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In this message we will continue to consider the experience and enjoyment of Christ as the One better than Aaron.
According to Hebrews 5:6, God says to Christ, “You are a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Verse 10 speaks of Christ “being addressed by God as a High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 7:20-21 say of Christ, “Inasmuch as He was not made a Priest without the taking of an oath (for they are appointed priests without the taking of an oath, but He, with the taking of an oath by Him who said to Him, ‘The Lord has sworn and will not regret it, You are a Priest forever’).” These verses reveal that Christ is a High Priest different from Aaron in three respects: He is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, according to the power of an indestructible life, and by the taking of an oath.
Hebrews 5:6, a quotation from Psalm 110, says, “You are a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” This refers to Christ in His ascension and enthronement (Psa. 110:1-4), which, in addition to His resurrection, are further qualifications for Him to be our High Priest (Heb. 7:26). Christ is our High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. The order of Melchizedek is higher than the order of Aaron. The order of Aaron was for the priesthood only in humanity, whereas the order of Melchizedek is for the priesthood in both humanity and divinity.
In the Bible the order of Melchizedek came sequentially before that of Aaron. The priesthood of Melchizedek did not come in with Abraham’s descendants but with Abraham himself. The priesthood which came to Abraham was not that which is according to the order of Aaron but that which is according to the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek met Abraham with bread and wine, and Abraham gave him tithes (Gen. 14:18-20). However, Melchizedek did not come to Abraham to receive tithes from him but to minister to him the bread and wine.
One night, before He left His disciples, the Lord Jesus ministered to them the bread and wine (Matt. 26:26-28). The Bible is wonderfully consistent. Melchizedek ministered bread and wine to Abraham, and the Lord Jesus ministered bread and wine to His disciples. Partaking of the Lord’s table is related to Christ’s priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek.
What is the significance of the bread and wine used at the Lord’s table? The Lord Himself said of the bread, “This is My body” (v. 26), and of the wine, “This is My blood” (v. 28). This indicates that the bread and wine on the table portray Christ who, as the embodiment of God, has been processed that He might be ministered into us.
When Christians think of Christ as their High Priest, very few refer to Genesis 14. Hebrews 7 refers us to Genesis 14, the time when Melchizedek, king of righteousness and king of peace, met Abraham after the slaughter of the kings. Although Melchizedek was a king, he did not come as a king but as the priest of the Most High God, coming to Abraham with bread and wine. In the Bible bread denotes the life supply. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), meaning that He is the bread from heaven which gives us life. In the Bible wine signifies the blood, which accomplishes redemption in order to quench our thirst. As fallen people, we are under God’s condemnation. We are thirsty because the fire of righteous judgment burns within us. Since our thirst comes from being under God’s condemnation, water cannot quench it. Our thirst can be quenched only by some liquid of life. Wine is not water; it is a life liquid extracted from grapes, which are of life. The Lord Jesus chose wine to signify His redeeming blood, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:27-28). Melchizedek’s coming to minister the bread and wine to Abraham, the father of the called race, signifies Christ’s coming to minister Himself as the processed God into us. He was processed on the cross that He might be our life supply with the redeeming wine to quench our thirst under God’s condemnation. He is the redeeming God imparting Himself into us for our supply and satisfaction.
When the priests according to the order of Aaron are mentioned in the Bible, we are told that they were chosen and called to offer the sacrifices for sin, not to minister bread and wine to the people. They mainly ministered to God by offering Him gifts and sacrifices for sin. The priesthood according to the order of Aaron took care of God’s people mainly in a negative way. But the high priest according to the order of Melchizedek did something more. He did not go to God with the sacrifices for sin; he came from God with bread and wine.
At the time of the passover, the blood was applied and the unleavened bread was eaten (Exo. 12:13-22). The bread and wine ministered to us are the issue of the passover. This means that Christ as our High Priest today ministers into us that which has come out of His redemption. He died for us, sacrificing His body and shedding His blood. All this was accomplished before He went back to God the Father. According to the book of Hebrews, Christ offered Himself as the unique sacrifice for sin and solved the problem of sin once for all (9:26, 28). Then He brought His blood into the Holy of Holies in the heavens and sprinkled it in the presence of God, thereby accomplishing redemption (v. 12). Now, as far as redemption is concerned, Christ has nothing more to do. He is sitting on the right hand of God (1:3). However, He still needs to be our High Priest, not to go to God but to come to us. He does not come to us to deal with our sins but to minister the bread and wine, which signify Himself who, for our supply and satisfaction, was processed through death and resurrection. This surpasses redemption.
Most Christians today dwell on Christ as their Redeemer and Savior, the One who shed His blood for them, offered Himself for them, and made propitiation for their sins that God might be appeased on their behalf. But the book of Hebrews goes further than this. It unveils Christ who no longer is only a Redeemer offering the sacrifice for sin to God and shedding His blood for our sins. The Christ revealed in this book is also the One who, after accomplishing redemption, comes to us in a mysterious way in our spirit. He does not come as our Redeemer but as our High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. He does not come to offer anything on our behalf but to minister Himself to us in the form of bread and wine as our daily supply and our satisfaction. Many Christians are weak because they do not have much experience of Christ ministering Himself into them as the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Christ has not been constituted the High Priest according to the powerless letters of the law but according to the powerful element of an indestructible life (7:16). Nothing can dissolve this life. It is an endless life, being the eternal, divine, uncreated, resurrection life that has passed through the test of death and Hades (Acts 2:24; Rev. 1:18). It is by such a life that Christ ministers today as our High Priest. Hence, He is able to save us to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25). Christ as our High Priest is the living Son of God Himself. As the powerful One, Christ is simultaneously both in heaven and in our spirit. Between these two ends, heaven and our spirit, there is the traffic on the heavenly ladder because His priesthood is continually flowing from the throne into our spirit. It does not flow with knowledge but with the power of an indestructible life.
In Christ, our High Priest, not only is there no worldliness or sin, but there is absolutely no death. Death has been completely swallowed up by His divine life. Christ lives forever (Rev. 1:18). Death cannot prevent Him from continuing as the High Priest. All of the Levitical priests lived until a certain age and then died. Death prevented them from continuing as priests. After the first high priest died, he was replaced by the second who, in turn, was replaced by the third, because death prevented them from continuing in the office of high priest. Not only were those priests unable to save others; they were unable to save even themselves. Christ’s priesthood is different. While the Aaronic priesthood was still subject to death, the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek, constituted with the element of life, is the absence of death. The life with which it is constituted has passed through death and has swallowed up death. This life is indestructible.
We know that this life is indestructible because it has been tested by everything and by every kind of situation. It was tested by the Lord’s mother in the flesh, by all the members of His fleshly family, by all the sufferings of His human life, and by all the temptations of the devil, Satan. Ultimately, it was tested by death, the grave, Hades, and the power of darkness. This life has been tested by everything, and nothing can destroy it. It is absolutely indestructible. Our High Priest is constituted with the element of such an indestructible life.
This wonderful High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek has not been constituted “according to the law of a fleshy commandment but according to the power of an indestructible life” (Heb. 7:16), for “the law perfected nothing” (v. 19). In verse 16 there are two sources: the law and the life. The law is on the side of the tree of knowledge, and the life is on the side of the tree of life. Since the law did not perfect anything, we need to stay away from the law. Our High Priest has not been constituted with the law but with the power of an indestructible life. We have this life, the life that is the Son of God Himself.
Aaron was constituted high priest according to the powerless letter of the law; Christ was constituted according to the powerful element of an indestructible life. In other words, Aaron and all the priests according to the order of Aaron served according to the outward rules and regulations, but today Christ as our High Priest ministers according to the power of an indestructible life. He works not according to the regulations of the letter but according to the power of an indestructible life. Our High Priest is constituted of a life that nothing can conquer but rather conquers everything. It is a life that cannot be destroyed, a life that saves to the uttermost. It is the resurrection life, which has passed the test of death and Hades.
According to the type in the Old Testament, God’s people were weak and sinful, under the conviction that they could do nothing to please God. When they came to the priests, the priests did something according to the regulations written in the books of Moses to help the weak and sinful ones, to care for them so that they could be reconciled to God. Today Christ is our High Priest. If we are under the conviction that we are sinful, weak, wrong, and doing things against God, Christ as our High Priest sympathizes with us and cares for us, not according to rules and regulations in letter but by the power of an indestructible life within. This is not an objective matter but a subjective one. The power of an indestructible life is the eternal Spirit, and the eternal Spirit is the reality of resurrection. The eternal Spirit is the power of the indestructible life. In acting as our High Priest, Christ cares for our case by this power.
Many times we may be disappointed by our weakness, circumstances, and failures. However, we sense and experience that there is a living power within us, sustaining us, taking care of us, and reconciling us to God to bridge the gap between God and us. This is not by outward regulations or rules but by something living and powerful within. There is something living and powerful within us, taking care of our case. This is our High Priest taking care of us by the power of an indestructible life, which is transmitted from the heavens into our spirit.
Christ, our High Priest, is actively taking care of our case in the heavens and transmitting Himself into our spirit. There is no need for us to worry about anything. We must come simply and boldly to the throne of grace to contact Him, to look to Him, to receive mercy, and to find grace for timely help. We must learn to contact Him in our spirit and see the heavenly “television.” Then we will receive mercy and find grace. He is such a High Priest according to the heavenly order to minister the life supply to us, according to the power of an indestructible life, not merely to redeem us, reconcile us, and deal with our sins but also to minister into us the heavenly life supply, the heavenly power, the heavenly strength, and the heavenly riches, as Melchizedek did to Abraham.
As the only begotten Son and the firstborn Son of God, Christ became the High Priest with the taking of an oath by God (vv. 20-21, 28). Not one of the Levitical priests was ever established by God’s oath. According to Psalm 110, God swore to make Christ a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. In Hebrews 7 the writer quotes that oath from Psalm 110. This is very weighty, proving that Christ’s becoming the divine High Priest was consummated by God’s oath.
Hebrews 5:8-9 says of Christ, “Even though He was a Son, learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” God ordained that Christ should die, and Christ obeyed (Phil. 2:8). He learned this obedience through the suffering of death. Although in His divinity Christ was the Son of God, in His humanity He learned obedience through His sufferings. Having been perfected, He became to all those who obey Him the source, the Author, of eternal salvation.
The eternal salvation that we have in Christ (Heb. 5:9) is based upon the eternal redemption He accomplished for us (9:12), which is much better than the temporary atonement carried out by the priests according to the order of Aaron. That temporary atonement covered sin but never put it away, whereas Christ’s eternal redemption put away sin, solving the problem of sin forever. Furthermore, Christ’s eternal salvation is not merely an objective redemption to solve our problem of sin on the negative side but also a subjective salvation to save us into His perfection and glorification on the positive side. Such an eternal salvation is not limited by time and space but is all-embracing with the divine element and nature. The divine element and nature of Christ are the basic constituents of His eternal salvation, which not only saves us from the most negative things but also saves us into the most positive things, even into God Himself. Such a saving is all-embracing, not limited by time and space.
The person of Christ as our High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek is the source of our eternal salvation (5:6-10). As long as such a One is with us, we could never be weak. He is the source of eternal salvation, of which all the effects, benefits, and issues are of an eternal nature, transcending the conditions and limitations of time and space. Although we have Christ as the Captain of our salvation in Hebrews 2, we do not have the source of eternal salvation until we come to Christ as our High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek in Hebrews 5. Our Christ is not only today’s Joshua; He is also our eternal Melchizedek. As our Joshua, the Captain of salvation, He takes the lead, and we follow Him. As our Melchizedek, the source of eternal salvation, He ministers Himself to us as bread and wine, and we eat and drink of Him. When our Melchizedek comes to us, He does not come with demands or requirements; He comes with bread and wine. When we are tired, He is our bread. When we are thirsty, He is our wine. We need to eat Him, drink Him, and enjoy Him for our supply. Whenever we come to the Lord’s table, we declare to the whole universe that we live by eating the divine bread and by drinking the divine wine as our daily supply. This is our way of living. May we all be helped to see that the table symbolizes that our Christ today is our Melchizedek who ministers to us the bread and the wine. This is the source of our salvation.
Christ was perfected to be our High Priest through His sufferings (vv. 8-10). In His eternal salvation, we need to experience Him in His sufferings. When we experience Him in His sufferings, we will be saved into His perfection. This experience of Christ in His suffering for perfection is by our enjoying Him as our High Priest.
