God Has Made Him Both Lord and Christ

Our great God and King, we do ask once again for your help that we would have ears to hear that you would work deep within us what you have for us by your Word and by your spirit. For all the things we may have done in the past week, things we’ve seen, ways we were entertained, conversations we had, music we listened to, shows we watched, books we read, news we took in, truly nothing is as important as the Word that we are about to hear so help us, give us powers of listening and concentration, and give to us by the power of your Holy Spirit confidence in this Word and in Christ our king in whose name we pray. Amen.

We have already sung these words, we have already heard them alluded to in other scripture passages, now hear the text itself read. Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 110. Follow along as I read from this great chapter of the Bible.

A Psalm of David.

The Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! 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. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.

If you think about summer vacations. I remember one of the vacations we took when I was growing up, we took several trips out west and went to The Badlands and made that long stretch through South Dakota with all of the Wall Drug signs, if you know you know, if you’ve ever been up there. And we did go see Mount Rushmore and I know it’s become fashionable, maybe it always has been, to sort of make fun of Mount Rushmore as a vacation destination, but I suppose this says something about me, I quite like it. I quite liked seeing the history and the presidents carved into the stone. You know that four presidents there on Mount Rushmore. But I wonder if you had to make a Mount Rushmore of the most important chapters in the Bible, the Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jefferson, what would be the four chapters. 

We don’t have time for an audience participation this morning, but you maybe just think to yourselves for a moment, and you can talk about it around the dinner table later, what would you put as the four chapters on your Mount Rushmore of the Bible? We had a little conversation last night around our dinner table and no that’s not what we usually talk about at the pastor’s dinner table, but I said, here’s what I’m gonna open the sermon with and we had some very good suggestions. Genesis 1, Psalm 23, Romans 8. One of the children was just throwing a curveball and said Jeremiah 8, to look what sort of whoa or judgement that may be. Maybe you think Hebrews 11, Exodus 20, The Ten Commandments, Isaiah 53, The Atonement, John 3, you get the new birds, you get John 316. First Corinthians 15, The Resurrection. Maybe the end Revelation 21 and 22. What would you put your four chapters of the most important chapters, they’re all inspired, they’re all good, they’re all important, but the four that would get up there, very few of you, except that I already read the text this morning and so you sort of know where this is going, would before this morning likely have thought to put Psalm 110 on your Mount Rushmore of Bible chapters, but I hope you will agree that if it doesn’t belong there it certainly is in the running for one of the four most important chapters in the Bible. Certainly, the apostles with their Hebrew scriptures thought so. An important piece of Bible trivia, you may have heard before, there is no chapter in the Old Testament quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more often than this one, Psalm 110. Depending on how you count the references and the illusions, there are more than 30 references in the New Testament to this chapter Psalm 110, and we can go further. The first verse of 110 is the single verse referenced most often in the New Testament and then verse 4, the Melchizedek verse, there are basically three chapters in the Book of Hebrews. Hebrews 5, 6, and 7 which are sort of an explanation of that one verse. In some manner you could argue that the book of Hebrews, it’s about Leviticus, it’s about lots of things, but it zeros in on this chapter. The Psalms are the most quoted book of the Old Testament in the New Testament and 110 is the most quoted chapter of any chapter in the New Testament from the Old. Martin Luther said this beautiful Psalm is the very core and quintessence of the whole scripture, so why are these verses so significant, just seven verses, verse by verse, word by word, pound for pound they are as important as any chapter in the Bible. Why was Psalm 110 for the apostles, and you might even conclude, for Jesus arguably the most important chapter in the Hebrew scriptures? That’s what we want to look at. There are lots of passages we could go to rather than starting with Psalm 110 and ending in the New Testament we’re going to spend almost all of our time in the New Testament looking back and then we will finish by landing back at Psalm 110. As I said, there is perhaps 33 different references and illusions. I want us to look at three of them from the New Testament. We’ll have one from Jesus so right before His death and resurrection, then one in Acts right at Pentecost, and then the section in Hebrews some years later in the first part of the early church. So, three New Testament passages that will help us see why this chapter may just have been the most important chapter in their Bibles. 

So first, go to Mark chapter 12. Jesus references this and we have it recorded in the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so we could go to either of them, but we’ll look at the shortest. Mark chapter 12 verses 35 through 37. We remind you where we are, we had a sermon series in the spring from Matthew parallel accounts on Teaching Tuesday we called it. Many of these controversies and we looked at a series of parables that happen on this Tuesday of holy week in and around the temple. So we are in the same timeframe here in Mark chapter 12. From the end of chapter 11 through Mark 13 we have on this Teaching Tuesday a series of controversies. The teachers come up and they want to ask Jesus a series of questions. They’re trying to trap Him. They first ask about His credentials, and they say by what authority do you do these things, and they ask about his politics, is it lawful to pay taxes to Cesar or not. Then they ask Him a theological question about a woman who had been married many times and they say in the resurrection whose wife will she be, and then finally a scribe comes up with a question about the law which commandment is the most important of all. Four questions, four controversies, Jesus definitely handles all of them. 

So, look at verse 34. After that no one dared ask Him anymore questions, smart move. Don’t ask Jesus anymore questions, this is not getting us anywhere. Now their strategy rather than to trip Him up in His Words, they’re just going to make a plan to arrest Him by force and have false witnesses at a shame trial. So, they don’t ask him anymore questions and then as Mark recounts, we come to verse 35, Jesus is still teaching in the temple and now Jesus asks the questions. So, think about this, they’ve been coming to Jesus with all of their controversies and questions and now they don’t dare to ask Him anything else. So, you think what would Jesus now that He can set the agenda, and He wants to ask them a question, what would He ask knowing as Jesus knows that His time on earth is soon coming to an end. He will be betrayed, he knows that. He will die, he will be raised. This is one of the last times for public teaching, soon he will be Olivet Discourse, then he will be with his disciples in the upper room. So, this is critical. What does Jesus want to ask them about? And here’s what He says in verse 35. “How can the scribes say that the Christ”, now that’s the Greek word, it’s just the same, it’s just a translation, a mashiach which Messiah, anointed one, Cristos and the Greek anointed one, that’s what he’s talking about. How can the scribes say that the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah is the son of David? Now at first, you’d step back, and you’d think, “Well this seems like a rather technical question about a specific prophecy and something that the scribes and the pharisees were saying. It seems somewhat academic, where are you going with this Jesus?” Like He says, I have one question for you. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Think about that. You think, okay, my head’s a little dizzy here, what is going on, why does He ask this question? Well, you can see the premise in verse 35. They’re expecting a Messiah, they’re expecting a Christ, they get that. There are all sorts of expectations and all sorts of confusion. Many people think it will be an earthly king, it will be a military Messiah, but there’s one thing that virtually everyone agrees on, and maybe only one thing that all the Jews understand about the Messiah. They know the Messiah will be a son of David. 

Second Samuel chapter 7, the prophecy when your days are fulfilled, you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring, He is promising to David, who shall come from you, I will establish His kingdom. Isaiah 11:1, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse”, who is David’s father. In Mark 10, blind Bartimaeus when he sees Jesus cries out, “Son of David have mercy on me.” And remember the crowds on Palm Sunday, what do they say? “Blessed is the coming of our kingdom of our Father David.” That’s Messianic language. The one thing that they all know, the Messiah, will be a son of David. So, Jesus is asking the question, how can it be that the Christ is the son of David, we all get that, where are you going Jesus. He continues. David himself in the Holy Spirit (here’s Jesus giving the highest view of the scriptures). He’s saying that David writing this Psalm did so in the Holy Spirit, divine inspiration, authoritative, infallible, inerrant. David himself declared and now here he quotes from our text. “The Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” Now you see there the Lord said to my Lord, it’s the Greek word coreus, like kyrie eleison form the liturgy. Kyrie means Lord, Lord have mercy. You can see, Lord, Lord, same word, but if you recall from looking at Psalm 110 just a moment ago, and if you have a finger there you can turn back because you see in the Hebrew you notice that the two uses of Lord look different and hopefully you’ve seen this before. The Lord, I’m looking at Psalm 110 verse 1 says to my Lord, the first Lord there is in those small capital letters and when you see that in the Old Testament that’s the divine name, what people used to transliterate at Jehovah, now people usually say Yah Wey, that’s the divine name. The second Lord there is the word Adonai. Yah Wey says to Adonai, that’s what it says in Psalm 110:1. 

Now notice of all the important superscriptions among the Psalms where it often will give an author, this may be the most important. It’s just there, in two words it says, of David. This is crucial. David is writing Psalm 110. Now why is that important, because it means that it’s not someone in David’s court who is saying, Yah Wey says to my Lord, in which case he’s probably just talking about David. Now that’s why Jesus underscores. David himself in the Holy Spirit, you see what Jesus is doing, he wants to make absolutely crystal clear the Psalm that I’m about to quote from was by none other than the great and mighty King David, and he didn’t do it by accident, he wrote and he sang and he said this in the power of the Holy Spirit. So think about what David says, King David in all of his great splendor as the King over Israel, the Lord, Yah Wey, says to my Lord, now wait a minute David, we understand Yah Wey is the Ling of Israel and he is the Lord over all the nations so that Lord makes sense, but that Lord says to my Lord, “So there’s another Lord?” And this Lord, not Yah Wey, but this Lord that is spoken to from Yah Wey, this Lord is greater than David. How can the Christ be David’s son if David calls Him Lord? 

You see verse 37, what Jesus is driving at. David himself calls Him Lord so how is he His son? He’s driving at something. He’s not denying that he will be a son of David, the Messiah, but he’s saying surely He is not merely a son of David, He is no ordinary son. What other human could be superior to the great King David, the greatest king in Israel’s history that He would call Him Lord. What father calls his son Lord? I love all of my boys, I’ve never thought to say to my oldest, my Lord God said to my Lord Ian. Errr, that doesn’t sound right, you don’t say that about your sons. But David here says Yah Wey omnipresent has spoken thus to my Lord. The question is leading to a conclusion that the Christ is both David’s son and David’s Lord. Psalm 110 was so important because it is the most explicitly messianic of all the Psalms. There’s lots of Messianic Psalms. There’s Messianic prophecies, there’s messianic illusions, but here in Psalm 110 because it’s of David from the very beginning David is looking to someone greater than himself. It’s not that, well this is partially fulfilled in David and then something in Solomon. David is looking, the Lord said to my Lord, this could not be about anyone except the coming Christ, that the Messiah will be a son of David and the Messiah will be an exalted figure much greater than David. The Messiah as we see in the rest of the Psalm, is given this worldwide dominion, the enemies are under his feet, he is slaughtering his foes, pouring out his wrath. He is ruling there at the right hand of Yah Weh equalling himself to this divine Lord. This is one of the reasons why the earliest Christian confession, the most central, perhaps the first Jesus is Lord. Not only saying, well Jesus is the boss of me, yeah that’s an element, or Jesus is ruler over everything yes, but to say Jesus is Lord, especially for these Jews is to pull into all of these and pull them forward, these great messianic prophecies and there is none greater than Psalm 110.

Romans 10:9, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” First Corinthians 12:3, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.” Now anyone can just say those words, you can get AI to say those words, but no one can truly, with a heart of faith, say those words except in the Holy Spirit. Paul describes his ministry, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord.” Now that language is so familiar to many of us and that’s a blessing in some ways, but it means that also the danger we may not feel the full weight. It just kind of rolls off your tongue, Jesus is Lord. Oh, wait a minute, time out, Jesus, Jesus, this is as I’ve said many times, we forget that Jesus was a man. You could see Him, you could smell Him, you could put your arm around Him. You would not have been able to pick Him out of a crowd in Galilee. Remember when Judas betrays Him, He says, “I will give Him a kiss to let you know who He is.” So it wasn’t that everyone had His face up on some poster or that He so stood out of a crowd, He wasn’t like King Saul, and He was a head taller than everyone. Isaiah says He had no form or countenance, no attractiveness from a human perspective that we should be drawn to Him. There wasn’t anything to distinguish Him in mere appearance, no indication that he was the best looking or the tallest. He certainly wasn’t the richest. He was a Jewish man, given the Jewish men of that time, he most certainly had a beard. Scientists have estimated from various bones and other things scientists do that the average height for a Jewish man at the time may have been just a little over 5 feet tall, so if Jesus is average, that’s how short He is. He grew up with a mom and dad. Of course, we know that the mom, the Virgin Mary and dad Joseph was not his earthly father, raised him, but not a biological father. He had brothers and sisters. He slept, He took naps, He ate the same food you ate. It all seems so mysterious when it’s back in the first century and it’s there in the Mediterranean world, but it would have just seemed normal. Wait, He also goes to cook out, He also eats Bojangles? And His name as I’ve said many times was one of the most common names, like Bob or Bill or Mike or Mark. He wore the same clothes. He didn’t walk around with a halo and just a white pristine robe, so this man Jesus grew up among them, looked like them, spoke the same language, same clothes, same food. They’re now saying He’s Lord, He’s Lord. This normal looking man from, we thought, a normal family, from a small normal town, but what He says and does is absolutely abnormal, supernatural, and He is not just my personal Lord, like I chose to follow Him as a disciple to a rabbi, but he is the Lord, not just the guy in charge, but He is the one we’ve been waiting for. It’s Him, Lord, after all of those years. That’s why you can only say it in the Holy Spirit and really mean it that this Jesus of Nazareth is the son of David and the great king over all the earth. Can you imagine all those years looking, looking. Why all of these texts because it was so controversial to finally determine, yes, really, this is Him. If someone gave a prophecy and it’s not a prophecy, somebody said, well a future president of the United States is in this room this morning. Or let’s just make it more personal for anyone who’s single, your future spouse is in the room this morning. Don’t elbow, don’t look, just straight ahead right now. Now that would be really interesting. Either one of those. A future president, a future spouse, you’d say, okay did the ushers get a role, do we know who was in here this morning, and you would want to be very sure when that word came true, could you give me some proof, this is the one that the word was about. This is the prophetic inspiration, this is what in the power of the Holy Spirit you would want some proof and Psalm 110apparently was one of the go-to if not the go-to text to prove that this Jesus is the Christ, the son of David and the one we’ve been waiting for. Now Jesus is leaving this all a little implicit at this point and it left it to the apostles by the Holy Spirit to connect all the dots. You see in verse 37, the crowd there heard him gladly. They are eating this up, this makes sense to them, they’re wondering. Some of them surely are thinking and let’s answer the question Jesus, is this about you?

So go to the section text. There’s Jesus, Jesus when he has the opportunity to ask one question of the leaders after they’ve bombarded Him with questions, He goes to this text. Now go to Acts chapter 2. Here’s Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. You say why do pastors so often have three-point sermons. It’s an echo of the trinity perhaps, maybe. I will say that Peter’s sermon at Pentecost was a very nice three-point sermon. He had three texts. He went to Joel 2, then he went to Psalm 16, and then he went to Psalm 110. We’ll pick things up in Acts 2 at verse 29. “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.” Now why is he saying this? Well he is focusing on David because these Psalms, Psalm 16 and Psalm 110 talk about someone. Look at verse 27. “You will not abandon my soul to hades, you will not let your holy ones see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life.” Peter is saying, now look at this Psalm, this is what David says, but is this about David, can we say that David, his soul did not go to the grave, he did not see corruption, that he was made known the paths of life, so I say look, look we all know David died. His tomb is with us to this day. We don’t know exactly where that is, but it was well known in the first century. The Jewish historian, Josephus mentioned it a number of times, there’s already a reference to the tombs of David in Nehemiah 316. So they’re saying, alright, David’s dead, we all know it, we’ve been there, we did the field trip in fourth grade, we went to the tomb, it’s there. So, who’s he talking about? Well he must be talking about the Christ. Then he goes in verse 30 that being a prophet, knowing that God has sworn with an oath to him that He would set one of his descendents on the throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ. Ah, so that’s what He meant. This prophecy about one from David to sit on the throne was about the Messiah. He’s the one who would not be abandoned to hades, whose flesh would not see corruption. This Jesus God raised up in a vat, we are all witnesses. 

Notice verse 32 is the thing that they all agree on. Now we’re not apologetics, we often have to focus on that. How can we trust the witnesses to the empty tomb and the appearances, and the resurrection, but here they are, they saw Jesus crucified. They saw Him raised. He appeared otherwise the disciples many times. He appeared to 500 which may have been there at the mount when either the ascension or the mount, when he gave the great commission, they had seen Him. So Peter says, “Look here’s what we know.” Fact number one, Jesus was raised. Right? Yep, yep, yep, we all know that. Fact number two, David wasn’t, he’s dead. His tomb is here. So who is he talking about, he’s talking about the Messiah who was raised, Jesus was raised, let’s think outside the box, this Jesus must be the Messiah. Then he comes, verse 33, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing, for David did not ascend into the heavens, again he’s in the tomb, but he himself says, and now he quotes, “The Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” Same passage that Jesus refers to. Jesus refers to it mainly for the first part, “The Lord said to my Lord”, alright who’s that Lord? Peter here does it mainly for the second part, “Sitting at my right hand.” How do you sit at the right hand of God? Well, you have to go to be with God, you have to ascend, and we just saw Jesus ascend. We know David didn’t ascend. Who gives the Holy Spirit, only the one who sits at God’s right hand, and we just received the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself promised many times that he would baptize with the Holy Spirit. John made that prophecy as well, so they’re all leading to this conclusion that Psalm 110 verse 1 must be about Jesus. He is the Christ; He is the one who is now at God’s right hand. And you understand the imagery. If you were to think of a great passageway in some great cathedral or castle, you’d think about a coronation of a British monarch, and you were to have a throne there. The king sitting on the throne with the crown and the scepter and then if somebody came up and said, “Excuse me, coming through, scooch, scooch, scooch”, another chair. Are you really sure you wanna do that, you’re putting another chair next to the king. You better really know what you’re doing before you set another chair next to the king and you say, alright someone else, someone else is gonna sit here at His right hand and he is going to share joint rule with the one here on the throne. Well, it wouldn’t be hard, it wouldn’t take long to determine this one has the same authority as that one. In fact, this one who is sitting at his right hand in the place of honor and if you saw them conferring and ruling together you would think, well they must be equal in power and authority as they jointly rule as sovereign over this kingdom. And so, this Psalm is giving us this picture, Jesus ascended into heaven, the son of God now sitting at the right hand. 

Did you notice, if you did then I give you extra points that mean nothing, but did you notice these three Psalms, the last three we’ve been looking at, 108, 109, and 110. They all say, of David. Now you may have noticed that. So, they’re all joined together, they’re David’s Psalms. But they’re also joined together because each of them make reference to the right hand. Psalm 108:6. “That your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand and answer me.” The very end of Psalm 109:31. “For he stands at the right hand of the needy ne to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.” And now here in Psalm 110 we start out, “Sit at my right hand.” These three are going together to form a little unit, reaching their conclusion in Psalm 110 that they might know, go back to Acts 2, that this Jesus is the one they’ve been waiting for. 

Look at verse 36. “Let all the house of Israel therefore know”, Peter’s coming to the conclusion of his sermon, for certain, absolutely for sure, same word when Luke writes the most excellent Theophilus, he says, “I want you to be sure, I want you to be certain of all of these things that have happened among us that God has made Him, Jesus, both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified, this language of sitting at the right hand, Jesus mentions it, Peter mentions it, the apostles talk about it, the author of Hebrews talks about, Paul talks about it, we recited it this morning in the apostles creed because it is so significant to prove that the Jesus whom they crucified is both Lord and Christ. Now don’t get hung up on that word, it does seem a little tricky, God made Him, it’s the normal Greek word, poieo, it’s the most basic Greek word for doing something, activity, making, accomplishing, appointing, almost any kind of doing activity can be communicated with poieo. Here it does not mean made in the sense that Jesus now, fashion Jesus or God gave to Jesus a new ontological existence. Peter called Him Christ well before His death and resurrection and Jesus commended him for it. So it’s not something new, but it means God has raised him to this lofty and rightful place, making him Lord and Christ in this sense that he has now revealed Him to be both of these things and raising Him from the dead and later seating Him at his own side God was executing the installation of Jesus as Lord and Christ gave Him the seat at His right hand. 

To use an imperfect analogy, if somebody says marriage made him into a man. Well, nothing changed about that man’s DNA or his being, he was a man before that, but if we say marriage made him into a man, we say marriage in someway established him or vindicated him as a man. So, God made him, meaning He established him, He installed him, He vindicated him as Lord and Christ. This is the conclusion of the three-point sermon. Joel 2 pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Psalm 16 with the resurrection, and then Psalm 110 with the ascension, the exaltation and the installation of Christ wrapping up these other two points. The point of Pentecost, in other words, was to lead people to this conclusion in verse 36. It’s a great sermon, comes to the end, now here’s the point, Peter lands the plane, you ought to know for certain from all of these texts that this Jesus, yes, the very one you crucified, the very one who died is Lord and Christ. That’s why verse 37 when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. Said to Peter, “Brothers, what shall we do, can you preach a little longer, can you give us some points of application here, what do we do because what you have said is true.”

And then a final passage. Turn to Hebrews chapter 5. I said earlier Hebrews 5, 6, and 7, some sense these three chapters all deal with this one verse from Psalm 110. So we’ve gone from verse 1 to the other key verse, verse 4. You can see in the ESV the heading, the paragraph before chapter 5 says, “Jesus the great high priest.” That’s what the middle section of Hebrews is all about, in particular 5, 6, and 7. Flip over to chapter 8. Now Hebrews is written as a letter. Some people think maybe it even originated as an early sermon. It does have sermonic qualities to it. Look at chapter 8. “Now the point in what we are saying is this”, ah, that’s really helpful. When a sermon does that, when an author does that, what’s the point author? We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand, there’s the language of the throne to the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. So, 8 verses 1 and 2 gives us the conclusion. What are we talking about?

Well chapters 5, 6, and 7 are building to that point and you can notice just with the text open in front of you, you can see several times in these chapters where Psalm 110 verse 4 is mentioned. So, you see it there in verse 6. As he says in another place, “You are a priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek.” Look at the end of chapter 6 verse 20 “Where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek”. Look at chapter 7 verse 17, “For it is witnessed of Him, you are a priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek”, and again verse 21, “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, you are a priest forever.” So, no fewer than four times, and there may be other illusions, but four explicit references and these three chapters to this prophecy about Christ being after the Order of Melchizedek.

Alright, who is this guy. If you grew up in the church maybe you remember. If you’re new to the church, then you came on the right Sunday. Genesis 14. That’s where He appears and the only other time we have reference to Melchizedek in the Old Testament it’s Melchizedek and Genesis 14, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, Psalm 110 verse 4, and then exploding in the New Testament, especially in Hebrew says this is really, really important. So, in Genesis 14, Abraham has defeated this alliance of eastern kings, and the high point of the story is Abraham’s encounter, this mysterious priest Melchizedek, a king of Salem. It’s prefiguring the name of Jeru Salem; Salem means peace like the word Shalom you’ve probably heard. He’s the king of Salem, he’s the king of peace, and Abraham worships in the presence of the priest of the most high God, and he gives a tent he tithes of all he has to Melchizedek. Very strange you do this to one who is a superior, one who is greater, whose glory outstrips your own. This is Abraham who has received the promise, who just had this wonderful great military victory, and then really out of nowhere this king of Salem, this king of peace, Melchizedek comes. And unlike the King of Sodom, this king deserves his tribute. So this mysterious figure in Genesis 14, leaves with a lot of unanswered questions at that point because he’s not mentioned again until Psalm 110, and if you were reading through the Pentateuch that Moses wrote and you have this story just, BOOP, out of nowhere this guy, you think, where did he come from, where did he go? Even great father Abraham gave him a tenth of all the spoil, gave him a tribute. You’d be at least asking the question, well might there be another man like this Melchizedek who comes as a priest, a king, something of a prophet, who seems to have no beginning, no end, who might be deserving not only of a tenth of our spoils, but perhaps of our very lives, of our worship. 

This is the point that Hebrews wants to make. In absolutely nailing down for the Christians that yes, Jesus is a priest, what do priests do, priests make atonement. Once a year the high priest could go in on the day of atonement into the holy of holies, and Hebrew says He had to do that all the time, and He had to make atonement not just for the sins of his people, but for his own people, that’s why it was never enough. He had to go in, He had to make sacrifice and what sort of priest was this. Well, He was a priest after the line of Aaron, Moses’ brother. Moses and Aaron were from what tribe?, they were from the tribe of Levi. It’s right there you should have in your head. Okay, if Jesus is going to be a priest in that He offers a sacrifice for sins, once for all, He cannot be a son of David, and He was a descendent of David, and in Aaronic priest, not ironic, but he’s not that either, but an Aaronic priest. Why? Because that’s the House of Levi. You can’t be from the Tribe of Judah and from the Tribe of Levi so what sort of priest is He? Hebrews goes back to this Psalm 110 verse 4 several times to say here’s what sort of priest he was, not after the line of Aaron. Now that priesthood was good for a time, but it could not finally accomplish all that he needed to accomplish. No, it’s been superseded by one who is greater and who actually came before a priesthood not from Aaron and the Levites, but from Melchizedek. So, there are these differences you’re meant to draw between a priesthood after Melchizedek and a priesthood after Aaron and the Levites. They are different according to their persons, one from Aaron, one from Melchizedek. Different according to their institutions. One was anchored in the mosaic covenant. One in the Abrahamic covenant. We know that the Mosaic covenant is superseded by the new covenant. They were different in their efficacy. One had power in another. That’s the high priest after the Line of Aaron. He didn’t have power, virtue in himself and then you have Melchizedek power and efficacy of his own. There’s also a difference in perfection. That’s what Hebrews is showing that the priesthood from Aaron had a finite value and the priesthood for Melchizedek is infinite and finally there is a difference in duration that once is temporal, that is passing away while the other is eternal. 

So, Psalm 110 verse 4 is absolutely key for the author of Hebrews to make this point about Jesus who is our great high priest and yes foreshadowed in all of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, but don’t think that He’s another priest after the Line of Aaron. No, those priests just keep on going the same thing over and over again. They could never finally atone for sin. You always needed another sacrifice. You always needed another day of atonement, you always wondered who the next high priest would be. Well now we have one who has gone into the temple, not made with human hands, and he has offered his very self as a sacrifice once for all. 

So, we’ve seen both from Jesus and then from Peter at Pentecost, and now in the early church the author of Hebrews finds that this Psalm is absolutely essentially in explaining what sort of Christ this Jesus is. So go back to Psalm 110 and pull this together. You can see why this was arguably the most important chapter in the Bible for Jesus and the apostles, because there is no other single place in the Hebrew Bible where we get so much information in so short a span about the Messiah. Verse 1. “Messiah is a Lord, and he is greater than David and if he is sitting at the right hand of God, it means that this messiah is ascended into heaven, he is exalted, he is seated.” So, we have here just in verse 1 the ascension of Christ, the session of Christ, the exaltation of Christ and then in verse 2 he is, as Yah Weh continues to speak, “The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter, rule in the midst of your enemies.” So, this messiah is a mighty king and what sort of king you rule yes you rule among your people, but He rules even in the midst of His enemies, and we do not yet see everything underneath His feet, that’s what Hebrews 2 tells us. It’s the already and not yet, but Psalm 110 says, yes this king is so grand and glorious. Yes, there’s a final victory yet to come, but even now he is ruling not just over his people, but over his enemies. 

Then verse 3 you see what happens with this great king and this warrior, he rallies the people to himself, an army, your people will offer themselves. People will come to this messiah and say let us join you. They will come in holy garments. This is speaking of a holy church, a forgiven church, a church washed white by the word, disciples, worshipers, soldiers. Then verse 4. “The Lord has sworn he will not change His mind.” Now if you’re God you don’t need to take an oath, you’re God. You only tell the truth, but to underscore just how utterly inviolable this promise is, not only does it come from God, but he swears an oath, and we’re told, “And He will not change His mind. “This one you can absolutely count on for all time, the messiah will be a priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek.

Then verses 5 and 6. We hear of the final judgement as the Lord at His right hand, both persons whom we now further revelation can understand it’s father and son, first and second person of The Trinity, the divine king and the divine Lord are doing battle together as one. Over the wide earth shattering the chiefs. Think about all that we have here in this Psalm. You can understand why Martin Luther said it’s a beautiful Psalm, and the quintessence of the whole Bible. We have, at least in part, in this one Psalm the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation, the resurrection, the ascension, the session, the exaltation, the communion of the saints, the last judgement, justification, sanctification, and eternal life, so make room on your Mount Rushmore for Psalm 110. 

Now you say, alright, we’re about done, what’s the application. Here’s the application. Jesus is Lord. Sometimes that’s the most important application you need. Yes, some sermons might be, here’s some practical steps how to pray more, how to read your Bible, or how to communicate better or how to forget. Lots of those things, all good, but sometimes the application is right here, look up, see Jesus, He’s Lord and king and prophet and priest, and judge, and He is exalted. Remember who Jesus is and where He is. He is no longer in the manger, He’s no longer on the cross, He is in heaven reigning, ruling, interceding, and winning. Rally to Him, that’s verse 3. Offer yourselves freely to this king. And you say, well you forgot one verse. Look at verse 7 and it is a little difficult to interpret and there’s some different ways, but here’s what I think it means. He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head. Now lifting up your head is an image of victory, but can you think of another story in the Old Testament, people drinking by the brook, lifting up their heads. Drinking by the brook, go down to the water, cup the water in your hands and they lifted up their heads. This is when Gideon went to look and the Lord says you have too many men, alright, you’re going to get 300 men and I want you to find the ones that are down by the brook getting a drink of water, cupping it in their hands, and lifting their heads. It might have been a small army, might have been a beleaguered army, but here they were ready to march off into battle. I think there’s something here, an echo of Gideon and his men. Yes, the Christ rules among His enemies. We now await for all of those enemies to be placed under His feet and like a perfect movie ending with a wrap up, but yet moving forward, verse 7, pictures Christ and His people, here we are like Gideon’s men, lifting our heads up, drinking by the brook, aye, aye captain, ready to follow you wherever you lead in whatever battle is next for you are the Lord and you are the Christ. Let us gladly render our service in Christ’s army for He has already secured the victory. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, give us grace this day, this week, this summer that we might follow you to see you high and lifted up, what a glorious text, what a glorious privilege is ours. We give you worship in Jesus’ name. Amen.