Hebrews 7:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 7:1

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This is a very complex chapter to read, and perhaps it is particularly complex in our King James Version, and that is inevitable because the King James Version so closely hugs the Greek original to seek to do justice to it. Modern versions may tidy it up a little for smoother reading, but there's always something lost on the way, and if we can only hold back and be patient with our old version, it is actually the most accurate and most carefully translated.Now, there was a problem. There were many Jewish people in those days, who were rather concerned and disturbed because all their lives – before their conversion, let's say – they had regarded the Old Testament order as eternal. They shouldn't have done – there was enough prophecy to tell them it was only for the time being – but they regarded it as something which would stand for ever. God spoke. He gave the law: the moral law, and the ceremonial law, and all the provisions for worship, and surely whatever is connected with Abraham and comes through Moses is unchangeable, immovable. It was a great stumbling block to them. It is understandable that the New Testament should spend much time demonstrating that this was how it was always meant to be. This is prophesied in the Old Testament: that the Old Testament priesthood and the Old Testament worship had great limitations, because it was really only given by way of visual aid and prophecy. The worship of those times had elements in it that were important for seeking after God, and many elements which were predictive, providing pictures, types, shadows, expositions even, of what would take place when Christ the Saviour came. They were not the means of taking away sin; they pointed to it, and this is such a chapter. It is still important for us, because the tremendous thing about this seventh chapter, and indeed all these chapters, is that views of Christ pour out from them. Melchisedec is referred to in Genesis 14. There is recorded a lone, mysterious incident, when God extraordinarily gave Abraham a great victory with just a few hundred men over the amassed armies of enemies. Afterwards this king of Salem, priest of the most high God, visited Abraham, and Abraham, so we may imagine, bowed low before him, and Melchisedec blessed Abraham and took tithes from him. It has been suggested that Abraham knew Melchizedek before this time. It is possible. There is no indication of that in the Bible, but they were contemporaries. It is possible he admired this mysterious priest of the most high God, but he was clearly a type, a symbol, a picture, of Christ to come. A mysterious event: what is it doing there in Genesis 14? Why is it recorded that there was a priest of the most high God? He is introduced to us in the narrative out of the blue, with no explanation as to his origin or lineage, nor are we told how faith is found in the ancient world outside of the line of Abraham. This very much takes us by surprise, and it is meant to. He was made known to Abraham, and Abraham knew who he was and recognised him and bowed to him. Why did this happen? It was so that centuries later King David could be inspired in Psalm 110 to use this king as a prophecy of the coming Messiah. A truly valid high priest, would one day come after the order of Melchisedec, after the same pattern as that mysterious priest-king to whom Abraham bowed and paid a tithe.

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Because of their upbringing in Judaism the Jewish converts were in danger of feeling the lack of an ongoing priesthood. For the believer, Christ is now our great high priest, far better, far higher than all the high priests that there ever were on earth. He is the true high priest, and yet they were used to the Levitical priesthood, and so they were vulnerable to people called the Judaizers. These people tried to turn the true converts back to the Jewish law and the Jewish ceremonial. ‘Oh,’ we can imagine them saying, ‘so you think there is no priesthood, do you, that all the centuries of Levitical priests are banished and we have no need of them? And you think that there are no more sacrifices, and so you Christian people think that none of the sacrifices made in time past by our priests were actually effectual? You think that they didn't cleanse a single person from sin, is that what you say?’ Yes, that is what the Christian preachers said. That is the teaching of the New Testament: that all the Old Testament sacrifices were just visual aids. Forgiveness was given on account of that future atonement that would come with the Messiah, and all the sacrifices only pointed to it and illustrated it. ‘But no,’ said the Judaizers, ‘those sacrifices were effective and valid, they actually took away sin. The apostles were quite wrong in saying otherwise.’ Here in the reasoning of this chapter the legitimacy of Christ as the only mediator, the only true priest, is set forth.

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Introduction

Hebrews 7:1 Commentary and Bible Study