Sometimes, when I’m looking deeply into God’s word, I’ll stumble over something, perhaps in a passage that I’ve read dozens of times before, that completely changes the way I see both God and the world. Something that stops me in my tracks and makes me ask, “how is this not blowing all our minds?”
That happened to me again just recently, as I was reading in the last book of the Bible:
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father – to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen (Revelation 1:5-6).
There’s a lot going on in this passage, but what caught my attention is the part right in the middle. Jesus has made us a kingdom, and he has made us priests to serve the Father. As I read it I realized that this echoes something Peter wrote:
As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:4-5).
and:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9).
This simple but stunning truth, that Jesus has ordained all of us who believe in him to serve as priests, was forgotten or ignored throughout much of the history of the church, only to be rediscovered as part of the Protestant Reformation. Or was it? Those of us who call ourselves Protestants say that we believe this. We talk about the priesthood of all believers, as we like to call it, but do we truly believe it? When I look at Protestant churches today, what is the effect of this doctrine that we say we believe? In other words, how often do we act like we’re priests?
Before we can tackle that issue, we must first address a more basic question; what does it actually mean to be a priest? This is important, because priests at the time Revelation was written were not like modern priests in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. So, in order to explain why this passage has the impact it does, we have to look back what priests were and what they did in the ancient world.
Priests in the Ancient Near East
Speaking broadly, Gerald A. Klingbeil (2018:55) says about ancient Near Eastern (not necessarily Israelite) priests:
Priests and other religious specialists were part of an elite in ancient Near Eastern cultures whose services were to secure the well-being of king, people, and land by representing them before the deity.
Priests spoke to the gods on behalf of, and in the name of, the people they were representing. They were intermediaries, in other words, bringing to the gods the prayers and the sacrifices of the worshipers. The most important way they did this was through animal sacrifice; animals brought by worshipers were killed to feed the gods, who were expected to grant favors in return.
In Egypt, priests were generally appointed by Pharaoh, who was himself counted as one of the gods, although in later time, some priestly offices appear to have been inherited. Many priests also served as government administrators of one sort of another. Babylonian and Assyrian priests were similarly closely tied to kings. In all of the cultures surrounding ancient Israel, both men and women served as priests. Priests were generally well educated, and usually wore special clothing to indicate their status. In addition to offering sacrifices, priests in the ancient Near East were responsible for maintaining the temples and the statues of the gods. These statues had to be fed, bathed and clothed, and rituals were performed to allow the god to enter the statue, so that he or she could receive this service.
A further responsibility of priests was divination, to determine the will of the gods. It’s possible that priests also taught the people, but the evidence for this is not conclusive. Whether or not they were teachers, by performing divination they were, in practical terms, speaking on behalf of the gods. This speaking, however, was typically done by interpreting ordinary events as omens, with long-established meanings that could be looked up in books. And while I can’t rule out the possibility that demons sometimes spoke through this divination (see 1 Corinthians 10:19-20), it appears from the existing evidence that, for the most part, they didn’t. Rather, the priests themselves made sure to interpret omens in ways that were politically expedient.
Israelite Priests
Priests in ancient Israel were not appointed by kings. Rather, the priesthood was established by God, who designated every male descendant of Moses’ brother Aaron as a priest. In addition, the entire tribe of Levi – the tribe Moses and Aaron belonged to – served as guardians and assistants in the temple. When God established the priesthood in Israel he gave detailed instructions, most of which are recorded in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. Like other Near Eastern priests, Israelite priests served as intermediaries, bringing the requests and the offerings of the people before God. Israelite priests were similar in many ways to the pagan priests of the surrounding cultures, but as one Bible scholar puts it:
The Israelite priestly ritual complex made use of the imagery of the surrounding cultures but transformed it within a symbol system that expressed a different worldview (Duke 2003:650).
That is, the differences between Israelite and pagan priestly practices reflected the differences between belief in one God, who is both sovereign and righteous, and in many gods who were powerful but limited, and frequently capricious.
Like other priests, Israelite priests offered sacrifices, but these sacrifices were never said to be feeding God. A God who is all-powerful does not get hungry, or have any other needs that humans can meet. Rather, Israelite sacrfices look forward to the perfect sacrifice that would one day be offered by Christ himself.
A large portion of the Old Testament law deals with matters of ritual purity or cleanliness, which priests were expected to enforce. This cleanliness is not related our modern sense of “clean,” which refers to hygiene. Rather, things were impure or unclean to the extent that they symbolically represented the original chaotic state, before God established order through creation (Genesis 1). This is not the same thing as holiness, which refers to things, or places, or people who have been set apart from the rest of the world for God’s exclusive use. A person or a thing could be both common – that is, not holy – and clean. In fact, this was the state most people were expected to be in the majority of the time. Because God is sovereign, rules of ritual purity and holiness could be universal, and teaching people how to live within this system was an important function of Israelite priests (Leviticus 10:10-11, Deuteronomy 33:10). By doing so, the priests were symbolically helping to maintain creation itself (Duke 2003:651).
Israelite priests, like their pagan counterparts, also spoke for God. Exodus 28:30 talks about “the Urim and the Thummim,” which were used to determine God’s will, but what those items actually were and how they were used is not recorded. The law did not allow any of the methods of divination used by the surrounding cultures. Apart from prophecy, which is a large enough topic to require an article of its own, the Urim and Thumim were the only permitted way to seek information from God.
Jewish Priests after Old Testament Times
The priesthood established by God at Mt. Sinai still existed at the time of Jesus, although the Urim and Thummim appear to have either been lost or had ceased to function several centuries earlier (Ezra 2:63, Nehemiah 7:65). As in Old Testament times, the priests offered sacrifices to atone for both public and private sins, and to maintain the covenant between Israel and God (Basser 2000:825). Some changes had occurred, however.
After the temple was demolished by the Babylonians, and then rebuilt seventy years later, the high priest became the head of state, with political as well as religious power. Around 143 BC the Hasmonean family established themselves as high priests and kings, even though they were not of the correct, Biblical, lineage for either. This dynasty remained in power until it was removed by Herod, who made himself king and took it upon himself to appoint the high priests. After Herod’s death his successors continued this practice, although eventually the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious council, took over this function. By the time of Christ, the priesthood, and especially the office of high priest, had become highly politicized.
A Nation of Priests
The priesthood we’ve been considering here, made up of the male descendants of Aaron, was established by God to represent Israel (Exodus 28:1, 41). But at the same time, all of Israel was called to serve as priests representing the other nations of the world.
Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites” (Exodus 19:3-6).
Over and over again in the Scriptures we see God declare his intention to make his glory known to all people through his relationship with Israel (for example, Isaiah 40:5). When the Israelites were faithful to this calling, knowledge of the true God spread and people from other nations responded (Joshua 2:8-11). When they were unfaithful, God declared that “wherever they went among the nations they profaned my holy name” (Ezekiel 36:20).
This, then, is the context for the New Testament passages that I quoted at the beginning of this article. God’s people, all of us who follow Jesus, are a nation of priests. It is through our faithfulness that God’s goodness is proclaimed in the world. And it is through our unfaithfulness that his name is profaned.
Being a priest is a high honor; God is generous and good, and he loves to give good gifts to his children. But it’s also a great responsibility; priests don’t exist to be served, but to serve both God and others. We did not take it upon ourselves to become priests; when we believed in Christ we were appointed as priests by God himself.
As I discussed, one of the main functions of priests has always been to offer sacrifices to God. Christ offered himself, once for all, as the perfect sacrifice for sin (Romans 3:25, Hebrews 10:11-14). And we offer sacrifices as well. Paul wrote to the church in Rome:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship (Romans 12:1).
and to the church in Philippi:
I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God (Philippians 4:18).
while the letter to the Hebrews tells us:
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased (Hebrews 13:15-16).
And although we know that Christ is the only mediator between God and the human race (1 Timothy 2:5), part of the way he works is through us, the people who make up his body (1 Corinthians 12:27).
And this is the part that makes me ask, “how is this not blowing all our minds?” I’m not just a son of God, I’m also a priest of God, set apart as holy, for his service, with all that implies. I have direct access to God, not for my own benefit, but so that I can represent others as I bring their needs before him in prayer. I also have authority to speak in Christ’s name, as his representative to the people around me.
So again I ask, are we acting like priests? Are we using our authority to act as intermediaries, praying on behalf of those who are not priests, and speaking to them in Jesus’s name? Or do we act as though the purpose of our salvation is only to benefit us?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live for myself. If God calls me a priest, I want to live like a priest, to demonstrate to the world who my Father is. I was chosen for a purpose – to declare the praises of the God who brought me out from darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). And that’s a purpose worth living up to.
References Cited
Basser, H. W.
2000 Priests and Priesthood, Jewish. In Dictionary of New Testament Background, edited by T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker, pp. 824-827. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove.
Duke, R. K.
2003 Priests, Priesthood. In Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch, edited by T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker, pp. 646-655. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove.
Klingbeil, Gerald A.
2018 Priests in the Ancient Near East. In Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament, edited by Jonathan S. Greer, John W. Hilber and John H. Walton, pp. 355-360. Baker Academic, Grand Rapids.