THE MYSTERY of MELCHISEDEK

The man called Melchisedek, which by interpretation means King of righteousness and King of Salem is another route to discovering the mystery of Jesus.We will begin our analysis by looking at the history behind His personality and its implication for Christians:The existence, appearance, and otherwise of Melchisedek is a big puzzle. For instance, I can not help but ask, Where was Melchisedek during the preaching of Noah, during the flood or even when Noah acted as Priest (Genesis 8:20-21)? Yet He has always been there. Still in this direction, who were the congregation that Melchisedek ministered to in the light of the fact that GOD had recently chosen Abraham from among the grand-sons of Noah a people devoted to satisfying their desires and ambitions (Genesis 11:3-6; 13:12)? Yet He has always been a Priest from day one.Evidently GOD was not satisfied with the world even after the deluge hence His desire to pick one man from it to communicate His ways, and from the records Abraham himself was called of GOD as a priest (Genesis 12:7-8; 13:4, 18; 15:9-11; 18:22-23; 19:27; 20:7, 14, 17; 22:1-14). He (Abraham) could impart tithing (Genesis 28:22) because he himself paid his tithe regularly (Genesis 14:20). If Abraham as a priest paid his tithe to Melchisedek, it means he recognised that Melchisedeks priesthood was higher than his.But who could have inspired Abraham that a priesthood that had no standing congregation and possibly with no other known disciple was better than his? Some theologians have surmised that Melchisedek was a Canaanite priest but evidence from the Bible does not support this. The Bible rather shows that the people of Canaan were idolatrous from day one so much so that GOD had to warn the House of Israel against interacting with them. There is therefore no way Melchisedek could have been a priest of the Most High among a people that did not know the Most High. GOD is not known for duplicating the Dispensations of Grace; even Judaism had to give way to Christianity at the appointed time, thus there is no way He could have chosen Abraham to teach His ways when Melchisedek already knew enough about Him to be a priest in Canaan at least not when the priesthood of Melchisedek was perfect and eternal. Moreover the LORD GOD with His own mouth proclaimed that He called only one family that of Abraham and Sarah, to reveal the mystery of GOD (Isaiah 51:1-2). It is said that Melchisedeks priesthood is from everlasting but just how old was His first act as a priest and who could tell when He will do the last? And how old was Canaan when eternity was born? This effectively eliminates the possibility of Him being a priest of Canaan. The Bible says that Christ was sacrificed right from the foundation of the world but who performed the sacrifice?If Melchisedek, a High Priest with full human characteristics has no end, where on Earth is He right now? Have you started seeing the mystery embedded in The Man Melchisedek? Apostle Paul was at a loss on how to explain to his audience the mystery of Melchisedek because it was not yet time but thanks to the one who chooses the foolish things of this world to make known His wisdom in His time and to confound the wisdom of the world; the revelation of the person behind the mystery called Melchisedek is given to this generation: He is GOD the Father in His Divine transcendental Material form the one that can appear and disappear; walk through matter, space and time to where He was not previously existing, simultaneously and leave whenever He chooses; the same form The Resurrected Jesus assumed, nay went back to. He is The Pre-incarnate Material Manifestation of God. That is the form that no human law of existence can control. Melchisedek is the only body that GOD made for Himself prior to creation; He is the one that refuses to go away no matter how much we do to put Him aside we will first need to take ourselves out of existence before we loose our earthly awareness of Him yet He will still be there and His majesty then so near and the awesomeness so fearful we will desire mountains to bury us out of His sight; yet in the rubbles of the mountains He will be waiting! That is the Man we have to contend with.For those who may want to dispute that Melchisedek is The Pre-incarnate Material Manifestation of God , lets consider the following:

His Uncaused ExistenceHebrews 7:3 shows that Melchisedek had no father, mother or genealogy. There is no other essence that aptly fits this description than GOD except we are insinuating that there are two individuals who have this attribute but one of them is not God. To wit, even Adam had a line of descent from GOD, the Uncaused Cause of all existence. If Melchisedek is not descended from Adam, then He wasnt a human though He had a human form.

Everlasting ExistenceMelchisedek has neither beginning nor end. In other words, He lives continually as the Ancient of Days the one who has seen and will see innumerable days (Hebrews 7:3, 16). He is the Alpha the beginning of timeless past, and the Omega the end of endless end. It is all too glaring; this is the attribute of GOD and since there is no room for two such individuals in one universe, it can only mean that Melchisedek was an introduction to the time when humanity will experience GOD in the flesh. And as Matthew Henry would say of Jesus, He not only had a being before He was born of a virgin but He had a being before all time

King of Righteousness and PeaceIt is a foregone conclusion that there is non righteous but GOD. If Melchisedek was just another human, then his righteousness would have been like a filthy rag; thus making Him unqualified to be titled and addressed as the King of Righteousness (Hebrews 7:2) a title that is synonymous with: the Righteous King, the Originator of Righteousness, the King of Righteous-land and the GOD of Righteousness. The same argument holds for the title the King of Salem because it is only GODs kingship that guarantees unending and satisfying peace; the type that Jesus calls My Peace!

The Order of Perfection It was GOD who instituted the Levitical priesthood with all the rites and ordinances meant to purify the priests and the people of Israel unto perfection yet He wasnt satisfied with the level of perfection because imperfect human mediators were involved (Hebrews 7:11, 16). But why would God certify Melchisedek The Perfect Priest if he was yet another human which would have made Him unaccepted as the perfect mediator; if not to show us a model of Jesus priesthood. What was GOD teaching here? Melchisedek was not descended from Adam so He didnt inherit the sin-gene from him. Here GOD was teaching an everlasting truth: we are imperfect not because we are on Earth but because of the seed of sin we inherited. This implies that we can get perfection from Him who is perfect just by being descended from Him; because just like Melchisedek, Jesus did not inherit the sin-gene because He was neither descended from Adam nor from Eve (read the Affirmation of Luke Gospel for an insight on this assertion).May we drive home our argument thus: only one man is The Source of perfection and that is GOD. Hence if GOD Himself to attribute perfection to Melchisedek, it can only mean that He was talking about Himself!

Eternal PriesthoodSince Melchisedek has eternal existence and perfection, any office He assumes, He holds in perpetuity; including of course the Priesthood (Hebrews 7:3, 21, 23-24). When a person holds an office for life it is either because he has absolute power, absolute right, there is no worthy opposition, no rival, or there is a unanimous concurrence that he is the only one best suited for the job. For Melchisedeks Priesthood to be uninterrupted, it means He is the best man for the job, or there is no other power to stop Him. Since GOD has the ultimate power and the best brain in whatever He chooses to do, it follows therefore that Melchisedek is who He has been proven to be the Material Being of the Pre-incarnate GOD; the same that is Priest and King upon The Throne of God (Zechariah 5:12-13)Compare the source of authority for the Levitical Priesthood and that of Melchisedek: the one that was caused gave way to the uncaused; the one with delegated authority gave way to the one with absolute authority; the human stepped aside for the divine; the temporal bowed to the permanent; ordinances gave way to grace.That is the Priesthood of Melchisedek, nay Jesus the GOD of Heaven and Earth.

Endless Spiritual PowerHebrews 7:16 states that the Priesthood of Melchisedek is Spiritual; with endless power and life that is, the life of the spirit is unlimited, same as the power of the spirit behind the priesthood. For a man to hold spiritual office, he must be in control of the spirit behind the office. But to be in control of unlimited spiritual power, you have to be the source of such spirit. By deduction, Melchisedek was holy by his own power (Hebrews 7:26). By inference He was the source of the Spirit behind His Priesthood. What comes from a holy source is holy; hence Melchisedek is the source of the Holy Spirit and therefore GOD.

His Right to Tithes It is incontrovertible that Melchisedek demanded and collected tithes from Abraham who himself was another High Priest. By doing so He showed that His Priesthood was higher than Abrahams and his descendants. If Melchisedek, a High Priest had the right to collect tithes from other High Priests and lay Priests as represented by Abraham, Aaron and the other Levitical Priests, who exactly was He claiming to be? Malachi 3:10 reveals that the one who demands and collects tithes is the LORD GOD Himself He is the only one to whom every Priests (High, Ordinary and adopted) must pay its tithes to. Melchisedek demanded and collected tithes from Abraham and therefore, from all the children of Israel; biological and adopted. Isnt it evident that the Collector of collectors is superior to all, and that the only person who is superior to all in the commonwealth of Israel is GOD?Whenever you stop to pay your tithes, you are questioning His right to have collected full tithes from Abraham, and hence His right to be GOD. Note how Melchisedek describes GOD the Possessor of Heaven and Earth, so GOD doesnt demand for tithes because He wants you to add to His riches or because He is poor; but because He wants you to accept that all possessions come from Him, and because He is waiting to give you more from His storehouse of unlimited possessions (Genesis 14:18, Malachi 3:10-11). Whenever Abraham paid His tithes, he was confident to reject gifts from the ambassadors of Satan, lest Satan stakes a claim to the stupendous blessings that comes with being faithful to the true giver of good gifts (Genesis 14:21-23). Get wise lest He consumes you. Whether you call Him Melchisedek, YHWH or Elohim; He is the only one with undisputable right to tithes, and therefore the LORD GOD.

The Relationship between Jesus and Melchisedek The next phase of our argument is to draw a straight line connecting Melchisedek to Jesus: Hebrews 5:6, 10-11; 6:20 and 7:15 all aver that Jesus was called to the Order and similitude of the priesthood of Melchisedek. Does this presuppose that an eternal Melchisedek has ceased to exist? Does this resemble eternity? You are right, impossible!For someone to hold an office similar to another, the two offices must be similar in almost all scope and function except in the actual persons operating the office. But the comparison of Jesus to Melchisedek yields an unusual result He resembles the physical form of Jesus; as Hebrews 7:3 (RSV) puts it, resembling the Son of GOD You heard right, Melchisedek looked a lot like Jesus even though Jesus manifested later! In other words Melchisedek had a form that could only be likened to Jesus; isnt this strange? A father does not resemble a son for the simple reason that the father is the model upon which the son is made, nor does a later event act as a model for implementing a former event, rather it the son that resembles the father! I hope we can get the message here: Jesus simply assumed a form He had always had. This also proves that the Material Body of Jesus was the model upon which humans were created. Little wonder we are told in Genesis 1:27 that we were made in Gods own image and Colossians 1:15 calls Jesus the Image of God!By Hebrews 7:23 account, the former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office but Jesus holds His office perpetually (Hebrews 7:17, 20-21). If, it is only death that prevents a High Priest from continually holding his office, and Melchisedek is not dead; isnt it self evident why only Jesus was called to the Priesthood of Melchisedek? Jesus mission on Earth was therefore to complete what He had started in the spiritual plane. In fact we can say that GOD swore by Himself that He will take a physical body with which to show publicly what He did before the foundations of the universe were laid, and true to his character, He did (Zechariah 6:12-13, I Thessalonians 3:13, I Peter 2:24-25, Hebrews 7:20, 25).Hebrews 7:2 calls Melchisedek the King of Righteousness while Jeremiah 23:6 calls Jesus the LORD of Righteousness; yet Jesus is the King in Jeremiah 23 :5 and Zechariah 6:12-13. Again in Hebrews 7:2 Melchisedek is the King of Peace; Jesus is the Prince of Peace in Isaiah 9:6 and yet the King of Peace in Isaiah 9:7 and Zechariah 9:9-10. Obviously GOD was trying to teach us something in advance with the temporal manifestation of Melchisedek and all the symbolism attributed to Him, and therefore point us to Jesus. Hence I can safely deduce that the mystery of Melchisedek was meant to teach that the King of Peace refers to that divine body that existed from all eternity and the Prince of Peace; the incarnate of that divine body. It also teaches that the incarnation did not take away the presence of the King from Heaven since the Prince is still the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:16). Little wonder then that the King calls the Prince my Fellow my other me! (Zechariah 13:7). The mystery of Melchisedek only shows one GOD simultaneously operating in different dimensions of existence, the spiritual and the physical. Now I understand why the Prince said, I only do the things I see my Father doing.In retrospect, Melchisedek did His first physical priestly duty when He killed a lamb in order to cover the nakedness that disobedience had brought upon Adam and Eve; He completed it when He offered Himself as a lamb so that He can cloth the nakedness and shame that sin brings to us, with His righteousness. On that fateful day, Melchisedek the King offered Melchisedek the Prince; yet Melchisedek the Prince is the everlasting High Priest who offered Himself by The Holy Spirit! (Hebrews 7:26-27, 9:14). Have you gotten any wisdom? That is the mystery encoded as the Trinity and why GOD is God.I lay this essay to rest by saying that the Bible is an Encyclopaedia on the Divinity of Jesus and His divine love for the human race, because it has various ways to teach men that Jesus Christ is the only wise GOD working in different dimensions and dispensations in service to frail humanity.When He needed to explain the importance of tithes, and to give a key for the future unveiling of the Person of The True GOD to end time Christians, He picked the enigma called Melchisedek.

As seen by His servant;Michael Elkana Nkanyi Uyeh.