daily java

Daily Java:

And no one can become a high priest simply because he wants such an honor. He must be called by God for this work, just as Aaron was. That is why Christ did not honor himself by assuming he could become High Priest. No, he was chosen by God, who said to him,
   “You are my Son.
      Today I have become your Father.”
And in another passage God said to him,
   “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 5:4-6)

I grew up in the church. And I remember hearing preachers thunder on about being a priest after the order of Melchizedek. The only problem was nobody ever explained what difference it made.

It became one of those big “So What” passages.

It wasn’t until I had been in the ministry for a while that I realized what difference it made. And it is great.

In Genesis 14, Abraham’s nephew Lot was captured by another kingdom. In those days, there was constant war, people trying to overcome everybody else. When Abraham found out about it, he took his army of 318 trained men and whipped the fire of the little city-state coalition of kings and soldiers and took Lot, along with the spoils, or everything else the other kings had, back.

On the way home, Abraham and his army came by the city of Salem, which would one day be called Jerusalem. Melchizedek came out to meet Abraham and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything he had taken in the battle.

He didn’t have to, but for some reason he did. There was the matter of tribute, of course. He was passing through Melchizedek’s kingdom, but I think Abraham had a superior force and didn’t really have to worry about it. Still, he acknowledged Melchizedek and sat a precedent.

The psalmist mentions it again in Psalm 110 when he says that the Messiah would come in the order of Melchizedek. Then it comes up again in Hebrews 5 and 7.

Only a couple of times in the Bible, yet it means a lot.

Melchizedek was independent. He was not even a Jew. In fact there were no Jews at that time. And he was a godly man who was also a king and a priest of his city-state, Salem.

When Jesus came, he came as the same. An independent priest and king. He was not qualified by Jewish law to be a priest, but God didn’t care. Jesus was independent.

When we come to God, we are independent. That means that no one can tell us what we can or cannot do in service to God except God himself. We are not members of a society, we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

We do not have to have credentials to preach, we do not have to have a stamp of approval to teach, we do not have to have permission to do anything in the name of God. We can just do it.

For the model for Jesus and his rule, God went back before the law, before the Ten Commandments, before all of the structure of the Old Testament and picked Melchizedek as the model.

If Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and we are priests also. In Revelation 1:5-6, John writes this: He is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead, and the ruler of all the kings of the world.  All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen. If we are a Kingdom of priests, and we follow Jesus, who was independent, then we are independent.

We are not here to satisfy any earthly authority. We are independent. And that means that if God is happy with us, and he says he is, then we are fine, no matter what others may say.

That takes a lot of pressure – or should anyway – off us in our service.

Quit worrying about what others think and just serve. That is our heritage in Jesus and what we can do in service to God.

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.

the order of Melchizedek

The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind:
"You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." (Psalm 100:4)

When I was younger, some preacher would always talk about the order of Melchizedek. I had no idea what it meant, and it just sounded more like religio-babble.

When I found out what it meant, it was great. It was something that mattered to me. It meant that I was free.

Melchizedek. He was a man who was a priest king independent of any other country who Abraham offered to way back in Genesis 14. Abraham had gone to fight a bunch of people who had taken his nephew Lot prisoner. On the way back, Melchizedek came out and Abraham offered a tithe of his spoils, the stuff he had take, to him in homage.

Melchizedek was a priest king who lived at the city that would become Jerusalem one day.

This was before the Old Testament law came into being. By doing this, Abraham recognized Melchizedek’s place as a priest king. And by doing it, the nation of Israel did it because Abraham was their ancestor.

When Jesus came, he came into a situation in which there was an established priesthood. There was a group of men whose job it was to bring the people before the Lord. Without these men, the people really couldn’t do the stuff they needed to do to sacrifice to the Lord.

It was a closed-ended situation. To be one of these men, you had to have been born to women from a special family. No other way.

And if you couldn’t find one of these men to make your sacrifice, it was too bad.

When Jesus came, God said, I am changing the situation. I am going back to the way it was before I gave Israel my law. From now on, everyone will come to me, not just a special group  of men. Everyone will be able to make sacrifices and offerings to me, whether men or women, no matter what family they are in. As long as they are members of the family of God they are welcome.

That is the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was not Jewish or from a tribe of priests. God says to us that we do not have to be special priests to come to him. We can just come. Jesus was a high priest from the order of Melchizedek and as such was independent of the priestly system in the Old Testament. Since he was and we are his followers, so are we.

Being of the order of Melchizedek means that we can just come to God ourselves without having to have a preacher or priest or rabbi or someone like that to carry our prayers or offerings. It is a special relationship.

We are independent and can come to God through Jesus by ourselves.

Nobody can tell me how to worship. As a follower of Jesus, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, I worship how I feel best. As long as my relationship with God is good, I am fine.

There is a certain liberation there. I am free from the confines of religion and other people’s ideas and mandate. I am free.