Hebrews 7:16
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one who has become a priest not by a law of succession, but by the power of an indestructible life.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
carnal . . . endless--mutually contrasted. As "form" and "power" are opposed, Ti2 3:5; so here "the law" and "power," compare Rom 8:3, "The law was weak through the flesh"; and Heb 7:18, "weakness." "The law" is here not the law in general, but the statute as to the priesthood. "Carnal," as being only outward and temporary, is contrasted with "endless," or, as Greek, "indissoluble." Commandments is contrasted with "life." The law can give a commandment, but it cannot give life (Heb 7:19). But our High Priest's inherent "power," now in heaven, has in Him "life for ever"; Heb 9:14, "through the eternal Spirit"; Heb 7:25, "able . . . ever liveth" (Joh 5:26). It is in the power of His resurrection life, not of His earthly life, that Christ officiates as a Priest.
Open source ↗The doctrine of the priestly office of Christ is so excellent in itself, and so essential a part of the Christian faith, that the apostle loves to dwell upon it. Nothing made the Jews so fond of the Levitical dispensation as the high esteem they had of their priesthood, and it was doubtless a sacred and most excellent institution; it was a very severe threatening denounced against the Jews (Hos 3:4), that the children of Israel should abide many days without a prince or priest, and without a sacrifice, and with an ephod, and without teraphim. Now the apostle assures them that by receiving the Lord Jesus they would have a much better high priest, a priesthood of a higher order, and consequently a better dispensation or covenant, a better law and testament; this he shows in this chapter, where, I. We have a more particular account of Melchisedec (Heb 7:1-3). II. The superiority of his priesthood to that of Aaron (Heb 7:4-10). III. An accommodation of all to Christ, to show the superior excellency of his person, office, and covenant (Heb 7:11 to the end).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
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So also, when we were children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world.
But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
If you have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations:
the Living One. I was dead, and behold, now I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of Death and of Hades.
Without father or mother or genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God, he remains a priest for all time.
For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.
having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!
For the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the realities themselves. It can never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.
For it is testified: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”
but Jesus became a priest with an oath by the One who said to Him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’”