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was to follow, a harvest of the many sons that He was leading through suffering to glory.
The passage in Heb. 12: 1-3 which speaks of Christ as the Captain and Perfecter of
faith, the race to be run, the endurance ending in exaltation and glory, will come before
the mind as we think of Christ as the Forerunner, and the Apostle uses the word Dromos
in the parallel passage of II Tim. 4: 7.
In Heb. 7: we find a further explanation given of the Melchisedec priesthood. We
are taken back to Gen. 14: where Abraham is met by the Priest after his victory over the
armies of the Kings. It was here that Abraham renounced all rights and dues as a result
of his triumph, taking not a thread nor shoelatchet, lest the King of Sodom should say "I
have made Abraham rich". There he also learned something more of the all-sufficiency
of the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth. The Melchisedec Priesthood
blesses the overcomer. That is an important truth to be remembered here.
The greatness of this priesthood is further emphasized by an elaboration of a number
of details that occur in the passage in Genesis. The name has a meaning. Melchisedec
means King of Righteousness, and King of Salem means King of Peace. The fact that no
genealogy is given in Scripture is taken to typify the risen and unending priesthood of the
Son of God. The greatness of this priesthood is still further shewn by the fact that even
Abraham the Patriarch gave a tenth of the spoil to Melchisedec, and the blessing of
Abraham by Melchisedec shewed that "without contradiction the less is blessed of the
greater". The perfection of which the epistle speaks is not connected with the Levitical
priesthood (7: 11), and the essential difference between the Aaronic order and that of
Melchisedec is found in the fact that this priesthood is not after the law of a carnal
commandment, but after the power of an endless life (7: 16). The introduction of the
Levitical order of priesthood moreover was not accompanied by an oath, but in the case
of Christ:--
"The Lord SWARE and will not repent . . . . . by so much was Jesus made a surety of
a better covenant" (7: 21, 22).
The subject is summed up in 8: 1, 2 in these words:--
"Now of the things of which we have spoken, this is the sum: We have such an high
priest, Who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister
of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man."
The verse, so often repeated in this section, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order
of Melchisedec", is taken from Psa. 110:, which speaks of Christ sitting at the right hand
of the Lord until His foes be made a footstool, and which speaks of His people presenting
themselves as free-will offerings in the day of His power, which day seems closely linked
with the day of His wrath (5) when He shall strike through Kings. The first mention of
Melchisedec is connected with the slaughter of the Kings near Sodom, the last (in the
O.T.) speaks prophetically of "striking through Kings in the day of His wrath". In the
book of the Revelation we have Christ presented to us as both Priest and King. Hebrews
dwells mainly on the priestly side, Revelation unites the two offices and shews how this
royal priesthood of Christ in the heavens, and fashioning of that royal priesthood on earth