Let's back up a few verses then. Number 19, chapter 6, verse 19,
and we'll read through verse 10 of chapter 7, then we'll talk.
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that
enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone
as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. For this Melchizedek, king of
Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from
the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him. And to him Abraham
apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of
his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem,
that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother
or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of
life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest
forever. See how great this man was to
whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils? And those
descendants of Levi who received the priestly office have commandment
in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their
brothers, though these are descended from Abraham. But this man, who
does not have his descent from them, received tithes from Abraham
and blessed him who had the promises. It is beyond dispute that the
inferior is blessed by the superior. In the one case, tithes are received
by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified
that he lives. One might even say that Levi
himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham,
for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek
met him. Keep reading. Now if perfection had been attainable
through the Levitical priesthood, for under it people received
the law, what further need would there have been for another priest
to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than the one named after
the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in
the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.
For the one of whom these things are spoken belong to another
tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For
it is evident that our Lord Jesus was descended from Judah, and
in connection with that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. This becomes even more evident
when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek,
who has become a priest not on the basis of legal requirement
concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible
life. For it is witness of him, you
are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. For on
the one hand, a formal commandment is set aside because of its weakness
and useless for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other
hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to
God. And it was not without an oath for those who formerly became
priests were made such without an oath. But this one was made
a priest with an oath by the one who said to him, the Lord
has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever. This makes Jesus the guarantor
of a better covenant. The former priests were many
in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office,
but He holds His priesthood permanently because He continues forever.
Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw
near to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession
for them. For it is indeed fitting that
we should have a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated
from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need,
like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his
own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this
once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints
men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the
oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been
made perfect forever. We're probably going to have
a couple of weeks in this text. Now, imagine, though, if we were
to go slowly in this, we would probably see five hours of teaching. In comparison, we're going to
probably see two. Well, not even two, but two sessions in this
text. Paul is continuing in his conversation.
He's talked about the superiority of Jesus to the priesthood specifically. Now, some things that we don't
know, and if you go into Genesis and you see where Abraham had
this vanquish of the kings, and he came out of this war, and
up comes this man named Melchizedek, who is called the King of Salem,
the King of Peace, who is called the High Priest of the Most High
God. And Abraham gives him a tithe of the spoils. Nowhere was it
commanded for Abraham to do this. And so throughout all of Jewish
history, most of Jewish history, people
looked at Melchizedek in this way. Who is he? We don't know. We just know his office and his
title. Where did he come from? Nobody wrote it down. Where did
he go? Nobody wrote that down either.
He died, but nobody knows when he died or where he came from
or who his mom and dad was. Unlike the lineage of the high
priest, which are recorded very clearly. As a matter of fact,
if you weren't of the tribe of Levi, you could not be in the
priesthood. They were not given land, they
were not given anything but the priesthood. Aaron then, becoming
the first priest from the tribe of Levi, was Aaron's first priestly
duty. to stand at the base of Mount
Sinai when the promise of God was given and the law was established
on the tablets of stone, Aaron oversaw the melting of the precious
metals in order to create a calf for the people to worship. So
there's your first high priest. This is the nature of the priesthood
of Israel. It was created to show and to
remind the Jews of what was required in God's justice. It was to remind
them of God's righteousness and how far away God is from us. He's far away in that He is not
like us. He is not just a superior being,
He is a completely different being. He created all the other
beings that we know. The angels, the humans, and if
you want to dare personify animals, all of the different genuses
of animals and all of the different taxonomies of plants and everything
else. All of this has been created
by God. He is far above all things. He owns all things. There is
none like Him, not one. He is God. Which that word means
the highest of all things. The high one. That's what God
means. So here is God displaying through
the priesthood that constant reminder that for there to be
forgiveness of sins there must be the shedding of blood. And
that there is only a set people who He would set apart for Himself
to do the service of that shadow. and the tabernacle and the temple
and all of its history was this bloody reminder of the wages
of sin is death, but the righteousness of God. Life is a gift by the
grace of God displaying His righteousness through the one that He appointed,
who is not a Levite, who is not descended from Aaron, as we see
in this text, who is actually from the tribe of Judah. But as this priesthood moved
on throughout history, we can see not only in the scripture,
but we can see in other historical writings that Melchizedek was
a mysterious character as an antitype of the priesthood of
Israel. But all of the history of Israel
points to Melchizedek as superior to the priesthood of Israel.
So they look at Melchizedek in such a way that he was sort of
like the first of God's appointed priests. And that Abram honored
him by giving him a tithe of the spoils. And then in return,
Melchizedek gave a blessing to Abraham. And so all of this in
motion, Paul has already made it clear that Jesus is the Great
High Priest. That all of the sacrificial system
of Judaism is nothing but a shadow of the righteousness of God,
who is Jesus Christ. That all of the law points to
the perfection of Jesus. So that when Jesus enters into
the Holy of Holies as the sacrificial lamb, and His blood is spilt
at the mercy seat, where God meets man, all for whom He died,
everyone whose sins were laid upon His shoulders as the scapegoat
and sent into the chambers of judgment, they are justified. They are elect. They are the
redeemed. They are the ones who, by faith,
will know for certain that their sins are forgiven because their
Redeemer lives. Yet, a Jewish person, after understanding
the superiority of Jesus to the priesthood as the great high
priest, could then step back for just a minute and say, well,
what about Melchizedek? What about Melchizedek? That's why Paul goes where he
goes. That's why he goes there. He is going to show that Melchizedek
in and of himself is that shadow that doesn't fit in the tribe
of Levi, that doesn't fit in the lineage of Aaron, but even
before there was a priesthood, the shadow of Christ was shown. So that's where he comes in chapter
7. For this Melchizedek was the
king of peace, the priest of the Most High God. He met Abraham
and he blessed Abraham. And to him, Abraham appointed
a tithe of everything. Then he explains by his names
and titles how he is like Christ. Now I have some brothers who
argue that Melchizedek is indeed the pre-incarnate Christ meeting
with Abraham on the battlefield. I do not see that in the grammar.
I do not see that in the context here. I do not see that in the
point that Paul is trying to make because he says Jesus is
greater than Melchizedek. So he's arguing that, but as
long as the theology is correct, Jesus is greater than Melchizedek.
I don't have a problem for people who may suggest he is a pre-incarnate
Christ. So I'm not going to say that
they're lost or heretical, but beloved, I think the point of
what Paul's trying to say here is that Melchizedek is just an
antitype, I mean, just a type. Jesus is the antitype. The names
given to people in scripture, as we see often, deal with their
relationship to God. And when we see their titles
and how they are appropriated and how they're remembered and
the adjectives ascribed to their genealogy, etc., we know that
it's very common for someone's relationship to God in their
mortal life to be indicative of the name that they've been
given. For example, the name Jacob. What does it mean? Supplanter. Deceiver. He supplanted himself before
his brother. He deceived his father. That's
what it means by English translation of that word, James. That's what
it means. He changed his name to what?
Israel. Why? Because what did it mean? What does Israel mean? He who
wrestles with God. When we look at these things,
we can get a picture of why then this King of Peace, the High
Priest of the Most High God, is here. To say that he's Jesus
based on these titles is not a good argument. However, I will
say that the point of Paul's writing and the detailed study
of the peripheral data of Melchizedek through other Jewish writings
are two separate things. am not going to study those.
I am going to study what Paul has written here. So, that is
my position on Melchizedek. What we know about him, as I've
already said, is that, as it says in verse 3, he is without
father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days
nor end of life, but, and this is the key, verse 3, resembling. He was made like the Son of God,
and in doing so, He continues a priest forever. So in the historical
record, no one has kept His data. No one knew where He started
or where He began. It doesn't mean that He's eternal.
It doesn't mean that He was Jesus. It doesn't mean that He has no
beginning and no end. But because the priesthood required
under the law a direct descendant of Aaron, and that when this
priest died, another was appointed in his place, and another was
appointed in his place, and another was appointed in his place, and
so on and so forth, till the end of the temple, God has in His sovereignty, over
the record of this man Melchizedek, so that he would point to the
promise of Christ long before there was a priesthood, has shown
Nothing about him. So when the scripture says we
don't have this thing, we don't have father, mother, as we can
go back and look at all the lineage of the priest, we cannot look
at anything concerning Melchizedek. He's a nobody in the historical
record. And because of that, he really
didn't have a start to his ministry. He really didn't have an end
to his ministry. So the myth in Jewish tradition is that Melchizedek
is an eternal priest. Does that make sense? See how
great this man was to whom Abraham gave, and Paul iterates very
clearly or specifically emphasizes rather the fact that Abraham
is the patriarch, the father of the people. the father of
the faith. But we know who the founder of
the faith is, Jesus the Christ, the eternal God, the eternal
high priest. So here, this father, Abraham,
gave a tithe of the spoils. So this is not just an ordinary
shadow. This is a shadow of great significance. Why? Because it points to the
person of Jesus. It points to the perfection of
Jesus. Melchizedek and the action of
Abraham honoring him with tithes shows that Abraham knew that
Melchizedek was a great, godly, righteous man. And so what Paul is going to
do now is to show that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham, and
Melchizedek was greater than the priesthood of Levi and Aaron.
And that also, as we'll see, the descendants of Levi, actually
through Abraham, honored Melchizedek. So from this point, we can say,
wow, you know, I don't know, the argument's being made, Melchizedek's
pretty important. He is important, why? Because
he is a shadow of Christ. He is to prove that before there
was a priesthood, there was a priesthood. And before there was a priesthood
that had a priesthood before it, there was an eternal priesthood,
and his name is Jesus Christ. So, and those descendants, chapter,
verse 5, of Levi, who received the priestly office, have a commandment
in the law to take tithe from the people. Now think about that
for a second. Was the law given when Melchizedek received the
tithe? No. It wasn't given. Was there any writing anywhere
that God's chosen would give anything to anybody? No. Yet
it was very customary for a king to receive spoils from his people,
from his warriors. But here we see then after Levi,
after Aaron, After the law was given through Moses, what? Continually,
every year, three times a year, a tithe was to be given to the
priests. Why? For they had no land, they
had no opportunity, they had no way of surviving. Their job
was to tend to the daily rituals of obedience to the precepts
of Moses so that they could pray and intercede and sacrifice and
work and teach and pray and sacrifice forever as a shadow of the cost
of God's justice, as a foreshadow of the true lamb, the true priest,
the true king and the true promise who is Jesus Christ. So the law
required from their own brothers From the descendants of Abraham,
it required that they take a tithe. It was a requirement. And this is where he begins to
try to make the argument that Melchizedek was greater than
Levi and Aaron because Levi and Aaron, through Abraham, gave
tithes to Melchizedek. That's what he says. though these
are also descended from Abraham. But this man, Melchizedek, who
does not, verse 6, have his descent from them, he was not related
to them at all, received tithes from Abraham, and then subsequently
blessed Abraham, who had the promises. So Abraham had the
promises of God. Melchizedek blessed the one who
was promised of God. Abraham gives tithes to this
man. And in doing so, Paul says, verse 7, it is beyond dispute
that the inferior is blessed by the superior. So here, he's
staying with the course. Melchizedek is greater than Abraham.
Abraham was the one to whom the promise was given. Abraham was
the father of the nation. Abraham was the father of the
elect in the context of Israel. And Abraham is through whom Levi
comes. Abraham is through whom the Savior
comes. Abraham is through whom the tithes
are administered. But now this man blesses. Abraham. What does it mean to bless someone? And if you go over to Genesis,
it says that Melchizedek blessed Abraham. What does it mean? I
mean, if you think about it for a second, think about a king
and you go out and you've got a job or you've got farmland
or you've got something that you do and you bring gifts to
the king. Haven't you seen movies? Haven't
you read history where people would bring gifts to the king?
Matter of fact, it was so customary to bring gifts to the king, we
even see the men of the east coming into the area of Jerusalem
to find the Christ child, finds the child playing at the feet
of its mother, gives him gifts. It's very customary. And that
when someone would give a gift to a monarch, that monarch would
pronounce a type of blessing over that person. Now, what does
it mean? Approval. It means approval. It isn't like
Melchizedek gave him special power. It isn't like Melchizedek
knighted him. Now he was a knight. He just
blessed him. Just like we see in the lineage
of the Old Testament saints. We see the fathers blessing the
sons. Basically saying, I affirm you
as my son, and when I die, all that I have is yours, and everything
that belongs to me belongs to you. I affirm you, I approve
of you. Versus what? A disownment. So
Abraham, in giving a tithe to Melchizedek, Melchizedek blesses
him. The tithe is less than the blessing. That's what Paul is saying here.
The blessing of Melchizedek is an affirmation of Abraham's homage. Why is that important? In the one case, verse 8, tithes
are received by mortal men. But in the other case, by one
of whom it is testified that he lives. What is he talking
about? I hope you understand specifically
that he's shadowing Christ. So if he's talking about Melchizedek,
Melchizedek continues as a priest. So if Melchizedek was greater
than the priesthood and he received tithes and he gave a blessing
to Abraham, did not Melchizedek's blessing become a shadow of the
blessing that God had put upon Abraham? The one that Christ
would actually be. The very fact that though Melchizedek
in the hearts and the minds of Jewish readers, they would think
this man is this is just a mystery. This is just a legend. This is
a phenomenal thing in our history. Who is this mysterious man? He's
a great king. He blessed our father. We gave
him tithes. He's awesome. That's what Paul's
doing. He's trying to build him up to
a place where he's almost godlike. Almost godlike. One might even say that Levi
himself, who receives all the tithes, actually paid tithes
through Abraham. That's the significance that
Melchizedek is seen as such a forerunner, such an eternal high priest that
Levi himself paid tithes through Abraham. For let's see, Levi
would be great grandson of Abraham. For he was still in the loins
of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him. So what do we have here? If we stop here, Melchizedek's
the man. Melchizedek is awesome. Melchizedek
is to be praised. And a Jew could sit here during
this time, a Christian who was Jewish, and say, see, this is
what we're trying to get to. Maybe we're just, we're missing
the point. Let's get back to the rituals.
Let's get back to the law. Let's get back to the precepts.
Let's get back to the practice. Because before there was the
law, Abraham practiced it. Let's go back to tithing. Let's go back to circumcision.
It's worth something. It's good for something. It does
something for us. You hear? Don't forget why this
letter is written. Because they were being tempted
to fall away from grace and go back into the assurance of the
law, assurance of the practices for which Paul would say in his
letter to the Philippians what he was blameless. You know what
that means? That in the following of the
law, according to the traditions of Israel, according to Moses,
that Paul could never be blamed for breaking one of them. And
he's not being hyperbolic. In the context of his earthly
observation, he was blameless. Yet at that moment, he was the
chief of sinners. It's real easy, beloved. One night recently, Robin and
I were up late. You ever get to talking and you
realize, oh my goodness, it's one o'clock in the morning. We
gotta go to bed. It's very easy. And we're talking
about how the law of God's written on the hearts of man and how
culturally we have added a whole bunch of laws to the heart of
man. Sort of like what Jesus talks about when he says that
the Pharisees shut people out of the kingdom of heaven. They
stand there and they say, look at us, we're the law keeper.
They weren't keeping the law. Look at us, we're perfect. They
weren't perfect. Look at us, we're honoring God.
They weren't honoring God. But follow after us, nobody else
could do what they could do because they weren't Levites. You realize
you can't obey the law completely unless you're a Levite? You cannot become a high priest.
You cannot sacrifice. You cannot pray. You cannot baptize.
You cannot do all these things. You cannot prepare the showbread.
You cannot prepare the Holy of Holies. You cannot prepare the
tabernacle or the temple. You couldn't do these things.
You can't even obey most of the laws if you're not a Levite.
And even then you must be appointed into the service of the temple.
So these men who weren't appointed, though they might have been descendants
of Aaron, they still could not obey all the laws. But yet here
are the Pharisees, here are the Jews, here are the Levites, here
are the priests obeying all the laws for nothing because they
saw it as an opportunity to stand before God in a way that presented
them spotless and blameless. And then even when Paul would
say, listen, the gospel overcomes the priesthood. The priesthood
is the commercial. Jesus is the real. But what about
Melchizedek? He's awesome. But verse 11 is right there.
Now, what's he say? Now, if perfection had been obtainable
through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people receive
the law, what further need would there have been for another priest
to arise after the order of Melchizedek rather than one named after the
order of Aaron? And I can promise you there was
a well-meaning elders probably who received this Jewish descent,
Jewish by birth, Jewish all the way, regenerated by God, given
the gift of faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and
received this letter because this turmoil and temptation to
walk in a manner worthy of God, to prove oneself worthy of God,
et cetera, et cetera, this imparted righteousness, infused righteousness
that's so demonic in its context. And when we look at how these
people sat there and thought these things. When Paul said this, I imagine
one of them thinking, you're right. What what good did the
priesthood do? What good did the priesthood
do? Paul's already answered that and he's going to answer it again.
It remind them over and over and over and over again that
there is nothing man can do but die. There is nothing God can
do when he observes man's heart and man's actions and man's passions
except killing and still be just. So there had to be another. Not
after the order of Aaron, which was the shadow, but after the
order of Melchizedek, who had no beginning or end. You see
now the imagery here, the parallel, the metaphor. For, in verse 12,
when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily
a change in the law as well. For, further explanation, the
one of whom these things are spoken belong to another tribe, from which no one has ever served
at the altar. Melchizedek wasn't a Levite.
Jesus wasn't a Levite. So much so was the priesthood
a shadow that was worthless in itself. It was non-effectual
to anything. It did nothing for their souls. It did nothing for God's righteousness
except display it as a shadow. that Jesus had to come, not from
Aaron. Could you imagine the argument
if Jesus had been from the tribe of Levi? The Lion of Levi. Sounds
good for you, doesn't it? The Lion of Judah, you know?
The Lion of Levi. That's not the promise. From
the tribe of Judah. The only one left. The only point
of it all, all the others are just shadows. The whole reality
of Israel becoming a nation in its first place is to show in
the depiction of the microscopic reality of the world in itself
and that out of the world God elects His people who are justified
before Him as a gift of grace through His Son Jesus Christ
who fulfills all things. not just in obedience to the
precepts of the law, but fulfills the law as they as the law is
a shadow of him in his person, in his essence, in his being. In his humanity. For it is evident, verse 14.
that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with
that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. I get ahead of
myself. I've already talked about that. And this becomes even more evident. Not only did Moses not talk about
any other tribe having priests, but all of a sudden a priest
comes out of Melchizedek who wasn't even a Jew, Who we know
nothing about? Who you have mystified to such
a degree that He's become almost God? Jesus is greater than the
one who resembles the Son of God. That's verse 3. Jesus is greater than the one
who resembles the son of God because he is the son. He's not
a servant tending the house. He's the son that owns the house.
He's the son that builds the house. He's the son that keeps
the house. He's the son, as he would say
to the to the people in John, who sets free the slave that
becomes a friend, becomes a child. This becomes even more evident
when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek,
who has become a priest not on the basis of legal requirement
concerning his family descent, but by the power of an indestructible
life. See, I would preach a sermon
on that text right there. But we'll keep going. in this indestructible life is the witness
of the eternal nature of God the Son, who is God and in every
way always has and will be God, who took on flesh to fulfill
the promise of life given to Adam and Eve in the garden. Through
the seed of the woman shall the head of the serpent be crushed,
the fall of God's people is overturned by Christ. This is good news. We call it gospel. And it is
something done by the mercies of God because of the eternal
love, aka foreknowledge, that God has had before there ever
was. God, eternally, is not subject
to time. He created it that through time
He may display himself to his people and display the fullness
of all that he really is through the redemption of his elect and
the destruction of the reprobate whom he has made equally in the
context of his wisdom, after talking after his own will and
getting counsel from his own mind, making the determination
eternally that he would create vessels of honor and vessels
of dishonor. And then more specifically, he
would create vessels for destruction and vessels for mercy. You don't
make parallels there, it's just an illustration showing that
there's a poo-poo pot sometimes. So if a potter can do that, a
cereal bowl and a poo-poo pot, he can make a vessel of mercy
and a vessel of destruction. Romans 9, by the way. an indestructible life. In Psalm
110, we see Melchizedek. The only other place outside
of Genesis that we see him. One sentence in Genesis and this
little phrase here in Psalm 110. You are a priest after the order
of Melchizedek. You are the eternal God. Has this letter not already opened
that up for us? He is the radiance of the glory
of God, the exact imprint of his nature upholds the universe
by the word of his power. God speaks through him. And he commands all things to
worship him as God. You are a priest. after the order
of Melchizedek. So when a Jewish person hears
that, they begin to see. If they are in Christ, they see. They see the nature of God's
indisputable, indestructible, eternal promise. I want you to
understand something about eternal for a moment. Eternal is so far out of our
comprehension that we can't even dialogue about its essence. How does something that never
began stand? How does a decree that didn't
have a start become a decree? Because it didn't become a decree.
It is a decree. How does the love of God for
his people not have a beginning? It's not possible. It doesn't
have a beginning because God doesn't have a beginning. Christ
redemptive work is an eternal purpose. But we want to subject
God to just being in a mighty being up there watching his clock
going, you know what I think we should do? I think we're going
to save some people. No. It's not Greek mythology. God didn't begin to love you
one day. God didn't look through the quarters
of time. God doesn't learn. God doesn't seek out the knowledge
and the wisdom of men. God doesn't ask anybody about
what he should do. He doesn't contemplate the logic
or reasoning behind the probability of what we might think concerning
his eternal decrees. He doesn't care what creatures
consider him to be. He is, and that's it. Now where do we go from there?
That's it. That's all we can do. That's
going to sound funny, isn't it? What do we do? We sit in awe
and we sit in wonder and we glorify His name because He has eternally
saved His people from their sins and He effectually purposed it
and created the world and everything in it. in the smallest little
details of time. He sends this guy that comes
out of nowhere that nobody's ever heard of that Abraham probably
could care less about writing it down because God did not want
it written down so that when Jesus came on the scene and Jewish
people tried to hold on to the thing that killed them he could
say even Melchizedek is a picture of Christ and Christ is our hope
and Christ is the only thing that matters. It is all of grace. I had some people argue with
me over the last two Wednesdays, um, on the internet. Imagine
that. And they don't argue with me.
They just assert and I block and move on. That Paul is writing to believers
here, and that's true, but he's writing in the context of this
warning passages of chapter 6 and 10 that unless we stay in the
works of righteousness and the obedience of certain laws, that
we could lose our salvation. Hogwash. That's not what Paul's
talking about at all. Paul is warning these believers
that if they fall out of grace into any work that secures their
hope, they are despising Christ and spurning Him and spitting
in His face. But, as he's already said, listen
guys, God is not going to forget how you've loved and how you've
suffered and what you've done, just like Jesus says to the disciples.
We've lost everything. We've given up everything for
you. And what does Jesus say? Well, you've gained everything.
I mean, if everything that we are and everything that we have
is just a bag of garbage with flies and maggots, and then we
get the glory of Christ, what is the comparison, see? It's
hard to focus on that. That's why the word of God is
so essential. That's the relationship with the saints is so essential. And in 2009, I talked with my
church at the time about investing in the lives of one another.
And I made this statement, and I've said it plenty of times
with us as well, but we cannot give what we do not have. And beloved, if I don't have
energy, I can't help you dig a hole. If I don't have money,
I can't help you buy food. If I don't have eyesight, I can't
drive you to the doctor. If I don't have arms, I can't
fly. That's for the adults who aren't paying attention. If I
don't have the Word of God in me on an ongoing basis, I'm not
going to have it prepared in my heart, in my mind, and in
my mouth to give it to you when you need it. If I'm not exposing
my life to someone else, How was there ever the opportunity
led by the Spirit of God to expressly help someone else? If we're not in the Scripture,
we're not going to be reminded, we're not going to be stirred,
we're not going to be encouraged. And it seems so foolish, but
beloved, if it weren't for the Word of God, for me, I would
walk away from everything. I want you to hear that. I would walk away even from Christ. Because it is the power of God
to keep us and the discipline of our motivation, as we'll see
over in chapter 10, of our motivation to be encouraged through each
other in this gospel. which is why it is something
so important to stay under the teaching of scripture as you
also eat of it. The law and the priesthood, on
verse 18, for on the one hand, here's a comparison, a former
commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness. But on the other hand, a better
hope is introduced through which we draw near to God. So you see
that. And there's a parenthetical there, verse 19. What is Paul
showing? It's very easy for us to say
if we were first century Jewish people who had been raising all
of our children and grandchildren under the covenant of works. I say that very loosely. Please
don't label me because I use that term. covenant of the law,
the covenant of the precepts, all these things. There is one
covenant, the covenant of grace, and there is only one condition
to that covenant. It is that God, the son, fulfills
all that is required for it. And God made the promise to the
son to give him a people and the son satisfied it. Contract. But in the shadow of all that,
all of Judaism from the very beginning of calling of Abram
to the very day that Christ stood many times, as we see in the
Gospel of John, and said, I'm the light of the world, I am
the bread that comes down from heaven, I am the living water.
All of those with references to the feasts. It all pointed to Him. And so
it's real easy for us to go, oh, look at all these years we've
spent Doing all this stuff, what a waste! Why couldn't God, why
couldn't you have shown me this before? Why did I have to go
through all these seasons of shadows and types? Why couldn't
I have just seen it, especially for us? But imagine in this day,
just years after, just decades after Christ's ascension, these
people thinking, what have I done? Why have I brought my children
and my grandchildren through all of this? What point was it? And here's the point. We lay
aside all of this because it had no effectual worth except
that it pointed to the promise and the trueness of the promise
that was to be given where hope is manifest, through which we
draw near to God. So what Paul's saying is that
the old way of looking at the Law never accomplished anything,
and that the Law in itself, in all of Judaism, Never had a promise
behind it. Never did God ever make a promise
to anyone who followed these precepts. He never made an oath
concerning if all of my people would just follow these things,
then I will give them Messiah. Nope. A better hope is introduced
through which we draw near to God. We come near to God through
grace. We come near to God through grace,
which means that we come near to God through Jesus Christ.
And so that if we look at the shadows of temple worship, if
we look at the shadows of Moses, if we look at the shadows of
the law, if we look at the shadows of the priesthood, if we look
at the shadow of Melchizedek, we see the promise who is Jesus
Christ, and only in Him do we draw near to God. This isn't
the first time he's said it. He's said it continually. He's
gone in, we've gone after. He sat down at the very beginning,
I quoted it just a minute ago, after making purifications for
sins, He sat down at the right hand of majesty, having become
as much superior to the angels as the name He has as inherited
is more excellent than theirs. And so on and so forth. So the
old is useless because it was never useful. Seeing the true
makes it worth something. But now it's over. Look at Christ. And it was not without an oath.
For those who formerly, verse 20, became priests were made
such without an oath. Without a promise, there was
nothing promised to the priesthood, nothing promised to the people
who followed it. But this one. This one. This hope. was made a priest, this Christ,
this Son, this Jesus was made a priest with an oath by the
one who said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not change
his mind, you are a priest forever, Psalm 110. This makes Jesus the
guarantor of a better covenant. As a matter of fact, what Paul
will say as he continues, is this makes Jesus the guarantor
of a true covenant. Let's pray. Father, as we see
these words, Lord, stir in us glorious joy. Father, give us
hope and peace. Help us to stop looking at all
that we do to such a degree that we begin to doubt our salvation,
that we begin to feel condemned. Father, that if we trust and
see fully in the finished work of Jesus, help our peace be there. And Father, all the growing and
the maturing and the putting to death the flesh and the ebb
and flow of this life as your people, Lord, you will work out
in your time as we love one another and tenderly see to each other's
needs. Lord, help us not to look at
these things. Help us not to look at all of
the things that the culture says for us to do. Lord, that we should
say this and dress this way and act this way. And Father, even
if there are wise things there that we should see, in our lives. Lord, let us not look to those.
Help us to not be spiritual police who who peek into the lives of
one another to such a degree with disdain and frustration
and try to find out wrong. But Lord, let us stand in the
right. Let us stand in the trueness of Christ. Help us to walk in
a manner worthy of the calling that we've been given, which
is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to trust in your mercy
and your salvation and your redemption. Who is Christ? That all of the
things that we are is because of Christ. Lord, we are your
children. We are the beloved. We are the
elect. We are your covenant people. We are true Israel and nothing
can stop you. Nothing can take us out of your
hand and nothing can condemn us before you. For justice is
served and righteousness prevails. So Lord, we thank you for that.
And we thank you for this word tonight. In the name of Christ,
we pray. Amen.