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Chapter 7:Jesus is greater than Melchizedek

Four kings had attacked five kings, including the king of Sodom.
The four took spoils, and took Lot, nephew of Abraham as captive.
When Abraham heard of it he gathered 318 of his retainers, and set
out against the four kings, and defeated them. On his return the
King of Sodom met him and suggested Abraham keep the goods, but
give him the people. Abraham refused to keep anything, seemingly
because of an oath he had taken when Melchizedek, king of Salem,
met him. Melchizedek brought out bread and wine. Was that just a
refreshment for Abraham, or was it meant as a sacrifice? Later
Christian writers understood it as a sacrifice.

His name is taken to mean either King of Peace (Salem) or King of
righteousness (sedeq). These are plausible etymologies.

Abraham gave him a tenth of all the spoils of the military
expedition.

Melchizedek is described as without father or mother, without
genealogy. Genesis indeed does not give any lineage for him. Thus
he foreshadows the Son of God, a priest forever.

Then our author exclaims: How great is Melchizedek - Abraham gave
him tithes, recognizing his superiority. The descendants of Levi
received tithes too in later times, as the offspring of Abraham.
Yet Melchizedek, who has not the same genealogy as them, received
tithes from the father of the chosen people, Abraham. Further,
Abraham received a blessing from Melchizedek - but one receives
blessings only from a superior, not from an inferior. So again,
Melchizedek, type of Christ, is superior to Abraham.

In fact since Levi who was to come from Abraham, was still in the
body of Abraham, we can say that Levi too paid tithes to
Melchizedek - and so the levitical priesthood is less than that of
Melchizedek.

Melchizedek too is considered still "alive" since there is no
record of his genealogy, birth, or death. This again foreshadows
the priesthood of the Son of God.

If the levitical priesthood could have brought perfection, there
would be no need of another priesthood, and another law. But it did
not bring perfection.

Since another priest was to arise after Melchiwas to arise after
Melchizedek there

must be a greater priesthood, one that is forever. But God said to
Christ You are a priest forever. In this way the old regime was
cancelled, since it was not able to make people perfect.

The old priesthood was made through an oath-- similarly the
priesthood of Jesus is made with God's oath:The Lord has sworn, you
are a priest forever according to the line of Melchizedek. So Jesus
is the guarantor of a better covenant.

Further. there have been many high priests, for they all died and
could not continue forever. But Jesus, since he continues forever
has a priesthood that cannot be transferred to another.

Jesus as our high priest is what we needed, for he is holy, free of
guile and defilement, separated from sinners. He has no need to
offer sacrifice for his own sins- he has none-- as the old priest
did before offering for those of the people. He made his offering
once for all when he offered himself. The priests appointed by the
old law were men subject to frailty, but now God's oath appoints
one made perfect forever.


Comments on chapter 7

In what the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review of March-April,
1995, p. 56) calls,"an extraordinary demonstration... a highly
sophisticated analysis", Kenneth Kitchen of the University of
Liverpool shows that what we know of the early second millennium
fits well with the kinds of alliances of kings described in Genesis
14, while from about the 18th century B.C. on the situation changed
so drastically that such alliances would hardly occur (BAR pp. 56-
57).

The author of Hebrews, hardly meant to claim Melchizedek had no
father or mother or without end of days. This is a looseness proper
to homiletic genre. Also, he is interested in treating Melchizedek
as a type, a foreshadowing of Jesus. (incidentally, in the early
centuries A.D. some writers, since Melchizedek had no father or
mother, assumed he was an angelic power, greater than all others:
cf. Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies 7. 36 [written before
222 AD] and St. Epiphanius, Panarion 55). As we said above, the
idea that Melchizedek should be greater than Abraham was irksome to
Jewish exegetes, and they also disliked the Christian use of
Melchizedek and reacted as we saw above, in comments on chapter 5.

In v. 8 Melchizedek is "attested as being alive" since we never
read of him in Scripture as dead: without father, without mother,
without end of days. In line with this, in v. 9. our author speaks
of Levi, the father of the great priestly line, as paying tithes to
Abraham, even though this was long before the birth of Levi - for
he was "still... in the body of his forefather" Abraham. The same
sort of concept appears in Genesis 25. 23 when God replied to
Rebekah before the twins, Esau and Jacob were born: "Two nations
are in your womb." Cf. also the version of Romans 5. 12 used by the
Latin Fathers; "In whom [Adam] omnes peccaverunt" - "In whom all
have sinned."

Our Epistle continues (7. 11) and reasons that if perfection could
have been attained through the levitical priesthood, under which
the Mosaic law came, there would have been no need for still
another priest to arise, in the order of Melchizedek.

This is indeed an interesting thought: It does not mean that no
individual could reach spiritual perfection during that period. Of
course God was always generous with His graces, and gave them
abundantly even before the coming of Christ, in anticipation of the
merits of Christ - cf. the words of the definition of the
Immaculate Conception which says she was free from sin from the
first instant in view of His merits.

To understand this situation we need to notice that there are two
different scenarios or orders. We might call them the external and
the internal scenarios. In the external, one can speak of people
being in darkness before Christ. e.g., Mat 4. 14-16 cites Isaiah
saying that the land of Zebulon and the land of Nephthali had been
a people in darkness. Then Christ came to Capernaum. And the
liturgy speaks of the world as being sunk in sin and guilt before
Christ.

But that is the external picture. In the internal picture, as we
indicated above, grace was offered, even abundantly, long before
Christ, in view of His merits, for God wills that all be saved, and
saved in a great abundance of graces. So some individuals could and
did attain even heroic sanctity in those centuries.

Here however, our Epistle thinking of the fact that the ancient law
did not of its own power bring eternal salvation - as St. Paul
noted strongly in Galatians 3. 15-29, since only the grace of
Christ given through justification by faith could do that. So he
notes that the levitical law could not and did not of itself bring
spiritual perfection or even full forgiveness of sins. Even the
great Day of Atonement was for forgiveness of sins of ignorance,
sheggagah, and not for sins committed be yad ramah:Numbers 15. 30:
"Anyone who sins with a high hand... insults the Lord, and shall be
cut off from among his people."(Cf. comments above on 2. 10 and,
below, 9. 7).

So now, the law has been changed from that given through the
levitical priests, and so has the priesthood. Priesthood is now
given to Christ, who was not even of the tribe of Levi, but of
Judah, no man of which tribe had ever ministered at the altar.


Another sign (7. 15) of the higher perfection of the priesthood of
Christ is that He is "a priest forever, in the line of
Melchizedek." So the old commandment which was unprofitable (v. 18)
was cancelled, for as we just said, that law made nothing perfect.
-- We comment that even though St. Paul in 1 Cor 6. 9-10 and
elsewhere insists on keeping the law, as Jesus also insisted in
Matthew 5. 17, this works out in such a way that we can say with
St. Paul's words of Romans 6. 12: "The wages - what we earn - of
sin is death;' the free gift of God - what we do not earn - is
eternal life. We must be like children to get in at all. - Children
know that they do not earn the love and care they receive. They get
that because their parents are good, not because they are good. Yet
they could earn to lose it. Hence too St. Paul several times speaks
of eternal life as an "inheritance" (e.g., Romans 8. 17; 1 Cor. 6.
10). What we receive from our parents we do not earn. As one
student, who perfectly captured the nuance of St. Paul put it, in
speaking of salvation: "You can't earn it, but you can blow it."

All levitical priests were not priests for ever, for they all died.
Christ did indeed die, but that was temporary: Now He is always
living to make intercession for us (Heb. 7. 25).

Further (7. 20), the new priesthood comes from God's oath (Psalm
110. 4). The old priesthood involved no oath. God merely, without
oath, told Moses to bring Aaron and his sons to Him to become
priests: Exodus 28. 1.

So Jesus is the enguos, the guarantor of the better covenant. In
the Sinai covenant, all depended on the obedience - so often poor -
of the people. In the new covenant all again depends upon
obedience, but it is the obedience of Jesus, which is always
perfect. Of course, this does not mean that those who follow Him
have no need to do anything, that they can even "commit fornication
and murder a thousand times a day" (Luther, Epistle of August 1,
1521 to Melanchthon, in Luther's Works, American Edition, 48. 281-
82). No, just as Hebrews warns so solemnly against falling away
completely from Jesus by apostasy, so also it would not countenance
the sins of those who would, as indicated above in 6. 6 crucify Him
again, make void His crucifixion as far as they are concerned, so
as to practically call for His death again. This is really the
great syn Christo theme of St. Paul, expressed especially in Romans
8. 17 saying that "we are heirs of God, fellow-heirs with Christ,
provided that we suffer with Him, so we may also be glorified with
Him." More of this theme is found in Romans 6. 1-6; 8. 9; and Col
3. 1-4, and Eph 2. 5-6.

A further indication (7. 24) of the superiority of the priesthood
of Jesus is that previous high priests were many since death
prevented them from continuing. But the priesthood of Jesus is
"forever". He has a priesthood that is aparabaton (7. 24), one that
does not pass. It does not pass in the sense that the priesthood of
Levi did pass on. both in that the individual priests died, whereas
Jesus lives forever, and in that the levitical priesthood is
supplanted, replaced by that of Jesus.

This does not mean that in the New Testament, as some
uncomprehending writers have suggested, there is only one priest,
Jesus. Those who make this mistake do not notice the analogical
character of the word priest. Commonly in divine things we need to
see the analogical character of words, in which in two uses of the
word, there is something the same, and something different, e.g.,
when the young man asked Jesus what he needed to do, and addressed
Jesus as "good Master", Jesus corrected him: One is good. God. Of
course Jesus did not mean to say that all others are wicked or that
He Himself was not good. No, He meant that the word good as applied
to God and as applied to all others, has something in common - but
much more difference. In this way St. Augustine wrote (On Christian
Doctrine 1. 6. 6) that,"He [God] must not even be called
inexpressible, for when we say that word, we say something." And
Plotinus said (Enneads 6. 8. 9 echoing Plato, Republic 6. 509 B)
that God is "beyond being." Further, 1 Timothy 2. 5 says there is
only one Mediator. Yes, if we take the word univocally, only one
fills the condition: only one is strictly necessary, only one can
work by His own power, only one has both divine and human natures.
Yet so many times in the OT Moses was a mediator between the people
and God, and in the book of Job, God Himself told Job to be a
mediator for the guilt of his friends (Job 42. 8).

Similarly there is only one priest who most fully is such, who is
the principal analog, Jesus. But there can be and are others whom
He Himself has designated to have an analogical share in His
priesthood when He said, e.g.,"Do this in memory of me" and "Whose
sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them", and,"He who hears
you hears me." The fact that He does such things does not detract
from His own unique priesthood, but rather shows its power in
raising up participation even in mere men.

Jesus brings people to "complete and final" salvation (eis to
panteles: 7. 25), that is, to heaven. There is no hint that Jesus
was willing to let them commit "fornication and murder a thousand
times a day" as we mentioned above, and yet after that, they could
be joined face to face to the all holy God (without even an image
in between, since no image can show what God is like) who is

"like a refiner's fire"- who can stand when He appears? (Malachi 3.
2).

Jesus is "always living to make intercession for us" (7. 25) in the
Heavens, as St. Paul says lyrically in Romans 8. 33-39. Just as
Moses could appeal to the merits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in
pleading with God, so we can plead the merits of Jesus. Jesus
offered Himself "once for all" (7. 27:ephapax). That is, there is
no need for Him to die again, or to die many times. Just as the
merits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though finite, could be
appealed to even though they acquired them only once, so also the
death of Jesus, once for all, abundantly provides for us.

As we saw above, and will see further in commenting on the next
chapter, this once-for-all character does not rule out the work of
application of His merits to us, again, even as the merits of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could be as it were applied many times.
Jesus gave His life "as a ransom for many" (Mark 14. 24-- cf.
Isaiah 53. 10: rabbim).