Hebrews 7:3

Hebrews 7:3. He is without father or mother, appearing out of the darkness without ancestors or successors; without pedigree either immediate or remote; owing his priesthood, therefore, and dignities to no connection with priests on his father's side or even on his mother's: his is a priesthood purely personal, and not to be traced to natural descent or hereditary claim. In contrast with this tenure of office was the tenure of the Levites; they held their priesthood only on condition that they could prove their descent from Levi; and so, after the captivity, those who could not prove this descent were not allowed to act as priests till God Himself gave counsel by Urim and Thummim (Ezra 2:62-63; Nehemiah 7:63-65).

Without beginning of days or end of life, unlike the Jewish priests therefore, who began their ministry at thirty and closed it at fifty, the high priest holding his office until he died.

But made like (in the respect named) unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. These words still refer to the history and not properly to the Psalm (Psalms 110:4), where it is said that Melchisedec was made like to Christ, and so, instead of ‘a priest for ever,' the phrase of the Psalm, we have ‘ a priest continually,' one whose office remains unbroken either at the beginning or at the close. Though this is the simplest and the natural interpretation of the words, some find a deeper meaning in them. The terms used are wide and sweeping, and while the Targums and Philo, and modern commentators, find no difficulty in the explanations given above of the phrases ‘without father or mother or genealogy,' a deeper meaning is not without its attractions, especially when the words are applied to the great antitype Christ ‘Without father,' it has been thought, may refer to the fact that Christ had no earthly father and no Divine mother (answering to His higher nature), while the later expressions, ‘without beginning of days or end of life,' are descriptive, they think, of Him whose going forth are from everlasting, and who, though He died, conquered death, and has taken the nature He assumed into union with His essential eternity. What in the type means no record, meant in the antitype no existence. It may fairly be admitted that the phrases are finely chosen so as to be true of the type in some degree, and more profoundly true of our Lord; but beyond this it is unsafe to go. Origen regarded Melchisedec as the incarnation of an angel; Bleek thinks that the writer shared a supposed Jewish opinion that he was called into existence miraculously and miraculously withdrawn, then abiding a priest for ever. Others, ancient and modem, think he was the Son of God Himself an opinion untenable, inconsistent alike with the Psalm and with the entire teaching of this Epistle. The Jewish writers supposed him to have been Shem (see Gill), or Enoch, or Job. It is enough to say that he probably represents a royal worshipper of the true God, the head of his race, before as yet the primitive worship had become corrupt, and before there had arisen any need for selecting a particular family as the depositary and the guard of the Divine will.... It is solemn and instructive to note how most of the false religions on earth and most of the corruptions of the time owe their power to men's desire to have a human priest who may forgive them and plead for them, and even offer sacrifice for them. The doctrine is even more popular than the opposite extreme, forgiveness without sacrifice and without priest. All sacrifices are superseded, by the sacrifice of the cross, and all priesthoods by the priesthood of our Lord. The recognition of one priest is as essential to true religion as the recognition of one king.