We continue this week looking at a problem the scribes and teachers of the Old Testament possibly could have had if they made a deep study of the Scriptures. They obviously knew the Messiah was to come and hundreds of prophecies could have lead them to discover so much about Him.
There were those prophecies where one word used to describe Jesus was that He was to be a branch. Isaiah had said, “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isa. 11:1). This verse followed by those exalting the coming of the Spirit on that Branch and so many aspects of His righteousness. This section concludes by referencing Jesse again and prophecies that the Gentiles would seek the root springing out of Jesse (v. 11). The Hebrew word for branch evidently is tied to the name of the city of Nazareth where Jesus was born and why He was called a Nazarene.
For a while there was no problem for the scribes seeing the passage from Isaiah describing the Messiah. But three hundred years later, Zechariah added the Branch would be both priest and a king. The problem was that in Judaism priests came only from Levi and kings came only from Judah. How was it possible that one individual could ever be members of two different tribes? The answer is easy for us to see because there was another Old Testament prophecy that the Messiah would come and be like another totally different source of priests. David said, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Psa. 110:4).
However, in so much of modern Christendom, there is a belief that when Jesus returns He will come to Jerusalem and rule the earth. He will build a new temple, the Ark of the Covenant will be placed in it, and there will be a return to that Old Testament system with its priesthood. What is wrong with this Idea?
The Bible clearly says, “If He were on earth, He would not be a priest” (Heb. 8:4). Why is it that there is no way Jesus could be a priest on the earth? “For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood” (Heb. 7:14). Those who teach the reign of Jesus on earth for a thousand years cannot solve this problem. Jesus is indeed a priest, a high priest, but He is a priest in heaven. He now reigns in heaven as King of kings and is a priest of another kind, one after the order of Melchizedek!
In God’s plan the Branch can be both a king and a priest on the throne at the same time. The doctrine of the thousand-year reign with a return to the temple cannot be true. The Bible shows the way He can be a priest and a king!