All believers in Christ are priests to God, and their full-time job is to serve God by spending time with God to be infused with Him and filled with Him until they flow Him out to others. God has chosen a people on earth – the church today – that would be a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood, a peculiar treasure and a special possession for Himself.
What is a priest? According to the human understanding, a priest is one who serves God professionally, or a clergy-man, one who wears a distinct set of clothes and has a distinct life, speaking the word of God and doing many things for God.
Our mind is so brainwashed with the worldly and fallen understanding of what a priest is that we don’t fully appreciate what a priest is in God’s plan. We need to realize what a priest is according to God’s eternal plan.
God created man so that man would be a priest to Him; He didn’t want man to primarily DO things for God but first be in God’s presence, spend time with God, eat God and drink God, be filled with God, and then something will come out which will be his service to God. We need to dig into the word of God and have an unveiled heart before the Lord that we may see, realize, and fully appreciate what we are as priests according to God’s eternal plan.
If we see what a priest is, we will realize that there have been many throughout the Bible who were priests to God – whether they were called priests, born as a priest, or not, they were functioning as priests.
Adam was the first priest: he spent time with God and was infused with God to fulfill God’s purpose. All the way from Adam to the New Jerusalem in eternity future, God desires to obtain a priesthood, a group of people who would be open to Him to be filled with Him, saturated with Him, and permeated with Him so that He may flow out of them and be lived out through them for God’s expression.
May we be those who are open to the Lord to such an extent, those who have a renewed appreciation and realization of what a priest is in God’s plan, and who live daily in God’s presence to be the priesthood He desires in this age.
Realizing what a Priest is According to God’s Eternal Plan
A priest is not merely someone who works for God, doing many things for God and in God’s name. Our natural concept concerning what a priest is needs to be demolished, and we need to be reconstituted with God’s concept and view according to His divine revelation in the word of God.
In order for us to realize what a priest is, we first need to see what is God’s eternal plan. Being a priest is not something apart from God’s plan; priesthood is intimately related to the fulfilling of God’s plan. According to the entire revelation of the Bible, God’s plan is to work Himself into a group of people in order that He might be their life and that they might be His expression (see Eph. 3:16-17, 21; Col. 3:4).
We need to reflect on this and really consider what God’s purpose is; what God wants to accomplish according to the revelation in the Scriptures is working Himself into a group of people so that He might be their life and they would be His expression. This is the priesthood.
A priest does not mainly one who does things for God and who works for God; to say that a priest is one who serves God is not wrong, but to say that a priest is one who mainly does things for God is wrong.
God never intended to call us to DO something for Him; ever since He created man, God wanted to work Himself into man in the way of life so that we would be one with God, filled with God, and saturated with God, and He would be expressed through us.
Adam was the first priest: even though he didn’t offer any sacrifices to God before the fall, he was a priest in principle by spending time with God, taking God as His everything, and being with God all the day.
Abel, Enoch, Noah, and many of those in the pre-priest time were priests to God by spending time with God, offering sacrifices for redemption, walking with God, and spending time with God. They enjoyed God’s salvation and redemption, they walked with God, they lived in God’s presence, and all the work they did was an issue of the priestly revelation by their being with God.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were called by God not to do things for Him but to live in His presence – they were priests to God; they didn’t exactly know where to go, but they knew where to be: in the presence of God.
The people of Israel were all God’s priests by sacrificing the lamb, applying the blood, and eating the lamb in the house; later, Moses was a priest by spending 40 days and 40 nights in God’s presence on the mountain, and when he came to the people, his face was shining with the glory God infused into him.
The tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron were priests; also, the psalmist and the prophets were priests – the psalmists loved God, loved to spend time with God, desired to be in God’s house, and beheld God’s beauty and countenance to be filled with God. The prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, etc – whether they were born in a priestly family or not, they functioned as priests.
In the New Testament Zechariah was a priest, and so was the Lord Jesus and His disciples. All the way to the end of Revelation we see how the believers are priests to God, those who are regenerated by God and spend time with God to be one with Him in everything they do.
Lord Jesus, may our natural concept of what a priest is be removed, and may we realize what a priest is according to Your eternal plan! Oh Lord, it is Your desire from the beginning to the end of the Bible to gain a priesthood! We give ourselves to You to spend time with You to be infused with You, saturated with You, and filled with You so that You may be our life and flow out of us to be expressed through us. Lord, save us from first doing things for You or working for You – we want to first be filled with You and serve You by being saturated with You so that You may flow out of us!
A Brief Definition of a Priest according to God’s Eternal Plan as Revealed in the Bible
Living in a world without God and against God, we are daily being “brainwashed” with the worldly music, things, ways, concepts, and desires. But as we come to the pure word of God, the Lord’s light shines on us and exposes any darkness and falsehood, and we realize how twisted and wrong our view of God and the things of God is.
First of all, God is not “after us to punish us when we sin”; rather, God created us in His image so that we may receive Him, enjoy Him, be filled with Him, and become His corporate expression (Gen. 1:26).
The priesthood is crucial to God and to man because the enjoyment and the expression of God depend upon the priesthood. From the beginning to the end of the Bible what we see is that God wants to gain a priesthood, a group of people who would be His priests.
Man was destined to receive God, to be filled, saturated and permeated with God, and to have God flow out of him that he might be the living expression of God. This is a brief definition of a priest. He must contact God, be filled with God, and be possessed by God completely that he may be built up with others in the flow of the life of God. Then the priesthood will be God’s living, corporate expression. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1966, vol. 1, The Priesthood, p. 426)
In Christianity the concept is that if we love the Lord, we must work for Him, and so the more we love the Lord, the more we need to do things for Him. But this is a natural, religious, and even fallen concept – which is not according to what the Bible reveals.
God’s intention is for all His people to be priests, that is, to be open to Him so that He may come into us, fill us, flood us, saturate us, and even own us so that we may be fully one with Him; then, whatever comes out of this oneness is God’s expression, what God desires.
When our whole being is saturated with God and filled with God, we will be clothed outwardly with Him as power and permeated inwardly with Himself as our life and everything. Spontaneously, God will flow out of us, and we will be built with others in this flow of life.
Our destiny as men created in God’s image and with His likeness is to first receive God, then be filled, saturated, and permeated with God so that we may have God flow out of us and we may become His living expression on earth.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work for God; this means that we do not primarily focus on working for God but we begin by spending time with God, being in God’s presence, being saturated with God until we flow Him out and express Him!
Lord Jesus, thank You for creating us in Your image so that we may receive God, be filled, saturated, and permeated with God, and have God flow out of us so that we may be a living expression of God corporately on earth! Lord, recover the priesthood in Your eternal plan in all the local churches today. We open to You to receive You, be filled with You, and be saturated with You. Lord, permeate us, fill us, and possess us until You can flow out of us and be expressed through us. Make us the priests of God today who live in such a way according to Your divine revelation.
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, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1966, vol. 1, “The Priesthood,” chs. 1-6, 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).
- Hymns to strengthen the burden in this article:
# Take time to enjoy Him, our portion is He: / Our present, available reality; / Our practical, real, and enjoyable Lord / Is everything to us through His living Word. (Song on Being Filled with God)
# In my prayer and deepest plea / In my spirit always be / Saturated and soaked with Thee, with Thee. / This would be my life daily. / Every hour expecting Thee, / This I pray, Lord, desperately! (Song on Being Saturated with God)
# By reading I’m enlightened, filled, / By prayer my thirst is quenched indeed; / Thus Thou to me may be supplied, / And Thou through me may meet the need. (Hymns #813)
About aGodMan
Christianity’s concept is that if we love the Lord, we must work for Him. This is a natural, religious concept, not the revelation of the Bible. God never intended to call us merely to work for Him. God’s intention is that we must first open ourselves to Him that He may come into us to fill and flood us until He has taken possession of every part of our being. Our whole being must be saturated and permeated with Him. Then we will be one with Him. We will not only be clothed outwardly with Him as power, but permeated inwardly with Him as everything. Then spontaneously, God will flow out of us, and we will be built up with others in this flow of life. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1966, vol. 1, pp. 426-427)