Hebrews 5:5

So Christ also glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that spake unto him, Thou art my Son, This day have I begotten thee: as he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest forever After the order of Melchizedek.

This is one of the most significant declarations about Christ to be found in all the Bible; and, in all probability, the author of Hebrews was the first ever to understand it and to find in this Psalms 110 the Old Testament prophecy that united in a single person the offices of both king and high priest, that is, in the person of Christ. One of the great mysteries of the prophecies of Jesus had always been the apparent contradictions in the Messianic prophecies, some hailing him as "Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace," and others, often by the same writer, extolling him as "a man of sorrows," "despised and rejected of men," "a root out of dry ground," and "acquainted with grief," etc. It was precisely this apparent contradiction that the Pharisees could not and never did understand. Jesus confronted them with it (Matthew 22:41-46) and pressed them for an answer as to how Christ could be both David's Lord and David's son at the same time; but the intelligentsia of Israel never resolved the problem. In order to harmonize the prophecies, they referred them to two different persons, as represented by a glorious king on one hand, and a suffering high priest on the other. Bruce outlined this concept of a dual Messiah thus,

In some strand of Jewish expectation, a distinction was made between the lay Messiah (the Messiah of Israel or prince of the house of David) and the priestly Messiah (the Messiah of Aaron).[6]

The author of Hebrews then did a dramatic, unheard of thing. Having already argued from Psalms 110:1,2 for the universal kingship of Christ the Messiah (Hebrews 1:5), at this point in the epistle he returned to that same Psalms 110 to bring in the fourth verse from which he also proclaimed the universal high priesthood of Christ, showing him to be not of Aaron's line, but an independent high priest of universal dominion "after the order of Melchizedek." Thus was revealed, at last, the mystery of how the suffering high priestly Messiah and the kingly Messiah were one and the same person. Modern religious people would not find that problem an impediment to their believing in Jesus Christ, but it was a powerful deterrent to Christians of Jewish background in the first century. "You cannot accept Christ as your high priest," the Pharisees said, "because, since he does not belong to the posterity of Aaron, he is disqualified from being any kind of priest whatever!" And the only verse in the Bible that clears that up is Psalms 110:4. The Pharisees should have known this; but it was true of them, as it was of the Sadducees, that they did err "not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God" (Matthew 22:29). Speaking of the dramatic problem-solving exegesis set forth in this instance by the inspired author of Hebrews, Bruce said, "Our author takes up verse 4 of the Psalm and applies it to Jesus in a way which, as far as we can tell, was unprecedented in the early church."[7]

The typical nature of Melchizedek and the manner of his foreshadowing the advent of the Saviour is deferred for full discussion later (Hebrews 7:1ff), where the true and amazing likeness is brilliantly detailed. This first mention of it though, is very important because of its bearing upon the question of Christ's qualifications to be the great high priest. The logical weight of the argument springs from the fact that Psalms 2:7ff foretold the Messiah to be a universal ruler over all his enemies (as set forth in Hebrews 1:5), a fact widely known and used among Christians of that age - and now, that same book of Psalms (Psalms 110:4) is brought forward to prove the extraordinary character of Christ's high priesthood. The author put both references side by side, the first hailing him as king, the second as a great high priest forever.

Thou art my Son, This day have I begotten thee (Psalms 2:7). Thou art a priest forever After the order of Melchizedek (Psalms 110:4).

Forever means that Christ has no successor as high priest, that as long as the sun, moon and stars endure, and to the remotest generations of people, he is still the great and only high priest. His work will never suffer any interruption nor be diminished in any way until all enemies have been put under his feet, and until the last redeemed sinners have entered the eternal abodes. Priests of Aaron's line were, like all men, subject to mortality and death; but not so with him who ever lives to make intercession for his own.

[6] F. F. Bruce, op. cit., p. 94.

[7] Ibid., p. 94.