Melchizedek - Genesis 14: 25-40

Circling back to Melchizedek, there is another 15 verses about him as a JST for chapter 14. It’s difficult for me to understand the much about this guy because there is no set record about or by him, so we can’t really get specifics except indirectly. In fact, it seems like so much of what is recorded about him was lost so we only here references to things that were talked about before, so it’s really abstract. What is interesting about this though is that even though he’s not given personal writings in the scriptures, he’s discussed in each and every single book of scripture that we have. If nothing else, this indicates that he is just as important as the other patriarchs that are mentioned in all the books of scripture such as Abraham, Moses, Noah, and Adam. In fact, Elijah isn’t mentioned in all the books and he was/is a major player, so it just goes to show that Melchizedek is a big deal too, even though we don’t know a ton about him, or at least I don’t. The JST about Melchizedek notes that he “was a man of faith, who wrought righteousness; and when a child he feared God, and stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire.” Just reading this statement it might make some people wonder, “why was Melchizedek born with an innate testimony? It’s not fair because I could do the things he did if I was born with that kind of faith as well.” I would think this, but I think this is where that information about intelligences in the pre-mortal life starts to make more sense. Melchizedek’s increased, natural faith probably wasn’t just given to him as a gift with no prior context because that wouldn’t be just. He almost certainly was one of the greater intelligences and brought that faith he had built with him into this life. Just like the knowledge that we attain in this life will be carried with us to the next life, it would make sense that the earlier iteration of this would be true as well. The IM comments, “To the man Melchizedek goes the honor of having his name used to identify the Holy Priesthood after the Order of the Son of God, this enabling men ‘to avoid the too frequent repetition’ of the name of Deity.” Interestingly, it’s Alma who testifies “Of all God’s ancient high priests ‘none were greater.’” Another interesting note is that in Hebrews 11:33-34 Paul writes about a man “who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” This sounds suspiciously like the JST verse of the end of Genesis chapter 14 and the IM does note that Paul is referring to Melchizedek here and I just really like that these two accounts, varied by almost 2,000 years support each other. Alma and Paul both having a pretty in depth knowledge of Melchizedek also supports the theory that much of scripture has been lost to us today. There’s a lot about the priesthood and promises made to Enoch, some of which are that those “being ordained after this order and calling should have power, by faith,” to perform many mighty miracles such as break mountains, divide the seas, dry up the waters and change their direction, to defeat enemy nations, and “to stand in the presence of God; to do all things according to his will, according to his command.” Using the priesthood Melchizedek was about to “obtain peace in Salem, and was called the Prince of peace. And his people wrought righteousness, and obtained heaven.” This is another situation where I think “of course it’s easy to be righteous if you live in a city full of naturally righteous people like Melchizedek,” just like I thought “of course it would be easy to be righteous while living in a city where there are no poor,” like in the city of Enoch. However, the IM notes, “Alma tells us that “Melchizedek was a king over the land of Salem; and his people had waxed strong in iniquity and abomination; yea, they had all gone astray; there were full of all manner of wickedness,” but even with all that Melchizedek was about to “preach repentance unto his people. And behold, they did repent; and Melchizedek did establish peace in the land in his days.” So it’s not like all the people in Salem were naturally righteous so everything was good, they were bad, really bad and through the power of the priesthood, which I assume means love, patience, kindness, etc., he was able to convince the people to repent and they became a righteous group. Does that mean that Melchizedek is amazing and capable of things that we are not? No, it means that he put forth effort to grow closer to God and do his will. It’s also speculated that Melchizedek is Shem, Noah’s very righteous son and there’s a lengthy discussion about the for and against in the IM if anyone is interested in looking that up.