Family Whole Story
The family of God, ekklesia, priesthood of all believers
Week One: Priesthood
OT. In the covenant made between God and Israel, the whole people is seen as a “kingdom of priests” and thus a holy people (Ex 19:6). Within this context, specific priestly activities belonged to three orders—high priest, priest, and Levite. Priests were male descendants of Aaron (Nm 3:10) and Levites were male members of the tribe of Levi. The chief functions of the priesthood were in the temple. They looked after the ceremonial vessels and performed the sacrifices. In doing their duties they dressed in special, symbolic vestments. They were also teachers, passing on the sacred traditions of the nation. This included such matters as medical information (Lv 13–15). The high priest was the spiritual head of Israel and he had special functions, for example, entering the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement (Lv 16). The Levites assisted the priests and served the congregation in the temple. They sang the psalms, kept the temple courts clean, helped to prepare certain sacrifices and offerings, and also had a teaching function.
Through this threefold order, the priesthood of the nation was exercised. By it the people offered worship to God, made intercessions and petitions, and learned of God’s will. Thus what occurred in the worship of every pious home as the head of the house guided his family occurred in a larger and ceremonial way in the temple.
NT. It is remarkable that the term “priest” is never used in the NT of a minister or order in the church. Certainly the usage with reference to Judaism and paganism continues (Acts 4:1, 6; 14:13) but it is never introduced into the church. The Letter to the Hebrews presents the OT priesthood as fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
the priesthood of Christians is their sacrificial obedience to God; this involves spiritual worship and love of God and compassionate activity and prayer for their fellow human beings. Paul wrote: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). Each Christian offers his whole body to Christ and each local church offers itself wholly to Christ: and Christ offers his whole body (the church) to God the Father. Thus, in and by Christ, the priesthood of believers is exercised and made effectual. In the hearts of believers is the indwelling Spirit and it is in his power that acceptable service and worship is offered. Christ is the pattern of priesthood as well as being high priest.
The Nature of Priesthood. The concrete content of priesthood may be put in the following way:
1. Direct access to God. By faith all Christians approach God directly and personally (Rom 5:2; Eph 2:18) through Christ.
2. Offering spiritual sacrifices to God. The whole life of the Christian is to be a service of love—“a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God” (Phil 4:18). All work, activity, prayer, and praise is to be offered to God.
3. Declaring the gospel. By word and deed Christians are to reveal the love of God in Christ. They are to “declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pt 2:9), and they are to make sure that even pagans can recognize their behavior as good (1 Pt 2:12).
4. Worshiping as a local church. “Supplications, prayer, intercessions, and thanksgivings” are to be made for all persons (1 Tm 2:1). The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are to be administered on behalf of the whole church as the community serves God and extends his kingdom.
In summary, it may be said that priesthood is an activity and function which is best viewed in a collective sense as belonging to the whole body of Christians, though including of necessity the individual Christian life of service. Its full meaning is negated if it is seen only in individualist terms—my access to God, my right to interpret the Bible, and my ability to discern God’s will.
The priests and Levites fulfilled a variety of essentially religious duties and were equivalent approximately to the clergy in modern times. They were professional men and were supported for their full-time religious work.
At the heart of religion was a relationship with God; to be an Israelite or a Jew was to know and maintain a continuous relationship with the living God. This relationship found its outward expression in a variety of contexts: the covenant, the temple, worship, and every facet of daily life. Thus religion, understood as a relationship, had two perspectives, the relationship with God and that with fellow human beings; it had both a personal and a communal dimension to it. The priests were the guardians and servants of this life of relationship, which was at the heart of OT religion; all their functions can best be understood within the context of a relationship between God and Israel. The prophets, too, were servants of the covenant relationship. While the priests functioned as the normal servants of religion, the prophets’ role was more that of calling a delinquent people back to the relationship with God in times of crisis.
Noah built an altar and made offerings to God after the flood (Gn 8:20). Abram engaged in sacrifice in the formation of his covenant with God (Gn 15:9, 10), and Jacob, too, offered sacrifices (Gn 31:54). In all these instances, the heads of families functioned as priests, though they are not named priests; they stood before God, as representatives of their people, and sought to establish and maintain that relationship with God which is the foundation of human existence. When the religion of the patriarchs, which was based on the family unit, developed into the religion of a nation, Israel, there arose at the same time the need for a formal and professional priesthood.
a) The High Priest. Any large and complex organization requires a head or leader, and this was true also of the Hebrew priesthood (though in its early days it was a small organization). The covenant was established through Moses, the prophet, through whom God gave the offer and substance of the covenant relationship; religious life within the covenant was to be the primary responsibility of Aaron, who was the first and chief priest.
The Priests. Priests took office not as the result of a particular vocation, but by virtue of priestly descent. Thus the first priests were the four sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar; these four were ordained at the same time that Aaron was ordained high priest (Ex 28:1). Like him, they had special clothing, which was basically similar, though it lacked the distinctive garments of the high priest (the special ephod, the breastpiece, and the crown). The priesthood would be passed down through their sons.
Priestly duties, in general, fell into three areas (Dt 33:8–10). First, they were responsible in conjunction with the high priest for declaring God’s will to the people. Second, they had responsibilities in religious education; they were to teach to Israel God’s ordinances and Law (Torah; Dt 33:10). Third, they were to be the servants of the tabernacle, participating in Israel’s sacrifices and worship. There were a number of other duties which may have fallen to them, which they would have shared with the Levites in general.
Theological Significance of Priesthood
The OT. The priests and Levites were servants of God and, from a different perspective, servants of the covenant. Both the human and divine aspects of their service can be seen in the covenant context. As servants of God, they represented God’s principal purpose in this world, namely, the well-being of his chosen people; the people would only experience that well-being if their relationship with God was maintained. As servants of Israel, they undertook specific responsibilities and leadership with respect to that which is most central in human life, the worshipful life of relationship to God.
From these comments, it is clear that the priests and Levites possessed the role of mediation between God and Israel. In significant ways, they represented each member of the covenant before the other member. The need for a mediator was partly practical. In the days of the patriarchs and family religion, there had been no formal priesthood, for the family unit was small. But Israel was an entire nation, bound to God in covenant; the existence of priests and Levites recognized the human need for so large a community to set aside a group of people whose permanent task was to watch over and care for the relationship with God. The need for mediation, however, was also based upon a particular understanding of the nature of God. Although God was Father, he was also an awesome and holy being. His holiness was such that he could not lightly be approached by the ordinary man and woman. The priests and Levites thus assumed the grave task of approaching God on behalf of the people as a whole
There is one further vital theological dimension to priesthood in the OT. It is that the role of the priests as servants of Israel was parallel to the role of Israel as servant to all nations. God addressed to Israel some words of remarkable privilege in the formation of the Sinai covenant: “And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex 19:6). Just as the Israelites had need of a priest to represent them before God, so too the nations of the world required a priest to represent them. From a Christian perspective, this priestly role of Israel as a whole is to be understood partially in the meaning of Jesus Christ for the world.
Peter indicates that Christians are “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Pt 2:9). But the conception of all Christians as priests does not mean that they no longer need priests as in OT times, though that is true; they have a High Priest in the person of Jesus Christ. More than that, it implies that all Christians must be priests to the world at large. Just as Israel, the community of the old covenant, was called upon to be a nation of priests on behalf of all nations, so Christians, citizens of the new covenant, are called upon to be priests representing all mankind before God—and God before all mankind.
9. Peter now returns to his elaboration of the blessings which belong to his readers. But you—in contrast to those who disobey—are a chosen race. The word chosen by itself would suggest a sharing in the blessings of God’s ‘chosen’ people in the Old Testament (see discussion of this word at 1:1), as well as a sharing in the privileged status of Christ, the ‘chosen’ rock (1 Pet. 2:4, 6). But when ‘chosen’ is placed in the fuller phrase chosen race, the allusion to Israel, the race God had chosen as his own, is inescapable (see Isa. 43:20, where both these words are used). God has chosen a new race of people, Christians, who have obtained membership in this new ‘chosen race’ not by physical descent from Abraham but by coming to Christ (v. 4) and believing in him (vv. 6–7).
They are also a royal priesthood, and a holy nation, two phrases quoted exactly from the LXX of Exodus 19:6 (and 23:22), where God promises this status to all in Israel who keep his covenant. (See note at 2:5 on this priestly status of believers.) Just as believers are a new spiritual race and a new spiritual priesthood, so they are a new spiritual nation which is based now neither on ethnic identity nor geographical boundaries but rather on allegiance to their heavenly King, Jesus Christ, who is truly King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16).
2:9–10. Peter closed this portion of his letter of encouragement with a moving exhortation for his readers to practice holiness. He reminded them that, in contrast with the disobedient who are destined for destruction, they were a chosen (eklekton; cf. “elect,” eklektois, 1:1) people. Peter again echoed the Old Testament, specifically Isaiah 43:20. “Chosen people,” which used to apply only to Israel, was now used of both Jewish and Gentile believers. The responsibility once solely trusted to the nation of Israel has now, during this Age of Grace, been given to the church. At Sinai, God told Moses to tell the people, “You will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Now believers in the Church Age are called a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. Peter called Christians “a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5) and “a royal priesthood” (2:9; cf. Rev. 1:6). The words “belonging to God” loosely render the words eis peripoiēsin, which are literally “unto obtaining or preserving” (also used in Heb. 10:39, where the NIV has “are saved”). Christians are a special people because God has preserved them for Himself. While these descriptions of the church are similar to those used of Israel in the Old Testament, this in no way indicates that the church supplants Israel and assumes the national blessings promised to Israel (and to be fulfilled in the Millennium). Peter just used similar terms to point up similar truths. As Israel was “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,” so too believers today are chosen, are priests, are holy, and belong to God. Similarity does not mean identity.
Believers are identified with Christ, for He is the living Stone and they are like living stones. And as they become more like Him, further conformed to His image, they are being built into a spiritual house. Jesus told Peter, “On this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). Now Peter (1 Peter 2:4–5) clearly identified Christ as the Rock on which His church is built. Paul called the church a “temple” (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21) and “a dwelling” (Eph. 2:22). Believers not only make up the church but serve in it, ministering as a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices. All believers are priests (cf. 1 Peter 2:9; Heb. 4:16; Rev. 1:6) and need no mediator other than Jesus Christ to approach God directly. Such priestly service requires holiness (cf. 1 Peter 1:16, 22). Praise to God and doing good to others are spiritual sacrifices that please Him (Heb. 13:15). However, “living stones” may also offer themselves as “living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1), acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
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2. Abide in Christ—together—as the new temple of God (2:4–6)
4. This verse begins a new section (vv. 4–10) in which Peter uses extensive Old Testament imagery to show that New Testament believers (both Jew and Gentile) are in fact a new ‘people of God’ who have come to possess all the blessings of Old Testament Israel but in far greater measure.
Come to him employs a verb (proserchomai) frequently used in the LXX of ‘drawing near’ to God, either to hear him speak (Lev. 9:5; Deut. 4:11; 5:27) or to come into his presence in the tabernacle to offer sacrifices (Exod. 12:48; 16:9; Lev. 9:7–8; 10:4–5; etc.). It is also used in Hebrews as a specialized term for ‘drawing near’ to God in worship (Heb. 4:16; 7:25; 10:1, 22; 11:6; 12:18, 22). Peter’s choice of the term here may have been suggested by its use in Psalm 34:5 (LXX: ‘Draw near to him’). By this expression Peter hints, in a theme to be made explicit later in the sentence, that all believers now enjoy the great privilege, reserved only for priests in the Old Testament, of ‘drawing near’ to God in worship. But rather than coming to the altar or even to the holy place in the Jerusalem temple, they now come ‘to him’ in whom ‘the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily’ (Col. 2:9).
The fact that Christ is the living stone shows at once his superiority to an Old Testament temple made of dead stones, and reminds Christians that there can be no longing for that old way of approach to God, for this way is far better.
5. And like living stones extends the ‘stone’ imagery in a remarkable way to Peter’s readers, now portraying not only Christ but also Christians as ‘stones’ that live (cf. Eph. 2:19–22; 1 Cor. 3:10–15; Heb. 3:2–6; and Matt. 16:18, all of which in various ways liken the church to a building). The Greek text begins this verse with two words meaning ‘even you yourselves’ (… like living stones are being built into a spiritual house), further emphasizing the amazing fact that these humble believers also, like Christ, have become living stones precious to God.
These ‘people-stones’ are being built into a spiritual house. The word ‘house’ (oikos) is often used to refer to God’s house, the Jerusalem temple (1 Kgs 5:5; Isa. 56:7; Matt. 12:4; 21:13; Mark 2:26; Luke 11:51; John 2:16), and the mentioning of priesthood, sacrifices, and ‘coming near’ (to God in worship; see note on v. 4), all in this sentence, make it almost certain that Peter has in mind the house where God dwells, the temple of God (cf. also 1 Tim. 3:15). Thus the NEB rightly translates this phrase, ‘built … into a spiritual temple’ (cf. Phillips, ‘into a spiritual House of God’). (See also Additional note below.)
Thus Peter encourages Christians to think of themselves as the living stones of God’s new temple.
It is better to change our visual image of a temple, so that we no longer think of a rectangular building made of stones but of an amorphous ‘building’ that continually takes on the changing dimensions of God’s assembled people. The beauty of this new and living ‘temple made of people’ should no longer be expensive gold and precious jewels, but the imperishable beauty of holiness and faith in Christians’ lives, qualities which much more effectively reflect the glory of God (cf. 1 Pet. 3:4; 2 Cor. 3:18).
They are also functioning as a holy priesthood, a phrase which combines two words from the LXX of Exod. 19:6, where God had promised that if his people were faithful they would be to him ‘a royal priesthood and a holy nation’ (cf. Exod. 23:22; Isa. 61:6).
As priests, believers offer not the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant, but spiritual sacrifices, which the New Testament elsewhere identifies as the offering of our bodies to God for his service (Rom. 12:1), the giving of gifts to enable the spread of the gospel (Phil. 4:18), the singing of praise (Heb. 13:15), and the doing of good and sharing our possessions (Heb. 13:16). These varied examples encourage us to think that anything we do in service to God can be thought of as a ‘spiritual sacrifice’ acceptable to God, a continual sweet aroma that ascends to his throne and brings him delight. With this New Testament perspective on ‘sacrifice’, all the Old Testament passages about sacrifices can be read in a new light.
‘Spiritual sacrifices’ must be offered through Jesus Christ, for only through him are Christians qualified to be priests to God—or to do anything pleasing in God’s sight.
This verse thus gives explicit statement to the doctrine of the ‘priesthood of believers’. Since all who come to Christ are now a holy priesthood, able continually to ‘draw near’ to God’s very presence and offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, there can no longer be an elite priesthood with claims of special access to God, or special privileges in worship or in fellowship with God. To try to perpetuate such a ‘priesthood’ distinct from the rest of believers is to attempt to maintain an Old Testament institution which Christ has abolished once for all. Every single Christian can now ‘with confidence draw near to the throne of grace’ (Heb. 4:16), and corporate worship among Christians should always be a wonderful entrance into the very presence of God.
So in verses 4 to 10 Peter says that God has bestowed on the church almost all the blessings promised to Israel in the Old Testament. The dwelling place of God is no longer the Jerusalem temple, for Christians are the new ‘temple’ of God (see notes on v. 5). The priesthood able to offer acceptable sacrifices to God is no longer descended from Aaron, for Christians are now the true ‘royal priesthood’ with access before God’s throne (vv. 4–5, 9). God’s chosen people are no longer said to be those physically descended from Abraham, for Christians are now the true ‘chosen race’ (v. 9). The nation blessed by God is no longer the nation of Israel, for Christians are now God’s true ‘holy nation’ (v. 9). The people of Israel are no longer said to be the people of God, for Christians—both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians—are now ‘God’s people’ (v. 10a) and those who have ‘received mercy’ (v. 10b). Moreover, Peter takes these quotations from contexts which repeatedly warn that God will reject his people who persist in rebellion against him, who reject the precious ‘cornerstone’ which he has established. What more could be needed in order to say with assurance that the church has now become the true Israel of God?
8 ἐπιμενῶ δὲ ἐν Ἐφέσῳ ἕως τῆς πεντηκοστῆς· 9 θύρα γάρ μοι ἀνέῳγεν μεγάλη καὶ ἐνεργής, καὶ ἀντικείμενοι πολλοί. 10 Ἐὰν δὲ ἔλθῃ Τιμόθεος, βλέπετε ἵνα ἀφόβως γένηται πρὸς ὑμᾶς, τὸ γὰρ ἔργον κυρίου ἐργάζεται ὡς κἀγώ· 11 μή τις οὖν αὐτὸν ἐξουθενήσῃ. προπέμψατε δὲ αὐτὸν ἐν εἰρήνῃ, ἵνα ἔλθῃ πρός με, ἐκδέχομαι γὰρ αὐτὸν μετὰ τῶν ἀδελφῶν.
Week Two: Reconciliation
Week Two: Reconciliation
Week Two: Reconciliation
8 ἐπιμενῶ δὲ ἐν Ἐφέσῳ ἕως τῆς πεντηκοστῆς· 9 θύρα γάρ μοι ἀνέῳγεν μεγάλη καὶ ἐνεργής, καὶ ἀντικείμενοι πολλοί. 10 Ἐὰν δὲ ἔλθῃ Τιμόθεος, βλέπετε ἵνα ἀφόβως γένηται πρὸς ὑμᾶς, τὸ γὰρ ἔργον κυρίου ἐργάζεται ὡς κἀγώ· 11 μή τις οὖν αὐτὸν ἐξουθενήσῃ. προπέμψατε δὲ αὐτὸν ἐν εἰρήνῃ, ἵνα ἔλθῃ πρός με, ἐκδέχομαι γὰρ αὐτὸν μετὰ τῶν ἀδελφῶν.