Is Human Priesthood Superfluous? Heb.8:3-13
HebrewsThe writer has led his hearers towards a shocking conclusion. Having argued that God's new covenant in Jesus is better than the old covenant in Moses and that his priesthood is better than the Levitical priesthood, another question is begged - "you can't be saying that we don't need human priests anymore?!!" His answer is in Heb.8:3-13.
This is a different type of question and potentially much more disturbing than the previous one. This is where the rubber hits the road because priests and priesthood were intimately woven into the fabric of society. They were people you knew. You had believed (correctly) for hundreds of years that their role in mediating between you and God was essential for being God's people. So any argument that they might now be redundant has huge consequences for society, for organised religion and for the nature of the people's relationship with God. Wow!
The passage works by comparing what a human high priest did with what Jesus has done. The high priest:
- mediates the agreement between the people and God (8:6)
- so that the people walk in the promises of God on which that covenant is based
- by being appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices as prescribed by the Law of Moses (v3)
- in a sanctuary which is an Earthly representation of Heaven (v5)
Jesus:
- mediates a superior agreement between people and God (8:6)
- so that the people walk in better promises on which the new covenant is based
- by being appointed to offer a better and final sacrifice (9:12) of his own blood
- in a real sanctuary, the real Holy of Holies (9:11)
So, yes, the ministry of human priests - apart from Jesus, who is THE human - is now superfluous. Not because we no longer have priesthood, but because we have the final, perfect High Priest. The writer shows that God promised this in Jeremiah 31 with a lengthy quote about the New Covenant. The main thrust is that God always promised a time when everyone would be taught by the Lord (NB this doesn't mean that there are no teachers in the people of God anymore, it means there are no more mediating teachers. Teachers help us walk with God, but they don't mediate between us and God. We can have a relationship with God without them).
People use the word "priest" today in different kinds of ways. I am staying with Anglican friends right now who call their church leader a priest without any sense of him having a mediatorial role. It is just their word, as it is for many Anglicans. But other people - most notably many Roman Catholics (for whom I have a high regard on many issues, especially social justice) - still believe that it is essential to have a human priest as to mediate between us and God on a daily basis. Hebrews will have none of this. To rely on a mediatorial priest today is to deny the High Priesthood of Jesus and settle for less than New Covenant Christianity.
Let me sum it up with three questions:
- Do people continue to need a human priest to mediate between us and God? Answer: yes, and it is Jesus Christ (who is also God)
- Do we still have any other human leaders in the church? Answer: yes, God gives gifts of spiritual leadership to churches to build them up
- Is this human leadership priesthood, in that it exercises a mediating role between people and God? No, only Jesus does that. We have access to the Father through the Son, and no longer have any human priests in that sense
I am currently writing a book chapter on spiritual leadership. I believe in leadership. I think the New Testament has a clear role for leaders in the Church. But it isn't a mediatorial role. Anyone who says "you have to come through me to get to God" is - tragically, criminally - putting themselves in the place of Jesus Christ.
Reader Comments (5)
Yes, I think it's important to distinguish between the priesthood of the Temple that Paul is speaking of and the "priesthood" as it descends from Apostolic teaching in churches such as the RC, Anglican, Lutheran, etc., where the pastor is called, "priest."
Yes, the role of priest as "mediator" is out, but for me (the one whom your Anglican friends call "priest") the notion of "priest" is quite a bit deeper than that. For one thing, it means that I offer sacrifice on behalf of my community. Yes, yes, the perfect sacrifice has been offered once and for all in Christ, but one of the paradoxes of our Faith is the fact that we must continually offer self- and communal-sacrifice. If we would have the same mind as Christ Jesus, then a certain amount of self-emptying in required make room for grace. We all do this internally and individually, sure, but there is also a collective way that this happens in the person of ministers and priests raised up by the people to be set aside for special work and to carry special authority.
Oh, man, I could say so much more on this topic! But I'll cut myself off here and say that the "priesthood" is a very rich way for God to to work out redeeming love in the world.
Cheers!
Hi Tay
welcome to digital H2O. Really glad to have met you this weekend. I don`t yet know whether I agree with your statement that we must continually offer self- and communal- sacrifice, because I am not quite sure I know what you mean. Can you flesh that out for me. If you mean that Christian leaders pour themselves out in time, effort, prayer and spiritual vigour for the sake of the building God`s community a la Paul being poured out like drink offering, I completely agree. Neither would I have any difficulty with the idea that some people have particular spiritual gifts for helping others seek God for his grace and receive it from the Lord. That is not a paradox of the faith, but simply leaders wanting to be like Jesus, surely. The special authority matter I would love to hear you elaborate more from the New Testament, but clearly the New Testament does mandate that leaders have authority, under the word of God, to lead God`s people in God`s ways and purposes.
But with the caveat that I wouldn`t say that is a priestly role. From what you say I guess that we may simply be used to different jargon. What your culture calls priest mine calls pastor, pastor-teacher or church leader. I know, as you do, that Cranmer derived his usage of the word from presbyter rather than an Old Covenant priestly model, so frankly a pastor-teacher going under the title of priest would still smell just as sweet(!) My difficulty is that in the UK at least, confusion over vocabulary clearly leads a lot of priests in high Anglican and Catholic traditions to absolutely think that what they are doing is Old Covenant style mediation between people and God, and sacrificing Christ every week in the Eucharist (as opposed to sacrificing themselves). The language used strongly reinforces this for both leader and people. Even where the leader doesn`t buy into the mediatorial role, the vocabulary is such that, in my view, it hinders clarity rather than helps it. That may just be my cultural context of course
Blessings
(PS I wanted some of the statements above to come out less strongly as questions, but can`t figure out how to use the question mark on this Canadian keyboard!)
Appreciated this Marcus...but maybe the title should be re-framed? I was thinking about this in the context of the ascension, not something we in the non-liturgical churches "get" on the whole. It seems to me that it isn't that priests are superfluous, rather that we've already got one (the best there could be, who is Priest and Sactifice all at once in the language of Hebrews) and so we don't need another one.
Good comment Mark. I will amend the piece, but the point remains that we have a mediating priesthood, but it isn't clergy or church leaders who perform the mediation.
Agree with you completely... Didn't want to sound picky but that was one of those "aha" moments when I looked at this recently!