We have pointed out that the priesthood is not any kind of service in which we do something or work for God. The priesthood is a group of persons who are filled with God, saturated and permeated by and with God, and one with God, and out of whom God Himself is flowing. These people become a corporate Body as a corporate expression of God.
In the Bible the first priest was not Aaron but Adam. When Adam was in the garden of Eden, he had no sin and thus did not need to offer sacrifices for sin. This indicates that to be a priest is not merely a matter of offering sacrifices to God. Even though Adam did not need to offer any sacrifices before the fall, he was continually in the presence of God. After creating man, God did not place any demand on man. Instead, He put him in front of the tree of life (Gen. 2:8-9). This portrays God’s desire that Adam would spend time in the presence of God, enjoying God Himself as the tree of life. Adam did not need to do anything for God; he only needed to take God in again and again as food, as his life and life supply, so that he would be filled with God and be full of the elements of God. Then he would be saturated and permeated by and with God. However, Adam failed in this matter.
After God had delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt and had brought them to Mount Sinai, He spoke to Moses and said, “Now therefore if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My personal treasure from 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 children of Israel” (Exo. 19:5-6). This word spoken by God indicates that God ordained the entire nation of Israel to be a kingdom of priests. This means that God wanted all the children of Israel to be priests. However, because they worshipped the golden calf (32:1-6), they lost the priesthood, and only the tribe of Levi, because of its faithfulness to God, was chosen to replace the whole nation of Israel as priests to God (vv. 25-29; Deut. 33:8-10). The family of Aaron of the tribe of Levi became the priests who served God in the tabernacle and the temple, and the rest of the Levites served under them.
The priests who served in the tabernacle and the temple offered sacrifices in the outer court, but that was only a part of their service. The work of the priests in offering the sacrifices was somewhat coarse and rough. The animals had to be slain, and certain parts of their bodies, with the blood, had to be offered on the altar. After finishing their work at the altar, the priests entered the Holy Place to do a much finer work. In the Holy Place they spread the bread on the table, lit the lamps, and burned the incense on the golden altar. All of these items—the bread, the shining of the light, and the incense of sweet odor—are related to the finer experiences of Christ. Day by day we need to deal with all these finer experiences. We must not only shout, cry, and offer the sacrifices in a coarse, rough way; we must also deal with the finer experiences of Christ in the Holy Place. Nevertheless, there is something deeper still. After completing his service in the Holy Place, on certain occasions the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies. In the Holy of Holies there was very little for him to do. There he was quiet and calm, and all human activity ceased. This indicates that what the Lord needs is not our working for Him but our ceasing from work in order to be filled with Him.
In the same principle, when Moses spent forty days in the presence of Jehovah (Exo. 34), in reality he was in the Holy of Holies. He spent forty days without doing any kind of work, for the purpose of being filled with the Lord, saturated with the Lord, and being one with the Lord. Those forty days show us a real picture of a priest who was not in the outer court or in the Holy Place but in the Holy of Holies, that is, in the presence of God’s shekinah glory. He was completely stopped from every kind of work and was absolutely open to God. As a result, he was filled, saturated, and permeated by and with God so that eventually he became one with God. When he came down from the mountain, the people saw the shekinah glory of God on his face. Because he was truly one with God, he was a real priest.
We should not think, however, that there were no other priests in the Old Testament after the Levites. Although in a legal sense there were no other priests, in a spiritual sense many of the saints in the Old Testament were priests. For example, consider the psalmists who wrote the Psalms. When we read their writings, we realize that they were genuine priests because they spent much time in the presence of God. As a result, they were filled with God and occupied by and with God. Because they were one with God, they could express God in a living way and also in a corporate way.
In the New Testament the apostles also were genuine priests, persons who opened themselves to the Lord. They were filled with the Lord and saturated with the Lord, and so they were truly one with the Lord and were the expression of the Lord in a corporate way. According to the teaching of the New Testament, all the believers should be this kind of person. Both the apostle Peter and the apostle John told us that we are priests and are corporately the priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:5b-6, 9; 20:6; 22:3).
Our concept concerning the priesthood needs to be transformed, adjusted, and changed. To serve God is not mainly to do something for the Lord or work for Him, but to be taken over by the Lord. We must spend time, more time, and even all our time in the presence of the Lord to open ourselves that He may come in and flood us, that is, fill us, saturate us, and even permeate our entire being.