To Encourage You

Hebrews 7:3 “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.”

I remember the conversation well because of the quizzical look I received at the time.  I was teaching an adult Sunday School class, and we were on the topic of Jesus’ birth. I mentioned that Jesus didn’t “begin” as a baby in a manger.  He had existed from all eternity, but it was in the manger that he entered this world as a man.  The Bible tells us that He “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  In other words, he already was before that time. Again, from John 1, we are told that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3).  How can anything already be in the beginning?  To say that this is a difficult thing to wrap our heads around is an understatement.  No wonder the confused look from the student in my class. 

Things like this are unlike anything else we know.  It’s unique, outside of us. It’s so foreign to our way of thinking, yet that’s exactly the way it is.  God, in His condescension to us, helps us to understand such things by the pictures he has painted for us in His Word. In the verse above He gives us the example of Melchizedek.  He’s a priest that seemingly comes out of nowhere in his encounter with Abraham in Genesis 14.  Melchizedek was different than all the other priests of the Jews to whom the book of Hebrews was written. To them, the priesthood was that which was laid out by Moses in the Law.  The genealogy of any priest was critical, for if they didn’t come from the line of Jacob’s son Levi, they could not serve in that office.  It was called the “Levitical priesthood” for that very reason.  However, in Hebrews 7 God explains to us that there was a superior priesthood to that of the Levitical.  It came before the Levitical priesthood, for it already existed long before Levi, or even Abraham, Levi’s great-great grandfather.  We are told nothing about Melchizedek’s parents, because for the purposes of this illustration, Melchizedek’s origin is not the point.  God is telling us that just as there is no mention of where Melchizedek came from in Genesis 14 where he is introduced, there is no mention in the Scriptures of Jesus’ divine origin, for he had none. He, from all eternity, already was. 

How great He is! How awesome this One Who became the son of Mary, yet Who had created Mary, for He existed before Mary was!  He is unlike anything else in the universe, for it was the universe that had its beginning in Him! The apostle Paul exulted in wonder at all this in the words of Romans 11:36: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”  And to think that he wants us to know Him, this One whose existence eternally transcends anything else we could ever know.  We and everything else in our world came from Him.  We and everything else in our world came through Him. And we and everything else in our world can only find its ultimate purpose as we draw near to Him, for it is to Him that all things will ultimately bow. 

How high is your view of this One called Jesus?  How great is He in your eyes?  Do you know this One Who is higher than anything? Have you ever come to His feet to bow?