The Kingdom of Priests and the Priesthood…
The issue of the kingdom of priests vs the priesthood came up (yet again) on a forum I frequent. I’ve copied the relevant portion of the exchange because something amazing was found in the answering of it in scripture. We’d been discussing the concept of Communal Theology on the Spitfire Grill and a lot of things I had learned since my conversion began really played into that understanding of how God deals with His people. I understood how the priesthood in no way negates the concept of the Body as a Kingdom of Priests but how to explain that the one doesn’t negate the need for the other to my protestant brothers and sisters in Christ? That was given to me, and I’m so excited about what I’m learning!
The bold portions are from the person to whom I’m responding. My responses are under that. Scripture clips in my answers are indented with some bolded sections. I’ve also fleshed my response out a little as further detail and understanding came after the exchange during meditation on the scriptures found.
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Ah, but then the RCC makes the leap that the priesthood of Moses is a foreshadowing of the priesthood of the RCC. Other Christians believe that Moses (and other OT figures) foreshadowed Christ, our Prophet, Priest and King. Who fulfills the roles of prophet and king in the RCC today? I can guess that you will say Christ is King, but what about the prophetic office?
Moses is a foreshadowing of the Christ (in a way)… but the priesthood was the Aaronic priesthood, which makes a totally different picture. Moses was instructed on the choosing of one upon whom the priesthood would rest and through whom it would come… he did, it was Aaron. Just as Christ did with Peter.
I’ve never heard of different “types” of priesthood. What do you mean by this?
I mean that Moses wasn’t ever a priest. The priesthood was ‘named’ for lack of a better term for the first priest in the line… which was Aaron. It is also referred to as the Levitical priesthood.
In fact, this priesthood was put in place in Exodus 28:1
1 “From among the Israelites have your brother Aaron, together with his sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, brought to you, that they may be my priests.
and Numbers 18:1
1 The Lord said to Aaron, “You and your sons as well as the other members of your ancestral house shall be responsible for the sanctuary; but the responsibility of the priesthood shall rest on you and your sons alone.
Notice here that God gives Aaron, his sons, and the other members of his ancestral house responsibility for the sanctuary, but God does not give them all equal responsibility, some responsibilities are reserved, set apart for certain people alone. All are to serve, but not all serve the same way. God is very specific here giving more, specific responsibilities to Aaron and his sons alone… the responsibility of the priesthood.The above verses are after Exodus 19:5, 6 where He has called the whole nation of Israelites…
5 Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. 6 1 You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. That is what you must tell the Israelites.”
So God has called them a kingdom of priests, and yet saw fit to give that ‘kingdom of priests’ a priesthood to both administer it and minister to it.
Just as we are a kingdom of priests, and once again (never changing) God, through Christ, saw fit to give us (just as He did Israel), a priesthood to both administer us, as the Body of Christ, and minister to us, just as He did with Israel.
