Gluten Free & God Seeking: Taking Another Look at the Priesthood of the Believers in Exodus 19:6

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Taking Another Look at the Priesthood of the Believers in Exodus 19:6

What picture comes into your mind when you hear the word priest? For most of us it's probably of a man in a dark robe. I know that was mine, and when I heard for the first time that God sees all His believers as priests--I was like what?! But that's exactly what the Bible says:

Ebey's Landing

And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel. Exodus 19:6

I've learned from my reading through the Life-Study of Exodus that this was God's full intention when He brought the Israelites out of Egypt. But because of their failure with the golden calf, only the Levites were given this privilege.

In these chapters Witness Lee pulls out all the other verses in the Bible that point out that this is God's eternal intention. Sometimes I have to do a double-take when I read something I haven't understood before. That happened to me when I got to pages 1325-1326 in chapter 116 and I found out that the tabernacle and the priesthood actually symbolized the same thing! It might help to read the following excerpt slowly:

The last two verses of chapter twenty-seven indicate that immediately after the tabernacle came into existence, there was the need of the priesthood for the lighting of the lamps.This indicates that spiritually speaking, the priesthood and the tabernacle are one entity. In the typology of these chapters, God reveals that His redeemed people are both the tabernacle and the priesthood. The tabernacle is a dwelling place. But how can such a dwelling place be a living people? With the fulfillment of these types in the New Testament, the tabernacle and the priesthood are put together. First Peter 2:5 says we are built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. In this verse, according to the grammar, the spiritual house and the holy priesthood are in apposition. This means that these terms refer to the same thing. Therefore, the spiritual house is the holy priesthood (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of Exodus. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1982, Print).

It might help to take a closer look at that verse in 1 Peter: You yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5 Stop for a minute and think about what you've just read, like I did. This is what I get from this: The New Testament believers are being built together into a spiritual house. Paul says this clearly in 1 Timothy 3:15 ....in the house of God, which is the church of the living God...Don't forget that church in Greek means the called out assembly--the people! So God's house is not made with lifeless materials but with His believers. And these believes also are God's priesthood spiritually serving Him. You can go wow now, because that's what I did.