The church witnessed a drastic change in the fourth century. During that period, many who joined the church were either unbelievers or half believers. They appeared to be believers, yet they held worldly power in their hands. They had no desire to serve the Lord in the church. At the most they were saved, but they could not serve the Lord. Spontaneously, some spiritual ones rose up to take care of the affairs of the church. The others then said, “You do it! Go and serve the Lord. We are the secular ones.” The word secular was introduced in the fourth century. Some would attend to earthly affairs, while others would attend to spiritual work. As a result many served God, but many more no longer served.
At the time of the apostles in the first century, every believer served the Lord. From the fourth century on, men began to say, “We are merely God’s people. We attend to our own affairs in the world and keep our positions in society. Once in a while, we give a little money. This should qualify us as Christians. Let the spiritual ones take care of the spiritual things for us.” From that time forward, the church followed the footsteps of the nation of Israel; it worshipped “the golden calf” and created an intermediary class. No longer were all of God’s people priests. Some became merely His people but not His priests.
Today, clergymen in the Roman Catholic Church are called priests. In China they are known as fathers. These so-called fathers are actually called priests. Some state churches follow the example of the Roman Catholic Church and give their pastors the title of priests. Those who tend to earthly affairs are called God’s people, while those who manage spiritual things are called priests. The church has been divided into priests and people.
There is something I would like all of us to see: In this end time, God is doing a work of recovery; He is taking the way of recovery. I believe God is leading all of His children up to this position in this last age. Here is one segment of the pathway of the church that is waiting for a fundamental recovery—the universal priesthood of God’s children. As long as a person is one of God’s people, he should be a priest. There are priests today. In the kingdom to come, there also will be priests. God wants to secure His priests. He wants all of His people to be His priests.
As soon as you become a Christian, you become a priest. If you want to be a Christian, you have to be a priest. Do not expect anyone to be a priest for you. You have to be a priest yourself. There is no intermediary class among us. No one will attend to spiritual affairs for us. No one will work for us. Among us we must not have another class of people called workers.
If God is merciful to us, all the brothers and sisters will spontaneously be working, preaching the gospel, and serving the Lord together. The more universal the priesthood is, the more visible the church will be. Once the priesthood becomes non-universal, we have failed and our pathway has been corrupted.
We are poor, weak, blind, and crippled. For the Lord to accept persons such as ourselves to be priests is an honor to us. In the Old Testament, such people could not be priests. All who were disabled, lame, or blemished could not be priests. However, today the base, the unclean, the blind, and the disabled have all been called by God to be priests! He is the Lord. I have said this before: We should gladly give ourselves to His service even if it means crawling to His feet to beg for service. We should be happy to kneel down to beg for this honor. I am happy to crawl on my knees and plead with the Lord, “Lord, I want to serve You. I gladly offer myself to Your service. You honor me by allowing me to come to You.” To be a priest is to draw near to God. To be a priest is to have no distance between us and God; it is to be able to enter in directly and to wait for no one. To be a priest means that we can touch God ourselves.