GOD HAS SPOKEN
A Mystery Man! Melchizedek?
When Silence Speaks Loudly
(Hebrews Twenty-Two)(The following outline is that of Kevin L. Anderson, Hebrews: A Commentary In The Wesleyan Tradition,
New Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2013), 5-6. As in the previous lessons
we will document our quotations from Anderson by the page number in a parenthesis. Our dependence on
his work, however, is not limited to quotations.
I. Hearing the Apostle and High Priest of Our Confession: Hebrews 1:1—4:13
II. Jesus’ Superior High Priesthood: Hebrews 4:14—10:18
A. The Qualifications of the Great High Priest (4:14—5:10).
B. Preparing for Advanced Teaching on Christ’s High Priesthood (5:11—6:20)
C. The High Priest like Melchizedek: The Son Perfected Forever (7:1-28).
D. The Superior Ministry of the Son’s High Priesthood (8:1—10:18)
III. Call to Persevering Faith and Acceptable Worship: Hebrews 10:19--13:25(
1. The Great High Priest (4:14-16).
2. Qualifications of Ordinary High Priests (5:1-4)
3. Qualifications of the High Priest like Melchizedek (5:5-10)
1. Reproof Concerning Arrested Spiritual Development (5:11-14)
2. Exhortation to Go On to Maturity (6:1—3)
3.Warning About Irreversible Apostasy (6:4-8)
4.Words of Reassurance (6:9-12)
5. Powerful Encouragement Based on God’s Trustworthiness (6:13-20)
1. The Greatness of Melchizedek’s Priesthood (7:1-10)
2. The Imperfection of the Levitical Priesthood (7:11-19)
3. The Son’s Perfect and Perfect Priesthood (7:20-28))
Hebrews 7: Melchizedek, Priest of God1-3 Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of the Highest God. He met Abraham, who was returning from “the royal massacre,” and gave him his blessing. Abraham in turn gave him a tenth of the spoils. “Melchizedek” means “King of Righteousness.” “Salem” means “Peace.” So, he is also “King of Peace.” Melchizedek towers out of the past—without record of family ties, no account of beginning or end. In this way he is like the Son of God, one huge priestly presence dominating the landscape always.
4-7 You realize just how great Melchizedek is when you see that Father Abraham gave him a tenth of the captured treasure. Priests descended from Levi are commanded by law to collect tithes from the people, even though they are all more or less equals, priests and people, having a common father in Abraham. But this man, a complete outsider, collected tithes from Abraham and blessed him, the one to whom the promises had been given. In acts of blessing, the lesser is blessed by the greater.
8-10 Or look at it this way: We pay our tithes to priests who die, but Abraham paid tithes to a priest who, the Scripture says, “lives.” Ultimately you could even say that since Levi descended from Abraham, who paid tithes to Melchizedek, when we pay tithes to the priestly tribe of Levi they end up with Melchizedek.
A Permanent Priesthood
11-14 If the priesthood of Levi and Aaron, which provided the framework for the giving of the law, could really make people perfect, there wouldn’t have been need for a new priesthood like that of Melchizedek. But since it didn’t get the job done, there was a change of priesthood, which brought with it a radical new kind of law. There is no way of understanding this in terms of the old Levitical priesthood, which is why there is nothing in Jesus’ family tree connecting him with that priestly line.
15-19 But the Melchizedek story provides a perfect analogy: Jesus, a priest like Melchizedek, not by genealogical descent but by the sheer force of resurrection life—he lives!—“priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek.” The former way of doing things, a system of commandments that never worked out the way it was supposed to, was set aside; the law brought nothing to maturity. Another way—Jesus!—a way that does work, that brings us right into the presence of God, is put in its place. or 8-10 Or look at it this way: We pay our tithes to priests who die, but Abraham paid tithes to a priest who, the Scripture says, “lives.” Ultimately you could even say that since Levi descended from Abraham, who paid tithes to Melchizedek, when we pay tithes to the priestly tribe of Levi they end up with Melchizedek.
Hebrews 7:3: “Without father, without mother, without genealogy,
having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but
resembling the Son of God, he remains priest forever.
Introduction
1.
Mysteries fascinate us. Why does our cultural ethos produce so manyconspiracy theories? We love them more than we do the truth! Analyze critically much of the political furor of our time—ads designed to stir up our latent paranoia. Most of us have watched and enjoyed mystery plays in the theatre and on TV, like “Murder She Wrote” with Angela Lansbury. KBBS for years continues to give us a steady diet of Sunday might mysteries. And who has not read Brian Stoker’s Dracula?
How much of our naughty gossip is fueled by the love of mystery—
speculating about the secrets of other people’s lives—relatives, friends, and celebrities most of all—the appeal of the grocery store rags? At some stagein our lives many of us have been absorbed in mystery novels, most often murder mysteries--Who done it? We do our best to figure that out before the author tells us! That is the game such novels, and theatrical productions play with us.
Mystery novels are not my usual literary genre, but I have fully enjoyed some mystery writers over the years. I think of the work of English author Agatha Christie (1890-1976), several of whose novels I have read. And who has not seen the movie of her “Murder on the Orient Express”?
The most extensive mystery-kick I have been on is with the Cadfael Chronicles. I was introduced to the series by Father Charles, Abbott of Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside, who just recently celebrated his 50 years of profession of vows. On one visit to the Abbey, rising out of a discussion I have forgotten, he ran quickly to his cell and produced a sample volume. The late Dorothy Lane was with us on that visit and became a Cadfael fan as well. Both of us began to buy and read them. On her death, her family gave me her collection. I first filled the gaps in my holdings and then gave the rest to Father Charles for his collection. I haven’t yet figured out how that was consistent with his vow of poverty! Perhaps books are consistent with poverty!
The Cadfael Chronicles, twenty in all, were written between 1977 and 1994 by British author Edith Mary Pargeter (1913-1995) under the nom de plume of Ellis Peters.(For her other writings she sometimes used the pen names of John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, and Peter Benedict.)village of Horsehay, Shropshire, England. She wrote both non-fiction and well researched fiction.(Edith Pargeter never attended college but became a self-taught scholar in areas that interested her, especially Shopshire and Wales. Birmingham University gave her an honorary master’s degree. In 1947 she had visited Czechoslovakia and was fascinated by Czech language and culture. She became fluent in Czech and published award-winning translations of Czech poetry into English.)She was of Welch ancestry, but was born in the Her Cadfael mysteries are set between 1137 and 1145 and often reflect actual historical events. Most of them are located in the area of Shrewsbury Abbey in Shropshire, not far from the Welsh border, I think.
The character of Brother Cadfael is continually drawn in to solving
murders. Having entered the cloister in his forties after being both a soldier and a sailor, his experience resulted in his being a skilled observer of human nature and a talented herbalist (learned in the Holy Land from Muslims). He is depicted as inquisitive by nature, energetic with an innate sense of justice and fair-play. Abbots call on him as a medical examiner, detective, doctor, and diplomat. A central and continuing theme of the Cadfael stories is the seeming contradiction between the secular and the spiritual worlds. And distinctively, every book features a pair of star-crossed lovers who face insurmountable obstacles. So the Cadfael Chronicles are a good read.(Many of the Cadfael books were adapted both into radio episodes and a television series. In the latter, Derek Jacobi starred as Cadfael.)
2.
Herb Prince’s recent lessons on idols and icons, to my mind at least, have opened up the Bible afresh to us as a “mystery book”! The Bible by nature and definition is beyond all our attempts to get it under our control. We can only apply our best intelligence to it and respond with mind and heart and life to its witness!Today the Bible presents us with a “mystery figure” who appears in both the Old and New Testaments. This figure is centerpiece in the Hebrews’ text before us that begins and ends with Melchizedek meeting Abraham (vv. 1, 10). Our author, after having mentioned Melchizedek in 5:6 and 10, comments to his readers that “about this we have much to say that is hard to explain” (v. 11). So “how now” does the Hebrews’ writer go about his task of interpreting the appearance of Melchizedek in Genesis 14:17-20, in the Psalm 110:4 citation about “the order of Melchizedek,” and here in Hebrews 7 in comparison to the Levitical priesthood? What interpretive strategies does our New Testament author employ?
Our author’s strategies are at least four according to Anderson. First is the rabbinic principle of verbal analogy which states “that if the same wording occurs in two passages, the same considerations apply in both cases” (138).(The quote is from Anderson’s sidebar on “Verbal Analogy.”) Second, “the preacher uses typology to draw out the comparisons between Melchizedek and the Son of God” (211), that is, Abraham and Levi are representative as well as historical figures. Abraham as their patriarch represents God’s people and Levi represents the Levitical priesthood. And “Melchizedek, having been made ‘like the Son of God’ in his scriptural description and priestly action, is a type of Jesus’ everlasting priesthood” (211).
Third, is the argument from silence. This interpretive technique indicates that the Hebrews’ author is not speculating about Melchizedek as an angelic personage or divine being: “rather, he points simply to the silence of Scripture as significant” (211). Fourth, the argument from the lesser to the greater is “explicit in the comparison of Abraham and Melchizedek” and “implicit in the comparison between the Levitical priesthood and Jesus” (211). With these four ancient interpretive strategies in mind we approach the account of how
I.(Sections “II” and “III” on chapter 7 will be in the next lesson.)
“Melchizedek . . . met Abraham”7
(The Greatness of Melchizedek’s Priesthood)
(7:1-10)
Obvious in this first paragraph is its attention to two historical figures,first the mysterious
“Melchizedek”
(7:1-3)
1This “King Melchizedek of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham as he was returning from defeating the kings and blessed him”; 2and to him Abraham apportioned “one-tenth of everything.” His name, in the first place, means “king of righteousness”; next he is also king of Salem, that is, “king of peace.” 3Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
In the process of our study of Genesis, on April 22, 2012, we took a look at Melchizedek both in Genesis 14:17-21 and in Hebrews (7:1, 10.). In that lesson I shared a long-ago classroom incident. The class was the inductive study of Hebrews at Princeton Theological Seminary during the fall of 1956—58 years ago! The class met on Monday afternoons in Stuart Hall for at least two hours with Howard T. Kuist, professor of English Bible. According to my notes from that class, Professor Kuist presented the enigmatic figure of Melchizedek in Hebrews as “a portrait of Christ like we now remember somebody in a picture.”
Midway through the semester, one afternoon was unforgettably impressed on my mind and heart as he was lecturing on Hebrews 7:1-28, “one and the same time one of the most difficult and fascinating chapters in the New Testament.”(William Barclay, Epistle to the Hebrews, Bible Guides, edited by William Barclay and F. F. Bruce (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1965), 70.) Kuist was exercised by the fact that several critics in his day were calling the mention of Melchizedek in the chapter antiquated, obscure, meaningless, and irrelevant due to what Anderson has pointed out as the Hebrews’ writer’s interpretive strategies.
Professor Kuist stood before us on a slightly raised platform, possibly six foot deep and eight foot wide with a blackboard behind him and chalk in his hand. For one, possibly two hours, animated, and as I sensed, anointed, he paced that small platform like a camp-meeting orator, and made us see and feel how the Old Testament figure of Melchizedek contributed to the power of this great chapter and to the witness of Hebrews. As I have taught the book of Hebrews in subsequent years, his spirit (and his notes!) from that day has never left me. From my perspective, no teacher in my educational history has influenced my own teaching ministry as much as has Howard T. Kuist.(Howard Tillman Kuist’s roots were in the Evangelical Church which later merged with the United Brethren Church to become the EUB Church, which was eventually merged into the Methodist Church. Kuist’s 1947 book, These Words Upon My Heart, became a classic for many of us, especially his chapter on “The Form and Power of Holy Scripture.” The book was reissued without change in 1964 as Scripture and the Christian Response.)
Howard T. Kuist suggests that the Hebrew writer used Melchizedek as a picture out of ancient history. Let us take a more detailed look at this picture of “King Melchizedek of Salem,” who “met Abraham.” as a “priest of the Most High God.”(Note that when quoting the LXX Genesis 14:18, “King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of Most High God,” Hebrews omits “brought out bread and wine,” a peace-meal. Much was made of this offering of bread and wine in the church fathers, but Hebrews’ focus is elsewhere than a reference to Christ’s body and blood. See Anderson, Hebrews, 213.) The event from Genesis 14:17-20 took place as Abraham was returning from the defeat of four kings from Mesopotamia who had invaded Canaan, “Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him” (14:17), and in the process had captured his nephew Lot.(Johnson, Hebrews, 176, notes that in Genesis the account of Melchizedek literally interrupts the narrative flow, without any apparent cause or consequence. He must therefore be important in himself.” Verses 18-20 if omitted would not be missed by the reader.)
On his way home from the defeat of the kings and the rescue of Lot,
we read in Genesis 14:19 that Melchizedek “blessed him and said,
Blessed be Abraham by God Most High,
and blessed be God Most High,
maker of heaven and earth;
who has delivered your enemies
into your hand.
And to this king-priest who blessed him that day on his way Abraham paid a tithe: and “to him Abraham apportioned ‘one-tenth of everything.’” Melchizedek’s action of blessing Abraham and Abraham’s reaction of giving Melchizedek “a tenth of the spoils” (v. 4) of war “form the themes around which the exposition of 7:4-10 pivot” (214).
The writer to the Hebrews finds theological significance in the name “Melchizedek.” According to its etymology the name “in the first place, means ‘king of righteousness.’” Further theological meaning is found in the fact that Melchizedek was “also king of Salem, (Ancient tradition identified “Salem” with “the city of Jerusalem.”) that is, “king of peace.” The writer has understood the Hebrew city name “Salem” (salēm) as the transliteration of the Hebrew “Shalom” (sālōm) meaning “peace” in its fullest sense. These two significant Old Testament terms, righteousness and peace, “characterize the messianic age of Jewish prophetic hopes”(Isa. 9:5-7; 32:17; Jer. 23:5-6; Dan. 9:24; Mic. 5:5; Zech. 9:10.)(214) In a later exhortation, the Hebrews’ author describes the result of God’s discipline of the Christian as yielding “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (12:11) employing both prophetic terms.
The primary and most significant point for the writer to the Hebrews’ presentation is his characterization of Melchizedek as “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life,” an omission unusual in ancient Semitic records. Our author is holding to the interpretive principle that “the silence of Scripture on a given point can be taken as evidence that something did not exist in the extratextual world,”(Johnson, Hebrews, 177.) that is, “the silence of the biblical narrative regarding Melchizedek’s birth and death speaks loudly” (215). To our author, the silences of scripture are as inspired as are its statements.
Thus comes the writer’s startling conclusion that, “resembling the
Son of God, he [Melchizedek] remains a priest forever”: “Melchizedek is somehow, by Scripture’s own implicit testimony, eternal.”(Johnson, Hebrews, 177.) Along with his etymological notes on righteousness and peace, the significance of the “silence” is that “Scripture itself has drawn Melchizedek in such a fashion as to enable the reader to see a likeness between him and Jesus the Son of God.”(Johnson, Hebrews, 177.)
As Anderson expresses it, Melchizedek is “a kind of mirror in which we can see the reflection of the Son of God.” The direction of the
comparison is crucial: “The Son of God does not resemble Melchizedek; Melchizedek resembles the Son of God” (215).(Anderson further clarifies that “therefore, Melchizedek cannot be equal to the Son of God. Nor is he a christophany—an appearance of the preincarnate Christ.” For a theophany see Genesis 18:1-16. But
Melchizedek is not viewed by the Hebrew writer as a mere “historical figure” like the rest of us: “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).) The writer to the Hebrews’ inspired eyes are peering through the prophetic lens of Psalm 110:4,
The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”;
Our sacred author is now ready for the comparison he has been after with the Melchizedek of Genesis. For this he returns to father
“Abraham”
(7:4-10)
With the return to Abraham, the author’s argument becomes reallystrange: “See how great he is!” As Anderson suggests, he “pushes the argument to its limits—indeed, as the preacher realized, nearly to the point of absurdity” (178). The great historical patriarch of the people of God, the entire nation of Israel, and now representing them, even Abraham, shares spontaneously with Melchizedek “a tenth of the spoils” he had seized from “Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him” (Gen.14:17)--so great was this Melchizedek!
In Israel, it was the Levites, as the Hebrews’ readers would know,
who possessed the legal right to collect the tithes; they had received the “commandment in the law to collect tithes from the people.” And the Levites were themselves descended from Abraham. But Melchizedek, with no physical or blood relation to the Levites, “collected tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had received the promises.” Then comes the clincher principle, “It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.”
Considered somewhat fallacious by some, yet they miss the point,
“the argument makes perfect sense in the intensely hierarchical Greco-Roman world” (217). Within the ancient context of patronage, where “superior persons bestow benefits or blessings on those who are their inferiors in honor, wealth and status” (217), this argument from the lesser to the greater is indeed beyond all dispute. The lesser are the certain-to-die Levites and the greater is the “one of whom it is testified that he lives.” (Johnson, Hebrews, 178, reminds us that here we are moving into the third great comparison in Hebrews: the Son and the angels (1:4—2:9), the Son and Moses (3:1-5), and now between the Levitical priesthood and the “priest-king who has been proclaimed as God’s Son, Jesus.”)
Now the author knowingly--“One might even say”(Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), 197, comments that “the author seems to admit the artificiality of his playful exegesis with his qualifying
remark, ‘so to speak’ (hos epos epein), a common literary phrase outside the New Testament.”)-stretches his argument even further: the Levites who received the tithes in Israel paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham, for they were yet in his loins “when Melchizedek met him.(Kuist suggests that while the American revolution was fought by our foregathers – we were there! I am reminded of the giving of the Ten Commandment in Deut. 5:3: “Not with our ancestors did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today.”) In contrast, as he looks at Melchizedek through the lens of the messianic Psalm 110:4, the writer to the Hebrews sees the “one of whom it is testified that he lives” as the one who is “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (v. 17).(Anderson, Hebrews, 217, comparing “testified that he lives” (v. 8) with the introduction of Psalm 110:4 in verse 17, “it is attested of him,” notes that the same verb is used in both cases (martyreō), thus linking them together, each interpreting the other.(Italics mine.)
Conclusion
Anderson’s closing words on Hebrews 7:1-10 (217) pull it all together for us:
The Psalm [110:4] attests to Jesus’ risen, immortal life. Here the
scriptural picture of Melchizedek’s enduring priesthood is a narrative truth, an image of its archetype in “Christ’s power of an indestructible life” (Heb 7:16).”
We cannot help but leap ahead to the author’s thrilling word about Jesus in verse 25:
Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God
through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.(Italics mine.)
There is much more that can be said from this threefold appearance of Melchizedek in scripture—Genesis, Psalms, Hebrews, but such is beyond our powers to unpack. Hopefully, it will be said in our hearing!____________________________
First Church of the Nazarene
3901 Lomaland Drive
San Diego, California 92106 United States
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