The very idea of priesthood belongs to the relationship of God and man, and the intermediary Son of God. Priesthood begins with one person who is named, “The High Priest”.
The word “priest”, carries the meaning of intermediary or mediator, but it holds much more; it is charged with that which is called sacred and holy. This, in turn, has depended upon the relationship of Jesus to God, to his sovereign inheritance, to his gaining the perfected, immortal nature. Jesus made the step from flesh to spirit and so entered into the presence of God. He was an offering or sacrifice and this is also inseparable from the content of the word “priest”. Finally, as captain of the salvation of his fellows, Jesus is intercessor, giving the prime meaning to this function as he does to every aspect of priesthood.
There have been priests from earliest times. These fall into two classes—those who are called of God, and the borrowing or corruption of the office by mankind, who set up their false gods and require mediators to act between them. The false and the true spring from the elemental arrangement existing in creation, as already stated.
It is significant that when the writer to the Hebrews goes beyond Mosaic times to a priest named Melchizedek, he says that he was made “like unto the Son of God”. The passing of historical time is of no account here. Jesus is the centre of comparison. How, then, did Melchizedek resemble Jesus? Unlike priests under the Mosaic order, he was appointed directly by God. He did not depend upon descent, nor would his office descend to another. This was an unchanging priesthood. Melchizedek was a priest-king. The qualifications carried in his name are righteousness and peace, and these belong in the full sense only to the Son of God.
The authority rightly claimed by Jesus stemmed directly from his appointment by God. He was the only one to bear his particular office. He was unique. His appointment was not for a span of years, but for ever. He gained himself the necessary qualifications for his high office, “made after the power of an endless life” (Heb. 7. 16).
The sayings of Jesus bear testimony to his awareness of his high destiny as Son of God, leading him to receive the divine nature: “For as the Father bath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself . .(John 5. 26). And there are his promises to the disciples to give them a more abundant life—he was the living bread from heaven which, if a man eat, he would live for ever. Finally, his own estimate of the surpassing love of God behind the creative work in man: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3. 16).
These things were said in the days of his ministry, before the fiery trial awaiting him. How could he speak of the future as though already accomplished, and give such assurances, to men who depended upon his victory? The answer must lie in his complete unity and faith in God. While the flesh of itself would always prove itself fleshly, God had raised him up to accomplish the victory, and Godliness, or Godlikeness, would be more than a match for the flesh. Yet this did not remove from Jesus the reality or intensity of the sufferings experienced, a contribution which only he could make—but none knew better than he that God had been engaged in a creative work in the making of the new man. The first man was of the earth, earthy—yet made by God’s hand, a terrestrial body with a terrestrial glory. The second man was the Lord from heaven, made also by God and having celestial glory.
Again, before he was offered, Jesus anticipated the glory to come, as he prayed, “Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may also glorify thee. As thou has given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou bast given him. . . . I have finished the work thou gayest me to do. And now 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory I had with thee before the world was (John 1 7. 1-5).
It would seem that in his intention to help us to consider Jesus as directly as possible, the author of Hebrews looks to Melchizedek as a more exact figure of Christ than any to be found in the later system of priests in Israel. The point is argued that, as Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, when he received the priest’s blessing, then the lesser was blessed of the greater. Further, since Levi was to be reckoned as in the loins of Abraham, then he also shared in paying homage to the priest. The point is concerned with an underlying principle, and it is this which we have been seeking: What was it that made Melchizedek a more fitting figure for the writer’s purpose than the Levitical priests?
We shall not find the answer by looking at Melchizedek, but we shall do so by considering Jesus, and noticing, how his special inheritance, qualifications and, above all, his being given immortality, made some aspects of Melchizedek typical of him. Although Melchizedek was mortal, his office had no forerunner or successor, and the hint of eternity is seen in this. In the epistle, the same word, “Order” is used for the Melchizedek and Levitical priesthoods, while in practice the words mean something quite different in the two instances. As applied to Levi and his sons, the word “order” referred to a system of succession by descent from father to son in the family of Levi only. As far as each priest was concerned, his office ended with his death. A break in the priesthood was involved by mortality. There was no such “order” of priests in which Melchizedek was included. He was an individual selected by God without respect to parentage or to succession. In this way, the priest, though mortal, could represent Christ. It was by his office of an unchanging priesthood. The High Priest for Ever required the immortal nature to fulfil his office-“But this man (Jesus), because he continueth ever, bath an unchangeable
One other quality in Jesus, not found in any lesser priest, is noted in Hebrews. It was his sinlessness.
All priests taken from among men were sons of Adam, and sinners, because sin is the transgression of God’s law. The Mosaic Law, while continuing to reveal this same principle, was the embodiment of it so comprehensively as to constitute the very ministration of death. Designed for life (for underlying it were the golden laws to be fully expressed by Jesus), it became the ministration of death because it did not carry within it the means to give life. (If there had been such a law, it would have been this Mosaic law.) This law stopped short at the revealing of sin; it made sin appear more exceedingly sinful and the priests who officiated at its sacrifices, mortal and sinners themselves, savoured too much of death to suggest that step into the new dimension of immortality. Only the High Priest in the Mosaic system was made to indicate the change from mortality to immortality—when, once a year only, he moved through the veil, from the place where mortals were allowed into the Most Holy Place, signifying the divine nature.
So, while priests offered sacrifices which helped to remind people of sin, but could not take sins away, and while the High Priest, who needed to offer for his own sins because he to was taken from among men, made his infrequent yet regular entries into the Most Holy Place, that was yet made with hands—the world awaited the One High Priest for Ever, who had not yet sacrificed and entered once for all into the presence of God.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One