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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Hebrews 7:20 - 7:22
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The oath of God a guarantee of the superiority of Christ's priesthood:
v. 20. And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest,
v. 21. (for those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by Him that said unto Him, The Lord swore and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,)
v. 22. by so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.
This is another important consideration in the proof of Christ's greater excellence: And in proportion as not without the swearing of an oath (was He made priest), in that proportion Jesus also became surety for a better covenant. Jesus became our High Priest in consequence of, and for the sake of fulfilling, a solemn oath made by His heavenly Father. This oath is one of the evidences which we have of the earnest intention and purpose which God has with regard to the salvation of all mankind. Christ was the only one in whose case such an extraordinary exception was made. By that token, therefore, He is the surety, the sponsor, the guarantee of a better, superior, more excellent covenant. This fact is brought out still more strongly by the clause which the author inserts for the sake of explanation: For the one indeed are priests, having become so without the swearing of an oath, but the other with an oath by Him that said to Him, Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The members of the Levitical priesthood were installed into office and discharged the functions of their ministry without a special objuration of the ordinand or oath on their own part. Their work was clearly defined by the Mosaic Law, and they discharged it in the knowledge that all their sacrifices were but types of the Messiah's work. But in the case of Christ, the true High Priest, God swore an oath and had it recorded through His prophet, Psa_110:4, designating His Son, the Messiah of the world, as the eternal High Priest. The incarnation of Christ, therefore, signified that the Levitical priesthood was no longer needed for the purpose of mediating between God and men, and the oath of God, in addition, set the priesthood of Christ just that much higher, God Himself indicating the superior excellence of Christ's office.