Two of the major groups of people that Scripture looks at are Jews and Gentiles. Jews are God’s chosen ethnic group, and they were placed under the Sinai Covenant with its divine Laws. But because of their constant disobedience, God withdrew Himself and His honour away from them and left them to their own desires and reasoning. Even so, in the gospels they are urged to think again with the coming of their Messiah. Then we have the rest of humanity, referred to in Scripture as ‘Gentiles’ or ‘Greeks’, the various tribes, races and nations of the world. They were not placed under the Sinai Covenant and its Laws, but were left to go their own way in ignorance. Since the coming of the Messiah, they too are now urged to think again.
Given what I have said so far, what is the situation regarding Christians and the divine Law of the Sinai Covenant? Most Christians today are Gentiles. Many of them typically turn to Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, to see what he has to say on this matter. But I consider that we get a foundation and context for Paul’s teaching in another New Testament document, namely the Letter to the Hebrews. We don’t know the name of the author of this letter, but he is writing to Jews who have become Christians, and in part of his letter he writes about this very theme. So it is worth spending time to look at what he has to say.
The author explains that Jesus has been made high priest, but that he is not like the high priests of old. ‘Although being a Son he learned obedience away from what he endured, 9 and being made complete he became the author of perpetual rescue to all hearing under him, 10 named under God high priest corresponding to the arrangement of Melchizedek’, (Hebrews 5 v 8 – 10). See also Hebrews 6 v 20.
This means that there are two orders of priests – The Levitical order and the order of Melchizedek. He describes Melchizedek in this way – ‘This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, 2 and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” 3 Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever’, (Hebrews 7 v 1 – 3 NIV).
Shortly afterwards, the author of the letter to the Hebrews begins to make a comparison between these two priestly orders and how they relate to each other, particularly for those Christians who were previously devout Jews under the Sinai Covenant with its divine Laws.
