Ten Kings and a Priest in the Shadowlands
The backdrop of these events in Genesis 14 can be found the words: ‘Twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled’ (v. 4). Students of covenant theology know what’s going on here—a group of vassal states (or tribes) were declaring their independence from what ANE scholars have called the “suzerain,” or simply, the great king.
This is signified by the words SERVED about their previous relationship and REBELLED about the new turn of events. Note that Sodom and Gomorrah were among the lesser vassal tribes in Canaan, and this Chedorlaomer had allies from the literal Babylonian region, always attempting to expand its power.
The Man in This Age as an Example of Life Saved for Now
The Man From The Age to Come as a Type for Life Saved Forever
Doctrine. God has ordered man to save life for now, and has ordained a Man to save life forever.
The Man in This Age as an Example of Life Saved for Now
First, when it comes to the math in my title, I think this is one of those cases where I have to show my work. It clearly says here about the battle that’s being discussed: ‘four kings against five’ (v. 9). That’s nine kings—“Matt, you said ten kings.” Yes. Further down we read, ‘Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew’ (v. 13). We will need to combine our math with some history. In all ancient societies—and the Hebrews were no different—the first kings emerged from the clans, which had chieftains, which chieftains in turn, were simply the most exalted of the patriarchs. So we read,
“When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan” (v. 14).
Abram was that tenth king. The beauty of factoring in early human society into one’s study of ethics is that the micro doesn’t get lost in the macro. Remember that when God reveals His moral will—His ethical design—for mankind, He revealed it in the form of a first man and woman. That doesn’t diffuse or dissolve or fizzle out when humans multiply and when their sins multiply. So if we fast forward too quickly, to the macro-level, the idea of kings and governments and even rules can become abstract and “out there.” But at first, it just means MAN. Any man. All men. Especially a man as he is charged with more.
From this we derive six truths about Abram’s duties to Lot.
First, Abram’s duties to Lot were not abstract or nebulous—they were rooted in a proximity that God ordained, most nearly as one’s family. So it says, ‘Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive’ (v. 14). Not that “all mankind” had been taken captive.
Second, Lot’s poor choices were not an excuse for Abram not to rescue—no image of God is the ultimate property of another. We ought to be thankful that God did not refuse salvation to us because of our poor choices called sin. It was precisely sin we are being saved from!
Third, the vassal states’ servitude to Babylon was not an excuse for Abram not to rescue—no group of images of God is the ultimate property of another group. All human beings are ultimately God’s property. Whether viewed individually (in terms of Lot as a man) or viewed collectively (in terms of the vassal states), we are our brother’s keeper.
Fourth, such rescuing employs the right tools to fit the particular kind of danger that one is in. It speaks here of ‘trained men’ (v. 14). This is a single Hebrew word, חָנִיךְ, that is used only here in the Hebrew canon, whereas there was another word for “servant” (עֶבֶד). One commentator points to ANE documents where this word means “retainers,”1 but essentially for armed defense. In this case, the danger was physical violence; so the right tools for rescue were physical weapons in the hands of trained soldiers: “Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle” (Ps. 144:1).
Fifth, such business is so studied by the man who would play the role that he excels at it. Note the words, ‘he divided his forces against them by night … and defeated them and pursued them’ (v. 15). One way or another, he and these men had done this before. He employs strategy, which can only be done if it is first studied, and second practiced.
Sixth, there are always more people and things at stake in restoring what rightfully belongs to someone: ‘Then he brought back all the possessions, and also brought back his kinsman Lot with his possessions, and the women and the people’ (v. 16).
When we put all this together from verses 1-16, we can begin to form a doctrine of the man in this age saving life for now—that is temporal life. Even the pietist has a category for saving temporal life if we are talking about Moses being placed in the basket to escape Pharaoh, or Joseph and Mary hiding Jesus away in Egypt to escape Herod. They may also extend that principle to the Israelites fleeing from those chariots across the Red Sea (but then, they’ll add, this was a miracle after all). Yet what about those sailors spared by tossing Jonah overboard? And what about Lot being rescued here? The Scriptures make temporal life-preservation a universal demand:
“Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?” (Prov. 24:11-12)
The Man From The Age to Come as a Type for Life Saved Forever
The text gives the sense that these kings were there with Abram and this mysterious figure. Who is this? Where did he come from? Why is he here? Did he take part in the fight? If not, what’s up? I don’t know if they were thinking any of this because, for all I know, his relationship to Abram and to them was already known. But the text does at least put them all in the same scene:
“After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine” (vv. 17-18a).
Of this man’s identity, both his name and the narrative itself give us a couple of clues. First, there is the low-lying fruit of what we are told flat out: ‘He was priest of God Most High’ (v. 18b). But then, secondly, as Hebrews 7:2 explains, his name means KING (melek) of RIGHTEOUSNESS (tsadiq), and note that he was king of Salem, which is nearer to the Arabic, salam, for “peace” (shalom)—which also just so happens to be the end of the word for that city which would be founded there: Jerusalem. So, interrupting these vassals of the Babylon below comes the representative from the Jerusalem above.
Stephen Charnock, in commenting on the eternity of God, says this about this character, that,
“Melchizedek is mentioned only once (without any record of his extraction), in his appearance to Abraham after his victory, as if he came from heaven only for that action, and instantly disappeared again, as if he had been an eternal person.”2
Let me summarize: Melchizedek can be conceived as a real historical person and a type of Christ. The way that can work is that the typology was so intentionally pronounced that the author of Hebrews treats him and Christ as if they were practically the same person. However, both Genesis and Hebrews speak of him in literal terms. Even the phrase “without beginning or end of days” (7:3) can be interpreted in light of the analogy clearly set forth: he “resembles the Son of God” in the same verse. In short, one need not maintain that this was a Christophany (i.e. pre-incarnate appearance of Christ). Note also that he ‘brought out bread and wine’ (v. 18), showing forth what Christ would eventually give to the church to perform. A priest is an empty shell if he has no real token of God having made full atonement for sin.
So the basic point of him representing Christ was as a priest. That’s what the Genesis text emphasizes. But why? The argument from Hebrews flows like this:
“See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils! And those descendants of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these also are descended from Abraham … It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior” (7:4-5, 7).
So Abraham tithed to this man (v. 20), this man blessed him, and so acted as a priest over him (and therefore over the nation in his loins), the priesthood issuing forth from that later nation was thus inferior to the priest to whom Abraham paid the tithe. Now since this man really stood in for Christ, then (here’s the clincher) the whole priesthood of Israel paid their tithe to Christ and received the same Substance of Christ in their types and shadows. Therefore it follows that Christ was always the Priest to whom Israel came. This also makes sense of the promise,
“The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:4).
It’s an eternal priesthood. As God is eternal in His essence, so the Son of God holds a priesthood most eternal. It’s power is not weakened by our weakness in time.
Why do these two scenes go together? We have the man in this age saving life for now—that is temporal life—and then, standing over those kings and Abram, we have the man from the age to come holding out life forever. Three points of application will help us answer that question.
Practical Use of the Doctrine
Use 1. Correction. What we have on display in Genesis 14 are those two kingdoms properly conceived. Both are under the Lordship of Christ. But one is given to man in this age, to preserve man’s temporal life. That is the kingdom symbolized by the sword in Romans 13, and its ancient officer was the KING. The other is building the new and lasting age to come, redeeming the new man’s eternal life. This kingdom symbolized by the keys in Matthew 16, and its ancient officer was the PRIEST.
Abraham and Melchizedek—two men on the stage of real history—the former the first recipient of the news of the covenant of grace, the latter a type of the ultimate recipient of the promise of that covenant.
Now the wrong doctrine of the two kingdoms (popularized in Reformed circles today), whether one calls it the Radical Two Kingdom view (R2K) or a Modern Two Kingdom View (M2K), will try to tell you that in Abraham, God was creating a society that was so fundamentally separate from that common society in Noah and all his generations, that this holy society that would eventually be called the church is not to exercise power over those in the common sphere.
Herman Bavinck developed a very helpful pair of concepts to untangle this error. He said that the church is conceived two ways: the institutional church and the organic church—one is “in the offices and means of grace (institution), and [the other] in a community of faith and life (organism).”3 In other words, each church member—including its officers—are not atomistic church members and then put on the secular hat at midnight on Monday morning, but we bring our whole faith with us in the whole of life, just as Abraham brought his faith to war and to the means of war, without ever hesitating because he feared that these might somehow be confused with the means of grace. The sword of Abraham was for the one, and the bread and wine of Melchizedek was for the other.
Use 2. Instruction. Look at that last part of the passage for an application built in. What is it that Abram would be careful to not do?
“And the king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.’ But Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have lifted my hand to the LORD, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share” (vv. 21-24).
The lesson here is simple enough. Be careful who you are indebted to—or even who it is perceived you are indebted to? Why? “The borrower is the slave of the lender” (Prov. 22:7). When Saul first reigned in Israel, the Israelites got their weapons made and sharpened by metalworkers of the Philistines—their enemies! That’s not a winning strategy. Even to those with whom we are not at war, Paul says, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other” (Rom. 13:8).
Use 3. Consolation. I asked how these two scenes and these two men go together. I can think of at least one more very practical reason why they go together: In order for Abram to keep telling this story to his nephew, Lot has to be there to hear it! He has to survive to place his faith in the Messiah to come. Of course, that assumes that he wasn’t saved at this point in some immature state. But that’s a bit irrelevant when you love someone, and want to do all that you’ve been given to do for their soul. Abram would assume nothing, and risk everything (at least everything in this time and place). That’s a faint shadow of Jesus too. With Jesus it wasn’t “risk.” It was certain.
“The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:4).
What does that really mean? It means He prays for us right now—that He always prays for us, and that the basis of His prayer is His own perfect blood. It is guaranteed.
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1. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, 406.
2. Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, I:437.
3. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, IV:330
