-1- A PRIEST AFTER THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDECApril 29th, 1964
Henry F. Kulp
Hebrews 5:5, 6 & vs. 10 In this fifth chapter of Hebrews you see the Lord Jesus Christ as the great High Priest, and to understand the book of Hebrews, you must understand Christ as the Great High Priest. Christ was the only High Priest that was called the Great One.
Notice, Hebrews 4:14, seeing then that we have a Great High Priest -- let me say something about the word, great. God doesn’t use it very often. There is nothing great about man but one thing -- Genesis 6:5, God said that the sin of man was great, and I personally think that is the only thing that God mentions about man as being great. But someone might try to contradict me and quote to me Revelation 6:15, and the kings of the earth and the great men, and you might say, God calls man great in this verse. The word here, that is translated great from the original, is our word, magnate. The word, magnate, means a man who is high up in some industry -- we talk about those who are steel magnates. God uses the word to signify an office, not the man, so really there isn’t anywhere a man who God calls great, for men aren’t great. They are all the same before the Lord. But we have One who is great -- we have a Great High Priest, and that is the One we want to study about for the next few weeks.
Hebrews 5:5,6,10 So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee. 6 As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.10 Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec.
Hebrews 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
Genesis 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Revelation 6:15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
1/ Now notice, Hebrews 5:5, So also Christ glorified not Himself to be made an High Priest. Made a High Priest?
Yes, He came into this world to fit Himself to be the High Priest, as well as to be a Saviour.
Isaiah 59:16 And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
Christ Jesus came into this world to fit Himself so that He could go back to Heaven, sit on the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, and be the High Priest.
In days gone by, before Jesus Christ came to earth, suffered, bled and died and was resurrected and ascended into Heaven, there had never been a Heavenly Intercessor. And so in Isaiah it says, and He saw there was no man and wondered if there was no Intercessor, therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him. There was no one in Heaven to stand between God and the sinner. No one had been found who could intercede for a sinner. Even the Son of God at that time had no office for a sinner being saved. God would have mercy, but God has to have a reason for exercising His mercy, for God cannot overlook sin. If some great creature in the heavens had attempted to intercede for us and ask God to have mercy on sinners, God would say, Why should I have mercy on sinners? No one could answer it. Mankind needed a High Priest in the heavens, someone to stand between man and God, and during the Old Testament there wasn’t anyone. So the Lord Jesus Christ was appointed. Notice this -- He was appointed to be the High Priest.
2/ But to be the High Priest, He had to learn to fill the position. Remember, Jesus Christ was not a High Priest by birth. God made the Lord Jesus Christ a Priest. Jesus Christ was born the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, so He is a King by birth, and one day He will be a King on earth. But being of the tribe of Judah, Christ could not be a Priest. So God made the Lord Jesus Christ a Priest. So Jesus Christ has an office that was not His by birth. God gave it to Him, for God said, Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.
3/ But now, remember, I said, to be the High Priest, He had to learn to fill that position. You may not like that sentence, but it is Scriptural. You may think the Lord Jesus Christ didn't have anything to learn, but in order to be the High Priest, I'll repeat it, the Lord Jesus Christ had to learn how to fulfill that position.
I want you to turn to Hebrews 2:10 For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons into Glory to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Isn't the Lord Jesus Christ always perfect? Yes, but now that He is the Captain of our Salvation, He has to be perfected for that position. He had to pass through certain suffering.
4/ Remember this is talking about the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us turn to Hebrews 2:17, 18 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.
Notice there was a temptation that we are subject to, in other words, a testing that we are subject to, and the Lord Jesus Christ had to be subject to this same testing to learn how to help us. This is clear in this portion of Scripture.
But let us look at another Scripture, Hebrews 5:8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
Did Jesus Christ have anything to learn? Yes, He did. He was the Maker of the Universe, and He had to learn something. He had to learn obedience by the things which He suffered.
5/ Why did He have to learn obedience? Because He had never had to obey. There was never any need to obey. He and the Father were the eternal ones. Their fellowship was perfect, and through all eternity, the Father never told the Son to do anything. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one. But now He is told to do something. He had to learn obedience, He had to put Himself in the place of obedience. That is a tremendous thing, but this is what this Scripture teaches.
6/ Philippians 2:8 Being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
What does that mean? It means that the Father told Jesus Christ to die, and He became obedient. He said over and over again -- I did not come of Myself, My Father sent Me. He said, I came to do My Father’s will.
John 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
You will find that the Lord Jesus Christ said about 20 times, the Father sent Me -- Him that sent Me -- I did not come of Myself. This shows us what it cost the Lord Jesus Christ to purchase our redemption.
7/ Hebrews 5:5 So Christ also glorified not Himself to be made a High Priest.
That means, He didn't appoint Himself as High Priest. God the Father appointed Him. Now look at Verse 4, and no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.
Jesus Christ didn't appoint Himself as High Priest. God the Father did that, and He had to make Himself fit to be the High Priest by suffering, and when He had made Himself a High Priest, God appointed Him.
8/ Now look at Hebrews 7:25 Wherefore He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
You will notice, it does not say that He is able to save them that come unto Him because He died for them. It doesn’t say that. It says that He saved you because He is able to intercede for you. He had to give His life for you, shed His blood for the price of sin, and then He had to go back to Heaven to intercede, and that is His position at the present time. Did the Apostle Paul teach this? He most certainly did.
Romans 8:34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
9/ People are constantly studying the life of Christ. They love to go to the Gospels and study His life, but they ought to study His death and what happened after His death, burial and resurrection. It is well to know all about the miracles He performed, but that isn't what saves us. We ought to be studying about Him at the right hand of God in Heaven. We ought to know why He is there, and what He is doing there. We ought to know why He had to be appointed to that place, but in this world these truths are being hid.
10/ Hebrews 2:17 Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be merciful and faithful High Priest.
He had to be made like us, He had to pass through what we pass through in order to be a merciful High Priest. And right away I can hear you saying, Couldn’t the Lord Jesus Christ be merciful? Wasn’t He the eternal Son of God? Yes, that is true, but somehow He had to come down here and become one of us and enter into our life to learn how to be merciful to us.
11/ Notice, He never judges us, He never has a thing against us. All He has is mercy and compassion for us. He died for us. You will remember that the High Priest in the Old Testament never judged the people, and again you might say, weren’t the Israelites judged? Didn’t God destroy them, for some of the things they did in the wilderness? Yes, but it was Aaron who saved them out of it.
Will you turn in the Old Testament to Numbers 16:44 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 45 Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces. 46 And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun.
I think this is a good lesson that we ought to understand. Here is the evidence of what a High Priest did for the people, but remember, this was a high priest on earth, not in Heaven. As you know, as people of God in our present day, we do things we shouldn’t do, and so did the children of Israel back in the Old Testament. The children of Israel had sinned very grievously, and the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Verse 45 Get you up from among this congregation that I might consume them as in a moment, and they fell on their faces.
Notice, Moses and Aaron fell on their faces. God was angry because the people had sinned, but God had provided them an High Priest to go between God and man.
AMEN
4/29/1964 / #1 A PRIEST AFTER THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC / 8/5/2026
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