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Scripture Reading: Matt. 3:1-6; Acts 9:32; 1 Tim. 1:16; Rom. 15:16; 12:1-2; Col. 1:28-29; Rev. 1:5b-6; 5:9-10; 5, 1 Pet. 2:9; Luke 10:1-6; John 15:16
I. The turn from the Old Testament priests to the New Testament priests:
А. The turn in John the Baptist:
1. Though he can be considered the last priest of the Old Testament, he rejected that priesthood and turned away from being such a priest — Matt. 3:1-4.
2. He turned to become the first priest of the gospel in the New Testament:
а. He did not offer bulls and goats as offerings.
b. Instead, he offered the repentant sinners gained through him as offerings — vv. 5-6.
B. Continuing through the apostles and every believer:
1. With the apostles taking the lead to be the New Testament priests of the gospel, preaching the gospel extensively — Acts 9:32.
2. With the apostle Paul as a pattern — 1 Tim. 1:16:
а. He was a New Testament priest of the gospel, preaching the gospel to save people and offering them to God as offerings — 15:16.
b. He led the believers under his care to offer up themselves as living sacrifices — Rom. 12:1-2.
c. He presented the perfected saints, in all wisdom full-grown in Christ to God — Col. 1:28-29.
3. With all believers as the components of God’s New Testament priesthood of the gospel — Rev. 1:5b-6; 5:9-10:
а. It being a universal priesthood, not a priesthood of a few people.
b. It being for the preaching of the gospel, the telling out of the virtues of God’s salvation, saving people to offer them to God as spiritual sacrifices — 5, 1 Pet. 2:9.
II. The way for the New Testament priests of the gospel to fulfill their duty:
А. As a New Testament priest of the gospel, every believer must personally preach the gospel by visiting people through knocking on doors, saving sinners, and offering them up to God as offerings — Luke 10:1-6.
B. As branches of the vine, being sent forth to bear fruit; this being a work not to be replaced by others’ labor — John 15:16.
C. This being the way ordained by God and revealed in the Bible:
1. To be God’s New Testament priest of the gospel, one must personally save the sinners and offer them to God.
2. To be a branch in the Lord, one must also personally bear fruit for God.
In this chapter we will consider “the New Testament priests of the gospel.” The term priest of the gospel has been in the Chinese Bible for over a hundred years; it was not noticed by the students of the Bible. Although I have personally read the Bible for over sixty years, I did not pay attention to this term either. I have heard many people preaching and have read many spiritual books, but I never heard, nor did I notice, this term. It was not until March of this year, while I fellowshipped with the elders in Taipei, that the Holy Spirit enlightened me to see what Paul said in Romans 15:16 concerning being a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, a laboring priest of the gospel of God.
A priest in the New Testament is a priest of the gospel. The Old Testament priests were mainly confined to the house of Aaron, that is, to Aaron and his sons. But the New Testament priests are not confined to a family. Rather, this priesthood is borne by the millions of saved saints. Revelation 5 says, “You were slain and have purchased for God by Your blood men out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made them a kingdom and priests to our God” (vv. 9-10). Also, 1 Peter 2 says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood” (v. 9). Since the priests form a priesthood, it is no longer the responsibility of a few people. Rather, everyone is included in this responsibility. As a result, it becomes a priesthood. The number of saved ones far exceeds the number of Israelites in the Old Testament. The number then was further restricted to males only. In the New Testament all saved persons, whether male or female, young or old, are priests. Because there is a great number of them, they become a priesthood.
What these priests do in their priesthood is offer up sacrifices to God. In the Old Testament there were mainly five kinds of offerings: the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering. In the New Testament, according to Hebrews 13, the sacrifices offered by the New Testament believers include the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of good works, and the sacrifice of material giving. These sacrifices are well pleasing to God. During the past twenty years, I have released many messages in America concerning the New Testament priests offering sacrifices to God. I indicated that this is to offer up the Christ whom we enjoy in many aspects as offerings to God by bringing them to the meetings. In other words, the sacrifices presented to God by the New Testament priests are the Christ who is offered up, that is, the Christ who is experienced by us and brought and offered up to God.
During the past month, the Lord has shown us that the light concerning the priest of the gospel is not small. This is a great matter in truth. Expositors of the Bible throughout the ages have seen something concerning this matter. Actually, as early as the first century when Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, especially in chapters 9 and 10, he was expounding Leviticus already. After the time of Paul, in every age there were people expounding the Bible. This Bible has gone through nineteen hundred years of exposition. Today we are standing on the shoulders of these expositors. Praise the Lord. Today the revelation concerning the priest of the gospel comes to us. We can say that we have inherited from the past, and we are opening up a way for the future.
We see clearly in John the Baptist that what he offered up was the repentant men. We see this clearly also in the apostle Paul. The offerings he offered up were the sinners saved through him. We all know that the Bible is divided into the Old and the New Testaments. Most of what is recorded covers the service of God by His people. The Bible says that we are created, selected, and redeemed by God. We are also regenerated and transformed by God. The reason God brings man through all these processes is that man would serve Him. Hence, both the Old and the New Testaments tell us of man’s obligation to serve God. He must be a priest. In both Testaments the people of God are the priests. The difference between the two Testaments lies in the offerings that the priests in the two ages offer.
The turn of the priesthood from the Old Testament to the New happened with John the Baptist. According to the record of Luke 1, John came from a priestly family of the Old Testament. His father was old and had no child. The husband and wife prayed to God, and God answered their prayer. A son was given to them, who was John the Baptist. Officially speaking, John was a born priest. Not only was he a priest born of a priestly family, he was a genuine priest born through the power of God. The last Old Testament priest who counted in God’s eyes was Zachariah. Outwardly speaking, John was born into a priestly family. Being born a priest of the Old Testament, he should have lived in the priestly home, walking in and out of the temple. He should have been eating the priestly offerings and wearing the priestly garments. But strangely enough, John went to preach in the wilderness. He rejected the priestly family, turned away from the temple, and would not even slaughter the bulls and goats for offerings. He rejected everything that the Old Testament priests did.
He did not put on the priestly garments. Instead, he put on camel’s hair. He did not eat any offerings. Instead, he ate wild locusts and honey. He did not live in the temple; he lived in the wilderness. His ways were fully free from the traditions of the Old Testament priests. He dressed wildly, ate wildly, lived wildly, and even preached wildly. He told those who came out to him to be baptized, “Offspring of vipers, who prompted you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Matt. 3:7). He cried in the wilderness, “Repent!” After men repented, he baptized them into the water. All of what John did was fully free from any cultural or religious background. He rejected entirely the priesthood of the Old Testament. He turned away from the old and turned to the new. Through such a turn he was brought into the function of the first priest of the gospel in the New Testament.
When John turned to become the first gospel priest of God in the New Testament, he did not offer bulls and goats for sacrifices. Instead, he offered the repentant sinners as sacrifices. He did not offer individual bulls. Rather, he offered the saved souls one by one. He replaced the bulls and goats with men.
All the believers after John the Baptist, including Peter, James, John and the three thousand and the five thousand added during the time of Pentecost, were priests of the gospel. Every one of them offered up sinners as sacrifices. The first group of apostles set up by the Lord were the first group of priests of the gospel. After them the most outstanding one was the apostle Paul. In Romans 15 he says that he was “a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, a laboring priest of the gospel of God, in order that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, having been sanctified in the Holy Spirit” (v. 16). Paul saved the Gentile sinners one by one and offered them up to God. This was the first step.
The second step was for Paul to meet in the homes of the newly saved believers. We can see this from the book of Romans. First, in chapter 1 Paul talks about the content of the gospel. After that, in chapters 2 and 3 there is the initial gospel for the home meetings. Following that, from chapter 4 to chapter 11, he talks about the walk of a believer in Christ. This was probably a message for a small group meeting of the local saints. Then in chapter 12, in verses 4 and 5, he says that as there are many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, so also we all are one Body in Christ and individually members one of another. Possibly this is a development from the group meeting to the district meeting. Here, Paul encourages the saints to prophesy in the meetings. He says, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith” (v. 6).
Paul does not cover prophesying in chapter 1. In chapter 1 he speaks of everyone having sinned and being in need of the gospel. In chapter 2 he talks about the Jews having sinned. In chapter 3 he talks about all having sinned and come short of the glory of God (v. 23). In chapter 4 he speaks about circumcision. In chapter 5 he talks about the different inheritances in Adam and in Christ. Chapter by chapter he goes on to expound and teach the Roman believers. By chapter 12 he mentions prophesying. We can say that Paul begins in Romans with the preaching of the gospel, proceeds on to the home meetings, then to the group meetings, and finally ends with the district meetings. He is helping the ones under his teaching to prophesy in the meetings.
It is as if Paul is saying, “Formerly, I brought you the gospel of salvation and offered you to God as sacrifices. Now you have been nourished and have grown through the home meetings. You have also attended the group meetings and have been perfected there. Now you have to prophesy in the meetings, offering yourselves up as living sacrifices.” Paul led the believers under his care to present themselves as living sacrifices. He also presented these perfected saints full-grown in Christ to God in all wisdom. “Whom we announce, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man full-grown in Christ; for which also I labor, struggling according to His operation which operates in me in power” (Col. 1:28-29).
Ephesians 4 tells us that Paul desired that all the saints would arrive at a full-grown man (v. 13). He desired that all the saints would be perfected and be able to do the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ. There are three steps to Paul’s work as a priest of the gospel. First, he preached the gospel to save and bring in the sinners. Second, he perfected the newly saved people that they would offer themselves up. Third, he admonished and taught in all wisdom until these believers became mature in Christ; then he presented them full-grown. For this he labored.
Paul did not say that he worked for this. Rather, he said that he labored for this. It is not enough for us just to work. We have to labor as well, struggling and striving according to the operation which He operates within us. Our struggling does not depend on our own strength. Rather, it is according to the operation of Him who operates within us. We all have had the experience that no matter how tired and discouraged we are, after we kneel down and pray for a few minutes, we feel a great power operating within us. This is similar to what Paul describes in Colossians 1:27 when he says that Christ in us is the hope of glory. This Christ who was the life and person in Paul’s spirit was the means whereby Paul labored. It was through the operation of this power that he labored, struggled, and strived, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, to present every man full-grown in Christ to God. This is what we hope to see.
Since 1984 I have been coming to Taiwan twice a year. What I hope to see is that all of you would be able to be presented full-grown. Now we are not doing poorly with the first step of bringing people to salvation. The second step, which is to perfect people by the home meetings, the group meetings, and the district meetings, is still less than ideal. We are like students studying diligently but having not yet graduated. Since the introduction of the new way during the past four years, thousands of brothers and sisters in Taipei have given themselves to the small groups aggressively. Because we are in a laboratory, we constantly change the way of practice. I also know that some have not been able to take this. I want to tell you that the Old Testament exhorts us not to be an unturned cake. In all these changes you have all been turned. Today you are no longer unturned cakes. Now your spirit in the meeting is much different from what it was four years ago. When I listen to your singing and speaking, I realize that your spirit has definitely improved. But we must advance to the stage that Paul described, a stage in which our inner man is daily renewed.
Paul is a pattern to every one of us. He brought the gospel with him and visited the sinners by knocking on their doors, pleading with them to receive the gospel. Once a sinner receives the gospel, angels in God’s presence sing until the courts of heaven ring. In the record of Luke 15 the Lord Jesus said that there were a hundred sheep, and one was lost. When the shepherd found the lost sheep, he called together his friends and neighbors to rejoice with him (v. 6). The Lord Jesus also mentioned the parable of a woman who had lost her coin. The woman lit the lamp, swept the house, and sought carefully until she found it. When she found it, she called together her friends and neighbors and said, “Rejoice with me” (vv. 8-9). Hence, we have to know that to bring a sinner to salvation is not a small thing. It is a tremendously great thing. We must consider this seriously. Everyone has to bring people to salvation. This is to fulfill the duty of the priest of the gospel.
Bringing people to salvation brings us only through chapter 4 of Romans. We cannot stop there; we have to go on. By chapter 12 of Romans not only do the new ones have home meetings; they are being perfected in the small group meetings as well. Then they have to go on to prophesy in the meetings. This is not easy to accomplish. Hence, there is the need for laboring. We have to struggle according to the operation of Christ’s power within until the saints can be presented full-grown in Christ to God. We must arrive at this point before the duty of the New Testament priest of the gospel can be considered as completed. When we perfect people this way, the ones being perfected will in turn perfect others. Then those other perfected ones will go to visit people by knocking on doors, will set up home meetings in the homes of the newly saved ones, and will also bring people to attend small group meetings and to prophesy in the district meetings.
In this way what you have done in others in the way of perfecting is fully duplicated by them in more new ones. Men will be brought back to the flock and will be presented full-grown in Christ to God. Everyone will be a priest of the gospel. In the church there is no pastor or preacher; neither are there any spiritual giants. We are all ordinary believers. Yet we are all priests of the gospel. Everyone goes to knock on doors, and everyone brings in sinners as offerings. Following that, we have to read to them Romans 1 through 4. Gradually, when they have been established, we must bring them to the small group meetings and help them to experience chapter 8; that is, walking in spirit in all things (v. 5). In this way they will be qualified to offer themselves up as living sacrifices to serve God. The practice of the new way is to make everyone a priest of the gospel. In the old way only a few people are the priests; the ordinary believers are not priests in their daily lives. They only go when there is a gospel meeting, and they drag people to listen to the gospel.
Today I have only one burden, which is to tell you that you have to be a priest of the gospel. Not only do the brothers have to do it. The sisters have to do it as well. Even the young sisters should do the same. There is no pastor among us; neither are there preachers. We only have all the saints serving as priests of the gospel, bringing in the sinners. This cannot be secured by any amount of money. There is no other way to accomplish this except by visiting people personally through knocking on doors. We must be bold to proclaim the gospel loudly. Whether you have been trained or not, you are a priest of the gospel, and you have to preach the gospel to others. This is the universal priesthood. It is not the priesthood of a few people. Do not be afraid that you cannot preach, and do not say that you cannot preach. The reason you cannot preach is that you do not preach, and the reason you are afraid to preach is also that you do not preach. The more you preach, the more you will be able to preach.
The Bible states that each one of us, the saved believers, should be a priest of the gospel. In the past we were influenced by Christianity to depend on the gifted evangelists, while we ourselves only stood by the side to help in ushering, writing down names, and other Levitical services. We did not fulfill the duty of the priest of the gospel. This way is an offense to God. From now on I hope that all the five thousand regular attendants in the church in Taipei would all be priests of the gospel. There is no need to gather together at the meeting hall for the preaching. You can take the Bible and go out to preach by yourself. You can also take one or two other companions to go along with you. You have to knock on every one of the hundreds of thousands of doors in Taipei to send the precious gospel to people.
Nineteen centuries ago Paul did not have convenient means of transportation. Yet he traveled by boat across the seas, taking long journeys far from home and paying the price to send the gospel out. Acts 16 shows us that when Paul was in Philippi, no saint was there to greet him. There was not a church to receive him. He did not know anybody there. What he did was to go outside the city to the riverside on the Sabbath where there was a place of prayer. He then sat down and talked with the women gathered there. One of them was a woman by the name of Lydia who sold purple cloth. She and her whole household were saved and baptized. She then asked Paul to stay in her home (vv. 13-15). This was how Paul began his gospel preaching in Philippi. In the house of Lydia a home meeting was set up, and the church in Philippi began this way. What Paul did is a pattern to all the believers. We all should learn from him. What he did is what we all should do. We should be the same as he was.
In Acts 20 Paul sailed to Miletus. There he sent for the elders in Ephesus and told them that he “did not withhold any of those things that are profitable by not declaring them to you and by not teaching you publicly and from house to house...For three years, night and day, I did not cease admonishing each one with tears” (vv. 20, 31). This was how Paul labored, struggled, and strived to perfect the Ephesian believers. We have been in Taiwan for forty years. If we had been laboring in the way that Paul did, struggling and striving to perfect the saints, Taiwan would have been evangelized long ago. We have not done so because we have been damaged by the old system. Now we have to go back to the biblical way. Everyone is a New Testament priest of the gospel. There is no longer a need to depend on anyone else. We can all preach the gospel, bring people to salvation, and offer up the sinners to God by ourselves. Then we must set up home meetings in the homes of the newly saved ones. After they are established, we bring them to the small group meetings and teach them the truth, nourishing, perfecting, and instructing them until they can offer up themselves as living sacrifices to God and are able to prophesy one by one in the meetings. In the end, whatever we can do, they can do also. We have to ask the Lord to grant us the grace that we would be able to bear at least one fruit per year to offer to God.
I believe that from tonight on, everyone will see clearly that every believer is a New Testament priest of the gospel and must personally preach the gospel by visiting people through knocking on doors so that the sinners may be saved and may be offered up to God as sacrifices. We are like the branches of the vine sent by the Lord to go forth to bear fruit. This work cannot be replaced by anyone else’s labor. This is ordained by God, and this is the way revealed in the Bible. As priests of the gospel, we should go and preach the gospel. Whether we are capable or not, this is our destiny. No one will preach the gospel for us or bear fruit for us. The fruit of others are on their own accounts.
Since we are the branches of the Lord, we must personally bear fruit to God. This is our duty. This is also our glory. As 1 Peter 2:9 says, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, for the telling out of the virtues of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. If we labor according to the Bible, struggling and striving as Paul did for the gospel, perhaps hundreds of thousands of sinners will have been saved by us when we see the Lord. This is not a small thing. This will accomplish the eternal purpose of the Lord and will realize His economy among us. May the Lord be merciful to us, deliver us out of the old way that kills the organic functions, and bring us into this new way that takes us out of death into life.
