A mediator between God and man
Melchizedek
Before Aaron, before the tabernacle, before the law was given at Sinai, a king came out to meet Abraham with bread and wine. His name was Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God. Of all the priests of Scripture he is the strangest and the greatest sign, for the New Testament makes him the very pattern of Christ's eternal priesthood.
“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.”Genesis 14:18
“Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.”Hebrews 7:3
Who he was
Who he was. Melchizedek appears suddenly in Genesis 14:18-20. After Abram defeated the kings who had carried off Lot, "Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth." Abram gave him tithes of all. His name means king of righteousness, and king of Salem means king of peace. Then the record falls silent. Scripture gives him no genealogy, no account of birth or death, no successor. He is a king and a priest at once, ruling in the ancient city that would become Jerusalem, worshipping the true God centuries before Israel existed as a nation. He blesses the father of the faithful and receives tithes from him, and then he vanishes from the narrative. Psalm 110:4 later names him again in a prophecy about the coming Messiah: "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." That single line hangs over all the priests who came after him.
His priesthood
His priesthood. Melchizedek's priesthood was unlike any that followed. He belonged to no priestly tribe, for Levi had not yet been born; his father was not a priest before him, and he ordained no son after him. He served the most high God as both king and priest, an office Israel would carefully keep separate, since her kings came from Judah and her priests from Levi. When king Uzziah later dared to burn incense he was struck with leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:16-21), yet Melchizedek held both offices without offense, for God had appointed him. He brought out bread and wine, blessed a man greater in promise than himself, and received the tithe that acknowledged his higher standing. The writer of Hebrews draws the lesson carefully: "without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better" (Hebrews 7:7). His priesthood did not rest on descent or on a carnal commandment but on his own person and God's word, and because Scripture records no end to it, it stands as a figure of a priesthood that never passes away.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. This is not a traditional reading laid over the text; the New Testament states it plainly. Hebrews 7 takes Genesis 14 and Psalm 110 and reads Melchizedek as the direct type of Jesus. "For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God ... first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is King of peace; without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually" (Hebrews 7:1-3). The point is not that Melchizedek had no parents, but that Scripture deliberately omits them so that he prefigures the Son who truly has no beginning and no end. Christ is priest not by Levitical descent, since He sprang from Judah (Hebrews 7:14), but by "the power of an endless life" (Hebrews 7:16), confirmed by God's oath in Psalm 110:4. He is King of righteousness and King of peace, and He offers Himself once for all and ever lives to bless His people.
Questions people ask
Was Melchizedek an appearance of Christ himself?
Hebrews 7:3 says he was "made like unto the Son of God," which distinguishes him from the Son rather than identifying him as the Son. The safest reading is that Melchizedek was a real historical king-priest of Salem whom Scripture presents as a type, a prophetic picture, of Christ. Some in church history speculated further, but the text itself calls him a likeness, not the reality.
Why does it matter that Abraham paid tithes to him?
Hebrews 7:4-10 argues that since Abraham, and in a sense Levi still in his loins, paid tithes to Melchizedek, Melchizedek's priesthood is greater than the Levitical one that descended from Abraham. This shows that the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, fulfilled in Christ, stands above and outlasts the priesthood of the law.
What do the bread and wine signify?
Genesis 14:18 simply records that Melchizedek brought bread and wine to refresh Abram and his men after battle. Scripture does not explicitly tie this to the Lord's Supper, so we should be careful; yet many Christians have long seen in a priest of God offering bread and wine a fitting foreshadowing of the table Christ would give His people.