Heb 7:14-17 - Christ - Eternal, Immortal God

Heb 7:14-17 - Christ - Eternal, Immortal God


Heb 7:14-17 For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. 15 This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, 16 who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”

Notice that the writer uses the phrase "our Lord" when addressing these people. This is the evidence of the writer’s hope for them - that they are indeed in Christ and have acknowledged themselves to be under His lordship.

This section expands and reiterates what was just said. Jesus was from Judah and not Levi and could not have been a priest under the Mosaic Law. He was, instead, the priest "after the order of Melchizedek" mentioned by David in Psalm 110 - which order was neither under Moses law, nor mortal like all the other priests. In fact, Christ was not a priest by legal or hereditary descent, but by the demonstration of the power of His eternal life, which could not be killed (though his body was).

Notice here that the writer is putting the gospel they had believed not into the death of Christ, but into His resurrection. If He had but died that would have made Him like all mortal men. But no man before or since has ever demonstrated the power to lay down and to take up again his life. Only Eternal Life Himself could do this. Only a Being of another order of existence could do such a thing. Only such a Being could be the foretold "priest after the (other) order of Melchizedek".