A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS
Harry Foster
THE priesthood of all believers is a Scriptural truth. What does it mean? And what are its implications? Since it is only made possible by a vital, faith association with Jesus Christ, we must first enquire what priesthood means to Him. We have to consult the letter to the Hebrews for this, and there we are told that there are two orders of priesthood, that of Aaron and that of Melchizedek. Christ fulfils both of these orders. The high priesthood according to Aaron was completed with finality when He was both priest and sacrifice, offering Himself to God and so securing perfect and eternal acceptance for believing sinners. We can have no share with Him in this Aaronic priesthood. It follows, then, that our participation must be in association with Him as a priest "after the order of Melchizedek". The essence of the Melchizedek priesthood was that it derived, "not by virtue of a commandment imposed from outside, but from the power of indestructible life within" (Hebrews 7:16 Phillips).
The question arises, Is this indestructible life also working in us? The answer is that by the infinite grace of God, it is. The further question follows, Is the priesthood of the believer meant to be a sharing with Christ of His king-priest Melchizedek service to God and men? I suggest that it is. That this is what is meant by the "kingdom of priests" produced by redemption through the blood of Jesus. I even venture humbly to express my opinion that this was what the writer of the epistle found difficult to explain to his readers because of their spiritual superficiality (5:11). We dare not claim to be better than they, but if by God's grace we can receive some 'solid food', it will relate -- I think -- not only to the significance of Christ as our Melchizedek high priest, but also to our calling in Him to a priesthood which is eternally valid. It is a striking feature of Melchizedek that he had neither beginning nor end. His was an eternal priesthood. If sin had never existed, men would still have needed a priest; not Aaronic, not to provide propitiatory sacrifices, but to mediate lovingly between them and God. When sin, death and the curse are banished from God's redeemed universe, men will still need a mediatorial priesthood and will find that God has provided one -- the eternal 'better' priesthood of Melchizedek. The great difference, however, between past eternity and the future is that by means of the cross Christ has gathered a redeemed people into fellowship with Himself. He is Melchizedek, the great King-Priest, but we are to share His destiny, to reign with Him and minister with Him, a whole kingdom of priests. The Bible finishes on this note, presenting the Church as a city-temple at the centre of God's universe, a glorious community which receives earth's glory of behalf of God and ministers it to Him; and is filled with His radiance in order to illuminate the nations of the new earth. This is to be our vocation. And for this we need spiritual preparation.
Another significant feature about our great King-Priest is that His helpfulness to others is based on the background of His life of suffering. Even the Son of God needed to qualify for His priestly task. Sometimes we are aware of how He is helping us, and we are grateful for His loving concern. At others we are ministered to without knowing how. But in both cases what Christ does for us is based on what He is, and this is closely associated with what He suffered. It is not that He asks us to consider His trials and equate or compare them with our own, but rather that His sufferings have given Him the character of one who can understandingly help people. There can be no doubt about this. The Hebrew letter, which stresses the importance of His priestly ministry, abounds in reminders of what He had to endure in order that He might be fitted for this ministry. I could devote this article to a consideration of our beloved Melchizedek, with encouragements to make full use of His loving, priestly help, but this might still leave us all on a milk diet. God's wish for us is that we may grow spiritually by taking 'solid food' and, as I have already said, this involves a divine call for us actually to share in Christ's priestly work, not in an Aaronic sense but in a Melchizedek ministry.
This is our calling. This is our present privilege and our future destiny. But it can never be a matter merely of names or titles: it must be the outcome of a life with God and of capacitating suffering. In addition to our personal need of disciplining, there are sorrows and sufferings which are specifically aimed at equipping us for priestly service. This was true of Christ, and it was clearly evident in some of His chosen servants -- Stephen,[21/22] Paul, Peter and John. Take John, the one who saw and communicated to us the vision of the Church's eternal destiny as reigning priests. We have a few glimpses of him at the beginning of the Acts, but otherwise we have no information at all about his long and arduous life. We know that he suffered; we realise that even as an old man he had to endure hardship for Christ's sake in the isle of Patmos. What was it all for? The answer surely is that this was what qualified him to exercise his priestly ministry to the churches of Asia and to us all. He started off his great revelation with the personal introduction: "I, John, your brother and companion in distress ...". That is what men need -- a brother and a companion in distress. John was a true priest.
The Old Testament gives us other striking examples of the relation between suffering and priesthood. We have Abraham and Job and many more. We may argue that we are not great apostles like John nor great historical characters like Job. We are very little people and faulty at that. For this reason I call your attention to a man with whom we all feel much more at home -- Jacob. Somehow every Christian feels a kinship with the patriarch Jacob. We are ready to identify ourselves with him and his experiences. His characteristics seem so to tally with our own that we always find help and comfort from his story. He was such a failure in himself; and so are we. But he was truly loved and chosen by grace; and so, thank God, are we. Thirdly he was a man who, in spite of everything, truly wanted God's best; and this should be our spirit also.
Jacob certainly attained to priesthood. In fact this seems to be the one salient achievement of his life, pin-pointed in this same letter to the Hebrews: "By faith Jacob ... blessed the two sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff" (11:21). This is surely the priestly function, to offer worship to God, and to convey God's blessing to others. Even as Jacob did this, though, he gave every evidence that he was a broken man, who had to lean heavily on his crutch. Indeed it was this brokenness which fitted him for his ministry. Seventeen years before his death he had been taken into the presence of Pharaoh, the greatest world ruler of that time, and had there also acted in a priestly way. He blessed Pharaoh! He, the lame old failure of a man who could only describe his life in the words: "... few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained ..." (Genesis 47:9). But the record goes to repeat the marvel of this priestly visit to the Egyptian monarch: "And Jacob blessed Pharaoh". Jacob shows what God can do with any of us, if we put ourselves in His hands. It may seem fantastic to expect that we can ever be reigning priests. It may seem even more absurd to think that even now we can exercise such a ministry. Yet the heavenly praise concerning God's redeemed, priestly people terminates with the words: "And they reign upon earth" (Revelation 5:10 R.V.). This is what we are meant to do, now and for ever. Can we learn from Jacob how to qualify for such king-priest service? We will try to do so by considering four great landmarks in his life. On each one of these occasions he erected a pillar -- a visible evidence of a spiritual experience. The very fact that there were four may give a hint that these truths are universal. They apply to us all.
