This week in our Holy Word for Morning Revival we come to the last week in the Crystallization-Study of Exodus (part 1), on the topic of, A Kingdom of Priests.
In Exodus we see God’s salvation from its initiation all the way to its consummation, covering God’s salvation, God’s provision, God’s revelation, and the building of the tabernacle as the dwelling place of God. You could divide Exodus in two major parts: chs. 1-14 speaking of God’s salvation, provision, the victory over the flesh, and a portrait of the kingdom of God; chs. 19-40 speak of the building up of God’s dwelling place to accomplish God’s purpose.
The first section covers our need: redemption, provision, supply, and dealing with anything negative; the second section covers God’s need: the building of His dwelling place on earth; God meets our need in order that His need would be met.
After the people of Israel were delivered by God from the usurpation and tyranny of Pharaoh in Egypt, crossed the Red Sea to be fully separated from Egypt, had their bitterness dealt with, were reconstituted with the heavenly food, drank the living water, and were formed as God’s kingdom on earth, in Exodus 19 we see how God did all these for them to bear them on eagle’s wings and bring them to Himself.
God’s intention in delivering His people out of Egypt was to bring them to Himself; God was the destination of His people. They were a peculiar people for God’s sole enjoyment and satisfaction; they belonged to God, being marked out and chosen to be for God Himself as His people.
Beginning from ch. 19 in Exodus we see how the children of Israel were brought to God Himself to fellowship with Him; God dwelt among them, and they were brought into God. Finally, even as Moses sounded the call right from the beginning, the children of Israel were brought to God in the wilderness to serve Him and offer Him sacrifices as His priests.
In our Christian experience today we as the church are God’s particular people, His personal possession, and we have been delivered out of anything else to be brought to God and be a people of priests to serve Him, offer Him sacrifices, and enjoy Christ as the reality of all the offerings with God and in God.
God Called the Children of Israel to be a Kingdom of Priests
The whole earth is Jehovah’s, but He has chosen one people to be His personal treasure and possession – that is, the people of Israel, and He wants them all to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exo. 19:4-6). Wow! God desires that all His people would be priests: what a blessing and a privilege to be priests to God!
God chose them, delivered them out of Egypt, reconstituted them with the heavenly food, and dealt with many negative things in them so that they may be all a kingdom of priests! God chose Israel to be His people, a kingdom of priests, where all His people were priests to God.
This is God’s delight, to choose man and separate them unto Himself for His service. God desires to see all His children being priests who serve Him. Everything that the priests did: their eating, dwelling place, sacrifices, and everything they had and did was for the purpose of serving God. They had no other job or profession but to serve God, spend time with Him, bring sacrifices to Him, and be for God’s purpose.
The greatest calling and the greatest grace is for man to serve God as priests. The children of Israel were brought by God out of Egypt in order to be made a kingdom of priests, a kingdom in which every one would be a priest, serving God; God’s goal is to have a priestly nation.
How wonderful it is that God had a people on earth that would serve Him, a priestly kingdom, a people that is peculiar and special to God – a kingdom of priests! They were meant to live solely for God’s interests and serve Him; the priests are those who wait on God and follow God, and their only job was to serve God. Everyone in God’s kingdom was to serve God alone, being priests to God!
God’s Intention is that All His Believers be Priests: we are a Kingdom of Priests!
What we see depicted in the Old Testament is a picture; in the New Testament we have the reality. God’s intention toward the church today is for everyone to be a priest; in the church today we are a kingdom of priests to our God and Father (Rev. 5:10).
What is a priest? We need to have our natural concept demolished and be reconstituted with God’s concept and view of what a priest is. According to our human understanding, a priest is one who serves God as profession, one who is authorized to minister rights and ceremony, and an ecclesiastic minister – a clergy man. But according to the divine revelation a priest is one who serves God. God saved us, His believers, for us to be made a kingdom of priests to our God and Father.
Through Christ’s redemption we have been released from our sins so that we may be a kingdom of priests to God. The reason we were saved, regenerated, and redeemed is so that we may be priests to God. Every saved and redeemed person is a priest.
The priesthood is our birthright; our real job professionally is to serve God! We may have a secular job or we may be a student, a stay-at-home mom, etc but our real occupation, vocation, and calling is to be priests!
The church is a kingdom of priests, a nation different from any other nations on earth: every believer is a priest, and we live to serve God! Our only job today is to serve God, spend time with God, be infused and filled with God, be in God’s presence, bring man to God and bring God to man!
The Lord Jesus, the Priest, brought us all into the priesthood through His redemption, and the whole church should now be the priesthood (Rev. 1:5-6). The church serves God and nothing else; in the church life we serve and worship God to satisfy Him only.
All the saved ones of God are called to be priests; as to our person, we are sons of God (Eph. 1:5; Heb. 2:10), and as to our spiritual occupation, we are priests of God (Rev. 1:6; 5:10). What Israel has lost due to their unfaithfulness to God is now being recovered through the church.
God’s intention is that all His believers would be recovered to be a priest to God. Since we’re all priests, we should be serving God all day long in whatever we do (Rom. 1:9). Whether we work full time, study, stay at home and take care of the house, etc, we should be those serving God all day long!
Thank You Lord for redeeming us, saving us, and regenerating us to make us a kingdom of priests to God. It is our privilege and birthright to serve God as priests today. Lord Jesus, may our real occupation be to serve God, spend time with God to be infused and filled with God, and bring man to God and God to man. Thank You for making us a most peculiar treasure to Yourself, a royal priesthood to God. Recover the priesthood among Your people today. Oh, that all of God’s people would function as priests to God today in the proper church life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msg. 50, (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 12 / msg 12, A Kingdom of Priests (you can buy this morning revival book here via LSM and here via Amazon).
- Recommending ch. 48 in Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 50, “Messages for Building up New Believers (3)” by Living Stream Ministry.
- Hymns to strengthen the burden in this article:
# What a blessing, what a priv’lege! / Called of God a royal priest, / That this glorious, holy office / I should bear, though last and least. (Hymns #848)
# All the saints must serve as priests, / That the living stones they be; / Each must priestly work perform, / Then their functions we will see. (Hymns #849)
# O how blessed is the priest’s life, / Christ to him is all in all: / All His clothing, food, and dwelling, / And His portion therewithal. (Hymns #911)
The Israelites had to ask the Levites to serve for them (Judg. 17), and it took a great effort for men to invite a Levite to serve in their house….This arrangement lasted for over fifteen hundred years. During this time eleven tribes were kept outside the tabernacle. Only the tribe of Levi was admitted into the tabernacle. This lasted until the New Testament age, as Peter said in his first Epistle, “But you are…a royal priesthood” (2:9). Now every believer has become a servant of God. At the end of the New Testament, when John was about to die in A.D. 95, he said that we have been made “a kingdom, priests to His God and Father” (Rev. 1:6). God’s intention toward the church today is for every believer to be a priest. We are a kingdom of priests. What the Israelites lost, God is recovering through the church. Through their unfaithfulness, the Israelites lost the priestly kingdom. God’s intention today is for every Christian to be recovered to be a priest. (Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 57, p. 201)