Melchizedek, the High Priest-King of Salem (pre-Moses Jerusalem)

If you haven't yet, please read Hebrews 7... it's not long, but the author does a better job laying out the argument for two orders of priesthood and the difference between the two better than I can in this post. If you've read it already, fantastic. It's interesting to note how Christ derived his status as Priest not from a physical descendant obligation of Law (the house of Levi... Christ was obviously the "Lion of Judah") but rather from his indestructible Life (the Hebrews author aligns this to the order of Melchizedek). Note that the House of Levi, who offered sacrifices to cleanse themselves of their sins before they could offer sacrifices to cleanse others, is the same house (religious leaders of the day presumably were of Levi) that ultimately sent Jesus, the Lamb of God, to the "altar"... which cleansed everyone... is that the fulfillment of the Law? I never did understand exactly how Christ did "fulfill" the law.

Ok. After some wrestling with who this Melchizedek could be, I've decided that is less important than what he did for now (maybe later after we discover what he did we can reassess his identity). The most important feature about him is that when Abram's 380 servant army defeated the four kings of Mesopotamia, he ran into Melchizedek, King of Salem (which is apparently, King of Jerusalem). Melchizedek was a native Canaanite before Moses and God's command to destroy and kill everything in Canaan... moreover, he was the High Priest-King of Jerusalem before it was Jerusalem... just the King of Salem (Salem meaning Peace.... so High Priest and King of Peace?... Christ was the Prince of Peace.... hmmm... did Melchizedek hold higher authority than Christ?... well only God has that authority, right?). Anyway, the interesting thing is that when Abram met Melchizedek, Abram gave Melchizedek a tithe: 10% of all the spoils of the recent war... in return Melchizedek gave him... ... a blessing ... and ... bread and wine. What? That's right, bread and wine.

In modern terms, Melchizedek offered Abram communion and a blessing and received an offering of tithe. But wait... this is a number of generations before Moses... how is this possible?

What if... what if the "new covenant" is not new at all... from this, it seems that the breaking of bread and drinking of wine, the body and blood of Christ, were given to Abram before the law of Moses even came into existence (millennia before Christ's actual sacrifice). We know from the Hebrews passage that the Law made nothing perfect, instead all it served to do was point out our imperfections and (from Romans) our need for a Savior. This event in Genesis does more to prove the unchanging nature of God than any other passage of the Bible.

Now, who was Melchizedek?... does it destroy substitutional attonement to think of him as a preincarnate Jesus Christ (I've learned the theological term is "Christophany")? I'm not sure at this point... but the author of Hebrews says this man Melchizedek has not birth nor death... no mother or father... is he then God in flesh?... is it possible for God to be in flesh and not be Jesus Christ?... was it Jesus Christ?... or was this just a man outside of Abraham's seed who heard the calling of God? If that is true, then for those outside of Abraham's seed who heard the calling of God, was the Mosaic Law applicable, or were they to bypass all that and simply adhere to this "new covenant" of love which was not as "new" as it before seemed?

I'm afraid that this, as all good research does, has opened more doors than it has closed... but the treatise on God's nature that it has offered is one of the most valuable that I've experienced in a long time. Fascinating.