Even though the Bible records that some in the Old Testament paid God’s tithe before Moses, there are those who claim that there was no obligation to pay the tithe before Moses, and it only became an obligation when the Levitical tithing system was instituted under Moses. They also claim that the tithing system was only instituted for Israel (some even say, the Jews, confusing the house of Israel with the house of Judah), and that any obligation to pay tithe ended at the time when Israel and Judah went into captivity. They say that in any event, there is no tithing obligation for New Testament Christians as Christ came to abolish the commandment to pay tithe.
All of these assumptions are wrong.
We say the following in our free booklet, “Tithing — Today?”
“One of the ancients who honored God with tithing was righteous Abraham. We are told that Abraham [Abram] gave a tithe of his income to the high priest, Melchizedek. We read in Genesis 14:20 that Abraham gave him ‘a tithe [or one-tenth] of all.’ In the book of Hebrews, it is again mentioned that Abraham gave Melchizedek ‘a tenth of the spoils’ (Hebrews 7:4)…
“So then, why did Abraham give the high priest the tithe? Had Abraham done it before, or was this the first time? And if it was the first time, how did this thought enter his mind?
“The context of both passages in Genesis 14 and Hebrews 7 shows that Abraham practiced tithing as a way of life. We read that Abraham kept God’s ‘charge.’ We also find this statement from God Himself regarding Abraham, that ‘Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws’ (Genesis 26:5). In other words, Abraham was OBEDIENT TO GOD IN EVERYTHING, and that included tithing in accordance with God’s instructions.
“We also read of the patriarch, Jacob, who became obedient to God’s instructions on tithing, as well. When he fled for his life from his brother Esau, God appeared to him in a dream. When Jacob awoke, he made a vow, stating, ‘… of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth [or tithe] to You’ (Genesis 28:22)… Again, how did Jacob know that God required this of him? The obvious answer is that Abraham, his grandfather, and Isaac, his father, had taught him. However, Jacob had not yet begun to tithe, because he had not yet accepted God as his God. Rather, he said, ‘If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, THEN the LORD shall be my God’ (Genesis 28:20–21)…”
We will later come back to the question as to whom Jacob (and Isaac) gave the tithe. In the case of Abraham (Abram), we already read that he gave it to the high priest “Melchizedek.”
We explain in our above-quoted booklet who Melchizedek was.
“We read in Hebrews 7:4–8: ‘Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. And indeed, those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham; but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better. Here mortal men receive tithes, but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives.’
“Notice, too, Hebrews 7:28: ‘For the law [regulating the collection of tithes through the Levites] appoints as high priests men who have weaknesses, but the word of the oath, which came after the law [pertaining to the Levites], appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.’
“‘Christ, who is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’ (verse 17), was none other than Melchizedek Himself. Melchizedek is described as the ‘king of peace,’ without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remain[ing] a priest continually’ (verses 2–3). It is said about Melchizedek that he ‘receives them [tithes], of whom it is witnessed that he LIVES’ (verse 8).
“The ONLY human who has been resurrected from death to ETERNAL LIFE is Jesus Christ… Melchizedek and Jesus Christ are one and the same person! We read that Melchizedek was without beginning—and so was Christ, the Eternal One…”
It was Christ, in the person of Melchizedek, who appeared to Abraham as the priest of the Most High—God the Father—to receive the tithe from Abraham. This was hardly the first, nor the only time, that Abraham had paid the tithe, as we have seen before; nor, that he paid it only on that occasion to Melchizedek.
We read that Melchizedek was called “king of Salem” and “king of righteousness (Hebrews 7:2). He actually ruled in Salem or Jerusalem as the King of Jerusalem and the King of Peace. We do not know for long He ruled there, and when His rule began or ended, but we do know that He ruled as king when He met Abraham, and undoubtedly longer than that. This does not mean that Christ had become a Man of flesh and blood, but He did manifest Himself as a Man.
We say more about Melchizedek in our free booklet “God Is… Our Destiny” (Chapter 19):
“We read in Genesis 14:18–21 that Christ, as Melchizedek, appeared to Abraham, then called Abram, who gave Him the tithe of everything. Hebrews 7 confirms that Melchizedek was indeed Jesus Christ who lived at that time as High Priest among the people (compare verses 3, 8). He had not become a Man, but He lived for a while ‘as’ a man; that is, He manifested Himself as a man. Abram knew who Melchizedek was…
“… later in Genesis 18…, Christ and two angels ‘appeared’ to Abraham as ‘men’ (verse 2) when they were about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. They ate and spoke with him (Genesis 18:1–15). But this does not mean that they actually WERE men—that is, flesh and blood human beings. They just manifested themselves AS human beings. Abraham knew right away that one of the three was Christ, calling Him ‘My Lord’ in verse 3 (compare also verses 27, 30, 32). The word is Adonai, which Abraham used in reference to God (compare Genesis 15:2). He recognized Christ, having seen Him before when He appeared to Him as Melchizedek. (In passing, the word Adonai is actually a plural word, meaning ‘my lords’; the singular form is adon. This is another proof that Abraham knew that God consists of more than one Person.)…”
When Christ came to this earth as a Man and died for us, the tithing obligation was changed, but not in the sense that it was no longer obligatory to tithe, but in the sense that Levites would no longer collect the tithe; rather, Jesus Christ would receive the tithe again, as He had received it before, prior to Moses, in the Person of Melchizedek. We are told, in the book of Hebrews, that with Christ’s death and resurrection, a change in the ADMINISTRATION of the tithing obligation occurred (compare Hebrews 7:11-12).
As it was prior to Moses, so it is today: God’s tithe, holy to Him, is to be paid directly to Christ. As Christ is the Head of the Body, His Church, God’s tithe must be paid to His Church.
That the obligation to pay God’s tithe did not cease can be seen in the end-time prophecy of the book of Malachi. We say in our above-mentioned booklet “Tithing – Today?”:
“God inspired [Malachi] to record His stirring warning in Malachi 3:8–10: ‘“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, “In what way have we robbed You?” In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,’ Says the LORD of hosts, ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.’”
“… Although recorded in the Old Testament, the statement refers equally, if not more so, to God’s New Testament Church, as well as to all of mankind just prior to Christ’s return… The entire context of the book of Malachi has to do with OUR immediate future!
“For instance, we read in Malachi 4:1–4: “‘For behold, the day is coming, Burning like an oven, And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,’ Says the LORD of hosts, ‘That will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves. You shall trample the wicked, For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet On the day that I do this,’ Says the LORD of hosts. ‘Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, With the statutes and judgments.’”
“This is a challenge God extends to us today! Malachi’s prophecies apply to us today AND to our immediate future! The Law of Moses—with its statutes and judgments—includes God’s law to tithe. God says to remember this and to cease from robbing Him—cease neglecting to tithe to Him His HOLY tithe! To those who obey Him, God says in Malachi 3:17: “‘They shall be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him.’ Then you shall again discern Between the righteous and the wicked, Between the one who serves God And one who does not serve Him.’”
“Jesus Christ confirmed that the tithing law was still in effect at the time of His first coming. While emphasizing that tithing is not an end in itself, He nevertheless endorsed its validity: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone’ (Matthew 23:23). Note that Christ talked about ‘paying’ tithes, even confirming that this OUGHT TO BE DONE!”
Returning to Abraham and Jacob, we saw that Abraham paid the tithe directly to Melchizedek. Jacob said that he would pay the tithe if he would be blessed by God. But to WHOM would he pay it? We read in Genesis 28 that he came to Bethel and had a dream in which he saw the LORD (Jesus Christ) and His angels (verses 12-15). The LORD spoke to him in the dream by stating that He was the “LORD God of Abraham and of Isaak” (verse 13) and He promised him protection and that He would bring him back to this place in the future (verse 15). When Jabob woke up, he recognized that “the LORD is in this place and I did not know it” (verse 16). He also said that if I were to come back to his father’s house in peace, then the LORD (Jesus Christ) would be his God, and “of all You give me I surely give a tenth TO YOU” (verses 21-22).
In other words, he promised to pay the tithe to the LORD—apparently in the Person of the High Priest Melchizedek, who was obviously still ruling by that time as the King of Jerusalem. He must have known this, as there was no Levitical priesthood yet, and to state that he would give the tithe to the LORD would make little sense, unless he knew how to do this. He knew that Abraham, his grandfather, had given the tithe to Melchizedek, and apparently also his father Isaac had done so, and so he, Jacob, would do the same.
We find another interesting prophecy in Isaiah 1:26 about Jerusalem or Zion, after Christ has returned to earth, where we read: “I will restore your judges as at the first, And your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.”
Up until the time of David, Jerusalem was not even in the hands of Israel and Judah, so the reference to righteous judges could hardly be applied to the Jebusites who possessed the city at the time of David which he conquered. Applying this to the time of the Judges or Moses, as some suggest, would make little sense either—at that time, Jerusalem was not ruled or judged by the Israelites.
The Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers points out:
“The city of righteousness… There is possibly an allusive reference to the idea embodied in the [name] of Melchizedek… (Genesis 14:18; Hebrews 7:2) as connected with Jerusalem. So in Jeremiah 33:16 the ideal city, no less than the ideal king, is to be called Jehovah Tsidkenu (‘the LORD our righteousness’).”
So, it appears that the reference in Isaiah 1:26 is to Melchizedek when He ruled Salem or Jersualem, apparently with some of His righteous angels, who could be described as “judges” or “counselors” (compare Daniel 4:13, 17; 1 Kings 22:19-20; Revelation 4:4). And it would have been Melchizedek to whom Abraham, Isaac and Jacob regularly brought their tithe and offerings. But in the future, it will be the born-again members of the God Family who will rule under Christ as judges and priests over angels (Revelation 5:10; 20:4, 6; Hebrews 2:5, 8; 1 Corinthians 6:3), and the people will bring their tithes and offerings to them to be used for righteous purposes.
Lead Writer: Norbert Link