Hebrews 7:11-19

“Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? ¹² For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. ¹³ For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar. ¹⁴ For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. ¹⁵ And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest ¹⁶ who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life.

“¹⁷ For He testifies: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ ¹⁸ For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, ¹⁹ for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

We got away from our direct teaching on Melchizedek for a bit last week and talked about tithing. This seemed to be a theme that kept coming up in a strange way in the churches I pastor and in our mid-week studies. But now we are back to dealing with Melchizedek once again. In this passage, we will explore the need for a new High Priest.

Currently, I am reading through the Torah, Genesis to Deuteronomy, and I recently read the parts about the installation of the Priests from the tribe of Levi and, in particular, the installation of Aaron as the High Priest. His job was to represent the people before God in the area of sins, sacrifices and forgiveness. He, the High Priest, offers blood sacrifices before God, day after day, and on the Day of Atonement, he offered an annual sacrifice for the whole nation of Israel to cover their sins collectively.

Leviticus 16: 15-16 “Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. He shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus, he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities” (NASB ’95).

Aaron and the subsequent High Priests would perform the ritual year after year for the people on the tenth day of the seventh month. The High Priest was the only one allowed in the Holiest Place once a year. He, the High Priest, had to offer a sacrifice for himself and then go perform for the whole nation. But the priesthood had another lesson that we need to learn today. Sadly, some people still do not get this, and it is to their eternal detriment that they miss it.

• Salvation was not via the Priesthood, verse 11

God requires perfection for anyone to enter His presence. This is why the High Priest had to offer a sacrifice for his sins before he went to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people. When he sacrificed for himself, he temporarily covered his sins with the blood of a ram or goat. Then, and only then, could he enter the presence of God on behalf of the people. God requires perfection from those that enter His presence. But we are told that perfection does not come from the Levitical priesthood. More specifically, perfection did not come by observing the law. The perfection we are speaking of here is the permanent perfection that we are offered at salvation. When you and I put our trust in Jesus as Saviour, we are permanently declared as ‘justified’ (Romans 5:1) and no longer under ‘condemnation’ (Romans 8:1). We have Jesus’ righteousness, His perfection, imputed to us.

2 Corinthians 5:2 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Isaiah 61:10 “I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

Aaron and the subsequent High Priests were pictures of the Priest that was to come. But this priest, this Melchizedek, was not from the tribe of Levi; he was from the tribe of Judah, the King Tribe. No salvation, no permanent eternal salvation, could come from the work of the Levitical priests. Look at how harshly the Holy Spirit led Paul to write about the old priesthood.

Verse 18: “For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness.”

Verse 19 goes on to say that through the Law, NOTHING was made perfect. Yet, God requires perfection if we are to have fellowship with Him.

• Salvation came via a particular Priest (verses 13-16).

Notice the end of verse 16, “the power of an endless life.” Unlike Jesus, Aaron died and stayed dead in the ground (Numbers 20: 27-28 “So Moses did just as the Lord commanded, and they went up to Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there on the top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.” Jesus died and resurrected and lives right now; He is seated at the Right Hand of God the Father. He alone has the power and performed what was necessary to make you and me eternally perfect.

Aaron died, and any who put their hope in the law will also die. But not just die physically; they die spiritually and cannot have fellowship with God ever. They are not perfect. Romans 3:20 puts it this way,

“Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.”

This is as clear as it can be said. No one was eternally saved and made perfect by the works of the law and by the sacrifices made by Aaron and the subsequent priests. But there is another Priest, Jesus the Son of God – God in the flesh. He died once and for all; He never had to offer a sacrifice for Himself; He was and is Perfect. Thus, Jesus alone can offer eternal perfection and fellowship with God. Do you have His perfection covering your sin? Are you perfect in Jesus?

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

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Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Hebrews 7:4-10

“For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Highest God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, ² to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated ‘king of righteousness,’ and then also king of Salem, meaning ‘king of peace,’ ³ without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.

“⁴ Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. ⁵ And indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham; ⁶ but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. ⁷ Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better. ⁸ Here mortal men receive tithes, but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives. ⁹ Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak, ¹⁰ for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.”

We established last week that Jerusalem is the beloved city of God. He treats her like a wife, and His love for her is clearly stated in the scripture. Jesus, as we see from the Abrahamic Encounter in Genesis 14, is Melchizedek, a man without mother or father, with neither beginning nor end, and He is the King of Peace and King of Salem. He is also the High priest of God, and this all happened before the Law was ever in existence. This ‘man,’ we are told in verse 6, blessed Abraham, and we are told in verse 7 that the lesser is blessed by the better.’ Abraham was the revered Patriarch of Israel; very few men on this planet, if any, would have been revered as greater than Abraham, but we are told that this Melchizedek was greater than Abraham.

Back to God’s love for Jerusalem. It is no small feat that Jerusalem is alive and well, relatively speaking, in these last days. God, as He has clearly done, has focused the whole world on the city of Jerusalem. Every US president in the past 50 years has had a Jerusalem agenda. Every leader of Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, the EU and the UN have had summits, votes and negotiations about the city of Jerusalem and her land and surrounding areas. I am reading a book right now called Eye to Eye by William Koening about this very subject. It is quite the read.

Today, however, I want to visit an old doctrine that continues to be attacked in the Lord’s churches, and I see many sermons and videos about this tithing principle. There are many that simply cannot see it in use today; they teach against it, and most, if not all, often use the idea that it was a part of the Law and thus has passed since Jesus fulfilled the Law and we are no longer under the Law. But we can clearly see that tithing as a principle was established before the Law, and as we have learned over the past few weeks, Abraham paid this tithe to Melchizedek, who, as we have discovered, is Jesus directly. So let us look at what happened and then apply it to us.

• Abraham paid from the spoils of war, verse 4

Abraham paid a tithe from the profit of the war he just fought to get his nephew Lot back. God blesses his efforts; he won the war and gained the spoils or the profits that came with it. Abraham immediately went and paid tithes to the High Priest of Salem, the King of Salem, who we now know to be Jesus. Tithes, then, are to be paid to God from the profits that we make when He blesses our endeavors. Thus, there is no set amount that we are to give to God. Each man, each household, simply gives a tenth of the profits that they make from the Lord. In our case, my wife and I tithe from our income after taxes and then on the tax return. We also tithe on any and all financial gifts that we receive. Simply put, any profit that we make, we tithe on before we pay any bills or buy anything.

• Abraham paid tithes before mandated by The Law of Moses, verse 4

Abraham set a principle, a standard that we should follow. This standard was not a part of the Law at the time since the Law did not exist for hundreds of years later. Abraham understood that his victory and all the spoils he made were because God allowed him to win and to have the spoils. As such, he paid back a tenth, the tithe, to God. You and I should be just as conscious that all we have, all we get, every time we get a paycheck, a gift or some kind of income, it is from God, and to give Him back a tenth is not an unreasonable request. We should do so joyfully and willingly. The context of the passage in Genesis 14 does not give us the impression that Abraham went to pay the tithe begrudgingly. He went out of obedience and true gratitude to the Lord; we should give our tithes with similar feelings.

• Abraham was Blessed by Melchizedek, verse 6

Abraham received a further blessing from the King. Abraham was already blessed; he had won a great victory, recovered his nephew, and did not suffer death to the men who went with him. He had been blessed beyond measure already. But he received a further blessing from the King, this High Priest of God, in the city of Salem. Later on in Malachi 3:8-10, the Lord asks a question of the nation of Israel;

“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”

Notice that there is a curse for robbing God and a blessing for paying our tithes. The tithe belongs to God; it is not yours/mine to use and keep. It is God’s. The principle still existed in Malachi’s day that if we willingly give God the tithe, then He will bless us and, in fact, provide more than we need. This principle still exists today. God will provide for us when we honor Him with the tithe and rightfully show our gratitude that He would allow us to have anything at all.

• Abraham set a precedent for his descendants, verse 10

In principle, all of Abraham’s children paid tithes to the King of Salem as they were still in his body when he paid the tithe. This became a statute for all of his physical children. As such, according to Romans 4, he is the father of all who believe by faith. This is a pre-law statute that is still in play today. Don’t rob God. You are stealing from yourself and your family. Follow Abraham’s example; pay the tithe. Notice that he paid it to Jesus directly, on earth. The local New Testament church carries out Jesus’ business, so find a good, Bible-teaching, obedient local church to give your tithes to.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://www.mmbchurch.ca
Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca