It was one of those indescribable “God-moments.”
A few days ago, I was having my devotion time early in the
morning, when I felt drawn to read some more from a little book I’ve been
picking up from time to time. As a rule,
I don’t use a devotional book other than the Bible in my quiet time, but I’ve
been taken by the little book “Be Perfect” which someone gave me which was
written by the 19th century South African pastor Andrew Murray. “Old Murray” has a way of saying things that
I like. The chapter that I read was from
Hebrews 6 concerning our “going on unto perfection,” not staying as infants any
more but growing up into mature saints.
Very good stuff.
I took a short break.
During that time, a seemingly-unconnected phrase dropped into my head
with some force…”The power of an endless life.”
That is from the Bible somewhere, I thought…but where? After doing a fruitless word search in my
usual New American Standard, I checked out the version I grew up with, King
James. There it is…the very next chapter
in Hebrews from where I left off! Now
isn’t that amazing! It had to do with
Melchizedek, as a type of Christ, who was a priest not according to the old
law, but “according to the power of an endless life.” (More on that in a bit.)
Now I was drawn back to the Murray book. I don’t normally read more than one chapter,
but I felt to read on. As I began to
read, I stared in wonder at the words on the page in front in me…This chapter
was about Jesus being a priest “according to the power of an endless life!” I had no clue that this would be the next
thing in the book, yet there it was…a more beautiful description of the meaning
of these blessed words than I could have described. This sort of thing has happened to me (and
others) so many times over the years, but I never cease to be amazed at these
moments that could only come from the Savior Himself.
So what of this “power of an endless life?” What does it mean?
Well, before I let Murray take over, let me set this up for
you. The writer of Hebrews is grappling
with the issue that Christ, who has every right to the throne of David as the
heir of David…even more as the Creator of David, does not have any lineage that
qualifies Him under the old Levitical system to be a high priest. Yet He
must be a priest to perform the priestly duty of intercession for those who He
has redeemed, by virtue of His death on the cross and subsequent
resurrection. Yet here the writer quotes
an old testament passage (Psalm 110:4) which describes the coming Messiah as
being “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizidek.” But what does that mean?
To find out about Melchizidek, we must go back all the way
to the time of Abraham. In Genesis 14,
we find Abraham, who has only recently come to his God-called destination of
Canaan, trying to rescue his nephew Lot from a pickle he had gotten himself
into when he was hanging around Sodom (not a good place to be!) and was
kidnapped. In the middle of the rescue
attempt, Abraham runs into a very strange fellow named Melchizidek, who is both
king of Salem (later Jerusalem) and “priest of God Most High.” He pronounces a blessing upon Abraham, and
Abraham as a response gives the king/priest a tithe of all he possessed…And
then we never hear from Melchizidek again.
How strange! In our Bible, which
is fraught with genealogies, there is no Melchizidekian genealogy. As the Hebrews writer states a few verses
before, he is
without
father, without mother, without geneaology, having neither beginning of days
nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.
(Hebrews 6:3)
In other words, as far as the Bible is concerned, we have no
record of his parents, nor of his descendants.
He is in this way a type of the future Messiah, Jesus Christ. Though Melchizedek’s life was endless only in
type, Christ, by virtue of His resurrection, is endless in actuality. So the priesthood of Jesus Christ is not
along the line of Levi, the descendant of Abraham, but along the line of Melchizedek,
who blessed Abraham and received tithes from him.
This Melchizedekian priesthood of Christ is not some far-flung
theological mumbo-jumbo which has no bearing on our lives. It actually has tremendous implications for
how we live from day-to-day. It means
that because Jesus, who fulfilled the Mosaic law perfectly, is a priesthood of
a different order, we also live under a different order than the old Mosaic law. The writer of Hebrews, drawing from the Old
Testament again, will later describe the new law under which we live. Quoting from Jeremiah, he writes:
Behold,
days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a New Covenant with the house
of Israel and the house of Judah…I will put My laws into their minds, and I
will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My
people (Hebrews 8:8a,10b)
We who are of Christ operate under the New Covenant, which functions
in our hearts and in our minds. We are
not law keepers, except as we keep the inward law given to us in Christ.
I’ll let Murray take over here:
A
careful perusal of the verses placed above, will show that the writer thought
it of great importance to make it clear that the law could perfect no person or
thing... It was not only the Hebrews who greatly needed this teaching: among Christians in our days the greatest
hindrance in accepting the perfection the gospel asks and offers, is that they
make the law
The
Law demands; the Law calls to effort; the Law means self. It puts self upon
doing its utmost. But it makes nothing perfect, neither the conscience nor the
worshiper. This is what Christ came to bring. The very perfection which the law
could not give He does give. The Epistle tells us that He was made a Priest,
not as Aaron, after the law,…but after
the power of an endless life. What Christ, as Priest, has wrought and now
works, is all in the power of an inward birth, of a new life, of the eternal
life. What is born into me, what is as a spirit and life within me, has its own
power of growth and action. Christ's being made perfect Himself through
suffering and obedience; His having
perfected us by that sacrifice by which He was perfected Himself; and His
communication of that perfection to us, is all in the power of an endless life.
It works in us as a life power; in no other way could we become partakers of
it. Perfection is not through the law;…What the law could not do, God, sending
His Son, has done. The Son, perfected
for evermore, has perfected us forever. It is in Jesus we have our perfection.
It is in living union with Him, it is when He is within us, not only as a seed
or a little child, but formed within us, dwelling within us, that we shall know
how far He can make us perfect. It is faith that leads us in the path of
perfection. It is the faith that sees, that receives, that lives in Jesus the
Perfect One, that will bear us on to the perfection God would have.
So now, in the new order of things, we walk, not under the
auspices of the law, which required much doing but no faith, but under the new
law of faith. It is by dwelling with
Christ day-by-day, abiding in Him, knowing Him progressively more and more,
than we fulfill perfectly the requirements of the law, because Jesus is in fact fulfilling those requirements in us! Christianity
is not about rule keeping. Far from
it. It is about walking with the only
One who ever kept all the rules! We can
now “go on to perfection” (Hebrews 6:1) because the Perfect One lives in us! Isn’t that wonderful!
Let’s turn to Andrew Murray again:
And
how do we become partakers of this perfection with which Christ has perfected
us? First of all, the conscience is perfected so that we have no more
conscience of sin, and enter boldly into the Holiest, the Presence of God. The
consciousness of a perfect redemption possesses and fills the soul. And then, as we abide in this, God Himself perfects
us in every good thing, to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in
His sight, through Jesus Christ. Through Christ, the High Priest in the power of the endless life, there comes to
us in a constant stream from on high, the
power of the heavenly life. So that day by day we may present ourselves
perfect in Christ Jesus…
There is tremendous freedom in these words. Because we have a High Priest with the power
of an endless life, we now have the opportunity never before afforded humankind
to live the power of the heavenly life.
Shouldn’t we be taking advantage of this opportunity daily…this power of
an endless life?
Want to read more? Here are a few other things from this blog you might be interested in...
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