The Need for the Recovery of the Priesthood among us: All Believers are Priests!

Starting from today for 8 weeks we will be enjoying a very precious yet neglected matter in the Bible, the Priesthood for God’s building. No matter how much we have been in the church life and have known the Lord, we need a recovery of the priesthood with us, in us, and among us.

The Lord wants that all His people would be His priests – both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament God’s intention is that His people would be a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood that would minister to Him and bring God to man (see Exo. 19:4).

However, both in the Old Testament age and in the New Testament age the priesthood has been lost – in the Old Testament age the people of Israel has failed God, so the tribe of Levi was chosen to be priests to God, and in the New Testament age the church as a whole entered into degradation to the extent that there’s a clerical class that ministers to the laity, and most believers do not function in their measure.

The Need for the Recovery of the Priesthood among us: All Believers are Priests!

To recover is to restore or return a normal condition after a damage or a loss has been incurred. Throughout the history of the church the priesthood has been damaged and even lost; today most believers do not function as priests, those who come into God’s presence to be filled with God and then go to men to bring God to man.

We need to have the priesthood strengthened among us in the church life, and we need to experience more aspects of the priesthood. All God’s children need to be in the priesthood in a practical way.

In His epistle to the church in Ephesus in Rev. 2 the Lord Jesus told them, But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. What are these “works of the Nicolaitans” (which later in Pergamos became a teaching) which the Lord also hates? Footnote 1 in the Recovery Version really helps us understand,

The Greek word is composed of two words, one meaning conquer or be victorious over and another meaning common people, secular people, or laity. Thus, it means conquering the common people, being victorious over the laity. Nicolaitans, then, must refer to a group of people who esteem themselves higher than common believers. This was undoubtedly the hierarchy adopted and established by Catholicism and Protestantism. The Lord hates the works, the behavior, of these Nicolaitans, and we must hate what the Lord hates.
God in His economy intended that all His people be priests serving Him directly. In Exo. 19:6, God ordained the children of Israel to be a kingdom of priests. This means that God wanted them all to be priests. However, because they worshipped the golden calf (Exo. 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 (Exo. 32:25-29; Deut. 33:8-10). Hence, there was a mediatorial class between God and the children of Israel. This became a strong system in Judaism. In the New Testament, God has returned to His original intention according to His economy, in that He has made all believers in Christ priests (1:6; 5:10; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9). But at the end of the initial church, even in the first century, the Nicolaitans intervened as the mediatorial class to spoil God’s economy. According to church history, this became a system that was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and has been retained by the Protestant churches. Today in the Roman Catholic Church there is the priestly system, in the state churches there is the clerical system, and in the independent churches there is the pastoral system. All these are a mediatorial class, spoiling the universal priesthood of all believers. Thus, there are two distinct classes — the clergy and the laity. But in the proper church life there should be neither clergy nor laity; all believers should be priests of God. Because the mediatorial class destroys the universal priesthood in God’s economy, the Lord hates it. (Rev. 2:6, footnote 1 in Recovery Version Bible)

We must love what the Lord loves and hates what He hates; He hates the works of the Nicolaitans, that is, the clergy-laity system that destroys the proper function of the members of the Body of Christ.

There is no such thing as a “mediatorial class” between God and man; every believer is a priest to God, and each one has at least a talent (see Matt. 25). Each member of the Body has a function, and no believer’s function can be replaced by other’s function.

The “five talented believers” are rare, but the “one talented believers” are everywhere; the Lord desires to recover the function of all the believers in their measure so that the Body of Christ would be built up. Just by the coming forth of the one-talented ones, the whole world can be gained!

 Every believer is a priest, one who contacts God to be infused with God and one who contacts man to infuse man with what He’s been infused with from God. A priest is not part of a special class of people that over function above and beyond all other believers.

A priest is one who doesn’t mainly do a lot of things for God but one who spends time with God to be taken over by Him, one who is infused with God and saturated with Him to be one with Him in spirit. The Lord’s intention is that we would open our being to Him, allow Him to come in to fill us, saturate us, and permeate us; then, something will flow out of us and this will be our service to Him as priests.

If we are saturated and permeated with the Lord we will be one with Him and one with one another in Him. God’s heart’s desire is to recover the priesthood so that all His believers would be filled and saturated with God to be one with God in all they do.

Lord Jesus, recover the priesthood in us, among us, and with us. Save us from burying our talent and relying mainly on the five-talented ones to function. Lord Jesus, keep us coming to You to be infused with You, filled with You, and saturated with You so that You may flow through us in our service to You as priests. We just open to You, Lord, that You may come in and fill us to overflowing! We stand one with You, Lord, and we pray for all the believers to be recovered to their normal function as priests! Oh, may all of God’s people spend time with God to be infused with God and bring God to man!

Christ is the Shoot of Jehovah and the Shoot of David: He is the King and the Priest for God’s Building!

In Zechariah we see visions of comfort, consolation, and encouragement, which are all confirmed by the crowning of Joshua the high priest and linked with Zerubbabel the governor of Judah (Zech. 6:11-15). Joshua the high priest typifies Christ in His priesthood, and Zerubbabel the governor of Judah typifies Christ as the Shoot of David in His kingship.

Before Christ came there were two distinct persons holding the two distinct offices of priesthood and kingship, but when Christ came, He came as the Shoot of Jehovah to be the Priest and as the Shoot of David to be the King – He is both Priest and King for the building up of God’s house (see Heb. 7).

Christ as the shoot (the branching out of God) is the Priest and King to build the temple of Jehovah (Zech. 6:12-13). Christ is both the Shoot of Jehovah and the Branch of Jesse (Isa. 4:2; 11:1); this refers to His incarnation, to God branching out in humanity and causing divinity to be mingled with humanity.

Christ is the Shoot of Jehovah: He is something tender and new, a fresh development, a growth, budding, and sprouting of God in man to express the riches, refreshing, vigour, growth, and productive power of the divine life in humanity.

Christ is Emmanuel, God with us (Matt. 1:22-23), and He is God with us until the consummation of the age (Matt. 28:20). Christ is also the Shot of David (typified by Zerubbabel), referring to His humanity and royal faithfulness (see Zech. 3:8; Jer. 23:5).

As such a wonderful One typified by Joshua (the high priest) and Zerubbabel (the governor), Christ is the unique One to hold the two offices of the priesthood and the kingship in God’s administration for the building up of the church as the temple of God (see 1 Cor. 3:12, 17; 2 Cor. 6:16).

And “the counsel of peace will be the two of them” (Zech. 6:13); between the priesthood and the kingship there will be peace, and Christ is both the Priest and the King to build up the church as the temple of God in peace (see Zech. 1:1; Ezra 5:1). Hallelujah for our Christ!

Through regeneration God in Christ has branched out in us to make us a wonderful divine-human “hybrid” (not the exact or right word, but the best at this moment in time). The church is not merely a group of people who believe in Jesus but a group of people who are peculiar, strange, and wonderful because they are mingled with God! Hallelujah!

Our living today as members of the Body of Christ should be a living of God in man, a living in the mingling of God with man. We are branches in the “Shoot of God” and the “Shoot of David” (see John 15), and people around us just can’t figure us out – we are men, but there’s something of God in us, and there’s a mingling of God with man in us.

As those grafted in Christ as the Shoot of Jehovah and the Shoot of David, we as believers in Christ also bear the twofold ministry of the priesthood and the kingship for the building up of the church as the house of God. We are a kingdom of priests and even a royal priesthood to function as priests and kings for the building up of the church as the temple of God.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming as the Shoot of Jehovah, the tender and fresh development of God in humanity. You are also the Shoot of David, the mingling of God with man to hold the offices of the priesthood and the kingship. Praise the Lord, we have been grafted into Christ as the Shoot of Jehovah and the Shoot of David, and now we are priests and kings to God for the building up of the church as the temple of God! Praise the Lord!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1966, vol. 1, The Priesthood, ch. 4, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Priesthood for God’s Building, week 1 / msg 1, The Priesthood and the Kingship for God’s Building.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # Lord, we meet to seek Thy face / And in one accord to pray; / We a holy priesthood are, / Waiting on Thee here today. / Here together we would pray, / Touch the highest and the best, / Till our spirits mingled are / And Thy Church is built and blest. (Hymns #772)
  # Blest constituents of Zion, / Washed in the Redeemer’s blood; / Jesus, whom their souls rely on, / Makes them kings and priests to God. / ’Tis His love His people raises / Over self to reign as kings: / And as priests, His worthy praises, / Each his thankful offering brings. (Hymns #977)
  # The double portion we would seek, / The priesthood and the kingship too; / Make us so desperate, Lord, for Thee / That Thee, our birthright, we’d pursue. (Hymns #1272)