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Some Christians pay attention to the priestly ministry of the Lord Jesus, which is related to fellowship, but neglect His kingly ministry, which is related to authority. Other Christians pay attention to the aspect of His kingly authority but neglect the aspect of His priestly ministry. If we stress one aspect more than the other, problems will arise, and the church will not be built up. Therefore, we need to continue to release the light of the truth related to these two matters.
The prophecy in Zechariah 6:12-13 speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Builder of the temple. This speaking is very particular, and it shows that the offices of the kingship and the priesthood converged in Joshua, who is a type of the Lord Jesus. The convergence of these two offices is related to building, because the Holy Spirit speaks of Joshua as the one who will “build the temple of Jehovah’’ (v. 12). The Holy Spirit’s speaking is a strong indication that these two offices are related to the Lord as the Builder of the church, the temple of God.
From the revelation of the Bible, it is not difficult for us to comprehend that the kingship brings God’s authority to His people. At the time of the judges “there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). The lack of a king meant that God’s authority was not present. Without God’s authority, God’s people cannot remain on the right track in their respective order. The situation during the time of the judges was full of chaos, because everyone did what was right in his own eyes. In this condition God’s people could hardly touch anything related to God’s building. During the time of the judges the Bible does not speak of the building of the temple, and even though the tabernacle existed, it is scarcely mentioned. There is little record of the tabernacle in the book of Judges in comparison to the record in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This is related to the lack of kingly authority among God’s people; that is, there was no king to represent God’s authority among His people.
When David was raised up by God to be king, he brought in God’s authority, and the people of God began to come back to the proper path and to leave their chaotic situation. Although king David was good, he was not able to subdue all the enemies of Israel. Hence, even though he brought up the matter of building the temple and was blessed by God, he was not allowed to build the temple (2 Sam. 7:1-17). The building of the temple began when David’s son, Solomon, was king. Solomon means “peace.” Peace in Solomon’s time was achieved because of his kingship, which brought God’s authority to His people. As soon as Solomon was inaugurated as king, he dealt with the remnants of rebellion in the land, including Shimei (1 Kings 2:36-46). The goal of Solomon’s reign was to build the temple; hence, there was a need to deal with the remaining elements of rebellion. When he offered sacrifices to God and fellowshipped with Him, he asked for wisdom and received it (3:5-12). Following this, he established a good order among his officials and servants (4:1-19).
The first two chapters of 1 Kings speak of how Solomon cleared up the remnants of rebellion. Chapter 3 speaks of how he drew near to God and asked for wisdom. Chapter 4 contains a special record of how the Israelites were arranged under an orderly administration. Then chapter 5 speaks of the preparation of the building materials for the temple, and construction officially began in chapter 6. The building could begin because there was a king who brought God’s authority to His people so that His people could be brought back to a proper path and arranged in the proper order by God.
In order to build God’s temple, the Lord Jesus is revealed as the King who brings God’s authority to His people. The church is not only God’s house but also God’s kingdom. In this kingdom the Lord Jesus is the King, executing God’s authority over His people. If the Lord Jesus cannot manifest His kingship among us and exercise God’s authority over us to bring us to the right path and place us in the proper order, His church cannot be built up among us.
In Acts, the Epistles, and the seven epistles in Revelation, we see the Lord’s authority through kingship in the church. Although the records in Acts and the Epistles do not reflect worldly concepts of organization when they speak of authority, we must admit that the ruling of the Spirit is present in these books. For example, the Lord’s authority in the early church is evident in the orderly arrangements that were without confusion. This speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Spirit exercising His kingship among God’s people. According to Zechariah 6, the exercise of the kingship is for the building of God’s temple.
Whenever God is engaged in building, He needs the priesthood to coordinate with the kingship. The fellowship of the priesthood must be coordinated with the authority of the kingship. Hence, in order to build the temple, the Lord Jesus also has the office of the priesthood. The kingship brings God’s authority to man, and the priesthood brings man into God’s fellowship. If there is only the kingship without the priesthood, God’s authority may be exercised over man without bringing man into God’s fellowship.
When the high priest went before God’s presence in the Old Testament, he bore the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on the breastplate (Exo. 28:29). This means that he brought God’s children to contact God and that he also brought them into God’s fellowship to know God’s heart’s desire. According to the New Testament, the Lord Jesus is both King and Priest. In addition to the Lord, Peter, John, and James also expressed the matters of kingly authority and priestly fellowship. God’s authority was truly carried out through them to the saints in the church. At the same time, they also brought the saints into God’s fellowship. In the early years of the New Testament age there was a coordination of the priesthood and the kingship for the building of the church through the Lord Jesus and His disciples.
When a person submits to God, he receives kingly authority. However, priestly fellowship requires a person to daily live in God. In order for a person to receive and submit to the authority in the church, he needs to be dealt with and fundamentally subdued by God only once. With such a dealing, he will have a clear sense of any lack of submission in his being from that time forward. However, in order to experience the priestly fellowship in the church, he needs to fellowship with God daily in his spirit. Fellowshipping with God in the spirit does not refer only to individual fellowship with God; it refers even more to our fellowship with God in the church. Even our fellowship with the church, however, is not a matter between just us and the church; rather, when we fellowship with the church, we also fellowship with God in the fellowship of the church.
In order to have this kind of fellowship, we must pray. The book of Acts often speaks of the apostles and the disciples praying. The apostles spoke of “continuing steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word” (6:4). They prayed because they were priests. If a priest does not go to the Holy Place to burn incense and pray before God, he is not fulfilling his priestly duty. If those who are taking the lead in the church, administrating in the church, and even building the church do not offer adequate prayers to God, they are not fulfilling their responsibility as a priest.
Hence, the elders who are leading the brothers and sisters in the local churches should have the aspect of kingly authority, but even more, they should have the aspect of priestly fellowship. Only when they fellowship with God and spend time in prayer, allowing their spirit to come forth and be mutually blended, will they be able to lead the saints into an atmosphere of prayer. This, in turn, will fill the church with prayer and fellowship, and there will be a convergence of the kingship and the priesthood among the brothers and sisters. This corresponds to 1 Peter 2:5, which speaks of the saints being living stones, who are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood. The living stones that are being built up refer to the priesthood. However, this priesthood is also a royal priesthood (v. 9). Hence, these two offices, the kingship and the priesthood, have not only been combined in the Lord Jesus but also in those who are being built up together. In God’s building there is the kingly authority as well as the priestly fellowship.
Throughout the centuries there have always been situations involving imbalance between fellowship and authority in the church. Those who feel that there is too much organization in the church insist on the need to fellowship, pray, and draw near to God, but they have no regard for authority. Such ones lean toward the aspect of fellowship. It is as if they see only the matter of being a priest but not the matter of being a royal priest. With them there is an emphasis on the priesthood and spirituality but not on the kingship. Still others place emphasis on the aspect of authority and order. Such ones feel that the church represents God and that the church involves God’s deputy authority. Hence, they focus on matters related to position, order, and authority in the church, but they neglect the aspect of fellowship. As a result, it is easy for the church to fall into a situation of having outward authority and order among the elders, co-workers, and serving ones but with no expression of priestly fellowship. As a consequence, the saints do not touch the Lord, do not have a praying spirit, and do not have mutual fellowship in spirit. This shows that there is a serious imbalance. If we want to be involved in the building of the church, based on the mercy and the light that we have received from God, we must balance the kingship with the priesthood, and we must balance authority with fellowship. Just as the offices of the kingship and the priesthood have converged in the Lord Jesus as the Builder, there should be a coordination of kingly authority and priestly fellowship within the living stones who are being built up.
In Revelation 21 and 22 there is a throne as well as a river of water of life. The throne points to authority, and the river of water of life points to fellowship. The matters of authority and fellowship run throughout the entire New Jerusalem, which is built with gold, pearl, and precious stones, because authority and fellowship, fellowship and authority, run through the entire city. The throne shows that the Lord is the King, bringing God’s people under His authority, and the river of water of life shows that the Lord is the Priest, bringing God’s people into the fellowship of His life.
Whenever the Lord is on the throne with authority, life flows. In other words, whenever the Lord exercises His authority, fellowship flows freely. If there is authority and order among us, this authority and order will enable the Lord’s life to flow among us, causing us to fully be in fellowship. This is because the river of water of life proceeds out of the throne. On the one hand, wherever there is the throne, there is the flow of life, the fellowship of life. On the other hand, the fellowship of life ushers in the authority of the throne; that is, wherever the river of water of life flows, there is the authority of the throne. The flow of life brings the authority of the throne, which flows, moves, and spirals throughout the entire New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is full of glory with God’s presence, God’s light, God’s supply of life, and God’s way of life, which is the unique street. Moreover, the flow of life produces gold, pearl, and precious stones and builds these materials together. The New Jerusalem has both fellowship and authority because the water of life flows out of the throne. This is fellowship with authority and authority with fellowship, running throughout the city in a balanced way.
The throne with living water flowing out of it is the consummate depiction in the Bible of the Lord Jesus as both King and Priest. There is no better picture to illustrate the Lord Jesus being both King and Priest than the river of water of life flowing out of the throne. The throne speaks of the Lord Jesus as the King, who brings God’s authority to His people, and the river of water of life speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Priest, who brings God’s people into the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The river of water of life refers to the Spirit (John 7:38-39). The flowing life of God is in the Spirit; thus, the Spirit is the fellowship. The Lord Jesus is the Priest who brings God’s people into fellowship, that is, into the Spirit.
The Lord Jesus, as both King and Priest, brings us under God’s authority as well as into God’s fellowship so that we may have God’s authority and God’s fellowship. When these two offices converge, there is also the counsel of peace. In addition, this fellowship and authority are coordinated and balanced because there is a river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God. In this situation there is both a submission to God’s authority and a living in fellowship with God.
The saints among us have always submitted to the authority of the church and kept a proper order. As a result, there has been no confusion. This is God’s mercy. However, I still have a heavy feeling that we have not entered fully into the matter of fellowship; that is, there is not much fellowship in spirit among us and not much flow of life. We need to enjoy this fellowship daily. Hence, our present need is to enter continually into this fellowship. This fellowship is in the Spirit of life. We all need to be in spirit and allow the life in the Spirit to flow. The key to entering into this experience is for our spirit to be released so that we may fellowship in Spirit and blend in spirit with all the saints.
The way to release our spirit is through prayer. If we do not pray, our spirit will not be released. Hence, we must be diligent to learn to pray. In this regard, there is no distinction between personal or corporate prayer. We should exercise our spirit when we pray personally and when we pray corporately. We should exercise when we pray at home, when we pray with two or three, and when we pray in the meetings of the church. From morning until evening we should pray continually, and then our spirit will be released through prayer.
Within every believer there is a spirit of prayer, a spirit of fellowship. This spirit is like an egg that is waiting to be hatched. Many believers, however, have a spirit that is like an unhatched egg. Within an egg there is the life of a chicken, but without hatching, this life cannot take shape and manifest the chicken. The egg must be hatched so that the life within the egg can begin to grow. In order for a chicken to grow, the shell must be broken so that the baby chick can be released. There are several thousand saints in the church in Taipei who can be likened to unhatched eggs. If the brothers and sisters in the church in Taipei would begin to pray every day, like the one hundred twenty who were in the upper room in Jerusalem (Acts 1:13-15), I believe that everyone’s spirit would be released. If we are willing to spend the time to “hatch our eggs,” there would be a living expression in the church.
We need to ask ourselves whether or not our spirit has been released. If the shell of our spirit has not been broken, we must use prayer to release the life within us. We must pray continually until our spirit comes forth. From this time forward, we must find brothers or sisters with whom we can pray.
When we pray, we should not worry about having a topic. There are plenty of topics. We can pray for the building of the church. We can pray for the release of our spirit. We can pray for the blending in the spirit. We can pray for anything and everything. The topic of prayer is not as important as the release, the coming forth, of our spirit. The more we pray, the more exercised we will be and the more we will pray in spirit. When we begin to pray in this way, we may still use our mind and our intellect. But as we continue to pray, we will turn from our mind to our spirit. Then, as we continue to pray, we will be in the spirit. If we exercise in this way for an extended period of time, we will be in spirit whenever we open our mouth.
A person who does not pray very often will surely be in his mind when he opens his mouth to pray. This is because his spirit is not very exercised, and it is not very responsive to the Spirit. However, if our spirit has been exercised, our spirit will come forth as soon as we open our mouth.
We all need to exercise to release our spirit when we are in the meetings. We should learn to release our spirit to pray as soon as we arrive at the bread-breaking meeting. Remembering the Lord, praising the Lord, and giving thanks to Him are very good topics for prayer. We can use these topics to release our spirit in prayer. We should practice this way in the meetings, and when we come together to fellowship, we should grasp the opportunity to pray and release our spirit. In this way the saints will come under the authority of God and enter into the fellowship of God. Thus, the offices of the kingship and the priesthood will converge and be balanced in the experience of the saints. We must arrive at this point in order to build the church.
