Message 116
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Scripture Reading: Exo. 28:1-4; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6; 5:9-10
If we would understand any book of the Bible, or any chapter, either in the Old Testament or in the New, we need to know the underlying thought of that book or chapter. We need to know what concept is beneath the surface. In particular, we need to know the underlying thought connecting Exodus 27 and 28. Why does the divine record speak of the priesthood immediately after the description of the tabernacle? It is rather difficult to find the reason. I have never read a book which tells us why, after the record concerning the tabernacle ending in chapter twenty-seven, we have a long section concerning the priesthood. Therefore, we need to find out why, in the sequence of the record in Exodus, the priesthood follows the tabernacle.
The last two verses of chapter twenty-seven speak of the lighting of the lamps in the tabernacle. These verses give us the reason that these two sections of Exodus are put together. Here is the reason: we cannot have the tabernacle without the priesthood, and neither can we have the priesthood without the tabernacle. The last two verses of chapter twenty-seven indicate that immediately after the tabernacle came into existence, there was the need of the priesthood for the lighting of the lamps. This indicates that, spiritually speaking, the priesthood and the tabernacle are one entity. In the typology of these chapters, God reveals that His redeemed people are both the tabernacle and the priesthood.
The tabernacle is a dwelling place. But how can such a dwelling place be a living people? With the fulfillment of these types in the New Testament, the tabernacle and the priesthood are put together. First Peter 2:5 says that we are built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. In this verse, according to the grammar, the spiritual house and the holy priesthood are in apposition. This means that these terms refer to the same thing. Therefore, the spiritual house is the holy priesthood.
In English the word priesthood refers to two things. First, it denotes a body of priests, a group of priests who work and serve together. Second, the word priesthood denotes the priestly service, the work or ministry done by the priests. Many readers of the Bible emphasize the second meaning of this word. Whenever you read 1 Peter 2:5 in the past, what did you understand by the word priesthood used in this verse? The Greek language has two different words to denote the priesthood as a body of priests and the priesthood as a priestly service.
In 1 Peter 2:5 the priesthood is not the service of the priests; rather, it is a group of priests who live, serve, and work together. The priesthood here is not a service; it is a body of priests built together to live and serve as one entity. This priesthood is the spiritual house. Hence, the body of priests is also a house. In like manner, the saints who are built together are a spiritual house. This spiritual house is a collective people. My point here is that the house and the priesthood are one entity.
The church today is first the house of God. We the believers are being built together into a spiritual house. This spiritual house is a serving body, a serving unit, a serving people. The biblical term for this unit is the priesthood.
We are not a lifeless house. On the contrary, we are a house full of life. Although I appreciate the meeting hall in Anaheim very much, it cannot be compared to God’s spiritual house on one point: it is not living. The meeting hall is lifeless. The acoustics are excellent, and the stairways are very adequate. But in this building there is no life. As God’s spiritual house, the church certainly is not lifeless. However, for generations Christians have not realized that the church must be something living. Some even speak of a material building such as a chapel or cathedral as a church. The church is not a lifeless entity. Rather, the church is a constitution of Christ with His redeemed people. This means that the church is living. Therefore, we should never refer to a material building as a church. A chapel, a cathedral, or a meeting hall is not a church. We all must be delivered from tradition and never speak of the meeting place as the church. The church is a house built with life, filled with life, and constituted of life.
If the church as the house of God were not constituted of life and built with life, how could it be the priesthood? It would be impossible for a lifeless house to be the priesthood. The priesthood is a group of people who are full of life.
On the one hand, we, the believers, are a spiritual house; on the other hand, we are a priesthood, a body of priests. The house and the priesthood are one. To use a new term, the house is the “-hood.” The spiritual house is the priesthood, and the priesthood is the spiritual house.
If we are not a spiritual house, we cannot be the priesthood. Likewise, if we are not the priesthood, we cannot be a spiritual house. But if we are the dwelling place of God, the tabernacle, then surely we are a body of priests. In like manner, if we are not a body of priests, then we are not God’s dwelling place.
In order to have a house, materials of different kinds must be built together. If the materials are simply piled up on the building site, it would be impossible to have a house. We would only have a heap of materials. These materials may be arranged in a very nice way to show forth their excellence. Nevertheless, there would not be a house. A house comes into existence only when the materials are built together.
Suppose when we were building the meeting hall in Anaheim, we did nothing more than pile up all the materials. We may have appreciated the beauty of certain materials, but we would not have a meeting hall, a building in which to meet. In the case of both a house and a meeting hall, there is the need for the materials to be built together.
The principle is the same with the priesthood. Since the priesthood equals the house, and the house depends on the building up of the materials, the priesthood also requires the building up of the saints. When I was with the Brethren, I heard a number of messages on the priesthood. The Brethren strongly oppose the clergy-laity system and declare that all believers are priests, that they are neither the clergy nor the laity. The Brethren put a strong emphasis on what is called the universal priesthood. According to this concept, the priesthood is universal because every believer is a priest. But although Brethren teachers emphasize this matter, I never heard a message saying that all the priests need to be built up together in order to have the priesthood, the body of serving priests. Some of their teachers emphasize 1 Peter 2:5 and 9. I heard several messages on these verses, and I was helped by these messages. However, there was no emphasis on the fact that the priesthood is a building.
We know that the priesthood requires the building up of the believers because the priesthood is a spiritual house. We need to remember that in 1 Peter 2:5 the spiritual house and the priesthood are in apposition. In the matter of the spiritual house we can clearly understand the need for building. But with the priesthood the need for the building up is not apparent.
We all are the materials for God’s spiritual house. But have we been built up together to be God’s house? Do you have the assurance and the peace to say that you are part of God’s house? Are the believers in your locality built up together as a spiritual house? Deep within, you may not have the assurance that you have truly been built into the local expression of the Body of Christ. You may not have the peace to say that you have actually been built into God’s house.
In 1 Peter 2:5 Peter writes in a way to charge us and encourage us to be built into a spiritual house. As we have emphasized, this spiritual house is a holy priesthood. You may wonder why in this verse the house is mentioned first and then the priesthood. This sequence is based upon that in the book of Exodus, where we first have the tabernacle and then the priesthood. The priesthood must come after the tabernacle, the house. Why must the spiritual house also come first? Why must the church first be God’s dwelling place and then the priesthood? The answer is found in our need to be built up together. Because of the need of the building up, the church must be the house of God before it can be the priesthood.
As the materials for God’s building, we have been chosen, predestinated, called, saved, forgiven, justified, reconciled, and regenerated. Although we are such materials, we must still ask ourselves if we have been built up with others into God’s house. Today there is much teaching among Christians about being spiritual, powerful, or victorious. More than forty years ago, I read books about how to be victorious, how to be powerful, and how to be sanctified. Today there may not be as many “how-to” books as there were years ago. Many Christians have learned that the methods taught in these “how-to” books do not work. The emphasis in the Bible is not on how to be holy or how to be spiritual. Instead, the emphasis is on God’s building.
The materials that have been built into the meeting hall in Anaheim are stable and strong. But suppose instead of being built in, these materials had been left to lie on the ground for years. By now would they not be unclean and unattractive? To be sure, those materials would be in a pitiful condition. Had they been left scattered on the ground, they would certainly have become damaged. But because they have been built up together, these materials have been preserved, protected, and made stable. Do you want to be protected in your Christian life? Do you want to be stable, preserved, and sanctified? If this is your desire, then you need to be built into God’s house.
We have pointed out that without the building up of the saints, there cannot be the priesthood. There would be the priests, but there would not be the “-hood.” In the church in Anaheim we may have many priests. But if these priests have not been built up together, we do not have the “-hood.” The “-hood” depends upon the priests being built up together. First we must have the building. Then this building will be the priesthood.
The priests in the Old Testament did not serve in an isolated, individualistic way. On the contrary, they served together in coordination. Their service was not individualistic. Even when a priest did something by himself, what he did was in the priesthood, in the priestly body. His personal service was in the coordination of that group of serving priests.
This coordination can be illustrated by what happens in my body when I use my hand to pick up a book. Yes, it is the hand which grasps the book. But the hand does not act separately or individualistically; it functions as part of my body. The principle is the same with speaking. Although my mouth speaks, it does not speak apart from the body. The mouth speaks in the coordination of the body. I use the function of the hand and the mouth to illustrate the fact that the priests serve together; they do not serve in an individualistic way. They are a coordinated unit, a body, a “-hood.” For this reason, they live together, serve together, and work together.
If we read the book of Leviticus carefully, we shall see that the priests also ate together. They were corporate even in their eating. This indicates that they lived in a corporate way. This corporate living of the priests, however, is not the same as that practiced in so-called communes today. We should not confuse a commune with the corporate living of the priests in the priesthood.
When we are built up together, we become the church in the aspect of God’s dwelling place. Then we automatically are the church in the second aspect, the aspect of the priesthood. We are a corporate people serving God as priests. Such priests do not serve individualistically; they serve corporately. This is the reason in the New Testament the church is described by terms such as house, priesthood, and Body. We, the church, are the Body of Christ. In this Body there are many members, but none of the members acts individualistically.
In the typology in the book of Exodus, God uses two matters to portray the function of the church. First, the church functions as God’s dwelling place. Without the church, God would be homeless. He would be like a person wandering in the wilderness, a person without a home. But with the church God has a home, and He is now in His home. Therefore, the church functions as God’s home, His dwelling place. Another function of the church is to serve God. As we afford God a dwelling place, we also serve Him. God’s dwelling place is a group of serving priests. This twofold function of the church, that of the dwelling place and the priesthood, is typified by the tabernacle and the priesthood in the book of Exodus. We all need to see that the church has a twofold function, the function to house God and the function to serve Him.
