CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Hebrews 7:11.—Here begins the argument of the next nine verses. Perfection.—A difficult word; the full meaning of everything that could be required of a human priesthood. “Power of perfectionment, capacity to achieve the end in view.” This was not to be attained through the Levitical priesthood. Some say the term means “accomplishment”; others “sanctification”; others “consummate happiness”; others “moral rectitude.” Compare Hebrews 9:9-14; Hebrews 10:1, Hebrews 10:2-4; Hebrews 10:3; Hebrews 10:14. The point of the writer is, that it could not meet the entire circle of human need. It could neither spiritually purify their worshippers, nor free them from the conscience-burden of their sins, nor from their apprehension of eternal punishment. There was, therefore, manifest room for another priesthood after another order.
Hebrews 7:12. Being changed.—Better, “being transferred”; a mild and delicate term is purposely chosen, μετατίθημι. “It is a characteristic of the writer to be thus careful not to shock the prejudices of his readers more than was inevitable. His whole style of argument, though no less effective than that of St. Paul in his own sphere, is more conciliatory, more deferential, less vehemently iconoclastic. This relation to St. Paul is like that of Melancthon to Luther” (Farrar). Also of the law.—From a ceremonial to a spiritual range. With the ceremonial alone had the Levitical priest to deal. This change of the law is not sufficiently recognised. It is easy to go astray if we attempt to explain the work of Christ by the formal terms of the Mosaic law. Christ is the fulfilment of its spiritual suggestions and meanings.
Hebrews 7:14. Out of Juda.—Whatever may be the difficulties of our Lord’s genealogies, as given in Matthew and Luke, the fact is clear that He belonged to Judah, not Levi. This is mentioned as one instance of change in the law.
Hebrews 7:15. More evident.—Because there is a distinct prophecy and promise of another priest. Ariseth.—Is to arise.
Hebrews 7:16. Carnal.—Fleshly, in the range of the outward, the material. Not here “fleshly” in its bad sense, but simply “human.” Power of an endless life.—Stuart renders ἐντολῆς σαρκικῆς as preceptum caducum, an obligation of a temporary, perishable nature; and ζωῆς�, indissoluble life, or perpetuity. The word ἀκαταλύτος is not elsewhere found in the New Testament. Based on the assumption that the priesthood of Melchizedek was without limitations of time.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 7:11-17
The Two Priestly Orders.—It must be evident to every candid reader of this epistle that its author does not use the older Scriptures as confirmation or proof precisely in the way that we do. He probably follows the method taught in the Rabbinical schools, which laid undue stress upon single, and often subordinate, words. It is necessary to bear in mind that truths are eternally true, but the methods in which they are presented and proved belong to each particular age, and are precisely adapted to each age. We are not obliged to recognise the force of every argument that has ever been used to support a truth. The Divine inspiration works through the mental methods and mental moods of each age, with a precise adaptation to one age, and a general adaptation to all ages. What the student has to do is to put himself into the times when a particular method of proof was used, and so get to feel its precise force. And this may be quite in harmony with his endeavours to find and use the method of proof which may be effective on his own generation. These remarks are important because the proofs from Scripture given in this epistle often become a grave stumbling-block to critical-minded readers. All the offices which the Lord Jesus Christ is represented as filling are interesting to us. Some we can appreciate at once. Some require much and careful thought before we are able to trace their permanent relations and value. And some are difficult to appraise aright, because we have no help from our associations. Such an office is that of priest. We are not in any sense familiar with it. It does not come into the range of ordinary Christian thought, but it was bound up with the religious thought, and the daily life, of the Jews. And this writer addressed Jews, to whom the high priest was a most familiar figure, and who had thoughts about him that we can hardly realise. In endeavouring to detach the Jewish Christians from their new-found faith in Christ, the bigoted Jews made a strong point of the fact that Jesus could not be a priest, seeing that they all admitted the Aaronic priesthood to be the direct appointment of God. So far from Jesus being in the Aaronic order, He did not even belong to the tribe of Levi, but to a tribe of which nothing had been said concerning priesthood. This was a very fair plea from their outward, national, and limited standpoint. It is indeed so fair a plea that the writer of this epistle feels bound to give it elaborate and careful consideration, meeting this strictly Jewish objection on strictly Jewish lines. Admitting that God did establish the Aaronic order of priesthood, and that it stood, and always had stood, upon the Divine authorisation, he argues—
1. That God’s having appointed one order does not involve that He never has appointed, and never will appoint, any other. In asserting the priesthood of Christ, it is only necessary for him to prove that the same God appointed Him, in His order, as appointed the Aaronic priests in theirs; and consequently that Christ, as priest, equally acts upon Divine authorisation.
2. But he can advance on this, and say, not only may God appoint another order of priesthood, but He has done so; He had done so long before He established the Aaronic order, and entirely independent of it. The order of Melchizedek was no seed out of which the Aaronic order grew; it was a priesthood for men quite distinct from the priesthood for a particular nation—the Jews. Patriarchal priesthood was established by God long ages before the Levitical. It was a universal human priesthood, and out of the range of the limited Mosaic Revelation 3. Then he is able to make a somewhat surprising assertion. The earlier order of Melchizedek was recognised by the later as higher than itself, and the earlier order actually received the representative homage of the later. It received tithes from Abraham. “And so to say, through Abraham, even Levi, who received tithes, hath paid tithes; for he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.”
4. The appeal is now made to Scripture. God can make a new order; God had made another order; and God has actually promised in the Scripture to raise up a new priest after the older order.
5. That promise, he claims, was fulfilled in the raising up of Jesus, and constituting Him priest, not as the Aaronic, “after the law of a carnal commandment,” but as the order of Melchizedek, “after the power of an endless [indissoluble] life.” It is important that we should understand the distinctions between the two priestly orders, so that we may recognise the peculiarities of the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I. The order of Melchizedek had all the permanent essentials of priesthood.—And these are three:
1. The power of intercession. Too readily we assume that the essential thing in priesthood is presidency over a religious ceremonial, which includes sacrifice. But this is an accident of priesthood; the essential thing is his acting as medium of communication between God and man—the difference between a “priest” and a “prophet” being that a priest so acts constantly, and the prophet so acts occasionally. In thinking of the Jewish high priest we seldom see the importance of wearing the breastplate, and being the people’s mediator. Melchizedek was an intercessor. He stood for Abraham to present to God the tithes of thanksgiving. He stood for God to present to Abraham acceptance and blessing.
2. The power of character. Ideally this is absolutely essential to priesthood. It is the secret of acceptance with God, and the secret of influence on men. It is the basis of reverence and trust. It was not guaranteed in Jewish priests, seeing their office was hereditary: it was found in Melchizedek, as indicated in the respect shown him, which Abraham felt, and responded to.
3. The power of continuity. A priesthood which is really efficient cannot be thought of as stopped or changed. If there is need for change in it, then there must be some imperfection in it, or in its adaptations. The priesthood of Melchizedek was never changed while he lived. The ideal priesthood of man, which he represented, God established for ever; He has never changed it: in the line of the absolute priesthood of universal humanity Jesus came.
II. The order of Aaron had certain temporary characteristics.—Especially may be noticed its—
1. Limitation to a
(1) nation,
(2) tribe,
(3) time. Jewish priests only held office from thirty to sixty years of age.
2. Its hereditary character, which did not involve any direct Divine call to individuals. A man was an Aaronic priest, not because he was singularly fitted for the office, but because his father was a priest.
3. Its sacrificial character. Careful distinction needs to be made between the great and universal human ideas of sacrifice, and the small and particular Jewish ideas of sacrifice, connected with a local religion, a limited revelation, and an elaborate social and ceremonial system. The priests of the Jewish cult must be distinguished from the priests of humanity. In Judaism the system was greater than any individual.
III. The priesthood of Christ represents the permanent, and not the temporary, ideas of priesthood.—Therefore it is said to be after the order of Melchizedek, and not after the order of Aaron.
1. He is our Intercessor. This is the essential side of priestliness. It need not be affirmed that Melchizedek presented no sacrifice, but it should be noticed that no mention is made of any in the narrative (Genesis 14), and that the interceding element of his priesthood is the one set forth prominently.
2. His power lies in His personal character. “Such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separate from sins.” He, on this ground, stands in acceptance with God: “He offered Himself without spot to God.” He, on this ground, gains influence on men, who always respond, with their confidence, to ideal goodness.
3. And His relation is a continuous one. He has an unchangeable priesthood, in the power of an endless life. What He is to us He is for ever, He is so long as we need Him.
Conclusion.—The cry of human souls, in the sense of their separation from God, is for a priest, an intercessor. That cry can never be stilled by the ministry of any man. It can be quieted, and the soul can be satisfied, with the full, and practical, acceptance of Jesus as actually now, for us, “our great High Priest, passed into the heavens,” “ever living to make intercession or us.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 7:11. Perfection as Complete Meeting of Requirements.—Perfection applied to the uncreated, independent Being, God, is an absolute quality. It is the standard. But perfection applied to any one, or anything, in the created sphere, can never be more than a relative thing. It may reach the standard of its particular class or order. An absolutely perfect man is inconceivable. A man perfect, according to the perfection that is possible to humanity, is conceivable. An act of a created human being that is absolutely perfect is inconceivable, but an act judged perfect according to the standard of the class of acts to which it belonged is quite conceivable. And only such perfection can be of any real or vital interest to us, because only such perfection is attainable by us. Another idea of perfection is embodied in the word “entire.” It is often applied to animals. Given a whole set of organs and capacities as belonging to an animal, if we find all those organs and capacities in any animal, and those organs all in full health, and harmonious proportions, we call that animal “entire.” And it is easy to see how the idea can be applied in the Christian life. But in our text the idea of “perfection,” though related, is somewhat different. A thing is “perfect” when it precisely and fully meets what is reasonably required and expected of it. So a man who invents or makes a machine strives to make it “perfect” in the sense of adequately meeting what is expected of it. It is “imperfect” if it leaves any expectation unfulfilled, or only half fulfilled. In this sense of “perfection” the old Mosaic economy of sacrifices, and ceremonies, and formal rules has to be judged. And so judged, the writer is compelled to condemn it as imperfect. Given the reasonable expectations of a particular nation, in a particular set of circumstances, and at a particular time, and the Levitical system may be considered “perfect.” But given the requirements of man as man, of man as a moral being, of man as sinful, of man as out of relations with God, of man as deteriorated by his wilfulness—given the requirements of man’s conscience and will, and relations with God, and with fellow-men, and then the Levitical system must be condemned; perfection is not that formal, outward way. A spiritual religious system is wanted in order to meet spiritual conditions.
Hebrews 7:16. The Power of an Endless Life.—The suggestion is, that the priesthood of Christ is graduated by the wants and measures of the human soul, as the priesthood of the law was not; that the endless life in which He comes matches and measures the endless life in mankind whose fall He is to restore; providing a salvation as strong as their sin, and as long or lasting as the run of their immortality.
I. The power of an endless life in man, what it is, and, as being under sin, requires.—The word translated “power” in the text is the original of our word “dynamic,” denoting a certain impetus, momentum, or causative force, which is cumulative, growing stronger and more impelling as it goes. And this is the nature of life or vital force universally—it is a force cumulative as long as it continues. The cumulative powers of vegetable life are only feeble types of that higher, fearfully vaster power, that pertains to the endless life of a soul—that power that, known or unknown, dwells in you and in me. The possible majesty to which any free intelligence of God may grow, in the endless increment of ages, is after all rather hinted than imaged in their merely vegetable grandeur. Mere attention to eternal duration limits thought and apprehension. If we look no further, that is only the eternal continuance of its mediocrity or comparative littleness. Its eternal growth in volume and power is, in that manner, quite lost sight of. The growth of the soul is a merely spiritual growth, indicated by no visible and material form that is expanded by it and with it. As in old age there seems to be an apparent limit to the spiritual powers and faculties, we drop into the impression that these have now passed their climacteric. But the soul outgrows the growth and outlives the vigour of the body, which is not true in trees. In the beginning of the soul’s history, it is a mere seed of possibility. But a doom of growth is in it, and the hidden momentum of an endless life is driving it on. What a chasm there is between the idiot and the man! One a being unprogressive, a being who is not a power; the other a careering force started on its way to eternity, a principle of might and majesty begun to be unfolded, and to be progressively unfolded for ever. Intelligence, reason, conscience, observation, choice, memory, enthusiasm—all the fires of his inborn eternity are kindling to a glow, and, looking on him as a force immortal, just beginning to reveal the symptoms of what he shall be, we call him man. And yet we have, in the power thus developed, nothing more than a mere hint or initial sign of what is to be the real stature of his personality in the process of his everlasting development. We exist here only in the small, that God may have us in a state of flexibility, and bend or fashion us, at the best advantage, to the model of His own great life and character. And most of us, therefore, have scarcely a conception of the exceeding weight of glory to be comprehended in our existence. Illustration may be taken from the faculty of memory, imagination, acquisition—from the executive energy of the will, from the benevolent affections, and from all the active powers. What force must be finally developed in what now appears to be the tenuous and fickle impulse, and the merely frictional activity of a human soul! But this expression looks on the soul as a falling power, a bad force, rushing downward into ruinous and final disorder. It was this which made the mighty priesthood of the Lord necessary. By what adequate power, in earth or in heaven, shall man’s sin be taken away?
II. What Christ, in His eternal priesthood, has done; or the fitness and practical necessity of it, as related to the stupendous exigency of our redemption.—The great impediment which the gospel of Christ encounters in our world is that it is too great a work. It transcends our belief—it wears a look of extravagance. We are beings too insignificant and low to engage any such interest on the part of God, or justify any such expenditure. In the contemplations started on this subject, the purpose is to start some conception of ourselves, in the power of an endless life, that is more adequate. Mere immortality, or everlasting continuance, when it is the continuance only of littleness or mediocrity, does not make a platform or occasion high enough for this great mystery of the gospel. It is only when we see in human souls, taken as germs of power, a future magnitude and majesty transcending all present measures, that we come into any fit conception at all of Christ’s mission to the world. This power of endless life, could we lay hold of it, could we only grasp the force there is in it, how true and rational, how magnificently Divine would the great salvation of Christ appear, and in how great dread of ourselves should we hasten to it for refuge! Then it would shock us no more that visibly it is no mere man that has arrived. Were He only a human teacher, reformer, philosopher, coming in our human plane to lecture on our self-improvement as men, in the measures of men, He would even be less credible than now. Nothing meets our want, in fact, but to see the boundaries of nature and time break way to let in a Being and a Power visibly not of this world. Let Him be made a priest for us, and not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. Humbled to the flesh and its external conditions, He will only the more certainly even Himself with our want, if He dares to say, “Before Abraham was, I am.” The great salvation is a work supernatural transacted in the plane of nature; and what but such a work could restore the broken order of the soul under evil? It incarnates God in the world; and what but some such opening of the senses to God, or of God to the senses, could reinstate Him in minds that have lost the consciousness of Him, and fallen off to live apart? What but this could enter Him again, as a power, into the world’s life and history? We are astonished by the revelation of Divine feeling; the expense of the sacrifice wears a look of extravagance. If we are only the dull mediocrities we commonly take ourselves to be, it is quite incredible. But if God, seeing through our possibilities into our real eternities, comprehends in the view all we are to be or become, as powers of endless life, is there not some probability that He discovers a good deal more in us than we do in ourselves, enough to justify all the concern He testifies, all the sacrifice He makes in the passion of His Son? Inasmuch as our understanding has not yet reached our measures, we plainly want a grace which only faith can receive. Christ therefore comes not as a problem given to our reason, but as a salvation offered to our faith. His passion reaches a deeper point in us than we can definitely think, and His eternal Spirit is a healing priesthood for us, in the lowest and profoundest depths of our great immortality, those which we have never seen ourselves. He is somehow able to come into the very germ principle of our life, and be a central, regulating, new-creating force in our disordered growth itself. And if we speak of righteousness, it is ours when it is not ours. How can a being unrighteous be established in the sense of righteousness? Logically, or according to the sentence of our speculative reason, it is impossible. And yet, in Christ, we have it! We are consciously in it, as we are in Him; and all we can say is, that it is the righteousness of God, by faith, unto all, and upon all, them that believe.—Horace Bushnell, D.D.
An Indissoluble Life.—The Greek word would be more precisely rendered an “indissoluble” life. There are no conceivable agencies, influences, or forces that can break it up. Let a thing once be moved, and it will go on moving for ever, unless something acts upon it to check it. Let a thing once exist, and it will never cease to exist, unless some outside force acts upon it to destroy it. Let a thing be a whole, it will remain a whole for ever, if no power breaks it up. Thus we are absolutely assured of the continuty and unchangeableness of God, because it is wholly impossible for us to conceive of any being, or force, or combination of forces, that can affect them so as to make any change in Him. It may further be observed that continuity is one of our chief “notes of value.” We estimate things in the light of their persistency. They are valuable if they will last unchanged for a long while. The diamond is counted the most valuable of all earthly possessions, not for its appearance, but for its imperishableness. We know of nothing that can destroy it; it outlasts the generations; it can cut its kind, but nothing else can cut it. That note of value is taken to bring home to our minds the infinite value of Christ our Priest and Saviour. He has an “endless,” or an “indissoluble,” priesthood. It is not possible for us to conceive the conditions of humanity for which that priesthood is not necessary and effective. It is not possible for us to conceive of any forces that can ever so affect that priesthood as to make changes in it which will imperil its efficiency.
An Endless Life.—Life! the dearest and most wonderful thing we know—wonderful in its universality, its diversity, its mystery. Next comes life’s crowning wonder, death. Life’s greatest question is, What is it to be dead? What, in death and after death, becomes of life? The answer of the text is, The human race has the power of an endless life. We can, indeed, no more be eternal, as God is, than we can be almighty, or all-present, as God is. What is possible for us is an immortal life in the eternal life of God—to keep in and after death our consciousness, memory, will, and affections—ourselves: to find ourselves alive after death, and alive for evermore.
1. Without laying undue stress upon it, the mere existence of a world-wide belief in an endless life is, in a world with such a history and such daily experiences as ours, very wonderful. The history of the world is a history of death. And yet men refuse to believe in death! In Greenland and in Greece, in Rome and Egypt, Persia and India, men have persistently refused to believe the testimony of death; and wherever they raised a stone to chronicle a death, on that stone, by word or rude symbol, they recorded their undaunted faith in a life beyond the grave. Here then is a creed old as time, wide as the world, catholic as the race, native to every climate, and common to every religion.
2. Do not men’s mental powers point to another life? All but man reach their highest development here. Man dies with the best powers undeveloped. His great actions are only specimens, earnests of what he could do were not time too niggard of its days. We may see the possible progress by the actual achievement of man.
3. What is God to us—what are we to God? Man is a creature with strong longings for life, and apparently fitted for immortality. God is not playing with human life. He is our Father in heaven, and we are His children. And here is the ground of our faith: Man has a capacity for life; God a desire that we should live. Eternal life is the gift of eternal love.—J. M. Gibbon.
Hebrews 7:17. The Order of Melchizedek.—The references to Melchizedek are found in Genesis 14:18-20; Psalms 110:4. “Without descent” means without genealogy, such as Levitical priests had. “Without end of life” means that no limit of age attached to his office, as to that of Jewish priests. Observe the application of the argument of this chapter to the fact, that the Jewish religious system was a temporary one, that it had now done its work, and was decaying and passing.
I. The order of Melchizedek involves superiority to the Levitical order.—Abraham, the Jewish race-father, paid tithes to Melchizedek. The contrast was so pointed when the writer presented it, because then the Jewish system was evidently decaying. The Jews clung desperately to it, but nevertheless it was fast slipping out of their grasp.
1. The order of Melchizedek is antecedent to that of Aaron.
2. The order of Melchizedek is intercessory, not sacrificial.
3. The new priesthood, being spiritual and universal, must of necessity supplant that which is material and local.
II. The order of Melchizedek involves the direct appointment of God.—The Jewish priests came into office by regular succession from father to son, and no priest was ever able to claim direct Divine appointment. Both Melchizedek and Christ were specially called by God. Illustrate by the witness of the Divine voice at our Lord’s baptism.
III. The order of Melchizedek involves the perpetuity of priesthood.—There is no account of Melchizedek’s having died—no account of his priesthood’s ever closing. And Christ’s death was but the beginning of His spiritual and eternal life. “Abideth a priest for ever.”
IV. The order of Melchizedek involves the union of two offices, king and priest.—“King of righteousness.”
1. That—righteousness—is the end and object of his rule.
2. That—righteousness—is the characteristic of the peoples whom he rules. “King of peace”—which of necessity always attends upon the triumph of righteousness. “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” They always do. Christ in the eternal temple is our King-priest. King of righteousness, which is for sinful humanity the essential condition of peace.