wledge the
superiority of Melchizedek.[121]

Wherein lay his greatness? He was not in the priestly line. Neither do
we read that he was appointed of God. Yet no man taketh this honour unto
himself. God had made him king and priest by conferring upon him the
gift of innate spiritual greatness. He was one of nature's kings, born
to rule, not because he was his father's son, but because he had a great
soul. It is not in record that he bequeathed to his race a great idea.
He created no school, and had no following. So seldom is mention made of
him in the Old Testament, that the Psalmist's passing reference to his
name attracts the Apostle's special notice. He became a priest in virtue
of what he was as man. His authority as king sprang from character.

Such men appear on earth now and again. But they are never accounted
for. All we can say of them is that they have neither father nor mother
nor genealogy. They resemble those who are born of the Spirit, of whom
we know neither whence they come nor whither they go. It is only from
the greatest one among these kings and priests of men that the veil is
lifted. In Him we see the Son of God. In Christ we recognise the ideal
greatness of sheer personality, and we at once say of all the others, as
the Apostle says of Melchizedek, that they have been "made like," not
unto ancestors or predecessors, but unto Him Who is Himself like His
Divine Father.

Such priests remain priests for ever. They live on by the vitality of
their priesthood. They have no beginning of days or end of life. They
have never been set apart with outward ritual to an official
distinction, marked by days and years. Their acts are not ceremonial,
and wait not on the calendar. They bless men, and the blessing abides.
They pray, and the prayer dies not. If their prayer lives for ever, can
we suppose that they themselves pass away? The king-priest is heir of
immortality, whoever else may perish. He at least has the power of an
endless life. If he dies in the flesh, he lives on in the spirit. An
eternal heaven must be found or made for such men with God.

Now this is the gist and kernel of the Apostle's beautiful allegory. The
argument points to the Son of God, and leads up to the conception of His
eternal priesthood in the sanctuary of heaven. Let us see how the
parable is interpreted and applied.

That Jesus is a great High-priest has been proved by argument after
argument from the beginning of the Epistle. Bu