Our King of Righteousness, Our Priest Forever
Notes
Transcript
Context
Context
Psalm 107-150 comprise book five of the Psalter. Psalm 107-110 describe the redemption of God’s people through His mighty acts.
There is a crescendo of praise and hope as we move from one Psalm to the next. It begins with a mixture of praise, thanksgiving and desperate pleas for God’s intervention.
There are exaltations such as
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble
There are questions from a desperate heart such as
11 Have you not rejected us, O God?
You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
And there are prayers for God’s justice to prevail against the enemies of God:
12 Let there be none to extend kindness to him,
nor any to pity his fatherless children!
These Psalms contain ups and downs, and this really does capture how our lives go. Praise, thanksgiving, cries of desperation, urgency for justice to prevail, sorrow and praise again.
But then we get to Psalm 110.
The cries for help, the celebrations of God’s deliverance out of trouble, the sorrow from suffering are absent from this Psalm. What is contained here however is the foundation of David’s laments, his prayers of desperation and his resolve to trust in the Lord. There is ultimately one reason why his striving to trust God is not in vain. He knows, as we will see, that even if he is not delivered in the way and according to his desired timeframe, there is rock-solid justification to be unswayed in his trust in the Lord. One reason, that is, one promise, and it is to this promise we turn our attention to now.
Read
Read
A Psalm of David.
1 The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!
3 Your people will offer themselves freely
on the day of your power,
in holy garments;
from the womb of the morning,
the dew of your youth will be yours.
4 The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will execute judgment among the nations,
filling them with corpses;
he will shatter chiefs
over the wide earth.
7 He will drink from the brook by the way;
therefore he will lift up his head.
Introduction
Introduction
The 2021 song, Christ Our Hope in Life and Death by Keith and Kristyn Getty, (a song we regularly sing here) essentially asks the same question that question one of the Heidelberg Catechism asks:
Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong— body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
What is our only comfort, our only hope in life and in death? That we belong in Jesus, and the reason belonging to Jesus is such a surety is because of what He has accomplished on our behalf.
David was desperate for hope… desperate for comfort. Again, you and I can relate. There are times, and perhaps for some, right now that we have this desperation.
FCF
FCF
Have you ever been able to do a little analysis of the times you have waited for relief? On what do you rely or trust for relief? What truth do you depend upon for assurance in the midst of suffering? We often bank on the ceasing of our suffering to persevere rather than basing our assurance on the completed work of Christ.
What Psalm 110 makes clear is that the one with whom David has been pleading, is the victorious king and perpetual priest.
Main Idea
Main Idea
Since Jesus is our victorious King and perpetual Priest, our hope cannot be overcome by suffering.
So, if we are the objects of persecution
The victims of injustice
Have children who are wayward
struggle in our marriages
daily contend with our physical health
We struggle and we pray and we ask for God to move in ways that provide relief, but we fight to remember that our Savior, our Messiah is a victorious king and a perpetual priest.
I recognize that the connection between contending with suffering and seeing Jesus as both king and priest is not as straightforward I am suggesting. But I think as we consider what this Psalm says about this dual office of Jesus, the connection will become clearer.
For the rest of our time this morning, I will finish the following phrase with two responses:
Analytical Question
Analytical Question
Because Jesus is our victorious King and perpetual priest
We can rest assured that He has overcome all hostile powers. (1-3)
2. We can unreservedly trust that He will achieve final victory over all His enemies. (5-7)
Because Jesus is our victorious King and perpetual Priest
1. We can rest assured that He has overcome all hostile powers (1-3)
1. We can rest assured that He has overcome all hostile powers (1-3)
Now, packed into what I have stated are two points of interpretation that I have yet to demonstrate:
I have concluded that this is a Messianic Psalm. In other words, I have concluded that this Psalm is about Jesus. This is not a breakthrough interpretation, but I will show you why I believe this is the case.
I have also observed what David writes in verse four, that the Messiah will be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. This is where the perpetual priesthood and the kingship of Jesus comes in. We will dig a little deeper on Melchizedek in a few moments.
David’s Lord is the Christ
David’s Lord is the Christ
Now, the point we are now unpacking is that we can rest assured that Jesus has overcome all hostile powers. Jesus has done this, and we can see that He has from this Psalm.
Looking at verse 1:
1 The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
There are three figures or characters here in this verse:
David: the first person, possessive personal pronoun, my tells us this. This in addition to the superscription of the heading of the Psalm which states that this is a Psalm of David.
YAHWEH: Notice the title LORD. It’s all capitalized which is to tell us that this is YAHWEH that is referenced, and notice that He is speaking: The LORD says or YAHWEH says
Messiah: Notice who YAHWEH addresses: YAHWEH says to my Lord. That second Lord; the Lord that is not in all caps is the Hebrew title Adonai. This word means ruler, master and God.
So, David is declaring here that YAHWEH is saying to his Lord, sit at my right hand. You might be thinking, OK, that seems plausible that the Lord referenced here is a Messianic reference, but it’s not as obvious as I want.
Remember a fundamental rule to interpreting Scripture: Scripture interprets Scripture. And in the case of understanding the OT, how the NT uses it can be very helpful. As the sermon summary at the top of this page in the GTW says, Psalm 110 is the most frequently quoted or referenced Psalm in the NT. And Jesus’ use of this Psalm in a particular exchange with some of the Pharisees helps us make a clear connection between the Messiah and David’s Lord from verse 1.
There was an exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees about the resurrection from the dead. The Sadducees put forth a scenario based upon a law of Moses about the obligations of a family when a husband dies leaving behind his wife. There were seven brothers. The first brother took a wife and then died. The next brother in line takes the widow for his wife and then he dies. This goes on all the way through to the seventh brother. After laying out this unlikely set of circumstances, they ask Jesus in
33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”
Now, all of this was in an effort to catch Jesus in a compromised answer. They wanted to show Jesus to be a fraud. Jesus answered the Sadducees and demonstrated his superiority to them.
Some of the Scribes were watching this exchange, and after seeing that the Sadducees were unsuccessful in discrediting Jesus, they decided to give it a go.
Matthew’s account tells us this:
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
This was not a real question. Certainly this question is an important one, but Jesus knew their motives. Jesus does answer their question: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind… and… love your neighbor as yourself.
But Jesus knew their motives. He knew they were trying to discredit Him… trying to silence Him just like the Sadducees. So He asks them a question:
42 “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
Now the Pharisees answered correctly: The Son of David. But then Jesus asks another question, and He quotes Psalm 110:1 in His question:
43 … “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,
44 “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet” ’?
45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
Do you see the conundrum here. How could David say that his Son was His Lord. No one would think a son would be an authority to his father.
But do you see what Jesus is doing here. The Pharisees identified the Christ as the Son of David. Jesus answers in such a way that makes clear he understands David’s Lord from Psalm 110:1 as the Christ. How can the Christ also be David’s Son? The Christ who is David’s Son is also David’s Lord from Psalm 110.
All of this to say, that Psalm 110 is about Jesus, and Jesus Himself makes that clear.
The other point of interpretation is really just an observation from verse 4. David says of his Lord, “you are a priest forever”
David’s Lord is a priest forever
David’s Lord is a priest forever
But the office of priest was familiar enough to people in David’s day. Priests were very much a part of their experience. But David clarifies the priesthood of his Lord by saying at the end of verse 4: after the order of Melchizedek.
Melchizedek is a somewhat mysterious figure in Scripture, and this would have been especially true in David’s day. There are three places in Scripture where Melchizedek is mentioned. Two of them are in the OT: Gen. 14 and Psalm 110. The one place in the NT is the book of Hebrews.
Here’s the question: Why did David refer to Melchizedek?
Now, what was not familiar to the people of David’s day, nor to David himself was the mingling of the offices of priest and king. From the tribe of Judah came the kings and from the tribe of Levi came the priests.
We have an example of a king overstepping his bounds into a priestly role from 2 Chron. 26:16-21.
We don’t have time to go there, but King Uzziah went into the temple to burn incense. Azariah went in after him ith eighty other priests to stop him. Uzziah got angry at their opposition, and he was stricken with leprosy.
So, we have to ask, what is David thinking here of mingling priest and king in the same person?
And I want to point out that you have a declaration in verse one that the ruler is the Christ, and the commentary about the king from the second half of verse 1-3 is all about what the king will do. He will rule. He will conquer. Then we come to verse four and David says this king will also be a priest forever. And we might expect that there will be commentary about that declaration of the priesthood of the king, but David goes back to talking about what the king will do in verses 5-7. So again, what is David thinking here?
I think David was familiar with Gen. 14. You know what kings of Israel were to do when they took their throne? Deut. 17 tells us they were to write down for himself a book copy or reading copy of the law and he was to read it all the days of his life. David read the Scriptures… he meditated upon the Scriptures. He s the one who declared that blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night (Psalm 1). I think it is reasonable to conclude that he spent some time meditating on this priest king in Gen. 14.
Here’s the context of Gen 14.
There were four kings who got together and started these raiding parties with their armies. They joined forces. They began to make their way further and further south until they came close to where Abraham (Abram at the time) lived. Eventually they attack the king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah and three other kings, so you have four kings against five kings. Now in the midst of all the war and blood shed, they (these four kings) took the son of Son of Abram’s brother who was living in Sodom… his name was Lot. Someone escaped and told Abram what had happened. Abram joins his forces with some neighboring armies to attack these four kings:
15 And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. 16 Then he brought back all the possessions, and also brought back his kinsman Lot with his possessions, and the women and the people.
So, Abram is victorious. Verse 17:
17 After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).
Skip down to verse 21
21 And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.” 22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, 23 that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ 24 I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.”
So, so far it all makes sense. This is how it worked. Everything that the King of Sodom requested and offered was customary… it was the way it worked in situations like this. We should note that Abram, out of his devotion to the Lord, did not take anything from the king of Sodom despite being offered the spoil of their battle.
But verses 18-20 introduce something that’s important but challenging to understand.
18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
20 and blessed be God Most High,
who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”
And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Abram wanted nothing to do with the King of Sodom. He wouldn’t take anything from him. But this is not his posture towards Melchizedek the king of Salem. He does not see what he receives from Melchizedek as compromising his devotion to the Lord. We should note here that the name Melchizedek means king of righteousness. And his kingdom was Salem, and it is most likely the case that Salem was Jerusalem. So he was a king and notice verse 18, he was priest of God most high. And what does Abram gives him a tenth of everything that he has.
Now, we still need to try to get at what David was thinking , when he said that the Messiah’s priesthood would be after the order of Melchizedek. Anyone of significance in Genesis had a genealogy described. So and so, begat so and so, lived so many years and then he died. The are some mentioned who we don’t have their genealogy, but they’re not that significant. Here, Melchizedek, pops up out of nowhere, disappears, and Abraham honors him by giving him a tenth of everything.
And the author of Hebrews notes this distinction of Melchizedek:
3 He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.
Despite his position of power, despite his massive wealth, Abram recognizes this particular king as his superior.
So what is David thinking in Psalm 110? That some day, we will have a legitimate priest king. We will need a legitimate priest-king. One who will be victorious over all hostile powers. Against the powers and forces with which David was contending, but all as we will see soon. And the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind that the Christ will be a priest forever. Not in the order of the Levitical priesthood, but after the order of Melchizedek: king and priest of the God most high.
Now, I’m trying my best not to spend too much time in Hebrews so as not to mess with Pastor Josh’s series, but this is Hebrews 7, and by the time we get there most of us will have forgotten this sermon. But this is important when it comes to our understanding of the Messiah being a priest forever:
11 Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?
Do you see what the author is saying? If the Levitical priesthood was sufficient to attain perfection, why would there have been another priest from outside the tribe of Levi? So when David says 1000 years before Jesus, that His Lord, will be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, he is proclaiming that we need another kind of priesthood other than the Levitical priesthood. We need an eternal priesthood…. we need an eternal priest. And we have that in the Messiah. This is what the author of Hebrews understood:
15 This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, 16 who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is witnessed of him,
“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.”
So the kingship and the priesthood of our Lord, that is the Messiah is grounded not in genealogy, but in the God of eternity. And this is what David is declaring.
Are you getting a sense of our hope here. Jesus our victorious king and eternal priest has come, has done all that is necessary for us to have peace with God. Ad this is enough.
So we can rest assured that Jesus has overcome all hostile powers because He is the Christ and He is a priest forever and
He rules over all people (1b-3)
He rules over all people (1b-3)
Sit at my right hand
Sit at my right hand
This is quoted often in the NT. Consider the implications its use in the NT
In addition to being greater than David, as we have seen in Psalm 110, we also see He is greater than the angels:
13 And to which of the angels has he ever said,
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?
Consider Paul’s words
34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Christ’s session, that is His enthronement at the right hand of the Father grounds His intercession for His people.
And the fact that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father speaks also of conquest. His enemies will be His footstool. He will defeat His enemies, and they will pose no threat to Him.
In verse 2, he rules with a mighty scepter. In this context, it seems best to understand the scepter like the rod of Moses from Ex. 14, which was used to bring freedom to the slaves and defeat the evil doers. The verbal form of this word is used in Genesis 1 to describe Adam’s dominion of the creation.
So Christ rules over all people in that he rules over His enemies, but he also transforms people by His grace. Notice the phrase in verse 3
You people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power (3)
You people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power (3)
He so transforms His people that they willingly serve Him. It seems to me this is a reference to regeneration. Brought to life, and eager to serve their King.
The language at the end of verse three is challenging. To be sure, it is poetic:
… from the womb of the morning,
the dew of your youth will be yours.
This perhaps envisions an army that arises freshly and in holy splendor to do the bidding of their King. The phrase, womb of the morning is difficult to discern, but it does have the imagery of the springing into existence of new life., a connection regeneration.
So, we can rest assured that David’s Lord, the Messiah, Our Lord Jesus Christ has overcome all hostile powers. As the Christ He has done this. As the eternal priest He has done this. As ruler over all people, both His enemies and His own, he has done this.
He is our victorious King and perpetual Priest, so our hope cannot be overcome by suffering.
Secondly, because Jesus is our victorious King and perpetual priest
2. We can unreservedly trust that He will achieve final victory over all His enemies. (5-7)
2. We can unreservedly trust that He will achieve final victory over all His enemies. (5-7)
We see from verses 1-3, David’s Lord has defeated and is defeating His enemies. He has saved and is saving His people. In verses 5-7, there is an assurance provided to us that He will be victorious over all future enemies.
Notice
v. 5 he will shatter kings on the day of His wrath
v. 6 he will execute judgement among the nations
v. 6 he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth
v. 7 he will drink from the brook and he will lift up his head.
One day this priest king will finally defeat all His enemies. He will judge all the nations. And the enemies He will defeat in battle will be kings and chiefs or chieftains. In other words, the mightiest foes the world has to offer will be defeated by the Lord.
So kings who once had a throne and a kingdom, will one day become part of Christ’s footstool. Do loose heart church… yes there are times it appears that the wicked are enjoying victory and the evil is prevailing. Remember Psalm 110. Remember that Messiah has already achieved victory as King and Priest, but there will be a final victory, and the mightiest of men will be defeated, and that victory will be on the day of His wrath as verse five tells us.
This conflict will be global and the victory of Christ will be total.
But then we are given a glimpse of our Savior in verse 7 that we don’t want to miss:
7 He will drink from the brook by the way;
therefore he will lift up his head.
The battle is over. The Lord’s enemies have been defeated, so the soldiers are moving off the battlefield and they come upon a brook by the way. They want a drink, but they see a warrior bent down to take a drink, and he lifts His head, and the see that it the King. This is an image they would never forget. Our King will be victorious, and His victory will be the victory of His people and we will see that the battle is done and Jesus will be there among us.
People who have fought under the leadership of great military leaders testify how they treasured the opportunities they had to interact with them. Mere moments of interaction… hearing his voice… seeing his face was priceless to them.
Can we begin to imagine what it will be for us to see our glorious victorious King, our perpetual priest on this last day? What comfort. What joy. What everlasting peace.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Are you seeing your suffering and the hope you can have in the midst of your suffering differently. Our hope is not contingent on the ending of our suffering. It’s not contingent on anything that has not already been secured. Christ has the victory. Because He is our victorious King and perpetual Priest, our hope cannot be overcome by our suffering.
Yes, we ask the same questions that David asked the Lord:
How long O Lord?
Why have you forgotten me?
We have the same thoughts as David did as he suffered:
My heart is stricken within me
My knees are weak
I am an object of scorn
And so, as David did in Psalm 109:26, it is right that we cry out to the Lord for help. To ask Him to save us according to His steadfast love.
But there is a wonderful assurance we have and that is expressed at the end of Psalm 109, just before David turns His attention to the Messiah.
31 For he stands at the right hand of the needy one,
to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.
Where is God in relation to those who are His but who are also suffering? At their right hand. The place of power, of certainty. All those who suffer and are persecuted in Christ will be saved from condemnation. This is our hope church. Christ is our Savior, He is our King, He is our Priest, He is our God. So we thankfully, humbly and confidently say with the Psalmist,
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
Pray
Pray
Benediction
Benediction
Adapted from the words of the Apostle Peter’s sermon in Acts 2
Let all the household of God know for certain that God has made Jesus, both Lord and Christ. Amen
