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Topic: Priesthood of the believer
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John Hale
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posted
Patience please.
I am currently doing battle with a computer virus ironically named "Security Protection..."
Will return when I can...
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John Hale
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posted
Indeed.
But I want to dig a little deeper.
Son of God / Son of man, for example.
Or as I like to put it, Jesus: the man / Jesus: God in flesh.
John 5:15:
15 The man departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus, which had made him whole.
16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
20 For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Note that the Son can do what the Father does. That's deity. Not doing it of himself is restraint. He had to live his life as a man or he could not be (another aspect of the messianic office) kinsman redeemer.
So, he was either shown or given the go ahead by the Father or he simply relied on the Father the way we do him. For he had to come as a man. A man cannot whip up a miracle. Jesus could. But he had to restrain himself and submit to the Father as we are to submit to him. He lived by his humanity. So it was not the cake walk it is sometimes mistaken for.
IMHO trying to get Jesus to blow the messianic office on human anger was what the devil was really up to with the three temptations in the wilderness. It would have been a failure. It would have been the end of our chances for salvation... but it would not have been sin because failure had to be an option (for the same reasons there has to be the choice for us not to choose God for there to even be a choice to choose God).
Jesus: the man defeated Satan. Jesus: God in flesh was restrained by Jesus: the man.
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John Hale
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posted
Wonderful.
Shall we explore some the ramifications of the Lord's messianic office?
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Carol Swenson
Admin
Member # 6929
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posted
quote:
This could be a forum of educating believers.
It is...and seekers, and all of our guests.
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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John Hale
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posted
This could be a forum of educating believers.
God has a wonderful plan and a purpose for us. And the devil has all hell aimed at preventing them both.
But by fellowship / education we can at least equip one another with the truth and each goes about fulfilling their ministry and destiny.
Sounds like Star Wars dialogue, I know. It is interesting how often art imitates life. And truth is often stranger than fiction.
The thing is... how can we be certain we are not being taken for a ride by some nut? ...with the teaching / fellowship / education, I mean...
The same as with all things...
1 Thessalonians 5:21
21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;
Test everything carefully. Hold to that which is good... actually good.
1 John 4:1
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Test the spirits (even the Holy Spirit... or rather that which we "think" is the Holy Spirit and more often than not is our own spirit or even our flesh urging us or as the passage says the spirits of false prophets and false prophecies).
Even the Apostle Paul was subject to this...
Acts 17:11
11 Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
Acts 17:11 (NIV)
11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
The NIV makes a subjective call translating this passage but I often use it to point out that it was in fact Paul's teaching that they double checked. And with the Old Testament scriptures (which were all scripture that existed at the time).
This also teaches us HOW to prove all things and determine what is and what is not good or of the Holy Spirit... who is the author of the Bible:
2 Peter 1:20-21
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
John 16:13
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
The Spirit interprets the scriptures which he wrote as laser light illuminates the holograph it created. You will know it is the correct interpretation by the interaction between the two for it is a mutual verification process.
And as we become more familiar with the scriptures we are more capable of discerning the Holy Spirit from all the other voices that falsely seem to be him.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
2 Timothy 2:15
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
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John Hale
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posted
Not that the Lord is incapable of zapping us into being able to go right out and be priests... in most (if not all) cases this involved training (typically under a mature pastor) to learn to hear and discern the Holy Spirit as he has.
Hebrews 5:12
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.
So I am not advocating people do anything rash. But studying to show ourselves approved begins right now. And in time we will see more harvesters enter the fields.
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Brother Paul
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Member # 7959
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posted
As I understand it, the error of the Nicolaitans (which Jesus hates) is a professional clergy laity separation...Peter says we should not lord it over one another as the Gentiles do...to me this means we are all equals at the foot of the cross.
I am an ordained minister but that ordination to the teaching ministry was a matter of formality so I could work for a certain ministry at the time. The true anointing is one's official ordination from the Lord...if you are truly filled with the Spirit...you have been anointed by the Lord Himself...so let any who questions your ministry or authority under Him argue with Him...
You are all indeed priests of God unctioned to bring Him and His word and the gospel to the people, and to offer the needs and conditions of the people as well as the people themselves before Him...
as far as the sacraments are concerned, all Christians may Baptize (I have) but only the elders of Bishops in a local body should administer the Service of the Lord's Table and only baptized believers are allowed to partake.
We all can break bread or share together but the call to the Lord's Table was always and only overseen by the Bishop (Pastor) in the early church for about 300 years. This was how and what they were taught and I see no reason to vary the tradition since it came through the Apostles from the Lord Himself. They saw Christ in the breaking of the Bread...when they did this He was in their remembrance...the remembrance of what He did on the cross are our focus in the breaking of bread and the participation in the cup...not discern His body in the breaking of the Bread is tp partake "unworthily" (an adverb pertaining to the partaking not the partaker)...in this we celebrate His death till He comes.
Now go forth humbly in your priestly roles with integrity knowing that this is of Him.
Love in Christ
Brother Paul
Posts: 235 | From: Cambridge, MA | Registered: Dec 2009
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becauseHElives
Advanced Member
Member # 87
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posted
John Hale ![[thumbsup2]](graemlins/thumbsup2.gif)
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Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
Posts: 4578 | From: Southeast Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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John Hale
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posted
Here's another radical truth about the Bible:
The Spiritual House of Living Stones we are being built into as a royal priesthood / holy nation (i.e. the Temple of God:
1 Corinthians 3:16
16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? )
... is what God intended all along.
2 Samuel 7:12-13
12 And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.
13 He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.
Observe:
Zechariah 6:12-13
12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD:
13 Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.
Solomon was not the Branch (the Nazarene). Solomon was not a priest on his throne. And his kingdom did not last intact through the reign of his son Rehoboam and was vanquished in 586 BCE and hasn't returned to date.
In other words... the Temple Solomon built was not God's doing. But God condescended to deal with Israel through that system the way he did the monarchy itself (see 1 Samuel 8). And even then it was only for brief periods that the Temple was not defiled and the people were not in serious idolatry...
Hebrews 8:5 mentions the specs Moses was given at the commission of the tent / tabernacle (which is a symbol of the Messiah)... no mention of this is made about Solomon... only accounts of Solomon and David "claiming" this was the will of God.
So while I am exposing the pagan flaws of post-Fourth Century CE Christianity I am not removing that same spyglass from Judaism (which by Jesus' day was so corrupted the very body of elders which should have sang his praises and announced his comings and goings everywhere sought to destroy him and cease his throne).
The Sermon on the Mount is divine commentary putting back to right the Torah and reestablishing its purpose to convict and condemn (not save) from the traditions of the Sanhedrin who misused it as a power base to lord of the people and to grant salvation (which was only supposed to be limited atonement until the ultimate sacrifice was made).
So I am not saying get a beanie and a prayer shawl and say Shalom and mazal tov a lot...
Because the Messianic model is what God has aimed he people for (first the Jew and the the Gentile) all along... the priesthood of the believer
Exodus 19:6
6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
quote:
Originally posted by Carol Swenson:
Peter shared with much of the New Testament the conviction that Christians live as sojourners and pilgrims in a godless world (1 Peter 1:1, 17; 2:11). Without Christ people live in spiritual ignorance (1:14), emptiness (1:18), aimless wandering (2:25), and moral debauchery (4:3-4). Christians have a new citizenship and identity as God’s people (2:9-10) and are thus no longer in the moral and spiritual darkness of the unconverted world, but are in His wonderful light (2:9). They still live among the ungodly, but they must not settle down and mirror the lifestyles around them. Instead they are called to be holy in all their conduct, since God is holy (1:14-16). They must proclaim His virtues in a dark world (2:9), abstain from destructive lusts, and maintain good behavior that will bring their detractors to glorify God (2:11-12). Peter’s view of how the Christian should live in a hostile environment was remarkably positive and outward-looking. Far from counseling his readers to withdraw or blend in, he urged them to live consistently as God’s people and exert an influence on others.
The foundation for this approach was Peter’s ecclesiology, as shown in 1 Peter 2:4-10. Christians, because of their faith in Jesus Christ as the chosen living Stone, are built together as living stones to constitute a spiritual house, a new temple in which God dwells (vv. 4-5a). They are a holy priesthood, a community in which God is worshiped through Jesus Christ (v. 5b). The three messianic “stone” citations from the Old Testament in verses 6-8 substantiate the description of Jesus as the living Stone in verse 4. He is the ultimate of the Davidic kings established by God in Zion, and faith in Him brings deliverance (v. 6b; Isa. 28:16). He was rejected by the world but exalted to be the cornerstone of God’s work of salvation (v. 7; Ps. 118:22), and those who stumble over Him in disobedience to the gospel fall into judgment ordained by God (v. 8; Isa. 8:14). But the point of 1 Peter 2:6-8 is to demonstrate the honored status believers have because of their relationship with Christ. As the messianic community, their identity and destiny are completely different from the unbelieving world around them. They are the people of God in this age, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (v. 9). They were once not a people, but now they are “the people of God” (v. 10). These titles were used of Israel in the Old Testament in its relationship to Yahweh (Ex. 19:5-6; Isa. 43:20-21; Hos. 1:9). Christians now fulfill the same pattern in their relationship to God through Christ, but it is important to note that Peter did not call the church the new or true Israel. The church does not replace Israel in God’s program, though Christians now live as God’s people in this world in the way Israel was intended to live and someday will live in fulfillment of God’s promises.
(A Biblical Theology of the New Testament)
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John Hale
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What was the condition of the pre-Fourth Century Church?
Minus these traditions for starters...
Easter (goddess astarte along with bunny and egg fertility symbols) / Christmas (the Roman Catholic "Christ MASS" to replace / muscle out the pagan fertility feast of saturnalia)...
How about Halloween? "all hallow's evening" (the pagan retaliation to the Roman Catholic All Saints Day)...
You see...
Roman Emperor Constantine was not a convert but was shrewd. He saw in persecuted illegal burgeoning Christianity a cohesiveness his crumbling Empire lacked. So with a trumped up conversion experience he legalized what would one day become the religion of Rome... and still is to this day (the Roman Empire structured its brand of Christianity into a religious government and transferred its capital / power / existence there and the empty shell of the Roman Empire collapsed in on itself.
Along the way... Constantine and his mother (the pagan version of mother and son) busily created new traditions to replace Jewish history and ordinances (that which was ordained by God himself) expunging Roman Catholicism of everything Jewish and replacing it with paganism with the vigor of a second wife riding a house of any remnant of a first wife...
...all under the premise of riding the faith of legalism (but in reality they threw out the baby with the bathwater).
One of the biggest examples of this is how the Roman Catholic Church created a government of man to run the religion pushing what it defines as laity out of their ministries and placing their fraudulent priesthood between the common believer and God (alleging man must go through them to get to God).
The Protestant Reformation did not reform anywhere near enough. In fact, it tried to reinvent the same wheel when it needed to be scrapped and a major return to our Hebraic roots the way God intended.
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Carol Swenson
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Peter shared with much of the New Testament the conviction that Christians live as sojourners and pilgrims in a godless world (1 Peter 1:1, 17; 2:11). Without Christ people live in spiritual ignorance (1:14), emptiness (1:18), aimless wandering (2:25), and moral debauchery (4:3-4). Christians have a new citizenship and identity as God’s people (2:9-10) and are thus no longer in the moral and spiritual darkness of the unconverted world, but are in His wonderful light (2:9). They still live among the ungodly, but they must not settle down and mirror the lifestyles around them. Instead they are called to be holy in all their conduct, since God is holy (1:14-16). They must proclaim His virtues in a dark world (2:9), abstain from destructive lusts, and maintain good behavior that will bring their detractors to glorify God (2:11-12). Peter’s view of how the Christian should live in a hostile environment was remarkably positive and outward-looking. Far from counseling his readers to withdraw or blend in, he urged them to live consistently as God’s people and exert an influence on others.
The foundation for this approach was Peter’s ecclesiology, as shown in 1 Peter 2:4-10. Christians, because of their faith in Jesus Christ as the chosen living Stone, are built together as living stones to constitute a spiritual house, a new temple in which God dwells (vv. 4-5a). They are a holy priesthood, a community in which God is worshiped through Jesus Christ (v. 5b). The three messianic “stone” citations from the Old Testament in verses 6-8 substantiate the description of Jesus as the living Stone in verse 4. He is the ultimate of the Davidic kings established by God in Zion, and faith in Him brings deliverance (v. 6b; Isa. 28:16). He was rejected by the world but exalted to be the cornerstone of God’s work of salvation (v. 7; Ps. 118:22), and those who stumble over Him in disobedience to the gospel fall into judgment ordained by God (v. 8; Isa. 8:14). But the point of 1 Peter 2:6-8 is to demonstrate the honored status believers have because of their relationship with Christ. As the messianic community, their identity and destiny are completely different from the unbelieving world around them. They are the people of God in this age, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (v. 9). They were once not a people, but now they are “the people of God” (v. 10). These titles were used of Israel in the Old Testament in its relationship to Yahweh (Ex. 19:5-6; Isa. 43:20-21; Hos. 1:9). Christians now fulfill the same pattern in their relationship to God through Christ, but it is important to note that Peter did not call the church the new or true Israel. The church does not replace Israel in God’s program, though Christians now live as God’s people in this world in the way Israel was intended to live and someday will live in fulfillment of God’s promises.
(A Biblical Theology of the New Testament)
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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Carol Swenson
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We all have spiritual responsibilities, but if you mean we should do away with the established church and Bible scholars, I vote no. If you mean every Christian should study the Bible and live in a way pleasing to God, then I vote yes.
In 1 Peter 2:5 the apostle combines the figures of a building and a priesthood, stating, “You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood.” The statement is reminiscent of Exodus 19:5-6 where God declared that Israel was “a kingdom of priests." In the nation Israel, however, only those of the tribe of Levi could serve as priests, whereas in the church, every believer is a priest. Peter indicates all believers are priests for the purpose of offering spiritual sacrifices instead animal sacrifices.
The uniqueness of the New Testament priesthood is further seen in 1 Peter 2:9 where Peter refers to a “royal priesthood.” Church age believers are both kings and priests (cf. Rev. 1:6). In the Old Testament it was impossible to combine both offices for one could only be either of the Levitical line or the kingly line, the line of Judah. The entire church functions as a priesthood, whereas in Israel only the Levitical line had that privilege. All church age believers have access to God through Christ, the church’s High Priest; in Israel individual believers could approach God only through the Levitical priests. All church age believers may approach God boldly at any time (Heb. 4:14-16), whereas Israelites could approach God only during the particular offerings (Lev. 1-7).25-10 These contrasts indicate that while both Israel and the church are called a priesthood, Israel and the church are distinct entities.
(Moody Handbook of Theology)
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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oneinchrist
Advanced Member
Member # 6532
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posted
Hi John,
I once came across this traveling group of individuals who tried teaching their audience(assumably mostly Christians) that since we are "in Jesus", that we all alike hold the Melchisidek priesthood. Later on afterwards I found out that they were false "faith healers" who set out mainly to sell books. Now, we know the truth about the Melchisidek High priesthood......only given to Jesus by the Father by an oath......but our priesthood under the New Convenant...........according to 2 Peter 2:5
"to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ"
Well, it wasnt hard to find the anwer, I would say an altogether different story to understand the answer.
With love in Christ, Daniel
Posts: 1389 | From: Wind Lake, WI | Registered: May 2007
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John Hale
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posted
Roll call.
Who believes in the priesthood of the believer?
As opposed to passing on our spiritual responsibilities to the "professionals.."
Aye... (meaning I believe the New Covenant in the blood of Christ is with believers all of whom are called to be priests).
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