Study Desk

Melchizedek was the king of Salem and a priest for God the Most High. He met Abraham when Abraham was coming back after defeating the kings. That day Melchizedek blessed him.

No one knows who his father or mother was or where he came from. And no one knows when he was born or when he died. Melchizedek is like the Son of God in that he will always be a priest.

The Law of Moses could not make anything perfect. But now a better hope has been given to us. And with that hope we can come near to God.

Also, it is important that God made a promise with an oath when he made Jesus high priest. When those other men became priests, there was no oath.

But Christ became a priest with God's oath. God said to him, "The Lord has made a promise with an oath and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever.'"

So this means that Jesus is the guarantee of a better agreement from God to his people.

So Christ can save those who come to God through him. Christ can do this forever, because he always lives and is ready to help people when they come before God.

The law chooses high priests who are men and have the same weaknesses that all people have. But after the law, God spoke the oath that made his Son high priest. And that Son, made perfect through suffering, will serve forever.

Our high priest serves in the Most Holy Place. He serves in the true place of worship that was made by God, not by anyone here on earth.

Every high priest has the work of offering gifts and sacrifices to God. So our high priest must also offer something to God.

If our high priest were now living on earth, he would not be a priest. I say this because there are already priests here who follow the law by offering gifts to God.

The work that these priests do is really only a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven. That is why God warned Moses when he was ready to build the Holy Tent: "Be sure to make everything exactly like the pattern I showed you on the mountain."

But the work that has been given to Jesus is much greater than the work that was given to those priests. In the same way, the new agreement that Jesus brought from God to his people is much greater than the old one. And the new agreement is based on better promises.

But God found something wrong with the people. He said, "The time is coming, says the Lord, when I will give a new agreement to the people of Israel and to the people of Judah.

This is the new agreement I will give the people of Israel. I will give this agreement in the future, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write my laws on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

God called this a new agreement, so he has made the first agreement old. And anything that is old and useless is ready to disappear.

This place was inside a tent. The first area in the tent was called the Holy Place. In the Holy Place were the lamp and the table with the special bread offered to God.

But only the high priest could go into the second room, and he went in only once a year. Also, he could never enter that room without taking blood with him. He offered that blood to God for himself and for the sins the people committed without knowing they were sinning.

This is an example for us today. It shows that the gifts and sacrifices the priests offer to God are not able to make the consciences of the worshipers completely clear.

These gifts and sacrifices are only about food and drink and special washings. They are only rules about the body. God gave them for his people to follow until the time of his new way.