Appointed A Priest Forever (Hebrews 5:5-6)

And turn now, please, to Hebrews chapter 5, and read together verses 1 through 10, Hebrews chapter 5.

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided since he himself also is beset with weakness. And because of it, he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins as for the people, so also for himself.

And no one takes the honor to himself but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.

So also Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest, but he who said to him, you are my son, today

I have begotten you, just as he also says in another passage, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his piety.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered, and having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Let's pray together. Father, it is our desire that you would open up your word to our hearts and open up our eyes to your word and our hearts to your word.

May you grant us illumination from your Holy Spirit as he is our teacher today and grant us an encouraging and edifying and equipping time here today in your word.

We ask this in the name of Christ and for his glory, amen. Well, if you were with us last week, then you may remember that we ended and I left you in something of a kind of a theological dilemma or a pickle as we're here in Hebrews chapter 5 looking at the high priesthood of Jesus.

And the author has asserted in previous chapters that Jesus is our high priest, a merciful and faithful high priest, that he's sympathetic and understands our weaknesses and he can be sympathetic because he himself was a man and shared in our weaknesses, etc.

And last week when we got done, I basically kind of left us in the dilemma that if Jesus is our high priest, the question then is, is he qualified to be a high priest?

And given the qualifications in Hebrews 5, 1 through 4, it doesn't look as if he is. All of the

Jews understood that a priest had to meet certain qualifications. And after 16 centuries of bloodletting and sacrifices and temple sacrifices and worship and festivals and ordaining of high priests and their entire religious life cycling and circling around the office of a high priest and all that he did on their behalf, every

Jew understood we just can't approach God on our own, we can't approach him flippantly, we can't storm into his presence without a mediator, a go -between, somebody to stand between us and God and to represent

God for us and to represent us on behalf of God in all things pertaining to our religious life.

The Jews understood that. And we believe that Jesus is for us as Christians, that one who stands between the

Father and us, representing us before God in all things pertaining to God and offering a sacrifice on our behalf.

But then this raises for us the question, is he qualified to be that high priest? Does he meet the qualifications?

And that is the issue that the author of Hebrews is addressing in chapter 5. And in the first four verses, he listed four qualifications that we looked at last week.

And those four had to be taken from among men. He had to represent men. He had to deal gently and kindly with men, and he had to be appointed by God.

Those are the four qualifications. And then we worked our way through all four of those. Was Jesus taken from among men, meaning that he was full humanity?

Yes, he was. And because he was fully human, sharing fully the frailties of humanity and experiencing all of that, he is able to represent us before the

Father in all things pertaining to God. He can be our representative. And not only that, but because of his humanity, he can, since he shares in our weaknesses and be sympathetic toward us, he can deal gently and kindly with us as we need from a high priest.

And he meets those. And he had to be appointed by God just as Aaron was. That was the fourth qualification. But then last week when we left,

I suggested to you that Jesus seems to meet on the face of it three of those qualifications. He certainly was from among men.

He certainly represents us in all things pertaining to God on behalf of men, and he is sympathetic and gracious toward us.

But Jesus was not appointed from Aaron's line. Jesus was not of the tribe of Levi, and Jesus was not of the family of Aaron.

So how is it, on what grounds, on what basis can we claim that Jesus is our high priest if he does not come from the tribe of Levi, but instead the tribe of Judah, and if he does not come from the line of Aaron, but instead the line of David, and there is no relationship between the two, how can we claim that Jesus functions as our high priest?

Because it does seem, as we looked at last week, that there were three people in the family of Aaron who assumed the priestly responsibilities and sort of appointed themselves to that order.

You remember Korah? When Korah assumed that he could come in and do what the family of Aaron did, it cost him and his family and all of his possessions, it cost them all their lives.

And when King Saul did it, it cost him his kingdom. And when King Uzziah did it, it cost him his health, and he died a leper.

The judgment of God seemed to rest upon those who functioned as priests who were neither a Levite nor of the tribe of Aaron or of the family of Aaron specifically.

So how can Jesus do that? And that, therein lies our theological dilemma, and I'll make it even more complicated for you, as if it needs to be more complicated,

I'll make it a little bit more complicated for you. Never was a king ever supposed to function as a priest.

From the case of Uzziah and Saul, they were kings, they were never supposed to function as priests, and the priests never ruled as kings.

In Israel, there was a separation of that. One tribe had the kings, one tribe had the priests, and never the two should ever meet.

Jesus is a king. We understand that. Today unto us is born the King of the Jews. In Bethlehem, He was worshiped as a king, proclaimed as a king,

He claimed to be a king and to be a king over a kingdom. How can He be a priest? Kings and priests, those two offices needed to always remain separate.

So, that's the dilemma, and there it is for you. Now, the answer is in verses 5 and 6.

Read verses 5 and 6 with me. So, also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, You are my

Son, today I have begotten You, just as He also says in another passage, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

That's the answer. Did you catch it? Yeah, of course you caught it.

There's really no need for me to say anything, right? I mean, the answer's right there in verses 5 and 6. I say that in kind of a cheeky fashion only because once I tell you what the answer is, you're going to say, you know, why didn't

I see that? And why is it that you were kind of deceitful in making me think that there is some theological dilemma here and wait all week for this when there is no theological dilemma here at all?

Once you see it, you're going to say, yeah, I see it now. It's in verses 5 and 6, and we're going to work our way through those two verses, and that is the answer.

I'm going to give you the answer in a short way, just simply stated, and then we'll see how the author establishes this in verses 5 and 6.

So I'm going to tell you the answer up front so you know what the answer is. Here's the answer. Jesus was not appointed as an

Aaronic priest, not ironic, Aaronic, A -A -R -O -N -I -C, an Aaronic priest.

He was not appointed as an Aaronic priest. He was appointed as a Melchizedekian priest.

A priest, not a priest of Aaron's line, but a priest of a different line.

See, we're not making the claim that Jesus fulfills the Aaronic priestly function. That's not it at all, and we're not claiming that Jesus is a continuation of Aaron's line or even a continuation of Aaron's priesthood when the author of Hebrews is not claiming that Jesus was appointed a priest of the

Old Covenant in league with and in line with and in functioning in an Aaronic priesthood at all.

The author of Hebrews is saying that Jesus Christ is appointed as a priest in the Melchizedekian priesthood, an entirely different priesthood.

He's not the continuation of Aaron's priesthood. He is the replacement of Aaron's priesthood.

It is as if the priesthood of Aaron and all of its functions have been pushed entirely off of the table and has been established now a new priesthood of a different high priest, a better high priest, a different priesthood with a different high priest entirely.

So Jesus is not fulfilling the functions of the Aaronic priesthood. He is fulfilling the functions of the

Melchizedekian priesthood. Does that make sense? So how is it that He can serve as a king and a priest in the same way that Melchizedek, who was king of Salem, served as a priest of the

Most High God in Genesis chapter 14? Melchizedek is mentioned in Genesis 14 and Melchizedek is mentioned in Psalm 110, which we're going to get to in here in just a bit.

Jesus is part of that priesthood where He can serve as both king and priest, just as Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of the

Most High God. Do you know where Salem was, by the way? Might be better if you put the word Jeru in front of it.

It was the king of Jerusalem. That was the ancient name for Jerusalem. So Melchizedek was a king who ruled in Zion, in Jerusalem, and he also served as a priest.

Jesus is a priest in that order. He is not a priest in Aaron's order at all. He is a priest in Melchizedek's order.

That is why we have reference to Melchizedek in chapter 5 verse 6. Now that's the answer to it, and that's the short answer, and I know that many of you are probably just chomping at the bit to find out all about Melchizedek, and we're going to get into him, but not today.

In fact, not for several weeks. As much as you might want to know about Melchizedek, we're going to put him off until chapter 7 because you'll see that he's mentioned in verse 6, and you'll see that he's mentioned in verse 10, but nothing about him is explained in verse 6 or verse 10.

We have to wait until we get to chapter 7 in order to get to a full explanation of who Melchizedek is, and we're going to learn more about Melchizedek from Hebrews chapter 7 than you learn about Melchizedek in all of the

Old Testament. It's kind of crazy. You can read through the Old Testament. You only have just a couple of verses in Genesis, Psalm 110 verse 4,

I think it is, where he mentions Melchizedek in the Psalter, and then that's it, but chapter 7 is this long unfolding and very complicated argument about who

Melchizedek is and what his priesthood represents and how Jesus fulfills it. So, we're going to put off everything about Melchizedek until then.

Before we jump into verse 5, I just want to point out one more thing. We looked at four qualifications for a priest in verses 1 to 4, and I just want you to notice, and this is not all that significant, it's just a curiosity,

I just want you to notice that the author in verses 5 through 10 deals with each of those qualifications in reverse order.

So, 1, 2, 3, 4, and then he starts with number 4, and then number 3, and then number 2, and then number 1. So, he gives the four qualifications, and then he deals with them sort of in a reverse fashion as he works his way back up through those qualifications.

And you see it even when you compare verses 4 with verse 5. Verse 4, no one takes the honor to himself but receives it when he is called by God even as Aaron was.

So also Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest, but he has said to him, you are my son today,

I have begotten you. So, the very question that is raised in verse 4 is he had to be appointed by God. That is the qualification that he deals with in verses 5 and 6.

So, that's the correlation there. We're going to look at basically two aspects of this in verses 5 and 6. The first is this, that Jesus did not appoint himself as a high priest.

That's important to remember. He did not appoint himself as a high priest because this is what he says in verse 4, nobody sought that honor.

See, the issue with Saul and Uzziah and Korah is that they sought that honor, not just that they weren't qualified, but they actually pursued that and tried to appoint themselves into those functions.

That was one of the issues. And nobody takes this honor to himself. In order to be a priest of God, you had to be appointed a priest by God.

So, did Jesus appoint himself to that office of high priest? That's the question. And the answer to that is no, he did not appoint himself.

And second, he was appointed by God the Father. Those are the two things that we're going to notice in verses 5 and 6. Jesus did not appoint himself.

He was appointed by God the Father. All right, let's pick it up in verse 5. So, also Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest.

And that's an answer to the statement in verse 4, no one takes the honor to himself. Did Christ take the honor to himself?

No, he did not. Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest.

And that's just another way of the author saying Jesus didn't presume or assume that office. He didn't step into that position of glory and draw and bring the attention and the honor of that office of high priest to himself.

This was something that was given to him by the Father, not something he sought of his own, not something he demanded, not something he even pursued.

Christ did not seek his own glory. Now, some people use verse 5 there to suggest that this is an evidence that Jesus was not

God because God does seek his own glory. You see that in the Old Testament all the time. Jesus didn't seek his glory.

Well, if God seeks his glory, but Jesus didn't seek his glory, then Jesus must not be God, right? See how that works?

No, you don't. You say it shouldn't work that way, and it doesn't work that way. Look, if you want to try and prove that Jesus is not

God, you've got an uphill battle if you're starting in the book of Hebrews, because on every page and every chapter, the full deity of the

Lord Jesus Christ is affirmed, but not just his full deity, but also his full humanity. And so what does verse 5 describe?

It describes the Lord Jesus Christ in his humanity, in laying aside his glory.

He did not pursue glory. He laid aside that glory to come here and to be a servant, and to be found in fashion as a man, and to humble himself and become obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

That's what it's describing. Not that he is not God, but that the second person of the triune Godhead laid aside the independent use of his attributes and the glory that he was so worthy of and stepped into our world to live and to serve and to die as a man.

So he didn't pursue his own glory, even though he had every right to it. By virtue of his divine nature, he had every right to pursue his own glory, but he never did.

And that's what Hebrews chapter 2 is all about, that he laid aside that glory and humbled himself, emptied himself, and took upon himself the form of a servant.

And everything associated with the life of Jesus is an evidence that he never sought his own glory. All of the circumstances surrounding his birth, the people who were there, the place that he was born, the manner of his birth, his parents, which were ordained for him by God the

Father, being born in the city of Bethlehem, the manner of it, quiet, unnoticed by anybody but some angels and shepherds, and later on a few kings who came from the east to honor and to worship him.

But for the most part, everything about his birth speaks of his humility, and everything about his life, growing up in Nazareth, out of which nothing good ever came, growing up to a poor family, being a carpenter's son, being unnoticed until he was at the age of 30, all speaks of his humility.

And that even after he started his ministry, he said, I have no place to lay my head. Foxes of the earth have places to nest and dens and birds have a place to nest themselves, but the

Son of Man has no place to lay his head. Son of Man has nothing. He became poor so that he might give us the kingdom. Everything about any of his death, obviously his burial, not even having enough to be buried in his own tomb, but borrowing a rich man's tomb, and everything associated with his life, his death, his burial, all of it speaks of his humility.

It would be completely out of character for the Lord Jesus Christ to have pursued the office of a high priest.

It had to be given to him by somebody else. It had to be given to him by the Father because he never sought his own glory. He says this in John, a few verses from John 7, verse 18, he who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true and there is no unrighteousness in him.

John 8, verse 50, I do not seek my glory, there is one who seeks and judges. John 8, verse 54, Jesus said, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.

It's my Father who glorifies me, of him you say he is our God. So he's describing himself there saying,

I don't seek my own glory, I seek the glory of the Father, and instead the Lord Jesus came and he took the lowest place, the form of a servant.

He came and he did the most meager of services to people. He didn't pursue and seek worship and glory for himself.

He did all of that for the Father, and it ends up being the Father who glorified him. Philippians chapter 2, verse 9, for this reason,

God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. Who was it that highly exalted him?

The Son. It was the Father who did this, but it wasn't the role of the Son to come into the world and say, worship me.

It was the role of the Son to come and to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And having done that lowly act of service, that act of utter and total humiliation, he becomes our model in that the

Father has exalted him and lifted him up at the proper time. As James says in James chapter 4,

God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. First Peter chapter 5, God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in the proper time.

This is the way that God works. You don't seek glory. Instead, we pursue what the

Lord Jesus Christ did, utter service to others and in the interests of others. And as a result of that,

God is able and he does sometimes exalt at proper time. And he honors in that way.

And for us, it's going to be when we finally step into the kingdom and enjoy the blessings of that kingdom. So Jesus didn't seek his own glory.

So to answer the question, did Jesus pursue his own glory? Did Jesus appoint himself to the office of a high priest?

The answer is no. He did not. Verse 5, Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest.

Instead, point 2, he had to be appointed and he was appointed by God the Father. Now one thing was necessary from verse 4 that a high priest, that nobody assumes this honor, but that the high priest be appointed by God as Aaron was.

Notice that the qualification in verse 4 was just that the high priest be appointed by God. Not necessarily when we're talking of Christ that the high priest be appointed by God of the tribe of Levi, of the family of Aaron.

Because Jesus, again, is not of that priesthood. He's not of Aaron's line. He's not of Aaron's priesthood.

He has come and been appointed as a different high priest in a different priesthood to accomplish different things than Aaron accomplished in his priesthood.

Jesus has come to do what Aaron could never do. He has come to do in his sacrifice what all of the sacrifices that Aaron and all of his descendants for hundreds of years, for 1600 years, were never able to do, and that is to take away sin and to cleanse the conscience and to make atonement, true and right and full and complete and eternal atonement.

And Jesus has done that. So it wasn't required that he be of the line of Aaron or of the family of Levi, but just that he be appointed by God just as Aaron was, and Aaron was appointed by God.

So notice that that is the qualification. Now nobody served as a high priest from the tribe of Aaron just by virtue of the fact that he was

Aaron's son. Nobody did. Just because you were a descendant of Aaron didn't mean that you were de facto a high priest. Even the priests that came from Aaron's line had to be appointed by God as high priests.

And just because you were Aaron's son didn't mean that you had a right to that priesthood. There were all kinds of children of descendants of Aaron who never served as high priests, hundreds or thousands of them.

There was only one high priest at any given time, and there were thousands of descendants of Aaron over the years. So just because you came from Aaron's line doesn't mean that you served as a high priest by virtue of that.

You still had to be appointed. Even if you were from Aaron's line, you still had to be appointed. So the question is then, did

Christ pursue the glory for himself? No. Was he appointed by another? And the answer to that is yes.

And to make that case, the author turns to two Old Testament passages. Notice in verse 5 that there is a quotation that we read from Psalm 2.

You are my son, today I have begotten you. And notice in verse 6 that there is a quotation from Psalm 110.

You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. So there are two Psalms that he quotes. He quotes them back to back.

In reading them back to back, you might not be seeing exactly what his argument is. We'll open that up here in just a second.

These two Psalms have already been cited earlier in the book of Hebrews, and I want to give you a couple of details about these two

Psalms. These two Psalms are quoted here in order to show to the Jews that their promised

Messiah would be both a king and a priest. That's why these two Psalms are quoted. To show that their promised Messiah, according to the

Old Testament scriptures, would be both a king and a priest. Both of these Psalms are

Messianic Psalms, and the Jews recognize this. If you had spoken to any Jew in the first century and said, is Psalm 2 and Psalm 110

Messianic Psalms? They would have said, yes. These Psalms were written by David. They describe David's greater son, the Messiah who is to come, and the kingdom and the reign that will be given to him.

Every Jew would have understood that those two Psalms describe the Messiah. They're Messianic Psalms. Third, both of these

Psalms have been previously cited, and if you look back at Hebrews 1, you'll see in verse 5 of chapter 1,

That's the same verse that is cited here in chapter 5, verse 5. So that Psalm 2 is cited in 1 verse 5 and 5 verse 5.

And the second phrase, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek, that Psalm 110 has also already been cited back in chapter 1, verse 13.

But to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?

Now, that's not the exact same verse that is quoted in chapter 5, but it is the same Psalm that is quoted in chapter 5.

So both of these have already been previously cited. And if you forget what these Psalms are about, we spent a whole message on each one of these

Psalms, basically, kind of going through them back when we were in chapter 1, and I would refer you back to them if you want to get sort of a refresher on them.

Another thing about both of these quotations is that both of these Psalms, 2 and 110, both of them describe inter -Trinitarian dialogue.

So it makes them so magnificent. It is the Father declaring something about the Son. Even before creation, it is the

Father declaring something about the Son. You hear the Father speaking to the Son, and the Son speaking to the

Father. And David is describing this inter -Trinitarian dialogue. And both of these Psalms are kingly Psalms.

They're kingly Psalms. They describe the Messiah as king. Now, turn back to Psalm 2.

We're going to do a fly -by of both of these Psalms, and I will show you the argument that the author is making back in Hebrews chapter 5.

We're going to be returning to Hebrews 5, so don't turn away from there without putting a bookmark there, or if you're using your phone or electronic device, then just ignore what

I just said. It would be easy to go back to it. Psalm 2, this is attributed to David in Acts chapter 4.

So we know that David wrote this Psalm, but David is speaking prophetically of somebody who would come after him, of his son.

He is looking forward to the fulfillment of the promise that God made to him in 2 Samuel chapter 7. So that is the context of Psalm 2.

In verses 1 to 3, we have the rebellion of the nations described. Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing?

The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying,

Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us. So that is the insolent rebellion of the wicked nations that is being described in verses 1 to 3.

And David looks at all the kings of the earth and all the pagan peoples, and he sees nothing but this insolent rebellion against the

Lord, against the Lord's anointed, against the law of the Lord, against the Lord's purposes and righteousness. And so what is the answer to the rebellion of the nations?

It's in verse 4. He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them, verse 5, then

He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, As for Me, I have installed My king upon Zion, My holy mountain.

What is the Lord's answer to the rebellion of the nations? It is to install His king, the greater son of David, on Zion to rule among the nations.

That is God's answer. You want to rebel? I will put a king on David's throne in Jerusalem, and He will crush the nations with a rod of iron, and He will rule them in righteousness and justice because righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.

That's God's answer to it. He will crush that insolent rebellion by establishing His king, and that this is the king speaking in verse 7,

I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord, He, that is the Father, said to Me, that is the

Son, who is established on Zion, King, You are My Son, today I have begotten

You. And that begotten is not a reference always in Scripture of somebody coming into existence or being naturally sired in the way that one man begets another man in his progeny.

It can also speak, and often is used in the Old Testament, of a familial love relationship, describes that family relationship, the love of a father to a son, and that's likely what it is describing here.

This is the Son saying, The Father has said to Me, I am His Son, and the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the

Father. So there is this inter -Trinitarian love dialogue between the Father and the Son over the

Father's purposes and what the Father is going to do in establishing His Son as King. And then the

Father says to the Son in verse 8, Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron, you shall shatter them like earthenware. That is the answer, that is

God's answer to the insolent rebellion of the nations in verses 1 to 3. He is going to establish His King, and He is going to destroy them.

This is not a slow and subtle overtaking of the kingdoms of the earth by the church.

This is the destruction of all nations by the sovereign King when He establishes

His kingdom. That is what is being described here. So then in verse 10, Now therefore, O kings, and this is the lesson that we are to learn.

Now therefore, O kings, show discernment, take warning, O judges of the earth, worship the Lord with reverence, and rejoice with trembling.

And this is David now giving instruction. Verse 12, Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled.

How blessed are all those who take refuge in Him. David points to those who are under the wrath of God to find their refuge in the

One who eventually will destroy them if they don't bow the knee. That's verse 12. So God's answer to the rebellion of the nations is to establish

His King. And then David says, If you do not want to be crushed by that King, do homage to Him, bow down and kiss

Him, give Him reverence and worship, or He will become angry with you. Find in Him your refuge or find in Him your judge.

Those are the two options. That's Psalm 2. Now, you read through Psalm 2, it doesn't say anything about Him being a priest. What is

Psalm 2 about? Psalm 2 is something that every Jew would have recognized that God had made a promise to David. David is here describing this, that God will someday give to one of David's sons, a descendant of David, all the kingdoms of the earth as his inheritance, and He will rule and reign over them in a kingdom from Zion.

Again, that's the promise of Psalm 2. And so He encourages everybody to bow down before that King. And so every

Jew recognized the Messiah would come, He would reign, He would rule, He'd be given a nation, He'd be given all the nations as his inheritance, and He would rule and reign over them.

Okay, we get that, but it doesn't say anything about a priest. So what are we to do with that? Well, that's the first part of the argument that the author is making.

First, we recognize that God has appointed Him as King. Are we all on the same page? Every Jew would say, yeah, we understand.

God has appointed the Messiah, David's son, as King. We believe that Jesus is the King. He was born

King of the Jews. So how do we get to Him being a priest? Turn over to Psalm 110, Psalm 110 is the second part of that.

This is another Psalm of David, a human author in terms of the human author, and it is describing the

King that God promised. This is one, this is some interesting things about Psalm 110.

This is the most quoted Psalm in all of the New Testament, the most quoted Psalm in all of the New Testament.

In fact, this is the most quoted passage in all of the New Testament. File that away in your mind for some time when you have to say,

I'll take biblical quotations for $1 ,000, Alex, and he says, this is the most quoted

Psalm in all the New Testament. And you say, what is Psalm 110? And if it's a daily double, you get to bet the whole bank, you can make cash on it, and you can thank me later.

Okay, so file that away for a Bible trivia game sometime. This is the most quoted Psalm in all of the New Testament. In fact, 23 times

Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament, 23 times. That's almost on average once every book.

That's incredible. Not only that, but 11 of the 27 books in the New Testament contain this

Psalm, and seven of the nine authors of the New Testament quote this Psalm. Jesus used this Psalm to speak of his return in glory and to defend and describe his own deity.

It's used all the way through the New Testament. This is the most quoted passage in all the New Testament. And the second place one is not even a close second.

This is quoted 23 times in the New Testament. The second place quotation is Leviticus 19, love your neighbor as yourself.

That's quoted seven times, seven different places in the New Testament. So the second place is not even a close second.

This is all over the New Testament. So verses 1 to 3, let's look at verses 1 to 3 of Psalm 110.

The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of your enemies.

Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power. In holy array from the womb of the dawn, your youth are to you as they do.

This is just describing again that king that is established in Psalm 2. He rules among his enemies.

He rules from Zion. This is the father again speaking to the son and addressing the son. David is looking forward to the fulfillment of this and describing here what the father is saying to the son, this appointed and anointed king who is going to rule in Zion and rule over the nations as described in Psalm 2.

Now look at verse 4. The Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Now this is what David is saying concerning this one who is the king. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Verse 5 and 6, verse 5 through 7, I should say, is just a description more of this righteous and just rule and the justice that will be done.

Verse 5, the Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings in the day of his wrath. He will judge among the nations.

He will fill them with corpses. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside, therefore, he will lift up his head.

That is almost as vivid a description of the justice that is to be done as we find back in Psalm 2.

And in fact, these two Psalms are parallel in many ways. And so what then is the point of verse 4?

Verse 4, the Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind. The Lord has made an oath. That is the father has sworn to the son, to the

Lord Jesus Christ, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. He is the

Lord Jesus Christ, both a priest and a king. And you know why he could be both a priest and a king?

Because nobody could be both priest and king in Aaron's priesthood. But one could be both priest and king if he were of a different priesthood.

What kind of priesthood would he need to be part of in order to be both priest and king? He would have to be part of the

Melchizedekian priesthood. Melchizedek was both a priest and a king. So you see,

Jesus does not just continue what Aaron did and sort of fulfill it, tie up some loose ends, wrap it up and do some things that Aaron couldn't do.

Jesus has entirely replaced what Aaron was all about. It is completely laid aside.

And I'm just going to throw this out because this point is going to be made later on in the book of Hebrews, but chew this over for the next several months.

Here it is. The central feature of the old covenant, which is the priesthood, the

Aaronic priesthood, and the sacrifices, the central feature of that old covenant is done away with.

What does that say about the old covenant? Are we continuing it or has it been done away with?

Jesus is not continuing that priesthood and just tying it up, putting a little bow on it and saying, there, I did it. You couldn't do it and I did it.

So I just fulfilled it. And now we're going to continue on with another feature of the old covenant. It's not what has happened.

That entire priesthood is gone, completely gone. And God has appointed another priest to do what

Aaron could never do. And that is the point of verse 4, that this one who is king will also be priest according to the oath of the father to this one.

He would be a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. There's a reference, a prophecy of the

Messiah in Zechariah chapter 6 verses 12 and 13 that describe him as being both priest and king. See, all the Jews should have understood that the one who is coming to be

David's heir was also going to be a priest. Why? Not only because of Psalm 110, but listen to Zechariah chapter 6.

Then say to him, thus says the Lord of hosts, behold, a man whose name is Branch. And Branch was a title in the

Old Testament for the Messiah used in Jeremiah quite frequently. Branch who would come from David's line, like a root of the offshoot of David's line.

He would be a branch sticking out who would become almost as if it were an entirely new tree. So he is titled Branch in the

Old Testament. Behold a man whose name is Branch for he will branch out from where he is and he will build the temple of the

Lord. Yes, it is he who will build the temple of the Lord and he who will bear the honor and sit and rule on his throne.

Who is he describing? The Messiah. Next sentence, thus he will be a priest on his throne and the council of peace will be between those two offices.

In the Old Testament, there were the priests and there were the kings and they never came together. Those duties and that authority was separated entirely and forever.

But because Jesus has been appointed of a different priesthood, he is able to serve as both king and priest and the council will be between those two offices.

This one that David was to anticipate, God swore he would be a priest and God swore he would be a king.

So the prophecy of the Messiah would combine these two offices. And so we put these two together, the eternal and divine son spoken of in chapter 2 of Psalm Psalm 2.

God swears to him, you are my son. This one is a king. You will be given the nations. In Psalm 110, this very same king is described by the very same father through the very same human author as one who would hold the office of Melchizedek, the office of high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek forever.

So in Psalm 2, the father declares that this king promised to David his own son, the divine son, and he has given the nations as his inheritance.

And then in Psalm 10, this very same God declares him to be a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. I'll go back to Hebrews chapter 2.

We're almost done, I promise. Sorry, not Hebrews 2, Hebrews chapter 5, Hebrews chapter 5.

So the argument that the author is unfolding in Hebrews chapter 5 is this.

We recognize that the Messiah that was to come is a king by God's appointment, correct?

Psalm 2, correct. This king is a king by God's decree in Psalm 2. This same

God in Psalm 110 says something else about this king, that he will be a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

So was Jesus appointed as a king? And the answer to that is yes. He did not come to just do better what

Aaron could not do. He came to replace entirely what Aaron did, to move

Aaron's priesthood off of the table as it were out of consideration and to establish instead an entirely new priesthood, a priesthood that has lasted forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Now, you're thinking, I don't really understand who Melchizedek is or what he was doing or why I should even care.

And we will get to that. But today, you just have to recognize that the question at hand in this passage is this, was

Jesus self -appointed or was he appointed by the Father? And he goes to the Old Testament to show to the Jews he was appointed by the

Father. He who appointed him king, appointed him priest in fulfillment to that Scripture. So here is what this would mean for a first -century

Jew. Do you turn back, having come to Christ for salvation, do you turn back to that Old Testament priesthood?

Do you go back to what Aaron was doing in the sacrifices in the temple? Would you do that?

Why would you do that? What is the point of the author of Hebrews? That's been done away with.

It's gone. There's nothing to go back to. Having come to Jesus, he is your high priest, but not according to Aaron's order, according to the order of Melchizedek as appointed by the

Father back in Psalm 2 and Psalm 110. He has appointed a priest forever in that way.

There is nothing for you to go back to. So you can rely upon the sinful and inadequate priests of the

Old Testament in Aaron's line for your salvation to function as your representative on your behalf, or you can turn entirely to the person of Jesus Christ who is both sinless and able to represent you, and he is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

But you cannot have both. You cannot have one foot in the Old Covenant and one foot in the New Covenant and say,

I'm just going to keep a little bit in both of these and maintain my presence in both of these, trusting in what the priest is doing, but I'm going to add

Jesus to my Old Testament Judaism. That is not an option because that Old Covenant is entirely wiped away, and a new covenant has come.

Something new has been established, an entirely new priesthood, and it's a priesthood of a

Gentile priest king, Melchizedek, who's not a Jew. He's not a

Jew. So this is a priesthood that is not even a Jewish priesthood. Therefore, since Jesus is our high priest in that priesthood, we don't have to become

Jews in order to benefit from the things done by Aaron's priesthood. We have a priesthood that is fashioned after a

Gentile priest king who ruled in Salem. Isn't that wild? Therefore, that priesthood can be for us

Gentiles without requiring us to become Jews in order to be under the Aaronic priesthood.

That priesthood of Aaron was wiped out in 70 AD with the destruction of the temple. And since 70

AD, there has never been another sacrifice for sins on the Jewish Temple Mount as part of the Old Testament priestly system.

Now, what does that tell you about what God has said concerning that covenant and everything attached to it? It's gone. It's gone.

And the author of Hebrews is saying, don't turn back to that. It's been replaced. You have now a priest, a better priesthood, a better priest who's offered a better sacrifice.

What does this mean to you and I? Melchizedekian priests and Aaronic priests, and I'm not even sure what all these priesthoods mean or what this is supposed to mean for me and what

I'm supposed to learn. What does this mean for me? This is directly tied to something that should be very close to our hearts.

And that is our security and our assurance as believers in Jesus Christ. Our security and assurance.

And here is why. We are talking about something. We are talking about a priesthood that is eternal.

It is a sacrifice that was made, which is once for all. And it is an eternal priesthood.

You are a priest for how long? Forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. That means that our

Lord Jesus, our high priest, does not stop ever representing us before the father. He does not, what he has done and his standing before God will never come to an end.

He will never die. He will never be replaced. He will never offer another sacrifice. He will never, he will never leave that office and he will never quit doing what he even does right now.

And so if God has appointed him as our high priest forever, you and I are secure because our salvation rests upon what he has done and is doing as our high priest.

Since he is a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek, then what he has done avails for us forever.

And he represents us and he cannot fail and he will not fail. And do you know why it is impossible for one who is truly saved, a true born again believer in Jesus Christ to lose their salvation?

It is because of this. That one who loses his salvation would then be in hell saying, my priest, my high priest is in heaven and he intercedes for me even now having offered a sacrifice for my sins, which is, which is infinite and perfect in its righteousness.

And he is praying for me even now while I am suffering the torments in hell. That can never happen.

We are as secure as his priesthood is secure because he offered a sacrifice on our behalf in our stead, in our place to take our sins.

And so our eternal high priest who is in an eternal priesthood has offered an eternal sacrifice to purchase eternal life for his people.

And it can never be otherwise. He's a priest forever. As long as he is a high priest, those for whom he died are secure everlastingly.

And it can never be otherwise. Otherwise he failed to do what the father sent him to do.

It is that simple. If those who have believed can perish that Christ has failed to do his duty as our high priest, if he is a priest forever, then

I am saved forever because I'm trusting in him. That's what it means to you and I.

Your salvation is as secure and eternal as the priesthood of Jesus Christ. If he is a priest forever, then you are saved forever.

That's his promise. God has sworn this with an oath saying you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Let's bow our heads. Our father, our hearts are encouraged together by the certainty of our salvation and what you have purchased in your son for those who belong to you.

We thank you for that eternal and everlasting sacrifice and that eternal and everlasting priesthood that avails for us even now.

And because of our trust in him, we are secure in him. We thank you that he cannot fail. We thank you that we cannot perish because we belong to you.

We thank you that our salvation rests entirely upon another whose righteousness is eternal and whose glory is everlasting and whose work for us will never cease or fade away.

We thank you for him. We trust in him and we love you and thank you in the name of Christ, our king and our priest.