(Concluded from page 349.)
But let us not forget that there is another character (for what of blessing does He not fill?) which we find the Lord here showing forth. He is a priest upon His throne: and here we have the real fall exercise of the Melchisedec priesthood. And now see how all the things referred to are brought together in it. We speak of Christ as priest after the order of Melchisedec in the day of His power on His throne. He had sat on His Father's till His foes were made His footstool; but now, gathering all things in heaven and on earth into one, He sits on His own throne.
The first great evil was, that Satan, sitting in heavenly places, had made the poor inhabitants of earth worship for himself gods many and lords many; and earthly power was associated with false worship and apostasy, as we see typified in the great image set up by Nebuchadnezzar in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Hence misery, also persecution and degradation of the children of God: the corrupter and murderer being in heavenly places, corruption was the portion of his subjects, death of those who were not so exempt. Now that which was specifically opposed to this was this title of the Most High God; so Nebuchadnezzar is bound down to confess the Most High God. And this name we first find in the passage we are considering: “Blessed be Abram of the Most High God.” Now this remarkably concurs with what we find connected with the call of Abram: “Your fathers,” says Joshua (24.), “served other gods beyond the flood.” The call of Abraham, therefore, was not the judgment upon unrighteousness against God alone known and owned, but the call and witness of the Most High God. When the perverseness of manmade gods many and lords many, He was then the One Most High God.
We have seen further that there were the heavenlies and the earthlies united in one, in Christ, Whose was all power in heaven and earth; and here accordingly He is blessed of the Most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth. And as the title of the Most High God is given here and witnessed in the priesthood of Melchisedec, who was priest of the Most High God, so also shall the blessing run in this full and unhindered channel, Possessor of heaven and earth. Oh! what blessing in that day when there shall not be principalities and powers in heavenly places to taint the very source of blessing in powers above: no scene of deceived corruption below to make evil what God had made good; nor spirit of rebellion to bring the curse of opposition to God, the God of blessing, upon the wearied corrupters of their own mercy; but One Whose it is, Possessor of heaven and earth, when the Lord shall hear the heavens and the heavens shall hear the earth, all standing in the priesthood, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and the corn and the wine and the oil shall hear Jezreel. Oh! what blessing when the Most High takes (as ever in title) possession of heaven and earth, and our High Priest is His High Priest. Thus we have total exclusion of all other gods but One, the only One; the world or heaven above knowing none but One: no creature above or on the earth taken to be a god but the Most High God, known as the Possessor of heaven and earth. What rest in that, what peace and security! While Satan has the power, while those hold the possession subject to his power, sorrow, discord, and death are the sad and unwelcome companions of man's voyage; he is seduced to every folly, he is but as the convict in the ship—its guidance and its power are in other hands. Now the Most High is Possessor, and where shall be the tempter then? Not in heaven, the Most High possesses that; not on earth, the Most High reaches in His possession to that; and the very ends of the earth shall feel the blessing of His pervading comprehensive blessedness.
But this Melchisedec, though priest of the Most High God, had other characters: he was king of righteousness (comp. Isa. 32); for where righteousness is, there is blessing. He was king of Salem, which is king of peace; the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. The Melchisedec priesthood is the security of the blessings of these from the Most High God; the union of heaven and earth in His person, and the mutual blessing of both known in Him, and the common recognition of the Most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth. But we have also to look at the object of this blessing—Abram. Now naturally Abram is the father of the natural seed. “I know that ye are Abraham's seed,” says the Lord to the Jews. Here then he stood the father of Israel (and in them of the blessing of many nations), blessed from the fullness of the Most High God by the king of peace and of righteousness; the representative of the natural seed of Israel, blessed from on high, in the earthlies, with all fullness of blessings from God most high, Possessor, &c. But Abram stood however, as we know, also as representative of the seed which inherit the heavenlies Christ in mystic sense, as the church. “If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise:” “and they that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” And thus (though by subsequent development, for it was hidden as yet) he stood as the representative of the heavenly seed also, and the blessing of the Most High found its actual scope as possessor of the heavens: those who in Christ had their place there as well as on the earth gathered together in one in Him. Thus in the title of God, in the priest himself, in the object of the blessing, we find the great character of universality according to the mystery of His will, His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself, “that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He should gather together in one all things in Christ:” the Jews being the objects and channels of earthly blessing; and we, sitting in heavenly blessings, priests with Him, ministers of all blessing and kings withal.
In the character of the priesthood, as exercised in the passage before us, we see the plain distinction from the Aaronical priesthood. That priesthood was a priesthood of intercession. “He ever liveth to make intercession for us,” the church of the living God, in its weakness: here is the constant object of His sure and never-failing care and intercession. He has appeared in the presence of God for us; and, I will add, the people of God (I mean the Jews), though under the cloud of His rejection, are still waiting till the great High Priest shall come forth, the Witness of the acceptance of the blood of the atonement, carried within the veil; and remaining a people, blind indeed, but sustained as the people of God by virtue of that service of intercession, till He shall come forth to bless them in the name of the Lord. We know that He has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; we can see through the rent veil into the holiest of all, and see our Jesus there; and still, though longing and watching for the time of His appearing, are content, because we know that Jesus is glorified, and His glory sure, waiting only till His enemies be made His footstool (and the long-suffering of God is salvation), and that He will surely come, He will not tarry.
But the priestly act of Melchisedec was blessing, not intercession: blessing from the Most High God, blessing the Most High God. Here, then, is the exorcise of the priesthood in its Melchisedec character, the king of righteousness and peace blessing the seed of God's acceptance. A blessed refreshing thought! evil removed, and blessing flowing out through the great High Priest, the Priest of the Most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth, unhindered. How do our hearts long for that day, the coming forth of Him our souls long for, yet know, the universal blessing from the Most High God of heaven and earth! What a word shall be pronounced in that day! How shall heaven and earth ring with the welcome witness of the blessing of the heavenly; the earthly seed be unfettered in its praise; the bondage of corruption gone, whose rejoicing (though God was ever good and showed His goodness is it) was restrained till the heirs of the inheritance of God, joint-heirs with Jesus, were manifested to be sons of God. For lest a cloud should rest on the brow of the heirs of God's inheritance—the church of the firstborn, the creation in bondage, through them, must wait for their manifestation. For its happiness must be dependent on their deliverance for its joy, as suffering through their fault. For neither is the blessing of Abraham thus wide the only thing; but honor redounds and praise on high. “Blessed be the Most High God Who hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand.” This blessing is after the full destruction of the enemies of the people of God, after the victory over the gathered kings and great ones of the earth, even “the hosts of the high ones” also “upon high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.” For there is one Most High, Who is Possessor of both, and one King Melchisedec, King of Salem, where praise waits for the God of all the earth. Thus is the echo above and below in that center of both, one in Him Who is one with the Father, the Most High God; and Who Himself took on Him Abraham's seed, now come forth in His kingly glory to bless us from God most high, and to bless God from us, the Man of blessing, the blessing Man, the Lord most high.
But we remark in interpretation, most definitely in connection with all that we have said, that it is blessing and refreshment after, and consequent upon, the destruction of all the enemies of those who are represented by Abraham, bringing down and destroying those who destroy the earth, but Himself the servant of refreshing. All victory then was but in some sort weariness, for victory if a time of joy is a time of weariness: if we had none to meet after it, it would be the sorrowful consciousness of destruction; we had waited and were left alone. Yet it is not so with us, but in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps, joy of deliverance. And who shall be there to refresh? Even that One Who comes forth to bless. He brings forth bread and wine, the bread of Salem where the King dwelt, but now the Servant of the victors, to give the joy of deliverance, and the refreshing of love; the wine of the kingdom drank new—great deliverance to their parched lips, that they may open in refreshment, and praise, and speak and think of Him, how great soever, Who brought it forth, their Melchisedec making them to sit down to meat and coming forth to serve them, ever His joy being in blessing; the Servant of that blessing always though beyond controversy, the less is blessed of the greater.
Thus then we have in this little sentence the accomplished character of the Most High God, over and as to all things in heaven and earth, the one true God, known in blessing, universal blessing; and the unity of all things in Christ, the center of all this blessing, the benediction priesthood of Melchisedec, the blessing by Him of all the redeemed of God. This is consequent upon the victory of these over all their confederate enemies, and the deliverance of every captive, and they are all made partakers of the bread and wine of the kingdom, brought forth for the joy, and His own rest and delight, by the King of Salem—of righteousness and peace, making them to sit down to meat and coming forth to serve them. It was the King (Luke 12) Who did this on His return. The victory over, the refreshment, as the joy of it from the blessed source, the blessing from His own mouth, the blessing of the Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, proved so in His redeemed, to whom He gives the joy and inheritance—the habitation of both.
May the blessing of Melchisedec, of Christ our Lord, the King, dwell on our spirits; may we see it in Spirit, and may it be our everlasting portion, now as the service of His intercession for us, the Head, the Witness, and the Leader of all our praise, in the ages of the fullness of blessing (even when God shall be all in all) as now in the poor congregations of His saints. How imperfectly all the joy of this could be declared, our own enjoyment of it must surely tell. May the Spirit of our God teach a more skilful tune to those who may take the lesson into their hands, because the chord struck unskillfully has awakened the thoughts of praise in their hearts. And, after all, our dying notes here are but poor witnesses to that new song which we shall sing in abiding notes of praise. And may the sweetness of the instrument itself strike some heart as yet untuned. To hear or know how sweet is the melody of heaven, of Jesus' praise, they and we have yet to learn, in the hope and glory of the blessing which rests not only in His hand, but is in His heart toward the redeemed of God in full creation; for we are called to inherit a blessing.