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Chapter Eleven
God Seeking
Priests
God has a temple, He must
have priests; else were there no song, no service, no worship. In His
eternal plan, priesthood is provided for; a priesthood not of angels but of
redeemed men; of those who seemed the least likely to fulfil such an office
in such a temple.
It is a “holy priesthood” that he has provided
(1 Peter 2:5). It is a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9); for He has
made us kings and priests. It is a heavenly priesthood like that of His own
Son.
As such we minister at God’s altar, we tread His
courts, we eat His shew-bread, we kindle and trim His lamps, we offer His
sacrifices, we burn His holy incense.
God is seeking priests among the sons of men. A human
priesthood is one of the essential parts of His eternal plan. To rule
creation by man is His design; to carry on the worship of creation by man is
no less part of His design.
He is now in search of priests; and He has sent His
Son to prepare such for His temple. In order to their being such, He must
redeem them; He must reconcile them; He must cleanse them; He must clothe
them with the garments of glory and of beauty. All this He does. “The Son of
man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
The embassy of peace which is going forth from the
cross is an embassy in quest of priests. His ambassadors of peace beseech
men to be reconciled to God in order to their becoming priests. God Himself
in His glorious gospel comes up to the sinner and asks him to become a
priest to Him.
And what does this priesthood mean? What does it
embrace? Let us consider this.
Priesthood is the appointed link between heaven and
earth; the channel of intercourse between the sinner and God. God and man
can only come together on the ground of mediatory priesthood. Such a
priesthood, in so far as expiation is concerned, is in the hands of the Son
of God alone; in so far as it is to be the medium of communication between
Creator and creature, is also in the hands of redeemed men,—of the Church of
God.
Sin had broken up all direct or open intercourse, as
we have seen; and the veil declared this. All access to God was to be
debarred till a new medium should be provided, such as should secure the
ends of righteousness; such as should make it honorable for the Holy One to
receive the unrighteous; and such as should make it safe for the unholy to
stand in the presence of the Holy.
Priesthood is the link between the sinner and God,
between earth and heaven,—earth, where all is vile; heaven, where all is
pure. Without priesthood, God and we are at awful and unremoveable distance
from each other. Without priesthood, there can be no transference of guilt,
no remission of sin, no reconciliation to God, no restoration either to
fellowship or blessing. Priesthood involves and accomplishes all these,
because it is through it that the substitution of life for life is effected.
It is the conducting medium through whose agency the exchange is brought
about between the sinner and the Surety. In nothing less than this does its
purpose terminate, and wherein it falls short of this, it is but a pretext
or a name. If priesthood be not the living link between God and the sinner,
it is nothing.
All this was exhibited in symbolic rite under the
former law. It was through priesthood that all intercourse with God was
carried on. It was the priest that led the sinner into God’s presence, that
presented his offering, that transacted the business between him and God,
and that received the blessing from God to bestow upon the sinner. God set
up the Aaronic priesthood on very purpose to exhibit this; to let men know
what His idea of priesthood was, and what He intended a priest
to be.
True, this ancient priesthood had only to do with the
flesh; it pertained but to the outward person of the sinner, and the mere
visible courts of God. It could not reach the inner man; it could not take
hold of the conscience; it could not lead the worshipper into the true
presence of the invisible Jehovah. It fell short of these ends, and thus far
was defective. Still, it did fully accomplish its end as a medium of
communication, in so far as the outward man and the material courts were
concerned. It was complete according to its nature; and in so far as it
went, it established intercourse between the sinner and God.
In so doing, it brought out most fully God’s idea of
priesthood, as if to prevent the possibility of any mistake upon the point.
It showed God’s ultimate design in regard to this; His intention of bringing
in a perfect priesthood in His own time and way. His object was not to show
men how to construct and set up a priesthood of their own, but to tell them
what He Himself meant to do, so as to hinder their attempting such a thing.
His object was to teach them the true meaning of priesthood, in order that
when He brought in His own High Priest, they might fully understand the
nature of His work, and the end to be accomplished. It was a new and a great
idea that He sought to teach them, an idea which would never have occurred
to themselves; an idea which it required long time to unfold to them; an
idea most needful for them fully to grasp, as upon it depended the new
relationship which grace was to introduce between them and God.
But then when the old priestly ritual had thus served
its ends, it was of no more use. It behooved to be taken down, as being more
likely to hinder than help forward the sinner’s intercourse with God, as
being certain to confuse and perplex, and lead to innumerable mistakes in
the great question of approach and acceptance. It was not to be imitated,
for any imitation would but mislead men from the true priesthood. It was not
to be set up in another form, for every part of it was merged, and, as it
were, dissolved irrecoverably in the priesthood of the Son of God. The High
Priest of good things to come had absorbed it all into Himself, so that any
attempt to reconstruct it in any form is undoing what God has done;
restoring what He Himself has taken to pieces; committing sacrilege with His
holy vessels; nay, profaning with irreverent touch what He has removed out
of sight, and forbidden to be handled or used.
So far, then, is the old ritual from being a model or
example for us now, that it forbids the attempt to imitate its rites. Its
very nature, so purely symbolic and prospective, forbids such an attempt.
Its abolition still more strongly prohibits this. For that abolition is
God’s proclamation that its ends are served, and its time accomplished. But
specially its abolition, through fulfilment in the person of Messiah,
declares this. Before it was cast away, everything in it that was of value
was gathered out of it, and perpetuated in Him. Every truth that it
contained was taken from it, and embodied in Him. It did not pass away
simply because its time had come, but because the need for it had ceased; it
had been superseded by something infinitely more glorious in its nature, and
more suitable to the sinner. Who thinks of preserving the sand when the gold
that it contained has been extracted? or who misses the beaconlight when
the sun has risen?
The coming of the Son of God, the Great High Priest,
thus involves the abolition of priesthood in the old sense, for He has taken
it wholly upon Himself: it is now centered in Him. All the ends of
priesthood are fully met by Him. There is not one thing which we need either
as sinners or as worshippers which we have not in Him. So that the question
arises, What end can it serve to set up another priesthood apart from His?
Has He left anything incomplete which ought to be completed by us? Has He
left any of the distance unremoved between us and God? Has He left the work
of atonement, and mediation, and intercession, in such a state of
imperfection, that we require a new priestly order to perfect it? If not,
then is it not strange profanity, as well as perversity in man, to insist
upon setting up what is so wholly unnecessary, and what cannot but cast
dishonour upon the divine priesthood of Messiah as being imperfect in
itself, and as having failed in its ends?
In the present age, then, there are none on earth
exercising priestly functions. There is ministry, but not priesthood. The
apostles were not priests. They never claimed the office, and never sought
to exercise it in the Church. Nor did they enjoin their successors to claim
it, nor give them the slightest hint that, as ministers, they were priests.
They taught them that priesthood had passed away; that the priestly raiment
had been rent in pieces; that there was no longer any temple, or altar, or
sacrifice needed upon earth under this dispensation. The epistle to the
Hebrews gives the lie to all priestly pretensions, and the epistles to
Timothy and Titus show how totally different ministry is from priesthood.
Yet we read of the “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9);
we read of “kings and priests”; we read of those who claimed to themselves
the priestly name even here. But these were not apostles, nor prophets, nor
evangelists, but simply saints. As saints, they were priests. As one
with the Great High Priest, they were entitled to this name. As those who
were called to share with Him the future honours of the throne and altar,
they are the “royal priesthood.” Other priests upon earth there are none.
Usurpers of the name and office there are many. Of true, God-chosen priests,
there are none save these.
Their priesthood is still in abeyance, so far as the
actual exercise of it is concerned. They are priest-elect; but, at present,
no more. Their title they have received, when brought into the Holy of
Holies by the blood of Christ; but on the active functions of priesthood
they have not entered. It doth not yet appear what they shall be. They wear
no royal crown; they are clothed with no priestly raiments; their garments
for “glory and for beauty” are still in reserve among the things that are
“reserved in heaven, ready to be revealed in the last time.” Both their
inheritance and their priesthood are as yet only things of faith;
they are not to be entered on till their Lord returns; they are priests in
disguise, and no man owns their claim. Yet it is a sure claim; it is a
Divine claim; it is a claim which will before long be vindicated. The day of
the MANIFESTATION of those priests is not far off. And for this they wait,
carefully abstaining from usurping honours and dignities which God has not
yet put upon them.
The High Priest whom they own is now within the veil;
and till He come forth, they repudiate all priestly pretensions, knowing
that at present all sacerdotal office, and authority, and glory, are
centered in Him alone. To attempt to exercise these would be to rob Him of
His prerogative, to forestall God’s purpose, and to defeat the end of the
present dispensation.
Their priesthood is after the order of Melchizedek.
The King of Salem and priest of the Most High God is he whom they point to
as their type. Their great Head is the true Melchizedek; and they, under
Him, can claim the office, and name, and dignity. Melchizedek’s unknown and
mysterious parentage is theirs, for the world knows them not, neither what
nor whence they are. Melchizedek’s city was Salem; theirs is the New
Jerusalem, that cometh down out of heaven from God. His dwelling was in a
city without a temple, and He exercised His priesthood without a temple; so
their abode is to be in that city of which it is said, “I saw no temple
therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.”
Distinct from Abraham, and greater than he, though of the same common family
of man, was Melchizedek; so they, “the church of the firstborn,” distinct
from Israel, and greater than they, yet still partakers of a common nature,
are to inherit a kingdom more glorious and heavenly than what shall ever
belong to the sons of Abraham according to the flesh.
It is in the age to come that they are to exercise
their royal priesthood. They are the kings, while the dwellers on earth are
the subjects. They are priests, and, as such, carry on the intercourse
between earth and heaven.
For priesthood is not merely for reconciliation, but
for carrying on intercourse after reconciliation has been effected. It is
not merely for securing pardon, but for forming the medium of communication
between the pardoner and the pardoned. Thus priesthood may exist after all
sin has passed away, and the curse has been taken from sky and earth, and
all things have been made new.
For this end shall priesthood exist in the eternal
kingdom, both in the person of Christ Himself, and of His saints. A link is
needed between the upper and the lower creation; between heaven and earth;
between the visible and the invisible; between the Creator and the created.
That link shall be the priesthood of Christ and His redeemed. They shall be
the channels of communication between God and His universe. They shall be
the leaders of creation’s song of praise; from all regions of the mighty
universe gathering together the multitudinous praises, and presenting them
in their golden censers before Jehovah’s throne. Through them worship shall
be carried on, and all allegiance presented, and prayer sent up from the
unnumbered orbs of space, the far-extending dominions of the King of kings.
Whether the kingly or priestly offices are to be
conjoined in each saint, as in Christ Himself, or whether some are to be
priests and some kings, we know not. The separation of the offices is quite
compatible with the truth as the Church forming the Melchizedek priesthood:
for the reference may be to the Church as a body, and not to each
individual. And is it not something of this kind that is suggested to us by
the four living ones and the four-and-twenty elders in the Revelation? Do
not the former look like priests, and do not the latter look like kings?
Yet it matters not. In either way, the dignity is the
same to the Church; in either way will the “royal priesthood” exercise
their office under Him who is the Great Priest and King.
Our priesthood, then, is an eternal one. There will be
room for it, and need for it hereafter, though the evils which just now
specially call for its exercise shall then have passed away. We greatly
narrow the range of priesthood when we confine it to the times and the
places where sin is to be found. Such, no doubt, is its present sphere of
exercise; and it is well, indeed, for us that it is so. Did it not extend to
this, where should we be? Were it not now ordained specially for the
alienated and the guilty, to restore the lost friendship, and refasten the
broken link between them and God, what would become of us? Put having
accomplished this, must it cease? Has it no other region within which it can
exercise itself? Has it not a wider range of function, to which, throughout
eternity, it will extend, in the carrying out of God’s wondrous purposes?
And just as the humanity of Christ is the great bond of connection
between the Divine and the human, the great basis on which the universe is
to be established immovably for ever, and secured against a second fall, so
the priesthood of Christ, exercised in that humanity, shall be the great
medium of communication, in all praise, and prayer, and service, and worship
of every kind; between heaven and earth; between the Creator and the
creature; between the King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible, and the beings
whom He has made for His glory, in all places of His dominion, whether in
the heaven of heavens, or in the earth below, or throughout the measureless
regions of the starry universe.
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