- When we look at Melchizedek, he's an interesting figure in the Bible. And Christians have had
different interpretations as to who was Melchizedek. Some Christians have thought of him as a historical figure,
a Canaanite king priest who was living at the time of Abraham. Other Christians have
interpreted Melchizedek just as a type. And other people have
interpreted Melchizedek as an appearance of Christ, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, which we would call a Christophany. In Genesis 14, we have
an interesting passage which talks about four kings. These kings from the east had
subjected the people of Canaan and were expecting the people
of Canaan to pay tribute. And they didn't pay the tribute, so the next year the kings from the east came to beat up the Canaanite kings and subdue them and force
them to pay tribute. And this is where Abraham
enters into the story because Lot, his nephew, was
living in one of these cities, so when these four kings captured the five cities
south of the Dead Sea, they took Lot and his
family into captivity. So Abraham gathers all the men that were, all of his slaves, all of the men that were in his household that he had trained for war, 318 men, and he surprises the four
kings and conquers them, and recovers his nephew,
Lot, and his family. When he comes back, all of a sudden, we have this person called Melchizedek, who's described as the king of Salem, which is obviously
connected with Jerusalem. And he's presented as a king and priest. So he's the king of Salem, he's the priest of the Most
High God, the Creator God. It says in the text, he says, "Blessed be God, or El,
creator of heaven and earth," and he calls Him the Most High God. So here we have a Canaanite king priest who is a worshiper of
the one true creator God. And we shouldn't be surprised
by that just because, Abraham was a worshiper
of the one true God. It doesn't mean he was the only worshiper of the one true God. There were other people who
worshiped the one true God. Job for example, Melchizedek for example. Other people at that point in
history were still worshiping, one, supreme being as the
creator and God over everything and had not abandoned and
fallen into polytheism. These things have actually been clarified, by archeology in the last 100 years. In the 1920s, archeologists
were excavating a site, called Ras Shamra, which turned out to be the ancient city of Ugarit. And this city of Ugarit, flourished in the 12th century BC. And the archeologists uncovered hundreds and thousands of tablets that describe every
area of Canaanite life, including their religion. So we have many hundreds of tablets that describe the worship of Baal or Baal. The Canaanites worshiped, Baal. He is the god of lightning and thunder. He's the West Semitic storm deity. He is the one who brings the rain, and he's the one who brings
fertility to the land. What we see from these tablets is that there is an evolution, or maybe I should call it a devolution, to Canaanite religion. So what they show us is
that at an earlier period, the Canaanites worshiped
one true creator God. They would not necessarily
have known Him as Yahweh or had a relationship with Him like the people of Israel
in the Old Testament, but they did worship one
supreme transcendent being. And in the period of time between Abraham, and the 12th century BC, their religion degenerated, and they abandoned the
worship of one supreme God and began to worship many gods. And so these texts that
we have from Ugarit actually show us that the creator God, who's called El, who's
called the Most High, has faded into the background and the chief god ruling
all of the other gods is Baal the rain god. So this fits perfectly with the data that we have in the Bible because in the Bible, in Genesis, we have a Canaanite king priest who is a worshiper of
the one true creator God. And what we see then in the next, from the period of Abraham, from maybe 2000 BC down
to the 12th century BC, the Canaanites degenerate from worshiping one true creator God into worshiping all the forces of nature, particularly, the rain god. Many people have not understood what the author to the
Hebrews was trying to do. The author to the Hebrews, as well as David himself in Psalm 110, see Melchizedek as a model
or pattern of the Messiah. And the question is why is that? Simply because he's both
a king and a priest. In Psalm 110, the Psalm is
divided into two stanzas. In the first stanza, a divine
declaration creates a king. In the second stanza, a
divine oath creates a priest. The king and the priest
are the same person. And both stanzas show this
coming descendant of David, this coming king priest as defeating and conquering the nations. In the book of Hebrews, the author is seeing Melchizedek as a model or pattern of the coming Messiah. So for example, in the book of Genesis, everybody has a genealogy,
except Melchizedek. So he's presented as if he just doesn't have any father or mother. He's presented as if he's
almost like an eternal person. And so, it's not that Melchizedek
was an eternal person. It's the way the author
of Genesis presents him. It makes it feasible for
him to be a model or pattern of the coming Messiah. And he is not a Christophany. He's not a pre-incarnate,
appearance of Christ. He's an actual, historical,
individual or person. He was a king of a city in Canaan, probably around 2000 BC. And he was both king and priest. Because Christians didn't
have very much information about the ancient near eastern background, they didn't have very much information about the development
of Canaanite religion, and because of the statements
in the book of Hebrews, they misunderstood the
author of the book of Hebrews to be suggesting that Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, which is not what the
author to the Hebrews is actually saying. And what's important about Melchizedek is that he is the earliest
figure that we have in the Biblical history of someone who is both king and priest. And so according to
Psalm 110 and Hebrews 7, he is a model or pattern
for the coming deliverer that finds ultimate
fulfillment in Jesus Christ. (music) - [Narrator] Thanks for
watching Honest Answers. Don't forget to subscribe. (music)
