Christ made us a kingdom, and this kingdom is the priesthood. The redemption accomplished through Christ’s blood made us not only a kingdom to God but also priests to God (1 Pet. 2:5). Revelation 5:9-10 says that we were purchased for God by the blood of Christ out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and we were made priests to our God. The kingdom is for God’s dominion, whereas priests are for the expression of God’s image. This is the kingly, royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9), which is for the fulfillment of God’s original purpose in creating man (Gen. 1:26-28). This kingly priesthood is being exercised in today’s church life (Rev. 5:10). It will be practiced intensively in the millennial kingdom (20:6) and will be ultimately consummated in the New Jerusalem (22:3, 5). The New Jerusalem is simply the kingship and the priesthood. All who will be in the New Jerusalem will be kings and priests. On the one hand, they will reign for God. On the other hand, they will serve God.
The entire Bible is a book of the priesthood. From the time that the children of Israel were brought to Mount Sinai and began to build and set up the tabernacle and through the entire New Testament, the Bible is absolutely a record of the priesthood. God’s original intention was for the entire nation of Israel to be a “kingdom of priests” (Exo. 19:6). However, because of their worship of the golden calf (32:1-6), most of the Israelites lost the priesthood. Later, only Aaron and his sons were the priests, and the Levites served the priesthood in practical matters (Num. 3:6-10). Yet in the New Testament, according to Revelation 1:5b-6 and 1 Peter 2:5 and 9, every believer in Christ is a priest.
To say that a priest is a person who serves God is right, but this understanding is 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 so that man might bear His likeness, expressing Him (Gen. 1:26). Second, He gave man His authority for His dominion, which indicates that man is His representative (v. 28). 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 translated as “breath” can also be translated as “spirit” in Proverbs 20:27, which says, “The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah.” 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 man to receive Him as the tree of life so that man might live God (Gen. 2:8-9). 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.
The Old Testament also reveals that a priest 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 who is close to God, that is, a person who is one with God. He knows God’s heart, 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.
In the New Testament more items were added to the priesthood. A New Testament priest should be a person who lives Christ in His death, in His resurrection, and in His ascension (Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:1-3). In the Old Testament there were items typifying Christ, but they were not Christ in the actuality of His death, resurrection, and ascension. Paul was a pattern of the New Testament priests of the gospel of God. He was a person bearing God’s image, expressing God, and having God’s authority, representing God (Gal. 4:19; 6:16; 2 Cor. 5:17-21). He was a person who always exercised his spirit. In the New Testament he taught much concerning our human spirit, and he used his spirit to contact God, to receive God (Rom. 1:9). He enjoyed Christ as the life-giving Spirit in his spirit, and he enjoyed Christ as his life (8:16; Col. 3:4). In Philippians 3:10 he expressed his desire to know Christ and the power of His resurrection that he might be conformed to the death of Christ. This shows us that a New Testament priest should be a person in the experience of Christ’s death and in the enjoyment of Christ’s resurrection power (2 Cor. 4:7-12).
The New Testament reveals that all the believers are priests of the gospel of God (Rom. 15:16). A minister of Christ Jesus to the nations is a ministering, working, and energizing priest of the gospel of God. As the New Testament priests, we need to preach the gospel of God’s salvation in all His virtues to make the saved sinners spiritual sacrifices offered to God for His acceptance. When we preach the gospel, we make sinners the sons of God and the members of Christ, and we help them to grow in the divine life so that they can be the active members in the practice of the Body life. Whatever Paul did was his service in the gospel. The preaching of the gospel of God is the service that we should render to God in our spirit. To serve God is to handle the gospel, and to handle the gospel is to preach the gospel in order that Christ might be imparted to others, dispensed to others, that they might become the members of Christ, that Christ’s Body might be constituted, and that many local churches could be raised up for His Body to be expressed in many localities. To preach the gospel of God, which is to carry out God’s New Testament economy, is to preach Christ until His Body is constituted and expressed in different localities so that many local churches will be raised up. This is the preaching of the gospel, and this is the New Testament service, which is called the New Testament priesthood.
The unique pattern of the priests of the gospel in the New Testament is the apostle Paul (1 Tim. 1:16). We need to see how Paul did his work as a priest of the gospel. According to the New Testament record, he did it in three steps of offering. First, Paul saved sinners to offer them up to God as acceptable sacrifices (Rom. 15:16). Second, he brought the believers up to lead them to present themselves to God as living sacrifices (12:1). Third, he warned and taught every saint in all wisdom to present each one full-grown in Christ (Col. 1:28-29). He did this by laboring and struggling according to God’s operation, which operated in him in power. Paul’s announcing of Christ in Colossians 1:28 is to tell out Christ. To present every man full-grown in Christ is to offer every man full-grown in Christ. All these steps are the work of the New Testament priesthood of the gospel. The preaching of the gospel of God is the daily life of a priest of the gospel in the New Testament. Our preaching is our priestly service, and we need to make it our daily life and daily work; we need to make it even a part of our being. We must bear this responsibility for God’s good pleasure.
If we practice the priestly ministry in the church life today, we will be made priests to God and Christ in the millennial kingdom as a reward. In the New Jerusalem in eternity, one of the blessings to be received by the redeemed ones is to be priests serving God. The priests who compose the New Jerusalem will undoubtedly have the four characteristics 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. That will be the consummation of the priestly service.