A Kingdom of Priests
A passage that I consider to be one of the very few absolutely foundational statements in the Bible is Ex. 19.5-6, words of God to Israel: “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you will be my own possession from among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you will be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.”
This word from God defines the kind of kingdom he wants to rule over. It was God’s desire at the outset for his kingdom to be a kingdom of priests. Now this is an absolutely creative and revolutionary concept. Every religion throughout history has had a few priests who were the only ones who could come into contact with God (or a god or the gods), with all the mass of people having to go to them to learn about God (or a god or the gods) and to know what he required of them. Christianity is the only faith (it is not a religion) that has as one of its tenets that all God’s people are priests, and even some so-called Christian denominations have re-established a priestly class, one of the very things Christ came to abolish, indeed died to abolish.
Thus we see that the Levitical priesthood of Israel was not God’s original concept for priesthood. It was never God’s desire to have a few priests and a mass of non-priests. He wants every one of his people to appear before him in the Holy of Holies, indeed to live there! We are always in God’s very presence. He wants a kingdom of priests. The Levitical priesthood was brought in because the people were afraid of God and asked Moses for it: “You speak to us and we will listen, but don’t let God speak to us or we will die” (Ex. 20.19). But Jeremiah prophesied a new covenant under which all God’s people would know him, that is, be priests (Jer. 31.34, Heb. 8.11).
We see this principle of the kingdom of priests all through the Bible. The first passage in the Bible that contains the word “priest” is Gen. 14.17-20:
“And the king of Sodom went out to meet him [Abraham], after his return from the smiting of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, at the valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.’ And he gave him a tenth of all.”
It is a generally accepted rule of Bible interpretation that the first mention of a matter defines its use throughout the Bible. At this first mention of the word “priest” we find that it refers to a king who was also a priest. This could not be in Judaism, for there all kings came from the tribe of Judah and all priests came from the tribe of Levi. But notice something else: this king-priest, Melchizedek by name, brought forth bread and wine. Never in the Bible did a priest bring forth bread and wine, with two exceptions. All the priests brought forth the blood of animals. Since they were themselves sinners, blemished lambs, they could not offer their own blood to God, so God gave them a symbolic system of blood sacrifice to cover their sins till a later time. If any Levitical priest had brought bread and wine to the altar, he would have been turned away.
But there were two exceptions, and you know what they are. The first is Melchizedek, presented here in this passage. The second is the Lord Jesus, who could offer his own blood, and his own body, because he was without sin, an unblemished lamb. At his last supper with his disciples he, like Melchizedek, brought forth bread and wine, symbols of his own body and blood, proving that he was a priest of a different order from the Levitical priests of Judaism, a priest after the order of Melchizedek.
We encounter this Melchizedek again in Ps. 110.4: “I AM has sworn and will not change his mind: you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Why does Melchizedek pop up again all this time after Gen. 14? These are the only two places in the Old Testament where he is mentioned. In this psalm, the Lord Jesus has risen victorious from the grave and ascended into Heaven. God says to him, in v. 1, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord Jesus is to sit on the throne of his Father until the time for him to return to this earth and take the throne. A throne is taken by a king, but in v. 4 of this psalm God tells Jesus that he is a priest. That is, he is the fulfillment of God’s original idea of kingdom and priesthood, just as Melchizedek was, king (of righteousness, the meaning of his name, and king of peace – Salem = shalom), and priest of God Most High. Is there a better description of the Lord Jesus?
Let us move on to Zech. 6.11-15:
“… [T]ake silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says I AM of hosts,”Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is, and He will build the temple of I AM. Yes, he will build the temple of I AM and he will bear the glory, and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between them both [office of priest and office of king]. And the crown will be a memorial in the temple of I AM to Helem, Tobijah, Jedaiah and Hen the son of Zephaniah. Those who are far off will come and build in the temple of I AM.” Then you will know that I AM of hosts has sent me to you. And it will take place if you completely obey I AM your God.'”
A priest on his throne? Impossible! This is Israel, where no Levite could sit on the throne of Judah. Ah, but this is not ancient Israel, but prophecy of the coming kingdom. The Branch is the Lord Jesus, King and Priest. “He will build the temple of the Lord”: Jesus said, “I will build my church.” Gentiles will come and build in the temple of the Lord? Impossible! No Gentile could enter the temple on pain of death. Ah, but this is prophecy of the coming kingdom:
“Therefore remember that once you Gentiles in the flesh, those called uncircumcision by what is called circumcision, made with hands in the flesh, that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the people of Israel and strangers of the covenants of promise, not having hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have become near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2.11-13).
What a thought, that Gentiles will not only be in the house of God, but will BE the house of God (Eph. 2.19-22). And more – they will build in the house of God. The Lord Jesus said he would build his church, but here Paul writes that we will build with him as his fellow workers (1 Cor. 3.9). We are blessed by God to participate in the building of his house. And when he comes to fill that house with his glory, we will be there! Glory! This is the kingdom of God according to his original idea, with the King-Priest on his throne and with his kingdom of priests gathered around him, ministering to him.
We move on to Hebrews
In 5.5-6, 10, the first reference to Melchizedek in Hebrews and in the New Testament, the author writes, “Thus also Christ did not glorify himself to become a High Priest, but the one who said to him, ‘You are my Son. Today I have begotten you,’ [Ps. 2.7] as he also says in another passage, ‘You are a priest into the age [literal Greek, meaning “forever”] according to the order of Melchizedek.'”
This last quotation comes, of course, from Ps. 110.4, which we have already considered. Hebrews is the book that tells us plainly that the Lord Jesus has fulfilled the prophecy of Ps. 110. Melchizedek was the type; the Lord Jesus is the antitype, the reality that fulfills the symbol given by the type.
Heb. 6.20 restates this thought, and then the entire seventh chapter of Hebrews is devoted to this theme. We will not quote or expound a passage of that length, our purpose being only to point out that the Lord Jesus is both Priest and King according to God’s original idea of priesthood and kingship, but it would benefit the reader to go through the entire chapter prayerfully and thoughtfully.
We will quote 10.11-13, where Hebrews one last time refers to Ps. 110:
“And every priest stood day by day ministering and offering the same sacrifices repeatedly, which can never take away sins, but this one, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, ‘sat down at the right hand of God,’ from then on waiting “until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.”
We see the efficacy of the work of Christ as both Priest and Victim at the cross: that one work finished his work in that regard. That one sacrifice of himself did what 1500 years of sacrifices by the Levitical priests could never do – it took away sins. We can be forgiven, finally, once-for-all, forgiven, through the blood of the Lord Jesus. Praise to our great High Priest who did this work, and to our great King, who sits on the throne waiting for the coming of his kingdom, for which we also wait with deep longing. Yes, come, Lord Jesus.
Peter adds a word to this thought in his first epistle 2.5: “… and you yourselves as living stones are being built a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Though Peter does not mention Melchizedek or a new order of priesthood, this verse must refer to such, for in Israel we could not be a holy priesthood. In the first place, none of us Gentile Christians are physical Jews, required to be a priest, and none of us are Levites (some physical Jews may be, but are probably unable to prove it). This is the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek, in which we are all priests. And we actually make up the house referred to. It is a spiritual house, made up of God’s people. He doesn’t dwell in houses made by hands (Acts 7.48, see Is. 66.1-2), but in his people.
The last mentions of this train of thought come in Revelation, and they bring out what is one of my pet peeves! The King James Version of the Bible says in Rev. 1.6 and 5.10 that we are “kings and priests to God.” This translation is based on a very limited number of Greek manuscripts of Revelation. You will notice that every modern version of the Bible, without exception, I believe, says in these verses that we are “a kingdom, priests” to God or “a kingdom and priests to our God.” This translation is based on many more manuscripts, and more ancient manuscripts, of Revelation. Every time I hear someone say that we are kings and priests, I want to jump up and shout, “No we are not! We are a kingdom of priests! ‘Kings and priests’ misses the whole point.” Someday maybe I will do it!
The King James Version misses the whole point of this line of thought beginning in Ex. 19.5-6. God does not want a kingdom of kings. He wants a kingdom of priests. A kingdom is not a large collection of kings. It is one king with many subjects of that king. The Lord Jesus is the King and we are his subjects, and in the case of this kingdom, he is also High Priest and we are all priests, a kingdom of priests, just as God stated to Israel that he wanted to begin with 3500 years ago in Ex. 19.5-6. It is the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek, God’s original idea of both his kingdom and his priesthood.
We are dealing with the kingdom of God in the present work, and specifically with the kind of kingdom it is. We said above that Ex. 19.5-6 defines the kind of kingdom God wants, namely, a kingdom of priests, and that this idea was absolutely creative and revolutionary. We have seen this train of thought through the Bible to this point, Rev. 1.6 and 5.10, and here we see the culmination, the final realization, of this thought of God. We believers are all now priests to God according to the order of Melchizedek, but we will see the full functioning and glory of that priesthood in the millennial kingdom when the Lord Jesus returns and takes the throne to reign for a thousand years as King and High Priest in a kingdom of priests. And then on into eternity to see the continuous unfolding of that magnificent idea of our God, a kingdom of priests. Bless his Name. And let me tell you about one more little verse. Remember that I said at the beginning that the Levitical priesthood was not God’s original idea of priesthood, but the Levitical priesthood was given for a time of failure? Is. 61.6 reads, “But you will be called the priests of I AM. Men will call you the ministers of our God.” In the end the Jews will be the kingdom of priests that God has always wanted.
Copyright © 2003 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.
Scripture quotations from the Old Testament are the author’s updates of the American Standard Version. Quotations from the New Testament are the author’s translations.
A Lesson from the Blackberry Patch
