PRIESTHOOD OF ALL  BELIEVERS

I Peter 2:9

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation,
a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him
who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:

You have heard of the priesthood of all believers. You know it as one of the great statements of the Reformation. But what does it mean? What does it mean that you are a priest? Are you fulfilling your role as a priest? As far as function goes, and among other things, a priest is someone who offers sacrifices and takes his place to receive the blessings of God and lay them upon other people. A priest has authority to enter God's presence on behalf of himself and others. And so for you to be a New Testament priest with proper authority from God, means that you must be found “in Christ”, because He is our Great High Priest and the only one able to represent us before the Father. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus  I Tim. 2:5.

This idea that God’s people should be priests and a holy nation was not a new revelation to Peter. Before the official institution of the Aaronic priesthood, the Lord had already declared to Moses concerning the entire people of God that Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.  Exodus 19:6

So Israel, as a body, as a people, as a nation was to be a kingdom of priests! They were to be a holy nation. They were to receive God's blessings, and eventually be the instrument to give these blessings to the Gentiles. Didn’t God tell Abraham that “In thy Seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”? Genesis 18:18 & Galatians 3:8. And when Peter wants to explain the concept to his readers, he quotes from Old Testament passages in Isaiah, Psalms, and Exodus.

The clear implication is that you are a royal priest, part of a holy nation. You are now what Israel was supposed to be. You are in fact what the majority of Israelites failed to be. Thank God they did not all fail, and those that did not fail kept for us the Word of God and maintained faith to bring forth the Messiah. Romans 3:1-3. These faithful Israelites also became the nucleus of the Church and were responsible for spreading the Gospel to the world. See John 17:20. 

But if the priesthood of all believers is an Old Testament idea, what will keep us from failing in the same way that some of them did? After all, we are sinners! If priests are supposed to live holy lives, receiving the blessings of God and giving them to others, what will happen to us? How can we do this? Only by the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, and only by fighting the fight of faith even as some of them also did.

You are to demonstrate by your lives and by your conduct that you are holy, that you are called out and separate from the world. Israel was to be unique, different from the nations around them, a kingdom of priests, so also you are called to be unique, different from the people around you, a kingdom of priests. Those who have received God's mercy are to live in recognition of that mercy, and in turn show mercy to others.

I want to be a priest to God, so I look to see what it means to be one, both from the priesthood in the Old Testament, and from Jesus Christ, the great High Priest. For starters, they offered sacrifices. Only a priest could enter the presence of God in the Inner Sanctum, the Holy of Holies and only after much preparation to deal with his own sin. Yet he calls you and I to come to him. How can God allow sinners like you and I in his presence?  To grasp this wonderful truth, you must also have an appreciation of the history of God’s dwelling with man. In the Garden of Eden, God dwelt personally with Adam and Eve prior to their fall. Ever since that terrible day He has graciously provided various ways to be present with man on earth, with the promise of eternal communion for those who were willing to seek Him and find Him. 1) He dwelt in the Garden. 2) He dwelt in the Pillar of Fire and the Cloud of His presence under Moses. 3) He dwelt in the Tabernacle and in Solomon’s Temple. 4) He dwelt fully in Christ during the Messiah’s incarnation. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Colossians 2:9 And since Pentecost 5) He has dwelt in every one who truly believes in Jesus and commits their life fully to Him. The final presence will be the most glorious, when He no longer comes to dwell with us, but; 6) We go to dwell where He is! Oh, come Lord Jesus!

And it is in this last act of Jesus on the Cross of Calvary that we have the explanation of just how we are able to function as true priests before God. Remember that the Holy of Holies in the Temple was to be entered only once a year on the Day of Atonement, and only by the High Priest. All other entries carried the death penalty. God’s dwelling place was located behind the veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. When Jesus’ Spirit left His body, all the work of redemption was finished. Sin was dealt with. God was propitiated. Only the Resurrection, the Ascension and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit remained to be completed. So at that moment of death, the veil of the Temple was rent in two, ripped right down the middle, exposing the Holy of Holies as an empty chamber. Access to God was not through that “veil of restriction”, but by simple faith in that very sacrificial work which our Lord proclaimed as “finished” on Calvary. 

Our Bible is clear when it informs us that the Old Testament priesthood is finished. Hebrews tells us that Jesus had no part in Aaron’s Priesthood. Jesus is a priest after a totally different order, the order of Melchizedek. We have a new altar. We partake of the heavenly altar, not from the earthly one! In the Old Testament, after the animal was slain, the family making the offering would partake of the meat together. In the Lord's Supper, Christ is brought to his family, to us, and we partake together of the heavenly altar. We have no reason any longer to offer up a bloody sacrifice. We do offer the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips, our songs of praise and thanksgiving for His Grace and Mercy to us. Our sacrifices are merely the fruit of Christ's sacrifice, the results of what He has done in our lives.

There is another major role granted to the Priesthood in which we serve. That is the distribution of blessings. In blessing the people, the Aaronic priest would place the Name of Jehovah on His people. We offer it in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. AMEN!

Numbers 6:24-26
Make it a practice to sincerely bless one another and to graciously receive a blessing that is spoken on your behalf.