In the New Testament, two different Greek words are translated into the word priesthood. In Hebrews 7:12 the priesthood refers to the priestly office or the priestly service. In 1 Peter 2:5 and 9 the priesthood refers to the assembly of priests, the corporate body of priests that form a “hood.” The New Testament priests should not be individualistic, but they should be a corporate body of priests. They do not serve individualistically but corporately. We need to look at the type in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the priests of Aaron’s house served as a corporate body. There was no individualistic priestly service. The priestly body carries out the priestly service. In other words, we may say that the priesthood carries out the priesthood. This priesthood occupies a great place in the entire Bible. It is a great topic in both the Old and New Testaments. We may consider that the entire Bible of sixty-six books is a book of the priesthood. The Bible is absolutely a record of the priesthood from the time that the children of Israel were brought to Mount Sinai and began to build up and set up the tabernacle through the entire New Testament.
To say that a priest is a person who serves God is right, but this understanding is too shallow. We need to understand the meaning of being a priest in a deeper way. In God’s creation of man, we can see the qualifications of a priest. The Bible, which is a book on the priesthood, reveals that God created man with the view that He could have a priesthood, a priestly body, to serve Him. God created man with four particular characteristics. First, He created man in His image that man might bear His likeness, expressing Him. Second, He gave man His authority for His dominion, which indicates that man is His representative (Gen. 1:26). Man expresses and represents God. Third, He created man with a spirit, and this spirit in Genesis 2:7 is called “the breath of life.” The Hebrew word for “breath” is the same word for “spirit” in Proverbs 20:27, which says, “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord.” Our God-created human spirit is an organ to contact God and to receive God. Fourth, God put man in front of the tree of life, indicating that God desired to have a man to receive Him as the tree of life so that man might live God. God created man to make man His expression and His representative, creating within man an organ so that man could contact Him and receive Him as life that man might live God. These are the four particular characteristics that show God’s desire in His creation of man. A priest is a person who bears these four particular characteristics.
We know that man fell, but God did not give man up. Man was created to bear the image of God, to have the dominion of God, to contact and receive God, and to have God as his life to live God, but after the fall, man needs something more. Although man has a human spirit as an organ to contact God, he cannot contact God because there is a great obstacle between him and God. This obstacle is sin. Sin has to be dealt with, and sin has to be taken away. Then a fallen person can contact God, can receive God, and can have God as life. In addition to the four particular characteristics in God’s creation of man, God added something after man’s fall. After the fall of man, there is the need of offering sacrifices to solve the problem of man’s sin. All of the animal sacrifices offered by man in the Old Testament were types of the coming Christ, pointing to the coming of Christ as our Redeemer.
The biblical record does not tell us whether Adam did this or not, but the Bible does tell us that Adam’s son Abel, the second generation of mankind, offered sacrifices to God for his acceptance by God (Gen. 4:4). Abel was an individual priest. Although there was not the term priest at that time, Abel acted as a priest. A priest is a person who offers the sacrifices typifying Christ to God. Later, the Bible tells us that God judged the earth with a great flood, which issued in a new world. After the judgment of the flood, Noah built an altar and offered sacrifices to God, which became a sweet smelling savor to God (Gen. 8:20-21). Noah was also an individual priest. Through man’s offering of these sacrifices, God could accept fallen man, and man could contact God.
Later in the history of mankind, the Bible tells us that God called Abraham out of the world of idols to a new land, the land of Canaan. In this land, Abraham built an altar and offered sacrifices to God (Gen. 12:7-8). Genesis 22 tells us that God eventually asked Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering (v. 2). When Abraham was about to offer his son, God stopped him and provided a ram as a replacement for Isaac (v. 13). That ram was a type of Christ as our burnt offering for our acceptance by God. From this fellowship, we can see that Abel, Noah, and Abraham were individual priests because they offered something to God. Before God ordained the formal, official priesthood at Mount Sinai, there were individuals offering sacrifices to God already.
Abraham’s descendants eventually became the nation of Israel, and God delivered them out of the tyranny of Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai. There God revealed His intention for the children of Israel to be a kingdom of priests to Him (Exo. 19:6). God intended for the entire nation of Israel to be a priesthood, but because of the worship of the golden calf (Exo. 32:1-6), they lost the priesthood, and only the tribe of Levi was chosen to replace the whole nation of Israel as priests to God (Exo. 32:25-29; Deut. 33:8-10). Out of the tribe of Levi, God set apart the house of Aaron to be the priesthood. The other Levites helped by serving the priesthood in practical affairs. The entire Old Testament is a record of the priesthood.
The Old Testament reveals that a priest should be a person bearing the image of God, expressing God, having the dominion of God, representing God, and exercising his spirit to contact God, to receive God as his life, so that he might live God. A priest also offers the sacrifices which typify Christ to God for God’s satisfaction. A priest is a person ministering God, bringing God to man and bringing man to God. Therefore, he must be a person very close to God, that is, one with God. He knows the heart of God, and he speaks God’s will, God’s way, and God’s plan. Such a person is a priest doing the priestly service in the Old Testament priesthood.
The New Testament begins with John the Baptist. He was born in a miraculous way to Zachariah and Elizabeth. His father Zachariah was a priest, and John the Baptist was born a priest. Thus, the New Testament begins with a priest. We may think that the New Testament begins with Jesus Christ, but actually the record of the New Testament begins with a person who was born a priest.
Now we need to consider how the New Testament ends. The book of Revelation, a book of twenty-two chapters, is the concluding book of the New Testament. Revelation 1:5b-6 says, “To Him who loves us and has loosed us from our sins by His blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen.” According to the grammar of these verses, “kingdom” and “priests” are in apposition to each other. Therefore, the priests are the kingdom. Revelation 5:9-10 says that we were purchased to God by the blood of Christ out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and we were made priests to our God. Revelation 20 tells us that in the millennium all the overcomers will be co-kings with Christ, and these co-kings of Christ will be the priests of God and of Christ who will reign with Him a thousand years (v. 6). Eventually, all the believers will participate in the priesthood for eternity in the New Jerusalem, in which we will serve Him as priests (22:3). In the New Jerusalem, we shall also reign with Christ in the kingship (22:5). The priests who compose the New Jerusalem will undoubtedly have the four characteristics of man in God’s creation of man. They will be people bringing God to man and bringing man to God, and they will be absolutely one with God. Day and night they will be living a life in Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. From this brief fellowship, I hope we can see that the entire Bible talks about the priesthood.