Psalm 110
Although this psalm is short, it is very deep and rich with Christ and His righteousness. It is pure unadulterated gospel. It is the truth as it is in Jesus. The subject spoken of here is without a doubt Christ. He applied it to Himself (see Matthew 22:44). Others also in the New Testament apply this passage to Christ (see Acts 2:34; Hebrews 1:13; 10:12.13).
There are several orders of priests recorded in the Old Testament. These include the Patriarchal, the Levitical, the Aaronic, and the Melchizedekal. Christ’s priesthood was greater than all others combined. A single kind of priesthood could not sufficiently illustrate Christ’s work on behalf of the fallen race. Of the mentioned priesthoods the Melchizedek order was the greatest of all (Hebrews 7:1-10). Melchizedek is mentioned historically only briefly and in passing in an account concerning Abraham (Genesis 14:18-20), but he is significantly mentioned in this psalm under consideration, and seven times in the book of Hebrews and is directly related to Christ and His priestly work (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 5:6,10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21).
The priesthood of Melchizedek links our day with the days of Abraham in that Christ’s priesthood is after the order of Melchizedek’s. The seventh chapter of Hebrews repeats the story of Melchizedek recorded in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. The setting of the return of Abraham is from an expedition against several nations who had united together and in their conquests kidnapped Abraham’s nephew Lot. Melchizedek met Abraham, blessed him, and gave him bread and wine to drink.
Melchizedek was a high priest of God.
Abraham recognized that fact and gave to him a tenth part of the recovered spoil. The Melchizedek priesthood is the Christian priesthood of Christ. And those who are Christ’s will give tithe of all their increase just as Abraham recognized the fact that the tithe belongs to the Lord.
Christ also blessed His disciples with bread and wine at His last supper. But more than just temporal blessings, the bread and wine were consecrated by Christ to represent His great sacrifice given for the fallen race that we might be blessed. And also the bread and wine represent the spiritual provisions Christ has stored up for us in the Everlasting Covenant of grace for our refreshment when we become weary with our spiritual conflicts. Christ our High Priest meets us in our spiritual battles, refreshes us, renews our strength and blesses us. As God sent Melchizedek to bless Abraham, so He sent Christ to bless us in turning us from our iniquities (Acts 3:26).
Who was this priest, Melchizedek?
Some have thought that it must have been Christ in human form. Others speculate that he came from another planet. As to the first notion, no one can be a type of himself. There is a distinction to be made between a similitude and reality, shadow and substance, or else they are of the same identity which then destroys the type-antitype construction. Melchizedek was one of an order; Christ was “another priest” of the same order (Hebrews 7:15).
As to the second idea, priests were to be of the human family. A priest was to be beset with the infirmities of those whom he represented (Hebrews 5:1-5). It is in connection with the Melchizedek priesthood that it is written of Christ, “who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He were a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things that He suffered” (Hebrews 5:6-8).
Melchizedek was a Canaanite Gentile ordained of God with the distinction as “priest of the Most High God” who bestowed God’s blessing upon the Hebrew race in Abraham. He was a king of Gentiles and a priest of Gentiles, again typifying Christ. Christ was of both Gentile and Hebrew descent (see Matthew 1). His priesthood was greater than all in that it encompasses all mankind everywhere and in every place.
Christ became the King and Head and Mediator of the fallen race. He was/is the “Light to the Gentiles.” He is “the Savior of every man, especially those who believe” (Isaiah 49:6; 1 Timothy 4:10). Like Melchizedek, Christ too was God’s Priest among the Gentiles. The Gentiles must come to God through Him. It is only through this priesthood that we can obtain reconciliation and remission of sin.
As a type of Christ, Melchizedek was like Him. He “was made like unto the Son of God” (Hebrews 7:2). He was a type of Christ as a king and as a priest. The word “Melchizedek” is more of a title than a personal name. It is compounded from two words, Melek, which means a king from malak, to reign; and zedek, meaning righteousness. His title means “King of righteousness” and Salem, the name of his city-kingdom, means “peace” (Hebrews 7:3). Melchizedek not only was a priest of righteousness, he was also a king of righteousness and peace. Righteousness and peace belong together. When a person believes and is justified, at that very moment he is at peace with God. This is because righteousness and peace meet in Jesus. He is “the Lord our Righteousness” and the “Prince of Peace.” The work of Christ’s righteousness is peace, quietness and assurance forever (Romans 5:1; Jeremiah 21:6; Isaiah 9:6; 32:17).
Righteousness and peace come to us through the Melchizedek order. By that order we are saved. Christ is our King and Priest representing us upon the throne of the universe which is in God’s temple in heaven. Our hope is based on this order of priesthood. It is centered in the fact that Christ our “forerunner is for us entered (within the veil of the heavenly temple), even Jesus,” “made an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:19, 20).
So far as the inspired written record goes, every king who attempted to unite the two offices of priest and king met with God’s disapproval. However, both Melchizedek and Christ were appointed to those united offices by God, and Christ by oath. Melchizedek represented God to the people he governed, and he was their representative to Him. So with Christ. Of Him it is written, “The Lord has sworn and will not repent, ‘You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.’” “The Lord said to My Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool’” (Psalm 110:4, 1).
Of Christ’s kingly priesthood it is written, “He shall build the temple of the Lord. He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule on His throne; so shall He be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both” (Zechariah 6:13). As priest upon the Father’s throne Christ makes reconciliation for the sins of the people. The power and authority by which He does so is the power of the throne of the universe, upon which He is seated at the right hand of the Father. It was by God’s oath that Christ was made a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.
The priesthood of Melchizedek was greater than the patriarchal in that Abraham, a patriarchal priest, paid tithe to him and knelt in submission to him, receiving the blessing of this person who was greater than himself.
Likewise, that priesthood was greater than the Aaronic because Aaron in Abraham paid tithe to Melchizedek and also received the Melchizedek benediction as Abraham knelt. And this was long before Aaron was born. This well illustrates the corporate solidarity of the human race.
We were all in Adam after as well as before he sinned. If he had perished in the garden of Eden the moment he sinned, you and I would not have seen the light of day for we were in his loins as was Levi in Abraham’s. And further, if we were not in Christ when He died, we could not be saved. We all died, since Christ died for all (2 Corinthians 5:14). This illustrates the corporate, legal equivalent of the eternal death of the damned.
This priesthood and kingship of Christ are connected with God’s oath. These offices of Christ came from God, ratified by His oath. This oath is God’s assurance of His gift of Christ to mankind. This oath is more necessary than the food we eat and the water we drink and the air we breathe, for without it we would have nothing to eat, drink or breathe. God “swore and will not repent.” To repent means basically to have a change of mind about something, or to turn back from a purpose. This gives force to the oath made by God. It is unchangeable, no matter what the cost to Him. He placed Himself at risk in this oath. He staked His throne for the fulfillment of His word.
This oath is security of the plan of redemption based on Christ in human nature. It was to be a terrible price at which that oath was to be fulfilled. The Father and the Son must be separated. The Son must give up forever some of His attributes as God, and take upon Himself the form and nature of the fallen race in order to save it. And in this condition Christ must meet the enemy and conquer him in behalf of mankind. He must meet and overcome Satan and his temptations on every point where the first Adam failed.
More than this, Christ was to “taste death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9).
And through the Father’s infinite connection with Christ, He too would taste it in His Son. He drank the whole torrent of this world’s sorrow.
This oath and God’s determination not to turn aside from it involved Christ being “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He was to be made sin itself in order to minister to us righteousness and peace. From this God would not turn aside, even though it cost the Godhead infinite sufferings. The occasion for repentance, for turning back, was the cost of our redemption. It was Christ or us, and the Godhead took the more costly route. They decided to pay the price, “for God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son …” (John 3:16). Whatever the combined forces of man and devils could throw at His Son, God would not withdraw from His settled purpose to make His Son a priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Included in the oath of the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ was Christ as the Surety of the everlasting covenant of God (Hebrews 7:20-22). Christ is the Surety of the everlasting covenant from two perspectives, that of man and that of God. A surety is a bondsman, a guarantor that a person will show up to answer charges of a complaint of guilt in a legal court hearing. If the person charged with the crime does not show up for the hearing, the bondsman forfeits what he put up as a guarantee. In the case of man, we failed and Christ forfeited His life. He made Himself responsible for our failure.
On the part of God He guaranteed the oath for our redemption. In behalf of God He paid the supreme sacrifice which is the basis of the everlasting covenant. You can read the covenant agreement between the Father and the Son in Isaiah 49. Christ was given to be a covenant to the people, for the people and of the people (Isaiah 49:8; see also 42:1-7).
A covenant is so called from the idea of sacrificing animals and passing between the divided parts in solemn covenant. This involved a promise and/or an oath that if one failed to perform his promise, then let him become like the dead divided carcasses through which he passed. God did this with Abraham. He gave to Abraham a promise, and backed it with an oath. And He did it with Christ and the human race. Adam lost his position and his possessions. Christ, the second Adam, regained the lost dominion through the Melchizedek priesthood, by the oath of God.
The ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary as our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek is for the specific and definite purpose of establishing the “better covenant” with its “better promises” in behalf of the “heirs of promise.” Involved in the everlasting covenant is the restoration of the earth as an everlasting possession based on God’s righteousness received by the inheritors through faith (Romans 4:13).
The carrying out of the oath of God in the covenant necessitated Christ being born into mortal flesh in order to die. It had to have been the nature of fallen man, because Adam in holy flesh could not die. This too was an occasion for God to turn aside. How could He allow His Son to become a part of the fallen race? He would do whatever it must take to redeem mankind. He swore that He would do it and would not turn away from His purpose. Christ would become one with the race. He would be numbered with the transgressors in order to save them. Christ for us, Christ with us, Christ as us. This was included in the order of the Melchizedek priesthood by the oath of God, notwithstanding that it would cause the greatest possible sorrow and suffering to the Father as well as to the Son.
Christ would, as the head of the fallen body of mankind, suffer with each member of His body till their suffering should cease forever and the power of sin over them be crushed forever. He is the Head of every man and it is when sin is eradicated that every tear shall be wiped away (1 Corinthians 11:3; Revelation 21:4). This includes the tears of God. His heart grieves while the body of Christ, the human race as well as the church, suffers.
There are seven New Testament references to Psalm 110:1 (Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42; Acts 2:34; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Hebrews 1:13; 10:13). These refer to Christ’s reign with His Father on His throne. There is one reference to His own reign upon His own throne (Revelation 3:21). Christ overcame, by faith, all opposition to be seated upon His Father’s throne. His enemies were formidable. They were Satan and his combined host along with man, sin, guilt and death. Christ overcame all by faith while He lived. “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:6, 7).
In answer to Pilate’s question, “Are you a king then?” Jesus replied, “To this end was I born” (John 18:37). Christ had to be “fitted” to be King of the human family. That fitness could not have been accomplished if He came only as the Son of God. To become the race’s king He must come as the Son of Man. And this fitness had to be adapted to the requirements of the race who in the weakness of their human infirmities endured the fierce assaults and conflicts with sin and Satan. He must take upon Himself human nature and pass triumphantly through all the experiences of the subjects of His kingdom, taking their sins, but without sinning. He was born to be this kind of King.
Christ had to become the Seed of the woman before He could be our High Priest. This is so, because a Priest must be taken from among His brethren so that they can know that He is “touched with the feelings of their infirmities” (Genesis 3:15; Hebrews 2:17, 18; 4:15). Christ had to become the Seed of the woman to become our King, for it takes kingly authority rather than priestly power to bruise the serpent’s head. Christ must be born into the human family. He was born to take fallen Adam’s place. In taking his place, He became the King over all the earth and took the title conferred upon Him by the oath of God as Priest-King after the order of Melchizedek. God was morally obligated by His oath to make Christ a Priest-King. And Christ was under that same obligation in order to redeem us.
The term “right hand” denotes God’s authority and highest power. Here it is used of the place and position accorded Christ in His human nature as now exalted. “Under His feet” is used to denote complete subjection to that highest power. Christ’s enemies will become part of His footstool literally when they are reduced to the physical material of which the earth is composed. The earth is God’s footstool and the wicked will become non-sentient ashes (Isaiah 66:1; Malachi 4:1, 3). The oath will reach its full effect when Christ takes possession of His kingdom in the earth made new.
But it is in the here and now that Christ is making up the subjects for His kingdom.
He takes people with various hereditary and cultivated backgrounds from every nation, kindred and tribe and transforms them into willing and obedient subjects in His present kingdom of grace. When He returns for His subjects He will translate them into His kingdom of glory. There they shall meet with the Father Himself and see His face and hear His words. They shall see Him who would not turn from His purpose to redeem them regardless of the cost to Himself. And as Melchizedek blessed God when he blessed Abraham, so the redeemed of the ages will voice the written words of John:
“Blessing and honor and glory and power
Be to Him who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb, forever and ever!”
(Revelation 5:13).