Hebrews 7:1-3. Part of our series through Hebrews, Jesus Is Superior.
Many of you have driven through Donora. Some of you came from there. To most people it is a small river town you pass on the way to somewhere else. But Donora has a history most people never see. There is a little sign as you drive by that says “Clean air started here.” In October of 1948 the smog settled so thick over the valley that people dropped dead in the street, and out of that came the Clean Air Act and the regulations that shaped industry across the whole country. Somebody in California or Texas has never heard of Donora, but they live under rules that started there.
Our congregation started in Donora too. We are not there now, but that is where we began. Something good can come out of Donora.
That is how Scripture works sometimes. A small signpost. A brief mention of a person who seems obscure. In Genesis 14 a man named Melchizedek walks onto the page out of nowhere, blesses Abram, receives a tenth, and walks off. We do not hear of him again until Psalm 110. Then the writer of Hebrews picks him up and says, in effect, stop and consider this man. That small signpost holds great significance.
Hebrews 7:1-3 (CSB):
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God Most High, met Abraham and blessed him as he returned from defeating the kings, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means king of righteousness, then also, king of Salem, meaning king of peace. Without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
The title of the sermon was “Shadow of the Priest.” Not the shadow of Melchizedek. The shadow of Christ. The main call is this: grow in your ability to observe and understand your great high priest. Three points.
1. Comprehend the King Who Comes
There are kings all through the Bible. There are only two men in all of Scripture who hold both offices, king and priest, in one person: Melchizedek and Christ. It was shadowed in Melchizedek and fulfilled in Christ.
People have made Melchizedek into all sorts of things. Borrowing a picture from 1 Corinthians 3, I would sort the arguments into straw, wood, and gold.
Straw burns off the sheer text. These are arguments from silence. Melchizedek is Shem. Melchizedek is the Holy Spirit (an old sect, the Melchizedekians, held this and looked for him to return). Melchizedek is an angel. None of that is in the text. When you argue from silence you can say whatever you want, because there is nothing there to stop you.
Wood has some rigidity to it, and plenty of serious people hold it today, but in the end it burns. This is the view that Melchizedek is the pre-incarnate Christ, a Christophany. The appeal is to Hebrews 7:3, “neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Only one person is eternal, so this must be him. But read the verse. He is “resembling the Son of God.” He is “made like” the Son of God. You cannot be like something you actually are. I am not like Philip. I am Philip. And every time the Old Testament records an appearance of God, we are told it was God. Abram does not treat Melchizedek that way. He treats him as a man who is really a king and really a priest.
Taking the Bible literally does not mean reading one phrase in isolation and ignoring the rest of the book. It means taking it literally in the sense the author intended, in its context, in light of the whole of Scripture. That is exegesis. The other thing, reading your idea into the text, is eisegesis. “No father, no mother, no genealogy” is a statement about what Scripture records, not a claim that the man had no parents. We are not told Cain’s death either. Nobody concludes Cain never died.
Gold withstands the fire. Melchizedek was a real, historical man. He was born. He lived. He died. He was most likely of the line of Shem, where the knowledge of God and the right worship of God was preserved after the flood. He is the first man in Scripture called a priest, and he is a priest not by family line, like Aaron and the Levites later, but by God’s call. That is the writer’s whole point in Hebrews 7. If Melchizedek is greater than Aaron’s priesthood, and Christ is greater than Melchizedek, then Christ’s priesthood is superior to everything that came before.
Do not build a monster out of the shadows. Turn the light on. Melchizedek is not a mystery you cannot grasp. He is a real man who cast a shadow of the king and priest who was to come.
2. Submit to the King Who Is Crowned
Look at the order of his names. First, king of righteousness. Then, king of Salem, which means king of peace. Righteousness comes first. Peace comes second. You have no peace with God until you are made righteous by God, and you do not understand the peace God gives until you understand how righteous he is.
Romans 5:1: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Righteousness, then peace. Always in that order.
Salem is a real place. We call it Jerusalem, the city of peace (Psalm 76:2). Melchizedek reigned there. Centuries later, in that same city, Christ did not climb onto a throne. He climbed onto a cross. Melchizedek understood what peace was. Christ made peace possible. And having made purification for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3). He is the true king of righteousness. He is the true king of peace. He is not Melchizedek. He is the substance that Melchizedek was only the shadow of.
So submit to him. A lot of people want peace with God without being made righteous first. It does not work that way. The only way to be made righteous is faith in Jesus Christ, that he died the death you deserve and bled for your sin. Believe that and you have peace with God. Refuse it and you stand where the kings in Genesis 14 stood. We can pronounce their names, and the outcome was the same for all of them.
3. Receive the Blessing from the King Who Continues
Go back to Genesis 14:18-20. Melchizedek brought out bread and wine. He blessed Abram. And then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Notice the order again. Abram received first. The blessing came first. Then he gave. Nobody asked him for a tenth. There was no Levitical law yet. He understood who God was, he understood that this man served God, and he freely gave back a portion of what God had just handed him. That is what a tithe is. A tenth, freely given, after the blessing.
And notice what was on the table. Bread and wine, blessed and given. The first priest in Scripture, and the first meal that points forward to the table Christ would spread for his people.
So what do you do? Do you receive every blessing from the king who continues and give him nothing in return? Yes, this includes money. It should include money. But it also includes your praise, your devotion, your prayers, your time. Not begrudgingly. Not out of compulsion. Abram was not commanded to give. He gave because he had received.
He Remains a Priest Forever
Verse 3 ends with an unbroken line: “he remains a priest forever.” Hebrews 10:12 picks up the same thread: “this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.” One offering. Forever perfected. An unbroken standing before God that will never end and never stop.
You can know everything there is to know about Melchizedek, every interpretation in the history of the church, and it means nothing if you do not know Christ. That is why Hebrews was written. The author wants you to know the greatness of a great high priest named Jesus.
They hung a sign over his head on the cross that said King of the Jews. Was it true? He did not just hang there as a sacrificed king. He rose from the grave as the true Prince of Peace and sits enthroned as King of kings. So offer him what he is due. Your praise. Your adoration. Your devotion. Your time. Your money. Your life, as a living sacrifice.
The secret things belong to the Lord. The things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of his law (Deuteronomy 29:29). Do not make something out of nothing. Use what you have been given to live devoted to Christ, growing in your ability to observe and understand your great high priest.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Phil
The Valley Remnant Church gathers every Lord’s Day at 11:00 AM at 130 Greenwood Ave, Belle Vernon, PA. Sunday School begins at 10:15 AM. Watch the full sermon on our YouTube channel or listen on SermonAudio.
