To look carefully at the Melchisedec priesthood of Christ is important to our souls. Therefore, for the present, we will lay aside the parenthesis at the close of Hebrews 6 and read part of Hebrews 5 and the whole of Hebrews 7. We are looking at the priesthood of the Lord Jesus as reflected in Aaron and Phinehas. Aaron, we saw, was simply called into his office; Phinehas earned his office. We will now look at the Melchisedec phase of the same priesthood.
Supposing I said to you that this world is a scene of forfeited life — you would understand me. Life is but suspended death. To return to life is to return to God. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Sin worked the forfeiture of life; consequently, if I can make a return to life, I make a return to God. In two characters God visits this world — as a Quickener and as a Judge; and John 5 tells us that we are all interested in one or other of these visits. Now it is the office of this epistle to let every poor believer in Jesus know that he has returned to life and that his business now is with the living God and with God the Quickener. “The living God," is an expression that occurs often in this epistle. "Departing from the living God," "To serve the living God," "The city of the living God." The living God thus occupies the field of my vision both now and in glory. I am now not to depart from Him, which intimates that I have gotten back to Him. I have escaped from the region of death and got back to the region of life; and by-and-by in glory I shall find “the city of the living God."
The question is, “How have I gotten back to Him?” The epistle beautifully unfolds that. It is a magnificent moral subject to trace the Lord Jesus in His ministry through the four gospels and see Him from the beginning to the close of His history, displaying Himself as the living God in this world. To mark Him at Gethsemane — to mark Him giving up the ghost — then as the living God rising from the tomb and bestowing the Holy Spirit. We see the living God in a scene pregnant with death. It is the office of this Epistle to the Hebrews very specially to present Christ as the living God. The apostle is full of the death and the cross of Christ. It would not be the Epistle to the Hebrews if it did not take up Christ in His vicarious character.
But though we see the Lamb on the altar, we see the vacant sepulcher too. We have remarked before that the Lord Himself always attaches to the story of His death the story of His resurrection. “The Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death.... and the third day he shall rise again." We have the same thing here, only in a doctrinal and not an historic way. The cross is often named, but always in company with the ascension. Take the opening of the epistle — "When He had by Himself purged our sins." How did He purge them? By death. Death looks at you at the very opening of this epistle; but at once you read, “Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Again we read, “That He by the grace of God should taste death for every man." Does the story end there? No; He is “crowned with glory and honor." What is done historically in the gospels is taken up doctrinally in the Hebrews.
The Holy Spirit is considering the living God in the Person of Jesus, as Jesus was exhibiting the living God in His own Person. So again in Hebrews 2, “That through death” — death looks again at you, but what follows — "He might destroy him that had the power of death." Have I not again the empty sepulcher as well as the altar and the Lamb? I go in this epistle to find an empty grave; but not as “Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary." I expect to find it empty. Their mistake, dear women, was that they expected to find it full. I go expecting to find it empty and I do find it so. When I see the Lamb on the altar and the empty sepulcher, I have got hold of victorious, infallible life. That is the rock-life of which the Lord spoke to Peter.
In Hebrews 5 we find that in Gethsemane He transacted the question of His title and was heard for His piety. He had a moral title to life. Then He surrendered that moral title and took His vicarious place. From Gethsemane He walked on to Calvary. Gethsemane was a wonderful moment. There the great question of life and death was settled between God and Christ; and instead of taking the journey He was entitled to up there, He went along the dreary road our sins put Him on down here. There is exceeding blessed interest about all that.
At Calvary, again, we find Him in death; but the moment He gave up the ghost everything felt the power of the Conqueror. He had gone down into the darkest regions of death, but the moment He touched them every one felt the power of the Conqueror. The earth quaked, the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and the bodies of the saints arose.
If we look in John 20 we see not merely the vacant tomb, but the tomb strewed with the tokens of victory — the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. We shall never be able to read the mystery of the Christ of God if we do not remember Him as the living God in the midst of death, getting victories worthy of Himself. We see Him in death rending the veil. In the grave we see the napkin lying wrapped together by itself to tell the story of conquest. We see Him then with His disciples, and He is exactly the living God of Genesis 1. We find God there breathing life into the nostrils of man — the Head and Fountain of life. In John 20 the Lord shines under our eye as the Head and Fountain of infallible, unforfeitable life, breathing on the disciples and saying, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost."
In this epistle we find Him in that character, as entitled to life and as holding it for us. That is His Melchisedec priesthood. He is not merely the living God. He might have been that if He had gone to heaven from Gethsemane; but He went to heaven from Calvary, and is now there as the living God for us; and God is satisfied — to be sure He is satisfied. How could He be otherwise? Sin has been put away and the blessed God breathes the element of life. It is, so to speak (with worshipping hearts may it be spoken), His native element, and He is satisfied. And God has expressed His satisfaction. But how? When Christ rose in the face of the world that said, “We will not have this man to reign over us." God said, "Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy foes Thy footstool." That was His satisfaction in a rejected Christ.
When Christ ascended the heavens in another character, as having made atonement, He put Him in the highest heavens with an oath, and built a sanctuary for Him — "the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Is it possible for Him to show us in more interesting form that He is satisfied with what Christ has done for us?
Are the services of such a High Priest enough for me? They must be so. I am in connection with life, and every question is settled between me and God. He is King of Righteousness and King of Peace, and He dispenses all you want in the royal authoritative virtue of His own name.
The moment you get the living God expanded in this epistle you find that everything He touches He communicates life for eternity to it. His throne is forever and ever — Hebrews 1 tells you that. His house is forever and ever — Hebrews 3 tells you that. His salvation is eternal — Hebrews 5 tells you that. His priesthood is unchangeable — Hebrews 7 tells you that. His covenant is everlasting — Hebrews 9 tells you that. His kingdom cannot be moved — Hebrews 12 tells you that. There is nothing He touches that He does not impart eternity to. To entitle the Epistle to the Hebrews in a word, we might say it is “the loaded altar and the empty sepulcher."
Christ has put Himself in possession of life, not to keep it to Himself. The living Jesus in the highest heavens says, “Now that I have got life, I shall share it with you." Oh, the depth of the riches!