Question re: locus classicus (?) for priesthood of all believers

[Davidius]

As I understand it, the main passage we use to defend our doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is 1 Peter 2, particularly verses 5 and 9 which read:

...you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

...But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

This has always seemed plain enough to me, but I was recently reading up on the giving of the Decalogue on Exodus and incidentally came across this passage in chapter 19...

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel."

Peter's words to the Christians sound like he took them right out of Exodus 19. If God could call the entire nation of Israel a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, yet still institute a specific group of people who were meant to mediate the blessings of the covenant, and if Peter is drawing on this passage, which he seems to be doing, how do these verses support the priesthood of all believers as we understand it?

 

[panta dokimazete]

How about Rev 1:6?

and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father--to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever.

 

[Davidius]

How about Rev 1:6?

and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father--to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever.

The question isn't wholly dependent on the verses in Peter. My point is: if God can call all Israel a kingdom of priests, yet still institute the Levitical priesthood to mediate God's blessings, how does any language in the NT which seems to use that same terminology prove that there isn't a ministerial priesthood in the New Covenant?

Not least relevant to my question is John 20:21-23 where Jesus, in commissioning the Apostles, says:

"Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

Along with the above, there's also a recent post of mine in which I asked about James 5, where the elders come to pray for a man and his sins are forgiven.

 

[panta dokimazete]

 

[ADKing]

The question really deals with what you understand by "the priesthood of all believers". As you note, under the OT in the truest level all saints had access to God spiritually. But the types and shadows of the OT administration of the covenant of grace had greater levels of separation than we do in the NT.

The priesthood of all believers does not mitigate against an ordained ministry in the NT as some anabaptist sects would have it any more than it did in the OT. What you may be interested to find out is that the Westminster Divines in their directory for presbyterial government drew very heavily on the priestly texts in defense of the ministry of the gospel. The major differences are:
1. The NT ministry is not tied to any specific family
2. The NT ministry does not perform the sacrificial shadows of the OT dispensation.

However there is also continuity
1. From the priesthood of all believers some are specifically set apart
2. They administer the sacraments as did the priests
3. They read and preach/teach God's word authoritatively as did the priests and Levites (or as they were supposed to do!)
4. They bless the people in God's name.

Just scratching the surface here, but I hope this helps get the conversation rolling...

 

[Backwoods Presbyterian]

The question really deals with what you understand by "the priesthood of all believers". As you note, under the OT in the truest level all saints had access to God spiritually. But the types and shadows of the OT administration of the covenant of grace had greater levels of separation than we do in the NT.

The priesthood of all believers does not mitigate against an ordained ministry in the NT as some anabaptist sects would have it any more than it did in the OT. What you may be interested to find out is that the Westminster Divines in their directory for presbyterial government drew very heavily on the priestly texts in defense of the ministry of the gospel. The major differences are:
1. The NT ministry is not tied to any specific family
2. The NT ministry does not perform the sacrificial shadows of the OT dispensation.

However there is also continuity
1. From the priesthood of all believers some are specifically set apart
2. They administer the sacraments as did the priests
3. They read and preach/teach God's word authoritatively as did the priests and Levites (or as they were supposed to do!)
4. They bless the people in God's name.

Just scratching the surface here, but I hope this helps get the conversation rolling...

Thanks for this Rev. King. Is this primarily the reason Licentiates are not allowed to give the benediction?

 

[Davidius]

The question really deals with what you understand by "the priesthood of all believers". As you note, under the OT in the truest level all saints had access to God spiritually. But the types and shadows of the OT administration of the covenant of grace had greater levels of separation than we do in the NT.

The priesthood of all believers does not mitigate against an ordained ministry in the NT as some anabaptist sects would have it any more than it did in the OT. What you may be interested to find out is that the Westminster Divines in their directory for presbyterial government drew very heavily on the priestly texts in defense of the ministry of the gospel. The major differences are:
1. The NT ministry is not tied to any specific family
2. The NT ministry does not perform the sacrificial shadows of the OT dispensation.

However there is also continuity
1. From the priesthood of all believers some are specifically set apart
2. They administer the sacraments as did the priests
3. They read and preach/teach God's word authoritatively as did the priests and Levites (or as they were supposed to do!)
4. They bless the people in God's name.

Just scratching the surface here, but I hope this helps get the conversation rolling...

In that case, I would also flip my question around by asking what the difference is, then, between the 'priesthood of the believers' in the New Covenant versus the Old Covenant? Why do we even have this doctrine? Based on the parallel in Exodus 19, there doesn't seem to be any difference other than the fact that our "priesthood" doesn't actually perform sacrifices.

 

[ADKing]

Thanks for this Rev. King. Is this primarily the reason Licentiates are not allowed to give the benediction?

Yes. Pronouncing the benediction has historically been seen as a function of the office of the minister of the word (Numbers 6.23, 27).

See this from the Westminster Form of Presbyterial Church Government about the duties belonging to the office of pastor...

To bless the people from God, Numb. vi. 23, 24, 25, 26. Compared with Rev. i.4, 5, (where the same blessings, and persons from whom they come, are expressly mentioned,) Isa. lxvi. 21, where, under the names of Priests and Levites to be continued under the gospel, are meant evangelical pastors, who therefore are by office to bless the people.

 

[ADKing]

In that case, I would also flip my question around by asking what the difference is, then, between the 'priesthood of the believers' in the New Covenant versus the Old Covenant? Why do we even have this doctrine? Based on the parallel in Exodus 19, there doesn't seem to be any difference other than the fact that our "priesthood" doesn't actually perform sacrifices.

It is important to recognize both continuity and discontinuity as good covenant theologians

Although there was a priesthood of believers under the OT, in the NT we are liberated from many of the types and shadows of the ceremonial law under which the OT believers labored. We can draw near (Hebrews 4.16) in an unprecedented way, whether Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free etc.

 

[greenbaggins]

Piggy-backing on what ADKing said, the privileges of the NT priesthood of the people of God are far greater. In the OT, a human Mediator was needed for the people to have forgiveness. In Jesus, that perfect human Mediator has come. Since He is also God, we need no other Mediator than Jesus, and so we can go directly to God in Jesus' name. Christ has taken up His people into heaven itself, which is why we are seated even now in the heavenly realms, a seating which only happened typologically in the OT in the temple (which only a few people could even enter).

 

[Davidius]

Piggy-backing on what ADKing said, the privileges of the NT priesthood of the people of God are far greater. In the OT, a human Mediator was needed for the people to have forgiveness. In Jesus, that perfect human Mediator has come. Since He is also God, we need no other Mediator than Jesus, and so we can go directly to God in Jesus' name. Christ has taken up His people into heaven itself, which is why we are seated even now in the heavenly realms, a seating which only happened typologically in the OT in the temple (which only a few people could even enter).

But if this is all true as you say it, why do we need the Church at all? Or, at least, why do we need it as anything formal? I can just hang out with Christian friends in my spare time, and then go home and pray to God for forgiveness in Jesus' name, etc., and I'll be fine.

Even though there were "priests" in the Old Covenant, wouldn't their function have been more ministerial, anyway? Christ is the one who was crucified from the foundation of the world, and the blood of bulls and goats cannot atone for sin, so it's obvious that the people were meeting with Christ, though mediated through the priesthood. Those priests were not mediators in that they themselves were the thing being given the people, but they mediated the benefits of Christ, only shadowed in the animal offerings. So if we can "go directly to God in Jesus' name" why do we need ministers? And if we do need ministers, how can we can go directly to God in Jesus' name?

If you could bring up the passages I've mentioned from John 20 and James 5 in your response, I'd appreciate it.

 

[Bygracealone]

David, this may be a simple answer, but I think it might help...

The fact that God has gifted men and set them apart to be pastors and elders and the fact that He has called us to be members of His Church and to submit ourselves to the teaching and the care of His undershepherds are good reasons as to why they are needed; the fact that God has given them to us is proof that they are needed.

Does that help at all?