V.) having
neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the son
of God, abideth a priest continually."
Comparing, then, the different allusions to this most remarkable
personage, the following inferences seem fairly deducible therefrom:
(1) Melchizedek, being made like unto the Son of God, is preeminently
the Old Testament type of the Lord Jesus Christ in his kingly and
priestly offices. Both Melchizedek and Christ are priests, and yet the
former is not of the chosen family. He is a Canaanite. He is,
unquestionably, greater than Abraham. Of his origin, his ancestry and
his descendants, we have no account. He brought forth bread and wine.
So did his antitype at the Last Supper. The priesthood of Melchizedek
was before that of Aaron. Aaron was a Levite, and Levi paid tithes to
Melchizedek in Abraham, his ancestor. And the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews argues most conclusively that since Melchizedek was without
beginning or end, and greater than Abraham, and with a priesthood that
existed centuries before the Levitical priesthood was instituted,
therefore Christ, his great antitype, who is from everlasting to
everlasting, and who hath an unchangeable priesthood, is to abolish the
Aaronic priesthood, whose institution was for a temporary purpose, and
was fulfilled when Christ came, who was a priest not after the order of
Aaron because He belonged to another tribe, but a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek.
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