A Brief Paper on The Gospel, The Church, Christ’s Priesthood, and God’s Promises to Israel. (continued)
We should briefly mention the 7 year Great TRIBULATION. During the time between the Rapture of the Church and the return of Christ to Jerusalem to begin His Millennium Reign, Jesus said, on Earth then
shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Matt. 24.21. Jesus also said: When ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. Mark 13.7/8. Are we already seeing some of the signs unfolding? Remember now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation .2 Cor. 6.2. The Book of Revelation deals fully with this shattering event.
THE LORD JESUS AS OUR HIGH PRIEST
Now just a few thoughts on the Lord Jesus as our High Priest. In the Old Testament, in the days under the Law, the common man had no access to God except through a priest. The priests worked in the Tabernacle (and later in the Temple), carrying out daily sacrifices and rituals. It is interesting that there were no seats in the Tabernacle because they were continually carrying out these religious duties with little time to rest! As it says in Hebrews 10.11, and every priest standeth daily ministering and offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. These sacrifices all pointed to the supreme vicarious sacrifice of the Lamb of God at Calvary. Those who believed God by faith (not by works) before Calvary were accounted righteous in the sight of God. So, we read:
Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness....To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Rom. 4.3-5.
David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works. Rom. 4.6. Their sins were covered until Christ’s victory at Calvary, then remitted through the death of our Lord. This is explained in these verses from Romans 3 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
We will seek to explain this a little more clearly. Before the death and resurrection of our Lord at Calvary all souls went to Hades which had two compartments. The wicked or unrighteous went to that region of Hades reserved for them. Tragically, that is still where souls, dying without Christ continue to go and will remain there in torment until the final judgement
at the Great White Throne some time after the 1,000 year Millennium. The wicked dead will be those who will attend this awesome court hearing, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. Rom. 2.16. In Revelation 20.11-15 we have a terrifying descriptive image of that event:
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were
written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20.11-15. All at the Great White Throne are twice dead: physically and spiritually. No believer will be brought before that judgement. Jesus said: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life John 5.24. Christ has borne the condemnation for my sins.
“If thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely in my room endured
The whole of wrath divine;
Payment God cannot twice demand,
First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.”
However, those righteous souls dying before the Resurrection went to Paradise or Abraham’s Bosom. as it was called in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16. Here they would rest in peace until the resurrection of our Lord. That is why Jesus said to the dying thief who acknowledged him as Lord, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. Luke 23.43
The death and resurrection of Christ brought about, for those righteous souls in Paradise, the remission of the sins that are past. Rom. 3.25. They were justified through the death of Christ. God could now declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past. Those souls were held captive and had to remain in Paradise and could not until then, enter heaven.
Now something splendid happened when Christ died. He defeated him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Heb. 2.14 who held these souls captive in Paradise until this dramatic moment. Christ went to Paradise and led all those there, triumphantly to heaven. Thus we read:
Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) Eph. 4.8-10
That compartment of Hades, Paradise, Abraham’s Bosom is now empty. Today when Christians die they go directly to heaven:
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. 2 Cor. 5.8 also Philippians 1.21-23.
Every year on the Great Day of Atonement the High Priest went into the most Holy Place in the Tabernacle or Temple to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people. First, however, he had to make a sacrifice for his own sins. The High Priest was human and died and had to be replaced, the sacrifices did not take away sins, the whole ritual went on and on. That ritual was in stark contrast to the sacrifice of our Lord at Calvary. He died once for the sins of the whole world:
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Heb. 10.12/14.
We may now approach God our Heavenly Father, through our Great High Priest , the Lord Jesus: Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews
4.14-16 .
What an invitation!
The Saviour is also our Advocate in heaven before His Father:
And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2.1/2. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1.5-9.
PRIESTHOOD
Now a very important doctrine in Scripture should be noted. In 1 Peter 2 the Apostle is writing to you therefore which believe v7, that is, all true believers in Jesus Christ. He says Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ v5, and again, But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: v9.
We have come out of the darkness and power of Satan and have been brought into the light. In this kingdom all believers are priests in the eyes of God: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: Col. 1.13.
We are priests unto God. We need no earthly priest through whom we have to go in order to gain access to God. We have our Great High Priest, our Lord and Saviour. The Epistle of Peter was written to Christians, scattered through the provinces of Asia Minor, those who were born again to an everliving hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Peter 1.3.
Now one may wonder, how is it that if all true believers are priests in THE CHURCH, who and what are the ‘priests’ in Christendom down through the ages to the present day, Roman, Greek, Anglican?
It is interesting that even Martin Luther had strong views on this subject:
All Christians are all together priests, and let it be anathema to assert that there is any other priest than he who is Christian; for it will be asserted without the Word of God, on no authority but the sayings of men, or the antiquity of custom, or the multitude of those that think so.
The Book of Common Prayer is responsible for keeping this myth of ‘priesthood’ by asserting: It is evident unto all men diligently reading the holy Scriptures and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles time there have been Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church: Bishops, Priests and Deacons.
There is no office of ‘priest’ in the New Testament CHURCH.
Read what William Hoste wrote on this important subject:
The True Priests
What men take for priests are as much priests as plains are mountains. We need the Scriptures to detect true priests. There, we may search in vain, for of priesthood as an office in the Christian Church not a word is said. Nor is it a legitimate development of anything found there; as soon pretend a cuckoo was hatched from a lark’s egg. Sacerdotalism is an intruder in the Church of God. The priesthood of Christendom and true Christian priesthood can no more flourish in the same atmosphere than a penguin and a bird of paradise. They belong to different spiritual zones, the one cold imitation of an earthly shadow, the other a bright and
heavenly reality.
Were the popular idea of a priest right, should we not expect to find an official described in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the Church position is specially revealed and the fivefold gifts - apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers - detailed? (chaps 2 and 4). Yet not
once does the word occur. Why is no such personage referred to among the varied terms in the Epistles as descriptive of government and ministry in the Church? We read of bishops, overseers, elders, stewards,
deacons, ministers, but of no one corresponding to the modern priest.
Why is no such title mentioned in the Epistles laying down Church order, such as these addressed to the Corinthians and to Timothy and Titus, to distinguish certain men from their fellow-Christians, or indeed, any appeal made to a priestly caste, under any other description, to enforce that order? Such an omission would be unheard of in any modern book of
Church enactments. A celebration of “Holy Communion” in Christendom without some official priest or minister topreside is as unthinkable as a full dress debate in the House of Commons without the Speaker or his deputy, or a General Assize without a Judge, and yet in 1 Corinthians 11, where the order to be followed in the Lord’s Supper is laid down by revelation, there is no hint of anybody appointed officially to administer it.
Is it not strange that, whereas in ecclesiastical “ordination services,” prayer books, “uses’” etc., the priest is regarded ex officio as ”the predominant partner,” the divinely authorised channel of absolution, preaching, and “sacraments’” there is not a word in the New Testament of these functions being vested in a priest or in any other official? Why this complete silence on the part of apostles and prophets? There can be but one logical answer. Such a personage as the modern priest was not once contemplated by the Holy Spirit or by those who wrote by His Authority. He is not a Christian institution at all, but a human arrangement borrowed from Judaism and Paganism, like the rest of the sacerdotal system.
The Priest’s Office
Those who affirm that the “priests office” has always been regarded by the Church all down the ages as something peculiar to a certain class of Christians beg the question, for they ignore one age - the Apostolic - in which, as we have seen, this was not the case, and one authority,
the Word of God, which contradicts them. This would be like making assertions about British Law, while excluding appeal to Magna Carta or Blackstone. Were this dictum true, moreover, it would only prove that the Church had misunderstood things “all down the ages,” after her first departure from the commands of God, in the same way as the ten tribes of Israel continued from the first setting up of the idolatrous calves at
Bethel and Dan, right down to the Captivity.
No doubt worldly priesthood early began to oust Christian priesthood, but there have not been wanting men in every age to resist the usurper’s claims, though of course they have been despised and persecuted and put out of “the Church.” Witness the millions of confessors and martyrs of the Papal persecutions! When people talk about the Church teaching this or that they generally mean that section which agrees with them. The true Catholic Church is something far greater, neither Roman “orthodox” nor Anglican, but Christian. I say the true Catholic Church, for the word “Catholic” as used by Rome and her daughters is not a convertible with Christian, but in contrast with it.
(End of quotation from Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Chapter 11 William Hoste)
Thus, according to Scripture, as all believers are priests, it is not an office.
Bishops are synonymous with elders and there were more than just one elder in each local church. Nothing was known of a bishop or elder governing a diocese or a group of churches nor of a bishop governing other elders.
There certainly are no Archbishops in Scripture! In Acts 20.17 Paul wished to meet with the church leaders in Ephesus. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. Not the Bishop, not the elder, not the vicar, not even the canon of the local cathedral! Everybody knew who he meant and all the elders turned up to meet Paul. In this respect it is interesting to see how Peter through the Holy Spirit, describes himself - not the vicar of Christ on earth but a fellow elder:
The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder 1 Peter 5.1.
Our present-day ‘priests’ dress differently from what they call the ‘laity’ as did those in the Aaronic priesthood on which for all intents and purposes they base themselves, on an old system under the Law. They have built up terms, used within their churches which seek to give to the laity and each
other a sense of their holiness and Scriptural authority; Reverend, Most Reverend, Very Reverend, Archbishop, Vicar, Cardinal, Archdeacon, Canon, the list goes on and on. They have created vestments which cannot be found in Holy Scripture: chasubles, albs, stoles, cassocks, copes, humeral veils, mitres, etc. These mostly came from the Roman Catholic church and in turn some from pagan origins.
In Scripture the Old Testament law having a shadow of good things to come pointed in type to our Lord Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice on the Cross. Likewise the vestments worn by the priests had a spiritual
significance. As both the sacrifices and the vestments were shadows of things to come, they passed away at the coming of the promised Lamb of God. The Light of the World has come and the shadows must flee away from the light.
The place of worship for the Old Testament priest was earthly, but for all New Testament priests our citizenship is heavenly and we are His ambassadors on earth. 2 Cor. 5.20. Our position is seated with Christ in glory. Eph. 2:6
Our Lord foretold there would be those who would mix the Old and New Covenants, just exactly what we see in most churches today.:
And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. Luke 5.36-39. The situation we see is church leaders stumbling around in the shadows of ritual and the vain repetition of a lifeless cold liturgy when the Light of the World has come:
I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness. John 8.12.
We repeat. A privileged class of priests, closer and nearer to God than their brethren did operate in Judaism, but it is a fabrication unknown in Christianity. We have sought to set out, Christ alone has such a special, distinctive and unique priesthood.
In addition there is no place in Scripture for a group of people who are regarded as being particularly holy and with a surplus of godliness through whom we may pray and approach God - Canonised Saints. Praying to the dead is an abomination to God no matter how it is presented. (Necromancer Deut. 18.11. ) We see the deceased Pope John Paul ll being fast-tracked to sainthood in recent days and “a reliquary containing a cloth with a drop of blood from Blessed Pope John Paul II will be displayed for veneration in a Marian Basilica.” Saints in Scripture are believers and were addressed in this manner by Paul and others in their epistles to the churches. The Church in Corinth had strayed from some truths yet Paul could say they were sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Cor. 1.2.
When our Lord was on earth, traversing the lanes and hills of Palestine he was the rejected man of sorrows , acquainted with much grief, he cried over his beloved city, he went about doing good, cared deeply for his Father’s business and cleansed the Temple of those who traded within its boundaries saying:
It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased. Matthew 21.13-15.
However, it may come as a surprise to some, Christ never entered that portion of the Temple into which only the Priesthood could enter. This was only the reserve of Levites, the Priestly Tribe and he was of the Tribe of Judah. But our Lord is an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. Heb. 7.1.
Melchisedec was a priest of the most high God to whom Abraham paid tithes and who also blessed
Abraham. There is no record given of his birth, death, how long he lived, etc., as it says he was:
King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; Without father, without
mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son
of God; abideth a priest continually. Heb. 7.2/3.
So in this man Melchisedec, we have a type of the Priesthood of our Lord Jesus - a Priest for ever, a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. Heb. 4.14. The old Levitical priesthood
has passed, there is a new eternal High Priest so there is made of necessity a change also of the law: If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what
further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of
the law. For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood. And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest, Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of
Melchisedec. Heb. 7.11-17.
In other words the old priesthood with its shadows and types had to go for the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.
