In the New Testament all believers are both priests and Levites, and all our service should be under the supervision of the inward, spiritual view of the New Testament priesthood.
In the Old Testament those who served God were of two classes – Levites (who did more practical things, serving the tabernacle and the priesthood, but having no direct dealing or touch with the holy things in the tabernacle) and priests (who served God directly, dealing with the holy things in the tabernacle, and being in the presence of God).
We could say that the priests were more advanced or on a higher plane than the Levites, for the Levites only did many practical things while the priests served God, bringing God to man and man to God.
However, the Levites also had an important work to do, for as we see in Num. 3-4, they carried the tabernacle with all that was in it, and they also carried all the materials used for the tabernacle.
In the New Testament there is only one class of serving ones, and this is the priesthood; all believers in Christ are priests to God, a holy and royal priesthood, and every believer is a priest.
However, not all believers function as priests, so the Lord wants to recover the universal priesthood of all the New Testament believers, for Him to have a way to move and accomplish what is on His heart.
The holy service portrayed in the book of Numbers shows us that God is not inactive but very active, and He wants man to come to Him, be infused with Him, be saturated with Him, and be one with Him, so that He may have a way to move in and through a corporate man.
We as believers in Christ today are both priests and Levites, and while we do practical things as a Levitical service, we need to be under the supervision of the inward view of the priesthood, that is, do everything one with the Lord to minister Christ to others.
We need to match God in His move, in His activity; how do we do this? Our God is moving, journeying, and desiring to reach all over the earth to all men to bring His salvation to everyone.
He wants to have many local churches where the believers grow in life, are being built up together, and practice the Body life by being priests to God, those who bring God to man and man to God, for the increase of the kingdom of God.
May we be the real and genuine priests and Levites of today, those who contact God, are filled with God, are saturated with God, and always seek to minister Christ to others whether we are in the meeting or taking care of practical things.
As New Testament Priests we need to Match God in His Move on Earth Today
In the Old Testament there was a distinction between the priests and the Levites, but in the New Testament there is only one class – that of the priests (see Rom. 15:16; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10).
Today the Lord wants to recover the universal priesthood of all the believers in Christ. According to God’s original intention and desire, every single member of His Body is a priest and should function as a priest. This has yet to be recovered.
We may say that among us in the church life we are practicing to prophesy for the building up of the church, and we all learn to function in the meetings and in the church life; however, we are not there yet.
We all are in the process of being recovered by the Lord to be priests to God, part of the universal priesthood who serves God and ministers God to man to match God in His move on earth today.
Therefore, we need to pray for the recovery of our own priesthood and for the recovery of the priesthood of all the saints.
When we say that the Lord needs men who would match Him in His move today on earth, what we see in Numbers is that such men are priests and Levites, those who are filled with God and minister God to others.
God needs some priests on earth who are built up as a corporate priesthood, and each one of them contact God, gets saturated with God and filled with God, and they become one with God for Him to have a way to move in them and through them. In this way we match Him in His move on earth.
The best way to cooperate with God in His move is to pray. Why do we need to pray? Before we do anything – even before doing anything for God in our service – we need to pray.
When we pray, we admit to the Lord that we cannot be what He wants us to be; in ourselves we can’t be priests and Levites, and we cannot function as priests. So we pray for God to mingle Himself with us, for without Him we cannot do anything.
When we as New Testament priests pray, we realise that God needs us even more than we need Him; we need Him for our life and life supply, but He needs us to move and work on earth.
He needs us to move with Him, and we need Him to saturate us and fill us, so that He may mingle Himself with us through our priestly praying, and He would flow out of us to do the work.
All the service that we are engaged in us a priestly service, and our first order of business should be not to do the work but spend time to pray to be infused with God, mingled with God, and saturated with God, so that we may be one with God and be filled with His thought, burden, and intention.
This is the only way that He can have a way to move on earth today, and this is the way for us as New Testament priests can match Him in His move.
Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to cooperate with Your move on earth by being the New Testament priests who match You in Your move. We can’t do this in ourselves, Lord; we give ourselves to You to be mingled with You so that Your thought, burden, desire, and intention may be infused into us. Lord, mingle Yourself with us more today. May whatever we do would be a priestly service. Amen, Lord Jesus, keep us in Your presence, enjoy You and being infused with You, so that we may fully match You in Your move on earth today.
We are both Priests and Levites, Enjoying and Ministering Christ while doing Practical Things
What the Levites did in the Old Testament in type, we as believers in the New Testament priests should also do in reality, for we are New Testament priests, part of a corporate priesthood (see 1 Pet. 2:5, 9).
The fact that the service of the Levites was under the supervision of the priests indicates that, when we as New Testament priests do outward “Levitical” work we must do it under the “supervision” of the inward, spiritual view of the New Testament priesthood (see Rev. 1:6; 5:10).
This thought, however, is not our thought; we may still think that in the church life there are some who do practical things while others do more “spiritual” things, and we separate the two. We very much separate the so-called “spiritual service” from the “Levitical service”, thus living in the Old Testament dispensation.
The Levitical service should never be separated from the priestly view; our outward, practical service must become a spiritual activity that ministers life to others (see Rom. 12:4-13; 15:16; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; 4:10-11).
We all need to learn to do outward things under the inward view of the priesthood; this means that, while we take care of many practical matters, we should be those ministering life to others. If we do this, our Levitical service is under the view and supervision of the priesthood (see 1 John 1:2-3; 2:25; 5:11-16).
When we as believers serve God we are both priests and Levites, and we need to do both the priestly work and the Levitical work.
The Apostle Paul was such a one; in Rom. 1:9 he testified that God is his witness, whom he serves in his spirit in the gospel of His Son, how unceasingly he makes mention of the saints in his prayers (he was a priest) that he may be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles (a serving one, a Levite), a laboring priest of the gospel of God.
Whether he was doing practical things or preaching the gospel, Paul did everything to minister Christ to others.
We need to be those who take care of practical matters by being priests contacting God and ministering Christ to others, realising that our practical service and our spiritual service are one, and our purpose is to minister Christ to others.
On one hand, we partake of the spiritual service, and on the other, we should also take care of the practical affairs.
We may be involved with arranging the chairs in the meeting hall or in the home meeting, but as we do this Levitical service, we need to be under the supervision of the priestly view; we need to contact the Lord as we arrange the chairs, and we need to even pray for the saints as we do this outward work.
When we go to visit people by door-knocking for the gospel, we need to not only be involved in an outward activity to give others the gospel by knocking on their doors, but pray much that, while we knock on people’s doors, the Lord would knock on their heart.
All the church business office work needs to be under the supervision of the inward priestly view; in everything we do we should not just seek to do it the best we can but even more, learn to touch the Lord, enjoy Him, experience Him, and minister Him to those who serve together with us.
Sometimes we may need to mow the lawn and clean the meeting hall, clean the toilets and hoover (vacuum clean) in the meeting rooms, or simply cook a meal for the saints meeting in the group meeting; in all these things we need to realise we are both priests and Levites, and our primary service is to minister Christ to one another.
Before any kind of service, we must first serve as priests in the Lord’s presence; all our service must be priestly.
The army is priestly, the elders are priestly, the deacons and deaconesses are priestly, the evangelists are priestly, the ministers of the word are priestly – everyone is a priestly person.
In the Lord’s service we must first open ourselves to the Lord and spend time in His presence to enable Him to fill us, saturate us, and even swallow us up, so that we may be one with Him and have Him as our content to be His expression.
Lord Jesus, we want to learn to do all things in the church life under the supervision of the inward priestly view. Save us from merely doing practical things the best we can for the Lord in the church. Oh Lord, may we never divorce our practical service from our spiritual service! May we be the priestly serving ones who before all things open to the Lord to spend time in His presence so that He may fill, saturate, and swallow us up! Amen, Lord, we want to be one with You and have You as our content, so that we may be Your expression, and our service would be an overflow of our enjoyment of You!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Numbers, pp. 33-38 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 3, The Service of the Priests and the Levites for God’s Move.
- Hymns on this topic:
# As true priests we long to be, / With our spirit sense Thy will, / Thus to serve before Thee here / That Thy plan Thou may fulfill. (Hymns #772)
# That I might be a minister, / A minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, / A laboring priest of the gospel of God, / A laboring priest of the gospel of God, / In order that the offering, / The offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, / Having been sanctified in the Holy Spirit, / Sanctified in the Holy Spirit (Scripture song)
# That recovery may proceed / Real priests are what we need— / Those who live in Christ indeed, / O glory be to God! / Saturated with the Lord, / They have Christ as their reward. / These the building work afford / In the local churches now. (Hymns #1251)
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