Jack Jurgens's Ministry Library

Ministry after the breaking of bread from Jonathan Seed.

[0:01] Hebrews chapter seven. When I was very young, there was an old Dutch preacher named Hans Bouman, and I remember him saying at a conference one time, when you’re stuck for time, you treat your sermon like a fish and you cut off the tail and the head and you just give them the body.

[0:20] And so that’s what I’m going to have to do this morning. Hebrews chapter number seven, and we’ll start reading in verse number one.
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace without father and without mother, without descent, having.

[0:49] Neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham, gave the tenth of the spoils. And verily, they that are the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham. But he whose descent is not counted from them, received tithes of Abraham and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better. Verse number 11, if therefore perfection, were by the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people receive the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.
For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe of which no man gave attendance at the altar, for it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses.

[2:00] Spake nothing concerning priesthood. And yet it is yet far more evident that after the similitude of Melchizedek there ariseth another priest who was made not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
For he testifieth thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
For there is verily a disannulling of the commandments going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.
Read a little bit further on in the chapter, verse number 26.

[2:37] For such an high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the people’s.
For this he did once, when he offered up himself for the law, when he offered up himself for the law, maketh men high priests, which have infirmity.

[3:03] But the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh a son who is consecrated forevermore.
The Lord to bless the reading of his precious word. Melchizedek sends shivers down the spine of young Bible students. You turn to the book of Hebrews and you come to chapter 7 and you think, I’ll come back to that chapter later sometime. We can think about Melchizedek another time. Well, that’s too bad because Melchizedek is one of the most important components of the priesthood of of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I would also say, this is part of my intention this morning, that Melchizedek provides for us one of the most comforting aspects of the priesthood of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Three things that I’ve been thinking about with respect to Melchizedek.
Melchizedek is a man of mystery. It’s a difficult subject. You have to get into it. You have to read it and read it and read it and then read it again and read it again. Melchizedek is a man of similarity. This is the most important component to understanding Melchizedek.

[4:09] And I wanted to say this just very plainly and very clearly. When you’re studying or when you’re thinking about Melchizedek and his relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to get it the the right way around. Melchizedek or Christ does not resemble Melchizedek.
Melchizedek resembles the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ does not resemble Melchizedek. Melchizedek resembles the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ll get to that if we have time. Made like unto the Son of God.
He’s a man of mystery. He’s a man of similarity. He’s also a man of superiority. And this is where the comfort comes in when we think of the topic of Melchizedek, the priesthood of Melchizedek, the order of Melchizedek, what it is that he represents, what he contributes to the discussion to the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, what He contributes is this, a perfect, eternal priesthood that will never, ever, ever end. And for that reason, we can find encouragement this morning.

[5:13] And our love can grow, and our adoration can become deeper as we learn more and appreciate more about our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. I just wanted to mention very quickly, just thinking about the structure of the scriptures as we have a little bit this weekend and young people here in Bible study and getting things the right way around. Well, when it comes to the study of the Old Testament, one of the things that, sorry, the New Testament, one of the things that I’ve appreciated so much is how the New Testament authors are interpreting the Old Testament.

[5:41] I’ve noticed that they have absolute confidence in the Old Testament. The New Testament writers do.
When they read the Old Testament, they have so much confidence that they will even get arguments from the silence. Now, if you take that to school and you make an argument from silence in one of your essays, you might not get a very good mark. But when it comes to Bible interpretation, these New Testament authors are reading the Old Testament and knowing, with the understanding, that there is a divine author who planned what he was going to write, and who planned and inspired what he was not going to write, and therefore what is written and what What is not written is significant, what is written is instructive, and what is not written is also instructive.
That’s one of the most important principles when we come to Melchizedek.
He’s a man of mystery, but the guiding principle is that the New Testament authors, when they, read the Old Testament, they were looking for Christ.
Not just putting him under every rock and behind every tree and finding him in every witch place and getting imaginative and a little bit creative, but looking for intentional mentions, patterns, principles, even silence, that would speak to us and be instructive to us with respect to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I just want to…

[6:57] I want to say to the young people here, you know, I don’t like dropping names and all that sort of thing, you know, it’s kind of, anyway, but there’s one book I will recommend to you.
If you’re studying your Bible this year, drop all your other study books and just choose one.
That book is called The Riches of Divine Wisdom by Mr. David Gooding. If you use one Bible study book this year for the next five years, let that be the only one. Yes, you’re going to have your personal time, of course, with the Lord, your personal reading. The one book I recommend you use all year long, The Riches of Divine Wisdom. Mr. Gooding puts in there five different ways that the New Testament authors were thinking about the Old Testament. He mentions prophetic insights, direct prophecies, or, predictions. I’m not sure if that’s the greatest word to use, but it’s a word he uses, predictions from the Old Testament that are fulfilled. The New Testament authors will take those predictions and they will show how they are fulfilled.
Another category is literary devices. They take similes and metaphors and they relate them or from the Old Testament and then they express different New Testament truth. The ones that I’m really interested in here that are concerning or have to do with this passage are legal concepts.

[8:07] And especially implied features. Implied features means this, the author recognizes, that there are certain things, certain ways that the Old Testament was written that imply a truth.
That’s what we see in Hebrews 7, in Psalm 110, and in Genesis 14.
They’re recognizing the logical, rational thought flow of the Old Testament authors and how that leads us to the New.
That is one of the most important principles when we come to the Scriptures.
The Old Testament authors were also Bible readers. Bible authors are Bible readers.
Bible authors interpreted other authors. They read previous authors.
They came to conclusions by reading the previous books, the previous authors that came before them.
And the continuity, the storyline, continued in lockstep with the previous authors, not some sort of.

[9:01] Spiritualized, allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, making things up, whatever was convenient for the time. There’s lots of that in Christian history. But these, authors gave respect. They had confidence in the Old Testament and therefore they could come, to these conclusions. So that’s what we find here with Melchizedek. It’s a comparison.
He sees a story in Genesis 14, and I believe he would have started maybe at Psalm 110.
I think he’s going backwards, reading Psalm 110, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Well, who’s Melchizedek?
And what is this order of Melchizedek? That’s the only other time it’s mentioned.
Oh, I remember Genesis 14.
Goes back to Genesis 14, reads the story of Genesis 14, and he notices a couple of similarities.
He noticed some resemblance with respect to Melchizedek’s name.

[9:55] He notices a resemblance with respect to Melchizedek’s occupation. He notices a resemblance here with Melchizedek and the silence that we see in this chapter, a resemblance with the interaction that Melchizedek has with Abraham. And he says those things are significant. That’s interesting. I never noticed that before.
Look at the name. There’s significance there. Look at the fact that he’s a priest. There’s significance there. Look at the fact that there’s there’s silence with respect to the genealogy. A book full, we’re just speaking about this yesterday, a book that is full of genealogies and we come to Melchizedek and there’s nothing about his parents. And he comes to the end and he sees the superiority of Melchizedek. Look at the interaction with Abraham. Well that’s interesting. Isn’t Abraham, well isn’t he the greatest of the, patriarchs? Isn’t he the first? Wouldn’t he be above all the rest? Isn’t he the great grandfather of Levi? And isn’t he the one that would be considered superior to even Melchizedek? Well, it looks, according to Genesis 14, that that wasn’t the case. And he puts all of these things together, and he comes up with a conclusion that’s just as simple as that.

[11:03] That the priesthood that is described in Genesis 14 is a superior priesthood to even the priesthood, of Aaron. And then that makes sense of Psalm 110. And then that is what brings us to the conclusions of Hebrews chapter 7. He goes back and then he comes forward and goes back and then he comes forward, not reading into the text, but reading out of the text and filling in the gaps all along the biblical storyline until he reaches Hebrews 7 as he’s writing it. And he explains to us, this is how it all makes sense now in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what are these similarities that we see between Melchizedek and the Lord Jesus? He’s similar in terms of his name.
I don’t know if you noticed here, I’m sure many of you already have, Melchizedek, King of Righteousness. Well, that’s an interesting name. But he’s also King of Salem.
Well, there’s another interesting name, the King of Peace, the King of Righteousness. But in fact, it keeps going. He’s also a priest of the Most High God, a fascinating title. We don’t see that title very often. Priest of the Most High God, and then he goes on to a superiority with Abraham.
Just think of those titles, just for a moment. The King of Righteousness and the King of Peace.

[12:14] This automatically brings us to the Lord Jesus Christ, what we were thinking about this morning.
The one who died, who suffered at the hands of God, the wrath that he endured, The wrath that was exhausted on the Lord Jesus Christ, that was the righteousness of God.
It was righteous for God to do that.
It was right for God to punish His Son. As we read in Isaiah 53, in fact, it pleased God to bruise Him.

[12:42] The righteousness of God is what caused the wrath of God to fall on the Lord Jesus Christ as he punished and condemned sin in the Lord Jesus Christ as he was made sin for us and as a result of the righteousness of God leading to the wrath being poured out on Christ. Now, we, have the peace of God. Without righteousness, there is no peace. And therefore, Melchizedek, he looks forward to the day when the Lord Jesus Christ would come. All of these stories in the Old Testament, they are designed. It’s a, fascinating aspect of the Old Testament. It is designed designed so that we would have these pictures that help us to understand who the Lord Jesus Christ is, when he would come and how he would come as we see in 1 Peter chapter number one.
They didn’t know the manner. They didn’t know the time. They knew that he would come.
They didn’t know exactly who it was, but everything else was already filled out from the pictures that we see and the, principles and the patterns of the Old Testament.
He’s a king of righteousness. He is a king of peace.
But another two things that come together in Melchizedek.
Not only a king of righteousness and a king of peace in the same person, he’s also a king and he’s a priest.

[14:00] Have you seen one of those in the Old Testament? A king and a priest. I believe it’s in 2 Chronicles, and there’s a king who tries to be a priest and he’s reprimanded by the other priest because he’s not even able to offer incense in the sanctuary and he suffers the consequences for trying to bring together these two different offices that were never brought together. A king who was also a priest. We find, however, in Zechariah chapter 6 that there will be a priest who will sit, on the throne and that’s looking forward, looking forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, prefigured in Melchizedek. Very odd, very rare. We do not find, this isn’t normal. This is something that is different from the Levitical priesthood. This is different from the Sons of Aaron. This is different than the Old Covenant and it’s superior and it’s better and we should be thankful.

[14:54] And it should help our hearts grow in worship. As we consider our priest, our great high priest, who comes not from a line in which it was impossible to bring together a king and a priest, but from a line in which it was possible to bring these two great offices together.
The priest that will sit on the one who will reign is the one who has redeemed and is the one who continues to intercede and who will save us to the uttermost.” Melchizedek is telling us, he’s painting the picture.
It was of design, the author of Genesis 14 wrote it in such a way, inspired by the Holy Spirit so that we would see these correspondences, we would see these connections, and we would have greater worship of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What’s another resemblance we see between the two?
We see that the peace and the righteousness came together. The king and the priest came together.
But I want you to notice the silences in Genesis 14. This is probably the most confusing, I don’t know, maybe the most difficult part of Genesis or sorry, Hebrews chapter seven.
It says here, without father and without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the son of God.
Melchizedek is not a pre-incarnate version of the Son of God.

[16:21] In fact, I would venture to say that to think that Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ would ruin the argument of Hebrews 7. It doesn’t work.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He has a Father. Melchizedek in picture did not.
Another principle when considering Melchizedek, the Lord Jesus Christ, the resemblance that we see between the two is not between the Lord Jesus Christ and the man Melchizedek necessarily. It is between the Lord Jesus Christ and the picture of Melchizedek or the way he is described in Genesis 14. Do you see the difference?
It’s not the actual Melchizedek who had a father and a mother and who did come to die at some point, but the way he is described in Genesis 14 is the connection that we’re supposed supposed to make with the Lord Jesus Christ in Hebrews chapter number seven.
The way it’s described in Genesis 14 is, well, there’s no genealogy.
It’s not there. So it looks as from the textual perspective, it looks as if he doesn’t have any parents and it looks as if he didn’t die.
It looks as if he’s eternal. That’s the point. That’s the point.

[17:35] And therefore the Lord Jesus being one who is eternal, though he has a father, he is eternal.
He did die, He was raised on the third day, and He is eternal.
And Melchizedek being made like unto the Son of God, He abideth a priest continually.
He had a moment at which He died, but the way He’s described in the Scripture was designed to point us forward to the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is a key phrase at the end of verse number three, made like unto the Son of God.
Who was made like unto the Son of God? Melchizedek, in the scriptural description, was made, designed to look forward to our Savior, the Lord Jesus. The significance of the silence. Melchizedek isn’t just a man of mystery, he’s not just a man of similarity, all the resemblances between the two, but this is the most important part that I want to get to, and I’ll close with this considering the time is, far past, but let me just say that he’s a man of superiority.

[18:31] A man of superiority. We see that first with Abraham. With Abraham, we understand that in the loins of Abraham, you understand that in the Old Testament, Abraham, the man, a grandfather, for example, would be considered to have all of his descendants in his loins. He would represent all of his descendants. And therefore, when Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils to Melchizedek, paid, the tithe to Melchizedek, it was as if Aaron, as if the Levitical priesthood, you could say, or as if Aaron was paying a tithe to Melchizedek. Now that’s significant because the Israelites were supposed to pay tithes to the priests and not the other way around because they were superior in terms of their role. Now it comes to Abraham representing those priests who were supposed to receive. The one who was supposed to receive is the one who gave.
Who do you give to in terms of tithes? You give to a superior. Therefore, Melchizedek is superior, to the priesthood of Aaron, to the Levitical priesthood.
But there’s another superiority. There’s a perfection in verse 11.
If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek?
You see, when it comes to the old covenant, there was a point at which it would finish.
There’s no, we heard this actually yesterday.
The Israelites were not saved. The children of Israel were not saved by obeying the Ten Commandments.

[19:58] That’s an accusation against dispensationalism, usually, that we believe that the Old Testament saints were saved by works and in the New Dispensation were saved by grace. That’s not the way that it was. They were not saved by the Ten Commandments. This was a tutor, it was a, schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. There was a point at which it would end. It was never intended to perfect. It was never intended to cleanse the inside, cleanse the heart, cleanse the mind, give them a new light, put the spirit in them. That was never the intention.

[20:28] And I should say, by the by, just in connection with yesterday, when it comes to the kingdom and all of these ideas about kingdom now and spreading the kingdom, along with the idea of the kingdom now comes the idea of the legitimacy of following the law today. Those two things always go together. And we must be very careful because the law has been abrogated. The law has been left behind on purpose. That was the design left behind because we have something better, something superior. We have a better priest. And as you go through the book of Hebrews, a good study for all the younger ones here today, all the better things in the book of Hebrews, we have this superior priest because he’s part of a superior priesthood, a priesthood that represents eternality. It goes on forever. And that’s the next argument here in the chapter. It’s a superior product, because through this priesthood, we receive perfection.
It’s a superior position, because He is the one who received the tithes from Abraham.
That’s a superior priestly work. I’ll finish with this.
Turn over, or at least in my Bible, turn over down to verse number 24.
A superior product, superior position. It’s a superior priestly work.

[21:49] What is it that this priest can do that the others could not?
This priest, and this is part of the greater argument in this section, this priest could, enact and sustain the blessings of the new covenant. Aaron could never do that. Aaron could not be the mediator and he could not be the guarantor of the new covenant because he was limited by death, he was limited by his own frailty, and at the moment in which Aaron would have died, which he did, the blessings of the new covenant would have ended.
That is one of the greatest things about the the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He lives forever and therefore with his death he enacted it and with his life he guarantees it. It will go on because he will never die. As long as he lives, the blessings of the new covenant are enacted and they are enjoyed by each and every one of us. If he continues to live, I will always have intercession.
I can always go to Him. I can always confess and know that I will find grace, that I will find mercy, that I will find succor at the throne of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, who continueth ever with an unchangeable priesthood, the one who lives, the one who lives based on an indestructible life, and therefore he is able to save them to the uttermost.

[23:17] All those that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
This is not dealing with salvation. I’ll have to close with this.
The book of Hebrews, here’s another key that I found. This blew my mind, as some of us say.
One of the greatest aspects or one of the most interesting aspects of Hebrews is that it’s not necessarily dealing with how to be saved.
It’s not necessarily about salvation, though that would be included, obviously, in the work of Christ and his redemption.
It’s about cleansing, cleansing, sanctification.

[24:02] Being purred, our conscience being purged so that we might be holy, So that we might before God be presented to Him at His coming and be presented when He is glorified and all the saints, when He returns with Him down to the earth.
It’s so that we might be sanctified completely, as Paul says to Timothy.
So that we might be preserved, so that He that began a good work in us will perform it unto that day, the day of Jesus Christ.
And therefore we can have confidence of confidence that though there are difficulties in our lives and though there are setbacks in our lives and though there are moments when sin comes in and defiles, we can always go to Christ.
And as a great message of Hebrews, we can keep going and we can make it to the end because, our priest since he is of the order of Melchizedek and not of Aaron our priest, Continueth forever, say the Lord.

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