T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 5

The Nature of Priesthood

Reading: Heb. 2:17-3:1; 4:14-5:6; 7:26-8:2.

"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" (1 Pet. 2:9).

"And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen" (Rev. 1:5-6).

You will recognise that these passages all bear upon one matter, and that is the matter of priesthood. I have it very much on my heart that we should be occupied for this little while with this great matter of priesthood and Life, for those two things go together - priesthood and Life; the one is unto the other.

We are very well aware that the one all-inclusive issue of the ages and of the eternities is that of Life. We can gather everything into that matter, all the purposes of God from eternity to eternity, all the ways of God through the ages, all the interventions of God in history, all the revelation of God in Christ, and all the dealings of God with His own people. All these things (and that is a very vast range and a mighty depth of fulness) are gathered into the one matter of Life, known to us in New Testament language as "eternal life". It has become the one, great, critical issue and question - the most critical matter with which anyone can have to do - this matter of Life: eternal life, divine life.

In the Scriptures throughout, from the beginning to the end, two things are found in pairs - sin and death; righteousness and life. Immediately sin appeared, death ensued, and then, without any announcement or explanation, without any teaching or doctrine on the matter: sacrifice, the shedding of blood, and an altar came in as related to sin and death. Sin had entered, death had followed. "Death by sin; and death passed upon all men" (Rom. 5:12), is the statement. Then, I repeat, no teaching, no explanation, no expounding of a truth, but an act: the immediate introduction of sacrifice in the shedding of blood. And almost as immediately, an altar is before us in connection with sin and death, and these things - sacrifice, shedding of blood, the altar - stand for righteousness and Life over against sin and death.

And then another factor appears. This sacrifice, this shedding of blood, this altar, brings in priesthood quite spontaneously. For whoever makes the sacrifice, sheds the blood, builds the altar, and serves at it is a priest whoever he is, and God was the first priest. In the case of Adam and his wife, there was quite clearly the slaying of some beast to provide them with a covering. And, if the symbolism means anything (and surely it does), then God was the first priest to do the slaying to make provision for the covering. From that time onward, it is taken for granted, and this whole matter grows and grows and grows until we have a very elaborate and fully developed priestly ministry.

What a Priest is

A priest is not appointed to an office; priesthood is not something official. It is not a cult, a class, an order amongst men. A priest is simply one who stands on the ground of righteousness; righteousness by means of an incorruptible life offered to God. And, standing upon that ground of righteousness and an incorruptible life offered to God, the operation and working of death is arrested, nullified and set aside. Death as an active thing is overpowered because the ground of death has been taken from beneath it, which is sin. Incorruptible Life, incorruptibility, has set aside corruption. Righteousness has taken the place of unrighteousness. The fruit of sin, therefore, cannot be borne; and the fruit of righteousness can be borne, and it is Life. And anyone who ministers on the ground of righteousness, anyone who stands on the ground of incorruptible Life and spiritually functions on that ground, is a priest - a priest unto God and a priest for God - so that priesthood and Life always go together.

What in the Old Testament, because it is but a matter of types, of symbols, is a system, an external system, an order, shall we say a cult, an official matter amongst men, always dealing with outward things, in the New Testament is passed over in a spiritual way and stripped of all that which is merely external and formal and official, and is transmitted to the Church through Christ as a spiritual vocation. So that the Church takes the place of Israel. You remember the Lord Jesus said, "The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matt. 21:43). And then Peter, writing to the spiritual Israel said, "you, who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God" - you, a chosen nation, a royal priesthood, the nation which has taken the place of the historic Israel, the earthly Israel, which forfeited its great mission and vocation to be God's minister of Life in the earth. The Church has now been put in the place of Israel to be the nation and the royal priesthood to fulfil this spiritual vocation.

So John, right at the opening of his great apocalypse, bursts out with this doxology - he cannot wait till he sees the saints in glory, he must come out with it at once - "Unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by His blood; and He made us... priests unto His God".

Now, with all the wonderful unveiling of truth in this particular connection, both in the Old Testament and in the New, which is something to occupy and ravish our hearts for a lifetime more, the sum of it all is this. As members of Christ's Body, we stand in relation to Him as the great High Priest in heaven as His priests or sons here, to make fruitful and effectual that high priestly work which He is carrying on in the heavenly sense.

Let me put that a little more simply, perhaps in more words. In the Old Testament, you have Aaron and his sons. Aaron fulfils the ministry of the High Priest through his sons. In the New Testament, particularly this great Levitical book of the New Testament, the letter to the Hebrews (for Hebrews is the Leviticus of the New Testament) you have Christ as the High Priest, and then, although there are other titles given to believers, amongst them there is this one - His sons. He calls them 'holy brethren'. He says, "I will declare Thy name unto My brethren", but then He also says, "I and the children whom God hath given Me". But then, though brethren, and as Father and children, there is this added - "bringing many sons to glory". Christ is here in a spiritual sense not only as our elder Brother, but as our spiritual Father, that is, the One through whom we have received Life, to whom we owe our standing in the family.

The Nature of Spiritual Priesthood

Now, it is through us as members of Christ that this great High Priestly work of His, which is going on in heaven, has to be made effectual here. And again, when we ask what is the meaning, the significance, the value, the import of Christ's continual High Priestly work, the answer is: to set Life over against death, to nullify the reign and operation of spiritual death.

In a word, the Church, from God's standpoint, is here on this earth with one all-inclusive purpose, and that is to minister Life on the ground of righteousness, to destroy the operation of death by setting righteousness over against sin and therefore Life over against death. The Church's great conflict, the Church's supreme conflict, the great warfare of every member of Christ, is with spiritual death. And the more spiritual you become, the more in touch with Christ you live, the more you function in a spiritual priestly ministry, the more terrible and awful does spiritual death become in your realization. You will not become sentimental about death if you are a priest. You ask any priest or Levite of the Old Testament what he thought about death, and you will not have him waxing poetical and talking about death as the great friend, the lovely messenger, as the poets do. Oh no, death is the enemy of God and of all God's interests.

The supreme triumph of God in Christ by the Cross was in the overcoming of death, and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. And when we speak of the last enemy, it is not only the last on the list, it is the consummate enemy, the enemy in which all things, all other enemies, are gathered up. It is with that that you and I have to do and are called to do, and this is the very essence and nature of spiritual priesthood. I simply state the fact and emphasize it for the moment.

You can take up the Word of God and move through that Word and bear this whole thing out. You see the breaking in of death again and again and again because of sin, and then you will see the breaking in of God with blood, with sacrifice, and arresting that work of death and destroying it and bringing Life into its place.

You see how John is led to put this matter. "Unto Him who loveth us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and made us priests...". Washed us and made us priests. Priesthood is the ministry of Life, the ministry of Life from the Lord to others. The priest stands in relation to Life. That is the positive side of priesthood. He is dealing with death all the time, but he stands on the side of Life against death and all the time he is having to counter death everywhere wherever he finds it. We cannot minister Life until we can say, "and washed us from our sins", and even the Lord Jesus, as we have read in the letter to the Hebrews, had to come onto that ground. Yes, tempted in all points like we are, sin apart, nevertheless He was made sin for us. He who knew no sin, was made sin, and in the offering of Himself as a sacrifice, He who was made sin was delivered from that sin and entered upon His great priestly work of ministering Life to believers.