a priest after the order of melchizedek

While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God. Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him. And God designated him to be a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 5:7-10 NLT)

Jesus was a priest after the order of Melchizedek. So since we are priests like Jesus (Hebrews 2:9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light) so are you.

Isn’t that great? Just think. You are a priest after the order of Melchizedek . Doesn’t that make you feel better?

Or at least it would if you knew who Melchizedek was and what difference it makes.

Melchizedek was a Priest/King of Salem in the time of Abraham. Salem was the city that later became Jerusalem.

In Genesis 14, there had been a war. Some of the neighboring tribes got into a fight and ended up capturing Lot, Abraham’s favorite nephew. Abraham went and whipped them solid with his tribal army.

On the way back home, Melchizedek came out and said hi and gave Abraham some lunch. The Bible says he was the king of Salem and a priest of God Most High (Genesis 14:18). Abraham gave Melchizedek a tenth of all of his spoils he had gotten from the war. When one group won, they got to keep all the stuff the other group had, along with a lot of slaves.

Melchizedek, the Priest/King of Salem was only in the Bible just a few verses. But then, several thousand years later, along came Jesus. The priesthood of Israel was pretty well cut and dried. You couldn’t be a priest unless you were part of the tribe of Levi, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. If you weren’t,  you went to church, but that was all.

When Jesus came, God changed everything. That is what the book of Hebrews was written to show, that something new had come.

Jesus was born in the tribe of Judah. This was a good tribe and all, but it was not the priest tribe. Because of that, there was no way Jesus could have been a priest under the Old Testament law.

But God wanted him to be. And God changed the whole system. He went back before the Jews were even born, before Israel, before all of the people of God to Abraham, the father of the faithful of all times. Before Israel was started, Abraham gave tithes (a tenth of all his stuff) to Melchizedek and Melchizedek took it.

God says, that was the kind of priest he wanted Jesus to be. He wanted everything to be different now. No more would people be children of God simply because they were born to children of God. Now everybody comes to God themselves.  Everybody is adopted (Romans 9).

And the new King, Jesus, who was also the High Priest, would not be a hereditary High Priest like all the others. He would be different.

Melchizedek was different. He came to God himself, by himself, with no help from priests or intermediaries. He just came to God and talked to God. He was his own priest.

And above all, he was before the old law that the Jews lived under. He was his own man.

God says, in Hebrews, now we are our own people. We don’t have to go to a priest or a preacher or somebody ecclesiastical to go to God. We can come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most (Hebrews 4:16).

No more religious hierarchy. We all come to God ourselves, just like Melchizedek.

What it means is that we are free from structure. We all go to God ourselves. We are our own priests.

That what it means to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Nobody but God can tell you what to do.