The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”
The LORD shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion.
Rule in the midst of Your enemies!
Your people shall be volunteers
In the day of Your power;
In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning,
You have the dew of Your youth.
The LORD has sworn
And will not relent,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”
The Lord is at Your right hand;
He shall execute kings in the day of His wrath.
He shall judge among the nations,
He shall fill the places with dead bodies,
He shall execute the heads of many countries.
He shall drink of the brook by the wayside;
Therefore He shall lift up the head. (Psalm 110:1-7)

God destroyed his enemies by making them his friends. God said that the enemies of his Son would be turned into his footstool and that he was a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was the king of Jerusalem in the time of the patriarch Abraham. Abraham had led an army against those who had attacked the city of Sodom and taken his nephew Lot captive. Following his victory and the rescue of his nephew and the other captives, Melchizedek had come to Abraham and blessed him. Abraham then gave Melchizedek a tenth of the spoils he had taken from the battle.

Nothing else is known about Melchizedek. He never showed up again in the story of Abraham. There was no genealogy given for him, no descendents were listed. He simply appeared, played his brief role on the stage of scripture, and then vanished.

Melchizedek served then as a symbol, a type, of the Messiah. Like that priest of Salem, the Son of God stood between God and the sinners. Like Abraham, the Son was victorious over his enemies, subduing them. But he transformed God’s enemies into the children of God by his death on the cross.

The language of triumph and war is used to describe Christ’s victory over death and sin. We who were God’s enemies beyond hope, have been made whole in him.

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