Reading: Hebrews 5-6
Speaker: Paul McCabe
This Week’s Thoughts
When Psalm 110 declares the coming Messiah to be ‘a priest forever’ (Psalm 110:4), an important distinction is made, one which the author of Hebrews sees as significant enough to quote and repeat multiple times between chapters five and seven. The Messiah, whom we are blessed to know as Jesus Christ, is ‘a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek’ (Psalm 110:4, my emphasis). But why is this significant? We looked at who Melchizedek was last week, but why is it important that Jesus be of his order?
Well, once upon a time, there was a girl called Phoebe. Phoebe (for the purpose of this analogy) was a good student, but there was one subject that she excelled at: chemistry. It fascinated her completely; studying and understanding how atoms and molecules and solutions worked behind the scenes of everything. It was clear to everyone that whatever career she chose later down the line, chemistry would lead her to it and be a large part of it.
One day though, on walking into the school laboratory and taking her usual seat, she noticed something was off. The chemistry teacher’s white coat was hanging on the back of the door, but the chemistry teacher himself wasn’t there. Instead, behind his desk, clad in tracksuit and skimming quickly through a textbook, was the PE teacher. When everyone had come into the room, he stood up and explained himself.
He was to be their substitute teacher. Phoebe’s spirits sank.
Over the next few weeks, several substitutes came and taught her chemistry class. Apparently, there was something of a teacher shortage going on, and science teachers in particular were becoming very hard to find. So Phoebe simply had to put up with it. And to give the substitutes their due, they got the job done, and in most case were clearly trying their best. But they were far from ideal. They each had their own interests, and their chemistry knowledge was only textbook deep at best.
But at last, the headmaster said that there was good news. He came into the laboratory before the lesson began one day, and told the class that they needn’t be dismayed much longer, because they were soon going to have someone new.
‘And I promise you,’ he said, pausing for dramatic effect, ‘that they are the best substitute teacher that ever was.’
Would you feel overly encouraged by that? It would be an improvement certainly, but still not quite what was needed.
Every analogy is flawed to some extent, and the above is no different. But, in a loosely similar sort of way, Jesus couldn’t just be another priest in the order of Aaron. As perfect a priest as He is and would have made in that order, besting all who came before, it was a different order entirely that was required. The author of Hebrews writes: ‘[i]f perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood […] why was there still need for another priest to come—one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron?’ (Hebrews 7:11).
An order was required that was better than the order of Aaron. An order was required that predated the order of Aaron. An order was required that had, in fact, blessed the order of Aaron before it began. An order was required that was based on someone who had ‘become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life’ (Hebrews 7:16).
The promise of Psalm 110 was not merely for a better version of what God’s people already had, but for a greater thing altogether. For a priest who was better, a king of righteousness and peace, who brought the bread and wine of a new covenant.
But although Jesus Christ is ‘in the order of Melchizedek’ (Hebrews 5:6), and Melchizedek by all accounts was a good priest and king, Melchizedek himself was but a shadow of Him. Melchizedek was like Jesus, not the other way around; Jesus wasn’t fitting into his mould.
Melchizedek was but a chemistry teacher, but Jesus Christ is a full-blown chemist.