Psalm 101, 109; Ezek. 11:14-25; Heb. 7:1-17; Luke 10:17-24
Though the inhabitants of Jerusalem thought of these exiles as sinful and deserving of their situation, the Lord did not judge them the same way. The promise here is that they will be restored to the land after a time. He is keeping them as a remnant and encouraging them to walk in His ways and continue to put their hope and trust in them here in this foreign land. He has not abandoned them or rejected them in spite of all appearances. In fact, to these God announces a new covenant in some ways, He will not only give them the land He will give them new hearts, hearts that delight to keep the law as the law will become the desire of their hearts. What a comfort, what love in sending Ezekiel to these exiles with a message of hope and perseverance.
How amazing that Jesus sent out this group of ordinary men and through them God worked great signs of the coming of his kingdom! In their work Jesus rejoices that He saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky but tells them to rejoice only in the fact that they have received the promise of life, not in the work itself. We know that we are saved by grace through faith which is itself a gift of God but in gifts we can sometimes take pride that God has given us these and works through us, we can somehow conclude we are special and worthy to do things others are not. Their exceptionalism is based only in the grace of God in revealing these things to them, things men like the prophets, truly exceptional men, longed to see. The doctrine of election should keep us humble.
Melchizedek has to be one of the more enigmatic characters in all of Scripture. He appears from nowhere in Genesis 14 as the priest/king of Salem which becomes Jerusalem later, the city of God. Abram has rescued his nephew Lot and after the victory this Melchizedek comes bringing bread and wine (sound familiar) and offering a blessing to Abram in the Name of God Most High. Abram receives the blessing and then offers a tithe of the spoils of war to this priest. We know nothing further about him but we have to believe that he was truly a priest in the service of Abram’s God or Abram wouldn’t have offered him tithes. Here, the writer compares Jesus to this man as a type of priest not in the line of Aaron, distinguishing Jesus’ priesthood from the Aaronic, hereditary priesthood. Jesus is not a priest from the line of Melchizedek, he is a priest like Melchizedek, chosen by God outside of the levitical priesthood. This is a priesthood by divine election. In the end, everything is about election and God’s sovereignty and in those truths we can rest secure in the perseverance of the saints.
Alleluia! King eternal, Thee the Lord of lords we own;
Alleluia! born of Mary, Earth Thy footstool, Heav’n Thy throne:
Thou within the veil hast entered, robed in flesh our great High Priest;
Thou on earth both priest and victim in the Eucharistic feast.
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