Hebrews 7:14

Hebrews 7:14

A priest from Judah?

As we have seen, Jesus is the greatest of all the King / Priests that have ever walked this earth and there’s no question about His ancestry. He was not a Levite and He did not descend from the priestly tribe of Israel. He was from Judah and in that sense, we can follow His succession as a King from the family of David. But a priest? No priests could trace their ancestry through the genealogies of Judah. Many believed, and still believe, that Yeshua was an interloper, an imposter who had no ancestral rights to His title. How do we resolve this enigma? 

Yeshua never claimed to be an earthly priest or king, what He did claim, again and again, was that He represented the Kingdom of Heaven and that He did not come to offer daily, repetitive sacrifices, He was both the celebrant, and He was the ultimate sacrifice. His role as our High Priest was not gained by birthright but by His actions, and He proved Himself a worthy Priest, after the order of Melchizedek, forever! It is in this way that Jesus fulfilled the Law in every respect, but He is not just the High Priest of the church but also of all Israel, if they could but see it. The main reason that sacrifices ended in Jerusalem, and the Temple was destroyed in AD70, is that they are defunct, the man who had no ancestral rights and no formal qualifications came as God’s ultimate King / Priest and He remains so to this very day. In order to make this point abundantly clear to our Jewish friends the author of Hebrews uses the example of Melchizedek and the encounter with Abraham, to show that we can trust the Lord God in all these things, if He chooses to produce an unqualified priest from nowhere and that was good enough for Abraham, then it should be good enough for us too and for all true Israelites. Hallelujah!

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