To look carefully at the Melchisedec priesthood of Christ is important to our souls. Consider Hebrews chapters 5 and 7. The priesthood of the Lord Jesus is reflected in both Aaron and Phinehas. Aaron was called into his office; Phinehas earned his office (Num. 25:11-1211Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. 12Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: (Numbers 25:11‑12)). 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. Because of sin, 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 a forfeiture of life; consequently, if I can make a return to life, I make a return to God. God visits this world in two characters: a Quickener and a Judge. John 5 tells us that we are all interested in one or the other of these visits. Now it is the office of this epistle to let every 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. 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 got 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 got 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. 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. 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. The Lord Himself always attaches to the story of His death the story of His resurrection. We have the same thing here, only in a doctrinal way. The cross is often named, but always in company with the ascension. “When He had by Himself purged our sins.” 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.” What is done historically in the gospels is taken up doctrinally in 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. 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. 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 chapter 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. Then 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. At Calvary, again, we find Him in death, but the moment He gave up the ghost, everything felt the power of the Conqueror. The earth quaked, the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and the bodies of the saints arose.
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 we see Him 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 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. And God has expressed His satisfaction. 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, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” That was His satisfaction in a rejected Christ.
When Christ ascended the heavens in another character, as having made atonement, God 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.”
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 can want in the royal authoritative virtue of His own name. The moment you get the living God expanded in this epistle, you find that He communicates life for eternity to everything He touches. His throne is forever and ever chapter 1 tells you that. His house is forever and ever chapter 3 tells you that. His salvation is eternal chapter 5 tells you that. His priesthood is unchangeable—chapter 7 tells you that. His covenant is everlasting chapter 9 tells you that. His kingdom cannot be moved chapter 11 tells you that. To title the Epistle to the Hebrews in a word, we might say it is, “The loaded altar and the empty sepulcher.”
J. G. Bellett (from The Opened Heavens)