Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man. His willing sacrifice for our sins uniquely qualified Him for this crucial role. Yet the preexistent Word also prefigured this sacred office during the time of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham. He did so in the person of Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God.
The Genesis Account
After rescuing his nephew Lot from military capture, Abram, whose name was later changed to Abraham, encountered Melchizedek. “Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said: ‘Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High who has delivered your enemies into your hand.’ And he [Abram] gave him a tithe of all” (Genesis 14:18-20).
It is interesting to note that Melchizedek greeted Abraham with bread and wine, later to become the symbols of Jesus Christ’s Passover sacrifice of His body and blood. Also, Melchizedek addressed God as “Possessor of heaven and earth.” Around 2,000 years later, Jesus addressed the Father as “Lord of heaven and earth.”
Psalm 110
Psalm 110 is one of David’s psalms and features both the Father and the Word in the opening verse: “The Lord said to my [David’s] Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand….'” It is Christ who now resides at the Father’s right hand (Hebrews 8:1; 10:12 and 12:2).
Then Psalm 110:4 tells us: “The Lord has sworn and will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.'” This is the same Lord who spoke to David’s Lord (the preexistent Word) in Psalm 110:1, still speaking to the same Being.
The Book Of Hebrews
The book of Hebrews provides the strongest evidence of the identity of Melchizedek. An entire chapter is devoted to explaining the significance of just three verses in the book of Genesis. The topic is introduced in the last verse of Hebrews 6, which points out again that Jesus has become “High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,” as King David foretold so long ago in Psalm 110.
Then in Hebrews 7 the author goes on to consider the amazing attributes and qualities of God’s high priest of old. “For this Melchizedek, king of Salem,…first being translated ‘king of righteousness,’ and then also king of Salem, meaning ‘king of peace,’ …remains a priest continually” (Hebrews 7:1-3). As Melchizedek means “King of Righteousness,” it would essentially be blasphemy to apply this title to any human being because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Only a divine Being would appropriately bear this title.
The New Bible Commentary: Revised notes: “Note that Scripture pictures him [Melchizedek] as one who is a king as well as a priest. The combination of these two offices was to be a distinguishing characteristic of the Messiah” (1970, p. 1203).
Another of Melchizedek’s titles is “King of Peace.” Of course, fallible human beings simply do not know the way to peace (Romans 3:10 and17), and to apply such a title to any man would, again, be virtually blasphemous. Jesus Christ Himself is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).
The equation between these two great personages becomes clearer as we read on in Hebrews 7. Verse 3 describes Melchizedek as being “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, [and one who] remains a priest continually.” The only priest who could possibly have fit these qualifications was the preexistent Word, the great Being who was on hand before the creation (John 1:1).
The description “without father, without mother” means far more than just the supposition that Melchizedek’s family connections were omitted from the Genesis account. He had no physical human parents, and the phrase “having neither beginning of days nor end of life” makes that point crystal clear. Also the phrase “made like the Son of God” is further strong evidence of Melchizedek’s identity. He was “like” the Son of God because He was not yet the Son of God, until He was later begotten by God the Father through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Melchizedek couldn’t have been the Father because he was the “priest of the Most High God.” He could only have been the eternal, preexistent Word who later became Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
