Even after millennia

Tuesday - Hebrews 6: 19-20

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

If we only saw Melchizedek and his Canaanite “God Most High” in Genesis 14, it would be easy to dismiss Abram’s interaction with them as one of his many failings. But the author of Hebrews puts Melchizedek in the same camp as Jesus! So is Jesus now the priest of a pagan god? Probably not.

If we look at the rest of Hebrews 6, we see a lot of language describing Jesus as the guarantee (or certainty) of God’s promise of deliverance. For many Hebrews during the time of this book, Jesus wouldn’t have looked very much at all like what they expected God’s promise of deliverance to be. In fact, he was so unlike what they expected that the religious leaders were at the front of the line for his execution. After thousands of years of developing their theology, the Jewish leaders still don’t have quite a large enough picture of God. How do you feel about a God who may not be understandable, even after millennia? Does that make you uncomfortable? Meditate on that today.