeah.  In fact, even in Genesis, mentioning Melchizedek like he was mentioned, just like suddenly he’s there with no reference to where he came from, is unusual because the Book of Genesis is filled with genealogies.  So that you know how people are related to one another, what generation they’re from, which son of Abraham they’re from.  You know, there are genealogies in Genesis, but there’s no genealogy mentioned for Melchizedek.  But even in Israel, after the exile, when the Jews came back to the land, they had to bring their written documentation of their heritage so that when they were setting up the temple and appointing the priests for service, there were some men who knew they were Levites, but they had lost their written genealogy, and they were not allowed to serve because they couldn’t prove their heritage.  So, like you said, those Levites had to have father, mother, generation, they had to prove who they were in order to be priests.  But Melchizedek is something different.  Interesting in verse 4, “Observe how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the choicest spoils.”  So he’s going to start now and explain the significance of Abraham giving this tenth to this man, and he’s going to start proving to us how great he was and how we can know he was great.  Nikki, would you comment, like read verse 5? And let’s comment together on what we see there.

Nikki:  “And those indeed of the sons of Levi who receive the priest’s office have commandment in the law to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brethren, although these are descended from Abraham.”

Colleen:  Okay.  So what is the argument he is building here?  First he says, “Now I’m going to show you how great Melchizedek is.  So let’s back up and look at the Levites.”  So in verse 5, what is the first thing we find out about the sons of Levi?  How did they come to have their office?  He uses an interesting verb.

Nikki:  Well, they’ve received the priest’s office.

Colleen:  Right.  And from our knowledge of the law, we know that they received this office how?

Nikki:  On the basis of their lineage.

Colleen:  Which God appointed.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Yeah.  So the sons of Levi receive.  They don’t get voted in, they don’t earn it, they don’t prove their worth, but it’s something they receive on the basis of their lineage, on the basis of God’s appointment.  So they receive their priest’s office, and they have an interesting law.  Now, this is such an interesting argument.  These Levitical priests have a commandment in the law to do what?

Nikki:  To collect a tenth from the people.

Colleen:  So part of the job of a Levitical priest was to collect tithe from the nation of Israel.  And remember, the Levites were the only tribe who didn’t receive an allotment of land.  All of the tribes received an allotment of land except for Levi, because the priests were given places to live within the areas for the other tribes because God said, “I am their portion.”  All the other tribes had a land portion, but the Levites didn’t because God was their portion.  And God had set the Levites apart to function as His intermediaries, and part of their function was to collect tithe from the profits the tribes made on their land.  Their job is to collect tithe, and then what’s the second thing it says about them?  It explains the significance of this.  The tithe from the people is actually from whom?  Who were these people?

Nikki:  They’re descendants of Abraham.

Colleen:  Yeah.  The Levites are collecting tithes from their own Israel brothers, and they’re all descended from Abraham.  Now, this is a really critical part of the author’s argument because who did we just find out Abraham paid tithe to?

Nikki:  To Melchizedek.

Colleen:  And now we have a tribe coming out of Abraham, descended from Abraham, who’s going to collect tithes from all the rest of them.  They’re not paying tithes, but they’re collecting tithes.  Now, in verse 6, let’s read that again and talk about it.

Nikki:  “But the one whose genealogy is not traced from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.”

Colleen:  So he’s now contrasting what happened with Abraham and Melchizedek with what happens with the 11 tribes and the tribe of Levi within the nation of Israel.  He’s reminding us again that Abraham paid tithe to one whose genealogy is not traced from them.  Isn’t that interesting?

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  He’s saying Melchizedek was not related to Israel.  Melchizedek was not related to Abraham.  Melchizedek was other.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And moreover, not only did Abraham pay tithe to Melchizedek, but what did Melchizedek do?

Nikki:  He blessed him.  He blessed the one who had the promises, which is another statement that shows him on the – you know, on the outside of this group.

Colleen:  Yes.  So it’s already acknowledging Melchizedek knows, he knew Abraham was God’s man.  That was part of his blessing to him in Genesis.  He knew he’d been chosen by God.  And yet Melchizedek had the authority to bless this man who had received God’s promises.  And then 7, the author makes his argument even more of a clincher.  What does he say?

Nikki:  “But without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater.”

Colleen:  So what do we know from this?

Nikki:  Well, we know that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham.

Colleen:  Isn’t that fascinating?

Nikki:  Yeah, it is.

Colleen:  I mean, we don’t know anything about him, but God sent him.  God initiated this whole exchange as a foreshadowing of something so big, so universal, and we learn that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham, and Abraham had been the one entrusted with God’s promises.  So then in 8 he’s explaining this phenomenon yet another way.  Go ahead and read 8 again.

Nikki:  “In this case mortal men receive tithes, but in that case one receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives on.”

Colleen:  So the author of Hebrews is speaking to Jewish believers, and he’s saying, “In this case,” meaning the one right at hand, the one they’ve all been part of, “mortal men,” meaning whom?

Nikki:  The Levites.

Colleen:  “Mortal men receive tithes, but in that case one receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives on.”  So Melchizedek is being shown to be somebody who represents having no lineage, no beginning, no end, but an eternal priesthood.

Nikki:  This reminds me of the end of 3, saying that he remains a priest perpetually.  Because they had no date of his death, it was a type of Christ.

Colleen:  It doesn’t necessarily mean that Melchizedek himself is an eternal person.

Nikki:  Um-um.

Colleen:  He’s a man.  But he’s a type, a foreshadowing.  The argument is so detailed that he doesn’t want us to miss this.  You can’t mix up the Levitical priesthood and the Melchizedekian priesthood and say that they’re anything like each other except that the Levitical priesthood was, in a sense, a type of the Melchizedek priesthood, but they weren’t the same.  In verse 9, we have another piece to his argument.

Nikki:  “And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.”

Colleen:  So what is the author saying here?

Nikki:  Here again we see that Melchizedek is greater than even the Levitical priesthood.

Colleen:  And that as the father of the nation of Israel, none of those people for whom the tribes were named, the 12 sons of Jacob, none of them had been born.  Why, Isaac hadn’t even been born yet.  And yet, because Abraham is the father of all of these men to whom God made these promises, including the nation of Israel, Levi, in a sense, paid tithe to Melchizedek because he was still in the loins of his father, Abraham.  I mean, that’s a really interesting argument because even he’s set up this explanation that Levi was set aside to collect the tithes.  In a sense, Levites were greater than the other tribes, in terms of mediating between God and man, because they represented God and received the tithes, but even the Levites, who were the tithe receivers, paid tithe to Melchizedek because they were in Abraham.  So Abraham represented the entire Israelite nation and, representing all of his offspring, he paid tithe to Melchizedek. When you think about it, what comes to the surface, Nikki?  How would you describe Melchizedek and Abraham?  What reactions do you have when you think about this?

Nikki:  I know this is something I would have glazed over before.  It would have felt like a lot of details that didn’t seem important.  But coming from the background that we come from, this is so important to understand.  It’s soimportant to spend time with this.  This very clearly separates the Levitical priesthood from the Melchizedekian priesthood.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  It’s very clear.  You cannot say, “Oh, well, the Ten Commandments” – which they call the Law of God – “is eternal, and we have proof because of Job, because of Melchizedek.”  That whole argument is destroyed by this one chapter.  It is completely different.  And like you pointed out when we got started, Melchizedek was a priest and a king, and you can’t be that in the Levitical priesthood, and Jesus is a prophet, priest, and king.  Moses was a foreshadowing of the prophet of Jesus –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – David of the kingship of Jesus, and Melchizedek of the priesthood of Jesus.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  This is completely different.

Colleen:  And the heresy of teaching that men and women like us can become Melchizedekian priests is just ridiculous, but when you look closely at it, it’s utter blasphemy because the early Adventists taught we could become Melchizedekian priests on the basis of moral perfection.  Even Jesus didn’t become a priest in the order of Melchizedek based on moral perfection.  We’re going to find out in Hebrews 7 and onward that He became a priest according to the order of Melchizedek by being appointed by God.  It wasn’t something He attained by perfecting His character.  It was a divine appointment.

Nikki:  And His priestly work is to mediate for us as the God-man, so to imply that we could be a whole group of people who mediate between God and man, it’s making us – it’s a Messiah complex.  [Laughter.]  I mean, it’s –

Colleen:  Yes.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  It’s really, really wrong.  What need is there of Jesus?

Colleen:  He’s unique.  He has a unique role.  And it’s true that 1 Peter says we are a nation, a royal priesthood, but that does not mean that we’re carrying out the function that Jesus is carrying out, the little Jesuses in the world.  That’s not what that means.  That simply means that we are representing Him and bringing the gospel, which is the message of salvation, to a world.

Nikki:  That passage in 1 Peter 2:9, it says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  It is so that we can proclaim the gospel to the nations.  It is not about being a part of the 24 courses of elders in heaven doing who knows what.

Colleen:  No.  The self-centered, human-centered, anthropomorphic picture of God and Jesus that we get through Ellen White and the early Adventist teachings of the priesthood and the work of Jesus, some of it is so subtle, but we were taught such a diminished Jesus, and we were taught that we could be like Him.  The Bible tells us that we are countedrighteous, that we are credited with His righteousness, that we are declared justified, but we are not little Jesuses.  In fact, when you think about the foundation of the Adventist worldview, it is so similar to other cultic religions that it’s almost frightening.  It’s even there in print and for the public to read online how similar it is to Mormonism in some of these ways.  We have to really take into consideration that when we hear the gospel, we’re obligated to own what we came out of and to acknowledge to the Lord that we want to reject that.  We take His identity and leave that Adventist identity behind because that Adventist identity has the wrong priesthood and the wrong Jesus, and if we get that wrong, we don’t get salvation right.

Nikki:  It’s impossible to understand the New Covenant in the context of Adventism, in the way that they even teach the priesthood.  This is so important for us to spend time with when we talk about the covenants because there’s so much deception tangled up in our previous worldview.  We have to clear that up in order to understand what any of this means.

Colleen:  That’s true.  And we have to get the whole paradigm reversed.  It’s not about us and how Jesus and God serve us.  The story is the story of our triune God who sent the Lord Jesus into space and time and took forever a human body so that God is incarnate in man, and He died the death we deserve to save us from our sin, and when we trust Him, He gives us a new birth, He brings us to life, He seals us with His Spirit, and we are hidden with Christ in God.  The story is not about us.  The story is about God, and He graciously brings us into His story when we trust Him.  This whole business of the priesthood has been such an eye-opener for me, and it has underscored to me the blasphemous depths of Adventist foundational doctrines.  It horrifies me, and I so want my brothers and sisters who come out of Adventism into the gospel to understand truly that the Lord rescued us from something very, very dark.  If you haven’t trusted this Jesus, who is a priest in the order of Melchizedek, eternal, seated at the right hand of the Father, we just ask that you consider what He did, who He is, and place your trust fully in Him, admitting your sinfulness, admitting your death, your spiritual death, and accepting His resurrection life and the propitiation of His blood on your behalf.  I really do look forward to meeting my living, spiritually alive brothers and sisters who’ve been rescued from this common darkness that we shared.  I so look forward to meeting you in the kingdom.  So if you have comments or questions, write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com.  You can subscribe to Proclamation! magazine, to our weekly email, at proclamationmagazine.com, and don’t forget to like us and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.  Write a review wherever you listen to podcasts, and thank you for being with us through this.  We’re going to go through the rest of Hebrews 7, Lord willing, next week, and thanks for sticking with us and learning the depths, the meat, of the truth of our Lord Jesus.

Nikki:  Bye for now.