A Righteous King of Peace – Hebrews 7:1-3

Kootenai Church

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Our gracious God, we have thanked you for our salvation and we have sung of your great work in bearing our guilt and taking it out of the way.

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And thank you that you have reconciled us to yourself. And equally as important to that work of salvation is our sanctification.

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And we thank you also that you are conforming us day by day more and more into the image of Christ from one degree of glory to another.

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You use your word to accomplish this, the preaching of your word, the power of your spirit, even our fellowship one with another in order to move us in that direction toward conformity to Christ.

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And we pray that our time here together today may contribute to that end, that you would make us a holy people whose hearts are humbled by your word and encouraged by your word, that we would live lives in obedience to and in recognition of the glory and the word of our great

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God and Savior who has died for us, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we pray your blessing on this time and ask that you would open our eyes, that we may behold in your word wonderful things, that you would conform us to the image of Christ, that you would sanctify us, your people, and cause us to delight in your word this morning, we ask it in Christ's name, amen.

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Well, we're now in Hebrews chapter seven, so if you have not already, please do turn to Hebrews chapter seven.

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We're gonna read together a scope of the passage that is beyond the verses that we're gonna be looking at this morning, we're looking at verses one and two, but we're gonna catch some of the context, in fact, much of the context that unfolds some of the concepts that we're gonna be looking at.

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Hebrews chapter seven, and let's just read together verses one through verse 17. Hebrews chapter seven, for this

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Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also

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Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.

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Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.

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Now observe how great this man was, to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the choicest spoils.

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And those indeed of the sons of Levi who received the priest's office have commandment in the law to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brethren, although these are descended from Abraham.

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But the one whose genealogy is not traced from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.

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But without any dispute, the lesser is blessed by the greater. In this case, mortal men receive tithes, but in that case, one receives them of whom it is witnessed that he lives on.

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And so to speak, through Abraham, even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, for he was still in the loins of his father when

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Melchizedek met him. Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood, for on the basis of it, the people received the law, what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek and not be designated according to the order of Aaron?

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For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also. For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe from which no one has officiated at the altar.

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For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests.

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And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life.

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For it is attested of him, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. It's a complex argument, isn't it?

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A little bit, and you're gonna see just how complex it is here in the weeks ahead. This last week in our student ministries, which is our, for those of you who may not know, our teen ministries we do with the youth group, we started a study called

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God Wrote a Book. And I taught this back in adult Sunday school class in 2007. Some of you, maybe a few of you remember what we went through that.

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And every so often we teach this to our teens as new groups of teens come through. And basically what we cover is how it is that we got scripture.

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Why is our Bible in the form that it is, and how did we get the word of God? So we cover topics like inspiration and inerrancy and the authority of scripture, the sufficiency of scripture.

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And then we look at other complex, more complex things like why is it that we have textual variance, and how were

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New Testament manuscripts copied, and how were New Testament manuscripts distributed? And then how do we make determinations to which ones are original and which ones represent the original, et cetera.

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And what about translations? And we cover all this stuff, the transmission of the text. And the point of all of that, going through that with the teenagers, is to demonstrate to them why it is and how it is that we have the word of God and the history of it, so that they're not sort of drug astray into all kinds of false doctrines and misrepresentations of scripture when they go off to college or they leave home.

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And this last week was our very first lesson that we began with the most foundational and fundamental doctrine of all of them, and that is the doctrine of the inspiration of scriptures.

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That the Bible teaches, concerning itself, that it is a God -breathed book. That God breathed out through human authors the exact product that he wanted, which we have as scripture today.

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And we talked about what inspiration is and what inspiration is not and what it pertains to and what it applies to.

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We have, in our Bibles, not merely the words of men, it's not the product of men,

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God used men to write it, but God superintended, scripture says, God superintended the writing of those books so that through the men and them as the agents of the inscripturating process,

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God ended up giving to us exactly what it is that he wanted to us. So that the product of what we hold in our hands is the

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God -breathed word of God. That's the doctrine of inspiration. And of those human authors, though they were limited by their time period and their understanding and their own circumstances, that limitation did not keep

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God from inspiring things through those human authors that even those human authors at the time would not have understood.

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So, for instance, there is evidence in scripture that the people who wrote scripture, oftentimes, did not even understand the things that they were writing about.

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Peter says this. The prophets themselves wondered, what was the time and what was the place and what is the person that they were writing about when they wrote

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Old Testament scriptures? So though God used them, they were describing and writing of things that they themselves were a little curious about.

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They didn't understand the full implications of that. And aren't you amazed, sometimes, as we read the scriptures and we study books of the

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Bible, how everything kind of comes together. Sometimes you can see the big picture and all the little parts and pieces of what scripture reveals all come together and you sort of see it in the big picture scheme of things.

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Aren't you amazed when you see that in scripture? That an author, thousands of years ago, might have mentioned something and then hundreds of years later, that same thing might be mentioned again and a few more details added to it and something else said about it.

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And then hundreds of years later, it might be mentioned again by somebody else who never knew either of the previous two people, obviously, because of the passage of hundreds of years.

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And then even hundreds of years later, somebody else might say something and bring it all together so you see these themes traced all the way throughout scripture.

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You see it all the time. It's almost like, have you ever read a good book or watched a good movie where the details throughout the story, as it unfolds, are sort of dropped like breadcrumbs?

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And it's not until you get to the very end that all of a sudden, all of these other little pieces that you thought were quite incidental and quite ancillary to the whole enterprise actually become, as you see it in retrospect, the hinges upon which the entire story turns.

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And you get to the end, you're like, oh, I mean, I remember seeing all of those details unfold and I thought that they were just kind of superfluous to the whole thing.

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They're just window dressing there. And no, they're not window dressing. They end up becoming the crux of the story.

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So it is in scripture with the themes that unfold in scripture. And we see it with Melchizedek. Melchizedek, and we looked at him last week in Genesis chapter 14.

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When Melchizedek came out to meet Abraham after the slaughter of the kings, there's no way that Abraham could have known the significance of this king who ruled in Jerusalem.

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There's no way Abraham could have known that. And 500 years later, when Moses wrote about that encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek, Moses would not have understood the significance of who

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Melchizedek was and what he symbolized. And still, 500 years after that, when

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David wrote of Melchizedek in Psalm 110, verse four, the Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek, describing the priestly ministry of the

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Messiah. There's no way that David could have understood even the full significance of who Melchizedek is and what he represented.

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And then 1 ,000 years after David, the author of Hebrews grabs all of those disparate strings and brings them together to show us the true and profound significance of this historical creature that appears back in Genesis chapter 14.

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It's quite magnificent, isn't it? The theme of priest and king and peace and righteousness that comes up in Genesis 14, and then those themes are woven all the way through all of the redemptive history of God's plan through Israel and then to the

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Gentiles, and then you get into the New Testament, and suddenly looking back, you realize that that incidental character,

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Melchizedek, who's just got a couple of verses devoted to him back in sort of an obscure story of the patriarch

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Abraham, that he typifies the central theme of all that God is doing in human history. The purpose of creation, all the way through the consummation of the ages, everything is in Melchizedek.

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Now, not that he is the crux of all of that, but that he indicates to us, he's the first place that we see those themes come up, and then we see how

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God develops them all the way through redemptive history. So our text this morning is, not Genesis, we were there last week,

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Hebrews chapter seven verses one through three, and let's read these together again, and then we're gonna notice some of the details from last week's study in Genesis chapter 14 when we looked at where Melchizedek appears back there, and we looked also at Psalm 110 verse four, and I just remind you there's only two places in all the

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Old Testament where Melchizedek is mentioned, and outside of Hebrews chapters five, six, and seven, there's no place in any of the

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New Testament where Melchizedek is mentioned. He does seem, in many ways, quite an insignificant character, but he's not insignificant at all.

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He actually typifies or symbolizes the very thing which is the crux of all of creation and all of redemptive history, and that is the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So Hebrews chapter seven verses one through three, let's read it together. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high

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God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils, was first of all by the translation of his name king of righteousness and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.

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Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the

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Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually. Now verse three, which is kind of enigmatic and a bit odd how he describes that.

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We're saving that for next week. We're gonna talk about typology and what typology is and how it is to be interpreted and what constitutes a type of Christ and all that other stuff, and I'm telling you ahead of time so that that's not interesting to you, you can go skiing next week or something if we have that much snow by then, which probably we will, or sledding.

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But if that interests you, what it is that he's talking about there and the ways in which Melchizedek typifies

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Jesus Christ, even in the things that are not mentioned of him, that's gonna be our subject for next week. So today, we're just looking at verses one and two, and you'll notice that there are a lot of details in verses one and two.

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We looked at Genesis 14 last week. There are details in Genesis, there are details in verses one and two that point back to what we looked at in Genesis 14.

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Our concern this week is how the author of Hebrews uses the details from Genesis 14 to make the connection between Jesus Christ and Melchizedek, and that's what we're looking at.

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Now, before we get into verses one and two and what the author does here, there's kind of a little bit of a foundational issue that I need to mention.

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I think I mentioned this like three chapters ago or four chapters ago, something in Hebrews, but it's worth bringing up again just to remind us.

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Why is it that the author of Hebrews would need to make such a big deal out of Melchizedek and how he is connected to Jesus Christ?

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Why does he make this connection? Why is the fact that Jesus is a priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, so significant?

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It's for this reason that the book of Hebrews was written to Hebrews, Hebrew Christians. Now, if you put yourself back into the mindset of a first -century

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Jew, here's what you would be thinking. For 15 centuries, 15 centuries, our people have had our entire relationship with God mediated through a priest, 15 centuries.

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You didn't approach God on your own. You didn't offer your own sacrifice. You didn't offer your own offerings.

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You didn't intercede on behalf of others. Nobody performed that function except the priest, and there was a veil, a thick veil, that walled you off from the holy of holies, the idea of walking into the presence of God and having direct access to God in any way at all.

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That was outside of the mindset of a first -century Jew entirely. For 1 ,500 years, we do not approach

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God except through a priest, and not just any priest, but this priest had to come from the tribe of Levi, not any of the other 11 tribes of Israel, and not just anybody from the tribe of Levi.

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This priest had to be specifically from the family of Aaron, Moses' brother. It had to be a descendant of Aaron, so the priesthood was passed down through Levi, through Aaron specifically, and only one person served as a high priest at a time, and that high priest and the priesthood that he oversaw, that was your direct communication to God, and then into that environment comes the

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Lord Jesus Christ in the incarnation. He dies on a cross, and he rises again, and the Holy Spirit is given to the church, and the apostles begin to preach and say, now we can boldly approach the throne of grace on our own.

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We don't need a priest. We don't need a priesthood. We don't need sacrifices. We don't need the feast or the festivals or the

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Old Testament law or the Mosaic covenant or the temple at all, and what would you be thinking as a first -century

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Jew? How can this possibly be? For 15 centuries, there's one way that my relationship with God was mediated, and that was through a high priest.

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If I am to approach God, I have to have a what? A high priest. I have to be able to approach

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God on the basis of somebody who has offered a sacrifice for me for my sins, so now the author of Hebrews is seeking to demonstrate to these first -century

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Jews that you're not going to God, as you have for 1 ,500 years, through a high priest from Aaron's line of the tribe of Levi.

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Now we have another high priest, but you'll notice that the author of Hebrews down in verses 11, and this is getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, he says that Christ comes from a tribe,

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Judah, of which Moses said nothing about priests. See, that's a problem, right? How can I have a priest who doesn't come from the tribe of Aaron, or from the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron?

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So the author of Hebrews needs to make the case that we do indeed have a high priest, but that this priesthood is not like the old priesthood.

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We are still approaching God through a priest because of the work of a priest, but this priest is the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

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So beginning at verse one, for this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, those two details are something we looked at last week in Genesis chapter 14, and this is the first most notable thing about Melchizedek is that he is both a priest and a king, because under the old covenant, the covenant given to Moses, that distinction between priest and king, that distinction was a hard and fast distinction, and you never had anybody who fulfilled both of those roles.

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In fact, the only times that we see people performing both the role of priest and king in the Old Testament under the old covenant, it was something that got judged.

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So we saw it, remember, with Saul. We looked at this months ago, but you remember Saul after he slaughtered the Amalekites and Samuel was a bit slow in coming?

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What did Saul do? He went out and he offered the sacrifice, and then Samuel arrived, and what did he say? This is not for you to offer the sacrifice.

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You have transgressed against the commandment of God. You have stepped outside of your lane. You have gone into somebody else's role, and this is not for you to do, so your kingdom is gonna be taken away from you, and it's gonna be given to one who is more worthy than yourself.

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Saul lost the kingdom because of his act of disobedience. Later on, in 2 Chronicles chapter 26,

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Uzziah offered incense inside the temple, and he offered incense to God, and the priest came in, more than 100 priests, and confronted him and said, it is not for you to offer the incense, and Uzziah was struck with leprosy, and he was kept in seclusion, and he died a leper.

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God judged him. Why? Because he, as a king, stepped into the position of a priest and did something that only priests could do.

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Priests were not to rule as kings, and kings were not to function as priests. That was the law.

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Under the old covenant, those two offices were separate and distinct, and they were kept separate in the land of Israel, but then in Genesis chapter 14, before Abraham, before the old covenant, before Moses, and any of the law or any of that distinction was made, we have this one individual,

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Melchizedek, who functions as both priest and king, fulfilling both roles, and when he met with Abraham, he actually did something reflecting his duties in each of those offices.

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We looked at one of them last week, which was bringing bread and wine out to Abraham and his men when Abraham returned from the slaughter of the kings in Genesis 14.

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He brought out bread and wine to Abraham, an act of something he did out of the abundance of his provision or his bounty as a king.

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It was a tribute to Abraham, another king -like figure in the land, something that he did to bring provision to Abraham, but as well as kind of a tribute for what

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Abraham had done in conquering all of the other kings. So that function of Melchizedek was a function of his royalty, of his office as king.

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You'll notice that Hebrews doesn't mention him bringing out bread and wine. Do you notice that? It's mentioned back in Genesis chapter 14, but the author of Hebrews doesn't mention

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Melchizedek doing that. Why does he leave out that detail, the author of Hebrews? Because the author of Hebrews, his point is not to demonstrate that Jesus Christ can function as king.

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That's obvious, he comes from the tribe of Judas, of the descendant of David. He has a right to that throne. The author of Hebrews doesn't need to make the case that like Melchizedek, he can be a king.

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That's established. What the author of Hebrews has to do is make the case that like Melchizedek, he can function as priest and as king, that he can hold,

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Jesus Christ can hold both of those offices. So he doesn't mention that. The second thing that Melchizedek did in coming out, he functioned as a king and bringing bread and wine.

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The second thing he did was function as a priest in that he blessed Abraham, pronounced a blessing upon Abraham in Genesis 14, and he received tithes.

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Now both of those you will notice were mentioned in chapter seven when we read all the way down through verse 17. That Abraham, that the greater, that is

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Melchizedek, blessed Abraham who was heir to the promises, and Abraham gave to Melchizedek a tithe of all the spoils that he had collected.

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And in doing so, Abraham was recognizing God as the one who had given him the victory over all of the other kings, recognizing

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God as the one who had given him that victory and blessed him in that way. Abraham was offering to Melchizedek that, recognizing

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God, but also recognizing Melchizedek as a genuine and legitimate priest of the

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Most High God. Abraham knew enough about God, his knowledge of God was sufficient that he could recognize

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Melchizedek as a genuine priest. And so this is unique in all of Scripture. This whole last week

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I was trying to think, is there one other figure in all of Scripture who ever held both of those roles, king and priest together?

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And I cannot think of another individual who did that. Before or after the Mosaic Covenant. There are only two people of whom it is said that they serve as both king and priest.

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One is Melchizedek and the second is the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are the only ones mentioned, so you can see how those two are connected and how

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Melchizedek is such a profound picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. So though there are only two,

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Melchizedek in Genesis 14 and the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament, all of the

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Old Testament anticipates and looks forward to one who would hold both of those offices.

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But see it was separate and distinct in the land of Israel. But if we read back in Psalm chapter two, I'll just give you two psalms because both of them are quoted, where are they quoted?

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Both of them are quoted in Hebrews chapter five verses five and six. The author brings both of these psalms together to make this case that Jesus is the priest after the order of Melchizedek.

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So to show you that the Old Testament anticipated one who would come and would fulfill this role of king and priest,

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I would point you not only to Melchizedek, who was both king and priest, but then later on in Psalm two, where David writes of his son, his greater son, who would take over and establish a throne and rule over his enemies to destroy all of his other enemies, to destroy all of his enemies and establish a kingdom over which the

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Messiah would rule in peace and righteousness. David looked forward in Psalm two, and that's the psalm where he says kiss the son lest he be angry with you, do homage to the son, yield and bow down to this one who will rule the nations.

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That God who said that through David to the Messiah also says to the Messiah in Psalm 110, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

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So it is the father who says of David's son, you are my son, today I have begotten you, and it is the father who says to David's son, the

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Messiah, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. So you put all of the Old Testament psalms together and the expectation together, and the

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Jews had every reason to expect that God was going to send one who would function and rule as both king and as priest.

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And then you get later on in divine revelation in Zechariah chapter six, and here's what we read. Then say to him, thus says the

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Lord of hosts, behold a man whose name is Branch. And we'll stop there for just a second. Branch is an

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Old Testament prophetic name for the Lord Jesus Christ. He is called that by Jeremiah, I think primarily, a number of times in Jeremiah.

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And the imagery there is that off of the line of David there would come a shoot, a branch, and he would rule the nations.

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So this one is, this Messiah, one of his divine names is called, or his messianic titles is called

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Branch. So Zechariah writes, behold a man whose name is Branch, for he will branch out from where he is, and he will build the temple of the

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Lord. Well, that's interesting, because that's a prophetic, or a priestly function. He will build the temple of the

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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.

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Work at the temple of the Lord, and sit and rule on his throne. And then Zechariah says thus, this, this.

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Thus, he will be a priest on his throne, and the council of peace will be between the two offices.

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The Messiah will be a priest on his throne. That is magnificent.

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Unheard of in the Old Testament. Not even provided for under the old covenant, the Mosaic Covenant. But every

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Jew had reason to look forward to, and anticipate that when Messiah come, he would rebuild the temple, he would rule on his throne, he would be a priest on his throne, and between those two offices would be peace.

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Between being a priest, and ruling on his throne, between those two offices would be the council of peace.

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So every Jew had reason to expect the Messiah would be both priest and king. Unheard of in the

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Old Testament, except for one single solitary figure named Melchizedek.

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That's what makes him so profoundly unique. But this presented for the Jews a dilemma, and I hinted at this at the beginning.

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If the Messiah was to be a king, he had to be from the tribe of Judah, right? Because it was from the tribe of Judah that all of David's line would come.

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So he had to be from the tribe of Judah, because nobody outside of Judah could take David's throne. He had to be a descendant of David, and David was of the tribe of Judah.

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But if he was to be a priest, he would have to be from the tribe of Aaron, or from the family of Aaron in the tribe of Levi.

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So if he was a priest, he couldn't be a king, because these two tribes were separate, and if he was a king, he couldn't function as a priest.

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So why would they expect or anticipate a priest who is king? On what basis could they do that?

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Only if one was appointed, not appointed priest, not on the basis of his genealogical descent, or his lineage, or his last name, or his father at all, but one who was appointed a priest, completely apart from any of the priestly functions of the

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Old Testament, a priest not of the order of Aaron, but of a separate order, a different order, a unique order, directly appointed by God, priest because of his appointment, not priest because of his lineage coming from Aaron.

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Only in that case could one serve as both priest and king, and the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, is that priest king.

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There are other details mentioned here. You'll notice in verse one, Melchizedek was the king of Salem, priest of the most high God, and this is where we get into what we looked at last week in Genesis 14.

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He met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him, to whom also

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Abraham apportioned a tenth part of all the spoils. So those two functions, as priest,

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Melchizedek performed, blessing Abraham, who was the one who had received the promises, and receiving from Abraham a tribute, or a tenth of all the spoils that Abraham had collected in the slaughter of the kings.

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Look at verse two. He was, that is, Melchizedek was, first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.

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Peace. So Abraham recognized him as a true priest, he recognized him as a true king, and Abraham recognized, by giving his tithe to Melchizedek, that it was

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God, whom Melchizedek represented, and interceded for, it was God, who himself had given

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Abraham the victory in his slaughter of the kings. So there are two translations given here in verse two. You'll notice them. First, the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace.

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And though he doesn't say king of peace, is a translation of king of Salem, that's indeed what it is. So he translates, from Melchizedek's account, two significant things.

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First, his name, and then his place. First, his name, Melchizedek means king of peace. And it was not just a name for Melchizedek.

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As one who held the office of king and priest for Yahweh, the Most High God, he was not just named

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Melchizedek, or named king of righteousness, he was actually a king who dealt righteously and was righteous.

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This was a man who lived up to his name. Have you ever met a complete pagan whose name is Christian? In that case, there's somebody who's not even a believer, not even a

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Christian, but he's named Christian, right? In that case, somebody doesn't live up to their namesake. Well, Melchizedek was not just something who had the title king of peace.

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This was a man who was actually, or king of righteousness. This was a man who actually was a king characterized by righteousness, which means he ruled righteously and he used his kingdom to spread righteousness and to promote righteousness.

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You know how rare that was? Not that rare today, right? To find righteous rulers in the world?

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It's rare today, isn't it, to find righteous rulers? Can you name a righteous ruler? I think that there's some tribe somewhere over in Africa where everybody is a

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Christian and they're king. The chief of the tribe is a believer and he rules in righteousness. But other than that, small little group, and I don't even know what it is off the top of my head.

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I heard a rumor about it one time and heard something about it. Other than that, can you name another example of a king or a ruler who governs in complete righteousness?

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Can you name one that do not exist? They don't exist today. It's rare today, and I will tell you this, it was rare in the post -flood world of Abraham's day when even

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Abraham, a descendant of Seth, the godly line who came from Noah, even Abraham himself, his family, was caught up in idolatry.

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And in the southern area of Israel, surrounded by Sodom and Gomorrah and all of those other cities, to find a king who ruled in righteousness and who was righteous, that is a rarity.

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Melchizedek would have stood out like nobody else would have stood out. So rare he was, but he was a righteous king, a righteous one.

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And righteousness is necessary for being both a king in God's book and necessary for being a priest.

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Righteousness should characterize both of those. And so he was a king of righteousness, and then the second thing the author of Hebrews translates as his place, he was the king of peace.

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Jerusalem, the name Jerusalem means a peace. The Salem comes from Salome, which means peace.

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So he was a righteous king ruling in a city that meant peace. A righteous king -priest ruling in Jerusalem.

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You can see, if you look forward to what the Lord Jesus Christ is gonna do, you can see the parallels between Melchizedek and the

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Lord Jesus Christ. The righteous king -priest who will rule in Jerusalem. That's what we anticipate, yet still, as heirs of the promise, looking forward to that day when a righteous king, again, just like Melchizedek, again, rules in Jerusalem over a kingdom of peace.

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So righteousness and peace describe both Melchizedek and the Lord Jesus Christ, and of course, it describes Christ, and I wanna talk for a moment about the implications of this for what we know of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and what is to come for us as believers. First of all, righteousness and peace describe the nature and character of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He is the righteous one. Acts chapter three, verse 26, describes him as the holy and righteous one.

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In fact, back in Hebrews chapter one, verses eight and nine, the father says of Christ, but of the son, he says, your throne,

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O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness, therefore

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God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. And there, the Lord Jesus Christ is described by the father as being one who rules in righteousness.

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He holds the righteous scepter, and his rule and his reign are a righteous rule and a righteous reign.

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That's the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only is he righteous in his rule, he is a person of peace, for a child is born to us, a son is given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called

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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace. See, the government is going to rest on his shoulders, and he will rule in righteousness and peace.

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That's what we're anticipating. He is the source of peace, and he makes peace, and his work as priest, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, his work as priest provides us with both righteousness and peace. Now, this is something that the

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Old Testament priests could never do. No descendant of Aaron, no high priest functioning in the temple could ever provide any righteousness for anybody based upon what they did.

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It didn't matter how many times an Old Testament priest from the lineage of Aaron walked into the tabernacle and slaughtered an animal, shed its blood, and applied it to the mercy seat, there was no function of that priesthood that could ever provide righteousness to those on whose behalf the sacrifice was made.

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All that animal did was look forward to a sacrifice that would provide righteousness for all for whom that sacrifice is made, and that's the sacrifice of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. But no priest in the Old Testament, no sacrifice in the Old Testament ever made anybody righteous.

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It couldn't. Because it was the blood of bulls and goats. They were justified or declared righteous by God on the basis of faith, not the animal sacrifice.

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On the basis of faith. Looking forward to a God who would send a sacrifice to atone for that sin, they were declared righteous.

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Based upon their belief in God who would keep his word and save them, they were declared or made righteous in that sense.

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But the righteousness that they had, even the righteousness that Abraham had, was not Abraham's righteousness, and it wasn't the righteousness of the bull or the goat or the animal, and it wasn't the righteousness of any priest who would offer a sacrifice with that animal.

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Even the righteousness that Abraham had is the same righteousness that you and I have on the basis of faith, the righteousness that comes from God, from the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham was attributed or credited with the righteousness of Christ because Abraham believed

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God, and the sacrifices did nothing. The sacrifices did nothing to provide him righteousness or to make peace for him.

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Therefore, since Christ has done what Melchizedek could never do, and even Melchizedek in all of his functions as an

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Old Testament priest could never provide anybody with righteousness, but Christ has done what Melchizedek could never do.

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He was unable to do it because Melchizedek anticipated or looked forward to one who would provide righteousness.

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He was the king of righteousness, but he couldn't take his righteousness and make it someone else's. And in the gospel, that's exactly what

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Jesus Christ has done. He has taken his righteousness and he has made it ours so that we are clothed in his righteousness.

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And because we are clothed in his righteousness and we have been justified, that is declared righteous, now we have peace with God.

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And here's how righteousness and peace go together. Romans chapter five, verse one and two says, "'We have been justified by faith "'and we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ, "'through whom also we have obtained "'an introduction by faith into this grace "'in which we stand and we exult in the hope "'and the power and the glory of God.'"

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So on the basis of declared righteousness, now we are at peace. And I want you to see that righteousness and peace always go together.

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They were together in Melchizedek, the type of Christ. They are together in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are together in us.

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Because we have been declared righteous on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ, we also now have peace with God.

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Righteousness and peace always go hand in hand. They always go together. They must, and they can never be separated.

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Because we have righteousness, we're at peace with God. And because we have righteousness, we can be at peace with others.

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So that in the church, there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, barbarian or Scythian. There's no divisions, the schisms that exist.

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There's no racial distinctions. We don't care about class or ethnicity or background or what your ancestors did to my ancestors.

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None of that matters inside the church. Why? Because we've been declared righteous and we are in his family and now we are at peace with one another.

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So if your ancestors enslaved my ancestors, does that matter? Do I care? Should you care? Do we have to do anything about that?

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No, we have peace one with another. Why? Because we have been declared righteous on the basis of faith. So righteousness and peace always go together.

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And when you remove righteousness, you will inevitably remove peace as well.

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Do you know why people go to war with each other? Do you know why it feels in our own nation like we are on the brink of a civil war culturally?

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You know why that is? Because long ago we abandoned any kind of standard of righteousness. We can't even agree now that there is a standard of righteousness outside of us.

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And we've said for years, for generations now, who are you to judge? Who are you to impose your standards on me?

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Who are you to tell me what's right and what's wrong? I will determine what's right and wrong. You can't tell me what righteousness is.

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And so as a nation, we are unconcerned that righteousness is reflected in our leadership or in our courts or in our culture or in entertainment or even in our church leaders.

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We're not concerned about that anymore. We're unconcerned that any kind of standard of righteousness is proclaimed or lived up to or expected by anyone.

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In fact, we've taken righteousness and we've pushed it as far out of our public and cultural and political spheres we possibly can.

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What do you expect is going to happen? You're gonna get a civil war out of that. People are gonna go to war against each other.

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Why? Because righteousness has been removed. But if you put righteousness right back in the heart of that, an understanding of what righteousness is and how we are made righteous on the basis of faith, that is the gospel, you put that back into the center of everything and peace comes from that.

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Righteousness and peace, they always go together. We see that perfectly in the Lord Jesus Christ and we see it perfectly in Melchizedek.

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We see righteousness and peace characterize the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. It characterizes his work as our high priest in making us righteous and giving us peace with one another and peace with God.

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And we are going to see the nature of righteousness and peace come together in the future reign of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. There is still a kingdom of righteousness that is to come. It's not gonna be like anything that we see in this world.

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Like no government entity, like no government bureaucracy. There's not a kingdom on this earth that is even gonna remotely come close to reflecting the kingdom that is to come with the

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Lord Jesus Christ. But we're still anticipating that and looking forward to that because the branch, he will rebuild the temple.

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That's not spiritually speaking. Like okay, you're the temple so now he's rebuilt it because here you are. That's not what he's talking about.

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He will rebuild the temple and he will rule and he will reign just as he has promised to David.

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Psalm 89 describes it with a psalmist sense. Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David.

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His descendants shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me, it shall be established forever like the moon and the witness in the sky is faithful.

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And Psalm 89 describes that rule. Psalm 89 verse 14 says righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.

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Loving kindness and truth go before you. It will be a peaceful rule because it will be a righteous rule.

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When the Lord Jesus Christ comes, when the branch comes back and he rebuilds the temple and he establishes his rule to fulfill his promise to Abraham and his promise to David and his promise to Old Testament Israel, when that promise is fulfilled and the

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Lord Jesus Christ does that, there will be a righteous rule and it will be characterized by peace because he makes his people to dwell in peace.

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When we sit under that kingdom and he rules the nations and here's how it's gonna go down.

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He is going to return not to offer a sacrifice for sin. He is going to return not to coddle his enemies or to make peace with his enemies.

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He is going to return to destroy his enemies and he will rule the nations with a rod of iron, perfect righteousness, perfect justice, perfect truth and perfect peace and it will be a worldwide rule from Jerusalem on David's throne, over David's kingdom and his saints will rule and reign with him forever.

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That is what we get to look forward to and fulfillment to all the promises. They'll all be fulfilled. Every last thing he spoke to Abraham, every last promise he made to David, every last promise he made to David's descendants, it will all be fulfilled.

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God must keep his word. The branch will rebuild the temple. The branch will rule on his throne and that high priest will sit on his throne and between those two offices will be the council of peace, a worldwide righteous kingdom characterized by peace.

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If you don't look forward to that, there's nothing you can look forward to. If that doesn't thrill your heart and lift your heart in adoration and praise that you get to participate in that, let that thrill your heart.

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A righteous kingdom. He will rule and he will reign and we'll have peace and all his people will be at peace.

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Jerusalem will be at peace. Israel will be at peace. Egypt will be at peace. Arabia will be at peace.

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China, the United States, if any of these things exist even by those names, we will all be at peace.

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Why, because it will be a righteous rule. When he comes to establish that kingdom, there will be peace.

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Nations will lay down their weapons of war. Satan who deceives the nations and removes righteousness and makes everybody to go to war with everybody else, he will be bound for 1 ,000 years and there will be a righteous kingdom of peace.

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That is God's promise. So I hope you're starting to see how Melchizedek here plays into the whole theme of Scripture writ large.

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What is pointed to back in Genesis chapter 14 is fulfilled in Revelation chapters 21 and 20 and 21 and 22, right?

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Genesis to Revelation, what is the theme? There's coming a king, priest, who will rule in righteousness and bring peace.

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That's the theme. Started in Genesis, consummated in the book of Revelation, chapters 21 and 22, chapter 20, which describes that rule and that's rain.

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And Melchizedek is key to all of that. See, if you just had Genesis, you'd read through Melchizedek. How many times have you read through the book of Genesis and you get to chapter 14, you just skip over Melchizedek and you think, yeah,

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I think there's something about him in the New Testament somewhere. You don't understand, he's not just a superfluous character in the whole drama.

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What we are introduced to in Melchizedek is the theme of all of Scripture, culminated and consummated in the book of Revelation in magnificent fashion.

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He introduces us to Christ because he is a shadow of Christ. Christ is the substance, Melchizedek is the shadow.

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So Melchizedek was a king, but our king, the Lord Jesus Christ, is going to be a greater king. Melchizedek ruled

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Jerusalem, our king, the Lord Jesus Christ, will rule from Jerusalem over all of the earth.

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Melchizedek had a kingdom, but it was limited to the city of Jerusalem. Our Lord Jesus Christ kingdom will be over the entire world.

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Melchizedek was righteous, but he could not give that righteousness to others, but our Lord Jesus Christ can. And Melchizedek was a priest, and what he did in offering sacrifices and interceding for God, it was only interceding for men with God.

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It was only a shadow of what was to come. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ, who as our priest, has offered not a sacrifice of bulls and goats, but he has offered his own sacrifice, shed his own blood, so that we can have peace with God the

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Father. And Melchizedek was anticipating that. So we can have peace because of his righteousness. Melchizedek ruled in peace, but he will, he's just a symbol of that which one is to come, who will rule in peace over the whole world.

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That's what we get, righteousness and peace. Because we are made righteous, we can have peace with God.

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Let's bow our heads. Father, we thank you for your tremendous mercy in saving a people for yourself, and in giving us all of that kingdom and promise and blessing to look forward to.

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You are unfolding your redemptive plan for the whole world, and for those whom you have chosen, you are unfolding that in time, and we get to see that.

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We are the beneficiaries of it. We get to see and anticipate the unfolding drama as you fulfill your promises, for we know that you will, you must, because you are a

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God who cannot lie, and what you have sworn to David, you will not relent. What you have promised to Abraham, you will not take back.

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What you have promised to your people, not only the Jews, but also to us, you will not relent on that either. But all must come to pass, and all must be fulfilled, and we get to enjoy your righteousness and peace and salvation, and the glories of heaven, and ruling and reigning with Christ forevermore, all because of what he has done.

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And so with joyful and loving and adoring hearts, we thank you for this grace in which we stand.

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We thank you for the peace that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ, and through him, with our great God and Father.

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And we pray your blessing upon us as we leave from here. May your grace and peace and your righteousness rest upon all those who are yours, both now and forever.