Priest-King

Psalm 110                                Priest-King

5/31/15            D. Marion Clark

Introduction

Jesus continues his walk along the Emmaus Road with two of his disciples, interpreting “to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). He is the Offspring of Eve who bruised the head of Satan; he is the Redeemer who delivers his people from a greater bondage than that of Egypt; he is the goat slain on the Day of Atonement and the sacrificial animal of all the temple sacrifices which atone for the people’s sins. Today we see how he fulfills the image that most captured the Jewish imagination and stirred hope in their hearts.

Text

The Lord says to my Lord:
    “Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”

² The Lord sends forth from Zion
    your mighty scepter.
    Rule in the midst of your enemies!

When we and the Jewish people think of the greatest king of Israel, we naturally think of David, Israel’s second king. David was a man after God’s own heart. Ever since his defeat over Goliath, he became renown as a warrior, and as king of Israel, he delivered his people from the oppression of the Philistines and other neighbors, eventually establishing peace within the nation’s boundaries. It was David who fulfilled the ideal of a godly king ruling over God’s people in justice and leading them to worship and to follow their Lord God.

Of particular significance is the covenant promise made to David by God. David had wanted to build a temple for the ark of the covenant. He inquired about it to Nathan, God’s prophet. Nathan at first okayed the plan, but then received a message from God to deliver to David. The king was not to proceed. That task would be given to his son to act on. But there was another matter in the message which was of vital importance to David and to all of Israel ever since. God said to David through Nathan, “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.”

Forever! Forever there will be a son of David sitting on the throne of Israel. Psalm 89 treats this theme:

Once for all I have sworn by my holiness;

I will not lie to David.

        His offspring shall endure forever,

his throne as long as the sun before me.

  Like the moon it shall be established forever,

a faithful witness in the skies” (Psalm 89:35-37).

That promise certainly would be tested. After David’s successor, Solomon, the kingdom of Israel is divided into the northern kingdom, which retained the name Israel, and the southern kingdom, which took the name of the primary tribe Judah. The northern kingdom rebelled and throughout its history would experience a succession of king after king being overthrown and replaced. In Judah, however, the line of David would continue until the destruction of Jerusalem.

Yes, the line of David continued unbroken on the throne, but it was the throne that failed to continue. Israel broke into two kingdoms, and then both kingdoms eventually fell. As time went on, prophets prophesied of the downfall of these kingdoms. Even so, they also prophesied of the rise of Israel, as her people return from exile and the throne of David is renewed. Indeed, there would come the Son of David who would redeem and rule his people. Here are the samples of the prophesied hope.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵ In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land (Jeremiah 33:14-15).

My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. ²⁵ They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever (Ezekiel 37:24-25).

    For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

                and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

                Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

    ⁷           Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end,

                on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it

                with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and forevermore (Isaiah 9:6-7).

Can you catch on to the expectation and hope revolved around the great king who would come from the line of David and prove to be the Offspring of Eve, the Prophet spoken of by Moses, the Redeemer who would champion Israel and establish her as God’s mighty kingdom empire forever?

And so, we see this hope as Jesus comes onto the scene. In the first verse of the first book of the New Testament, we are introduced to Jesus: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David” (Matthew 1:1). The angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will give birth to Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33).

The Son of David is the King of Israel. And so, when Nathaniel confesses Jesus to be the Messiah, he calls him the “King of Israel” (John 1:49). The long-awaited Messiah – he will be the Son of David, the King of Israel.

But who will he be precisely? Nathaniel also called him Son of God, as would Peter later. Was this to be understood as simply an honorable title, or was there more to it? Was it saying something about the nature of the Messiah? This was Jesus’ question for the Pharisees, and he used Psalm 110 for reference.

 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, ⁴² saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” ⁴³ He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,

⁴⁴ “‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
    until I put your enemies under your feet”’?

⁴⁵ If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” ⁴⁶ And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions (Matthew 22:41-46).

Jesus is picking up on the introduction to Psalm 110, which attributes the psalm to David – “a psalm of David.” This was accepted by all of the Jewish teachers, as is the notion that Psalm 110 prophesies the Messiah. So, if the Messiah is no more than a descendant of David, how is it that the head of the family would refer to his son as his Lord? They give no answer, and Jesus leaves them with that thought. But it is clear that Jesus wants them to understand that their hoped for Messiah is more than a really great man, and, for that matter, his kingdom is much more than a really big earthly empire. He is king, to be sure, but their concept of king is far too small, which leads us to the second key concept in our psalm. The Messiah will be not only the King but the Priest-King.

⁴ The Lord has sworn
    and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever
    after the order of Melchizedek.”

Jesus does not quote verse four, but it is the favorite verse of the writer of Hebrews, who devotes two chapters to an otherwise obscure figure, who was never linked to the Messiah, nor was the concept of priesthood. The Jews were looking for a king, not a priest, just as they had not been looking for a lamb. As central as the sacrificial system and priesthood were to their religion, the only connection between these concepts and that of the Messiah was that the people needed to prepare themselves spiritually to receive the Messiah. Yes, they were sinners who needed to repent, and so they understood John the Baptist’s mission of calling them to repentance in order to prepare for the Messiah’s coming. Yes, make sacrifices, seek the mediation of the priests so as to be righteous followers of the King. But what in the world does Melchizedek have to do with anything?

Here is the complete scripture covering this figure:

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) ¹⁹ And he blessed him and said,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
    Possessor of heaven and earth;
²⁰ and blessed be God Most High,
    who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything (Genesis 14:18-20).

Abraham is coming back from his expedition in which he rescued his nephew Lot. This king named Melchizedek comes out to refresh his men and bless him. That is it. There is no other reference made to him other than this obscure reference in Psalm 110. It is not until we come to the book of Hebrews (cf chapters 5 and 7) that he appears, this time as the key type of the Messiah. What does the writer have to say?

His name is significant. Melchizedek means “king of righteousness.” He is also the king of the city of Salem, which means “peace.” And so, he is the King of Righteousness and the King of Peace, both of which apply to the Messiah King. His very mystery is significant. There is no reference to his parents or any genealogy, nor to his death. He is like a person with “neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Third, that he blesses Abraham and receives a tithe from Abraham is significant, for it indicates that he is greater than Abraham.

This may all be interesting, but of what practical lesson is there? The writer has an answer. In the past, the people of God depended upon the sacrificial system to make amends for their sins. However good it might have made them feel, the system accomplished nothing – one reason being that the sacrifices of animals in and of themselves cannot atone for human sin; the other reason is that the priests themselves were defective. They were sinners and they were mortals. They could not become clean enough nor live long enough to do their work to its fullest. They were of the order of Aaron, another sinner and mortal.

But the Messiah Jesus Christ is of the order of Melchizedek. He is the eternal, sinless High Priest. He has offered the one perfect sacrifice – himself – which is sufficient to cover all our sins. And he has entered into the Holy of Holies of the heavenly temple where he is seated as King and Priest at the right hand of the throne of God.

The book of Hebrews was not written, of course, when Jesus was talking to his disciples on the Emmaus Road. Perhaps it is from his very lesson to them that the writer developed his thesis. But we can anticipate Jesus concluding how he is the Messiah King of Righteousness and Peace who brought both through his victory on the cross. He is the King who delivers and redeems his people from bondage to sin. He is the King who sacrifices his life for their life. And he is the Priest who mediates for them by his work on the cross. He mediates a new covenant based on his work, not their work. He enters into the Holy of Holies with the perfect sacrifice of his blood. And he will continually intercede for them before the throne of heaven.

Lessons

Let’s now turn to us. What does it mean for us that our Messiah (our Christ) is King and Priest? It, of course, means the same as it did for those two Jewish disciples. He is the King who has won victory for us on the cross and delivered us from bondage. He is the Priest who has cleansed us from our sins and reconciled us to God.

We have already talked about these things when discussing redemption and atonement. What I’d like to try and do now is to help these concepts stir your imagination. It is more needed than we may know, for the lack of it in our faith contributes to the denigration of our religion today.

We live in a time in which the very word religion has been turned into a negative concept. Religion, i.e. organized religion is passé. What matters now is not to be religious but spiritual. Religion is a set of rules; spirituality is, well, it is a feeling of communing with God, whoever and whatever he may be to you. Even as Christians we are developing an aversion to religion. We have faith, not religion; we also are spiritual, communing with God and with Christ through the Holy Spirit.

It is an understandable reaction. It is reacting to what the Christian religion has evolved into in many churches, even conservative churches, and that is a set of rules to follow. But the danger for us is our faith evolving into little more than New Age spirituality which is ultimately about having nebulous happy vibes.

What we need, and we what all crave, is a hero we can follow and a story whose reality and meaning we believe in. We tend to end up on two paths – adhering to a religion characterized by rules or adhering to a New Age spirituality of feeling good about ourselves. Neither lifts our spirits to the true God and to his glorious path for us.

We have a King to follow – the King of Righteousness and of Peace; the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The King of Hosts. He is the Ancient of Days, the Redeemer who was looked for since the earliest days of mankind, indeed, even as man fell. He is the Bruiser of the Serpent’s Head. He is the Son of David who is David’s Lord.

Every king before him was but a foreshadowing of his coming to reign. And everyone failed. Every king before him turned out to be a sinner. Some may have been more righteous; some reigned with a fair amount of justice. But all were sinners; all were weak in one regard or another. There had never been and there has never been after Christ Jesus a king without blemish, who did not reveal in public or private that he was not the perfect man we had hoped for.

We live in a time in which our heroes are un-heroed. Historians unearth the defects and illusions of our past heroes so that no one is remembered without some kind of regret. “Too bad he/she did such and such, or believed such and such…” And the light that shines on the heroes of today are too bright, too penetrating to cover ones stains and defects. Today’s stars (be they celebrities or athletes or any kind) are quick to disclaim that they are models for others, not so much because of modesty, as that they know something uncomfortable will be found out about them or that at some point they will stumble, and it will be magnified.

But we have a King with no defect, no blemish, who has been tempted but never given in. We have a King that we can follow without shame. There are those who boast that they follow no one, but the truth is that they don’t believe there is anyone worth following. There is one whom anyone would follow if they are given the eyes to see and the minds to understand. He is the Lord Jesus Christ who has conquered sin and death and Satan. He is the one who came to do his Father’s will, even to march to the cross, even to suffer upon the cross so that we – we who are small and sinful and unlovely – we might be freed from sin’s bondage and have victory over death.

We have a King that no one can defeat. He says that he will save all who come to him and that no one will snatch us out of his hands. He says that he is the Resurrection and the Life and that all who will believe in him will never die. He says that there is the crown of gold that he will place on the heads of those who are faithful to him, that what awaits us who believe in him is glory for eternity. That is a King worth following and a destiny worth believing in.

We have a Priest who has entered into the Holy of Holies in heaven itself and offered the perfect sacrifice that is sufficient once and for all for all of our sins. All of them – the past, the present, the future, the common sins and the shameful sins we dare not admit to ourselves. The guilt is gone, is removed, is cast into the bottom of the sea.

We have a Priest who has mediated for us a better covenant than any man could make, for its conditions rest in his work, not ours. And he has not, will not ever fail.

We have a Priest unashamed to be called our Brother, who is sympathetic to us, who never fails to intercede for us, who will be at our side on Judgment Day and claim us as his own.

We have a Priest-King from whom we can never be separated. No foe can overtake us; no inner failing can disqualify us; our Priest-King is strong to save, faithful to his promise, merciful in his regard toward us.

Keep your eyes upon your Priest-King. Then you will not grow weary nor grow bored of your religion. But you will be strong to serve, faithful in your belief, grateful in your regard toward him.