PRIESTHOOD AND LIFE
T. Austin-Sparks
WHAT is a priest? He is not an official or a member of a religious caste, but a man who withstands death and ministers life. The one all-inclusive issue of the ages, the great purpose of God from eternity to eternity, can be described in New Testament language as eternal life. As soon as sin entered the world then death ensued, and so men needed an altar and the shedding of blood in order that sin could be countered by righteousness and death be overcome by divine life. Together with the altar there emerged the personal activity of a man called a priest, and so, as time went on, such service grew and grew until it developed into an elaborate priestly ministry.
Death as an active power could only be arrested, nullified and removed by having its ground of sin adequately dealt with, hence the priestly ministry of righteousness, the perfect righteousness of incorruptible life expressed by the blood of the offering. Israel was to be a nation of priests, a people based and grounded on God's own righteousness, and therefore able to face death and defeat it. The Church was called to take up this ministry. The Lord Jesus Himself foretold this by saying: "the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43). Peter later explained that redeemed sinners have entered into the spiritual calling, being the "chosen nation", the "royal priesthood" which has to undertake the great vocation of being God's ministers of life in the earth.
So we find that as members of Christ's body we have a relationship to Him, the great High Priest, which is analogous to that between Aaron and his sons who shared his work of priesthood. In the letter to the Hebrews, which deals with this subject, we have a kind of New Testament Leviticus. In this epistle believers are addressed as sons as well as "holy brethren", as though Christ regards us as His sons -- "I and the children whom God has given me" (Hebrews 2:13). Through us, therefore, as members of Christ, the great high priestly work in heaven is to find expression here on earth. If we ask what is the significance of the Lord's continuous work as High Priest, the answer is to set life over against death, to nullify the operation and reign of spiritual death. The Church's great conflict is with spiritual death, and the more spiritual a mans becomes, the more he is aware of the awful reality of this battle with the evil power of death.
NO priest or Levite of the Old Testament was ever tempted to become lyrical on this subject or to talk in poetical language as though death were some sort of friend. Oh no, they knew death to be the great enemy of God and of all God's interests. When the Scriptures speak of death as the last enemy, they not only mean that it is the last on the list but that it is the consummate [25/26] enemy, the inclusive expression of all enmity. The effect of priesthood is illustrated again and again in the Word of God. We observe death breaking in because of sin, and then God intervening with His answer of life by means of blood sacrifice. The blood speaks of an accepted righteousness, and by means of it, the priest was able to meet death, counter it and minister life. Finally we are told of the Lord Jesus, who met death in the concentration of all its enmity, overthrew it by means of the perfect sacrifice of His own life's blood, and then entered upon His priestly work of ministering life to believers.
