Who was Melchisedec?

 

          People want to know who Melchisedec was.  Was he a real person?  Was it an Old Testament appearance of Christ?  Or was he a prophetic forerunner of Christ?  It really does not matter who he was; it is what he represented that is important.  Melchisedec had no history, no tree of decent, no mother and no father.  As such, he represented Christ, the King from heaven who also had no origin or beginning.  In the beginning the Word existed.  The Word was with God and the Word was God.  This is the testimony of Melchisedec.

King of Righteousness

          He was first the King of Righteousness. That is the Hebrew tsedeq (tseh-dek), which means the righteousness.  The first thing that this Melchisedec High Priest must bring to man and do for man is righteousness.  Righteousness is the basis for all that follows.  That is why justification, which means innocence from guilt, or in other words rightness, is the doorway of the Gospel.  The righteousness of God is manifest by grace and by Christ.

King of Peace

          It is not until righteousness has been established that there can be peace between God and the sinner.  Melchisedec is first the King of Righteousness, and then the King of Peace.  Salem means peace.

430 Years before the Law Covenant

          There is something you must get in your mind.  You may resist it; you may disagree with it; it may surprise you; you may not yet understand it; but if you do not yield to this biblical truth, no matter what you have to throw out of your thinking to do so, you will never get straight the matter of Abram and the covenants.  The Covenant of Promise, made in Genesis 12:3 and 7, and reaffirmed by the appearance and blessing of Melchisedec, was before the Old Covenant with the Nation of Israel.  There is more on this in the chapters that immediately follow, but this is the place to see the reality of it.  The New Covenant, the Eternal Covenant, the Covenant of Promise, the Covenant in Christ for the all nations of the earth was before the Covenant for the Nation.  The National Covenant, which was confirmed by the animal sacrifices in chapter 15, was established in Mount Sinai and Arabia 430 years later.  It had the Levitical priesthood and which was for a nation only.