Under the old system of laws, the ones that Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai, one tribe was to serve as priests and care for the temple. That tribe was named after their ancestor Levi. All priests came from the tribe of Levi, making every priest a Levite. In fact at times the word priest and Levite were synonymous. The priests were the only ones who could touch the holy things and they were the only ones who could offer sacrifices. On the other hand, kings and rulers didn’t come from Levi. They came from all other tribes, but never Levi. Of course the greatest kings in the history of Israel came from Judah…that would be David and Solomon. And, there were prophecies that the ultimate ruler would come from Judah as well. That’s why Jesus is sometimes called “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah”.
Anyway, when Jesus comes onto the scene people recognized his lineage and said “He is going to overthrow the government”. So when Jesus began to present himself as an intermediary between God and Man, they were naturally confused. It wasn’t until the Apostles had processed everything that Jesus had said that they realized the fullness of Christ’s message. He hadn’t come to begin a dynasty, he was here to restore one. In heaven’s eye we were viewed as separate but able to be restored. Such an honor had not occurred to humans. That we would be adopted as sons and live forever with God in a place He had prepared was hard to conceive. In fact, I believe the purpose for the whole Levitical order in the first place was simply to help us understand what Jesus had to do when He came.
We needed an intermediary, and not one who would intercede once, but continually. Only Jesus fills that role. Only Jesus is able to stand continually in heaven, without threat of death or imperfection, and plead our case before God himself. This is the great privilege that all Christians have, a Savior who loves us enough to stand before the throne of God eternally for us. His sacrificial death atones for any and all sins, as long as we repent of them.
So why compare Him to Melchizedek? Because no family tree exists for Melchizedek, and he was a priest outside the Levitical order. This makes him “eternal” in the sense that we don’t know when he died. And since Abraham offered him a tenth, it makes him seem very powerful indeed. After all, the father of the nation paid tribute to him.
We won’t ever know who Melchizedek really was, (Jesus, or a single family dynasty) but it doesn’t matter. God has sworn by himself that Jesus is the High Priest for the entire human race. That means if sins are going to be forgiven, Jesus will be involved.
PR