Jesus' attitude towards the priesthood

In the New Testament, we never find Jesus calling himself or his disciples priests. The imagery in his teaching is not taken from the priestly but from the secular world. His teaching is closer to that of the prophet than to that of the priest. Though he does not specifically oppose the cultus, we do not find him promoting it either, but instead he promotes the will of God.

• The  sayings in Mt 12.3-8, where David and his companions violate priestly privileges, emphasize the abolition of slavish legalism and indicate the early Christian understanding that the Kingdom of God is greater than the temple.
• We find a criticism of the priestly caste in Lk 10.31f  where the despised Samaritan is proved superior to the priest and Levite by his display of love.
• A jab at the highpriesthood is made in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Lk 16.19-31) when "dressed in purple and fine linen" describes the highpriest's vestments.
• The instance when Jesus tells the healed leper "show yourself to the priest" (Mt 8.4; Mk 1.44; Lk 5.14)  presents Jesus simply following the Torah (Lv 13 &14) and showing consideration towards the leper who requires priestly certification of his cleansing in order to have his ostracism removed. 
• The incident in the temple when Jesus chastises the business going on there (Mt 21.12-17; Mk 11.11,15-19; Lk 19.45-48; Jn 2.13-17) is the closest to an indictment of the  current temple priestly institution, fraught with corruption. Very likely this constituted one of the reasons why the priests, who owned the business of the temple, got rid of him.
• The words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman in Jn 4.21-24 - which indicate that the importance of temple institution, whether at Garizim or Jerusalem, has passed- emphasize that real worship is  "in spirit and truth."

Whether the above instances report the authentic words of Jesus or not, they show that the members of the early Messianic movements did not think Jesus was particularly enamoured of any priesthood. And had they been intent on establishing a priesthood of their own, we would expect, in their interpretation and presentation of Jesus, some indication of his special approval of priesthood to bolster their institution. In fact, we find the opposite.

NT priesthood

The New Testament knows nothing of a Christian sacerdotal class in contrast to a laity.
• The priests we find in the NT are the Jewish temple priests (except for the priest of Zeus in Acts14.13) who, apart from the reference to Zechariah in Lk 1.5 , are presented by the gospel writers as the opponents of Jesus- even conspiring to obtaining his death- and in Acts they continue to oppose the nascent Messianic movement. 
• Acts tells us that some Jewish priests joined the  movement, but there is no evidence they played any special priestly role in it (Acts 6:7). Surely this is not sufficient evidence for the institution of a Christian priesthood. According to Acts, the disciples and the early members of the movement in Jerusalem continued to observe the old order of the temple, clearly indicating that no new priestly order to supplant the temple priesthood had been created by Jesus either during his lifetime or immediately after. The Jewish priesthood came to an end during the Jewish revolt of 66-70 when many priests were slaughtered and the temple destroyed. 

In the New Testament, official priesthood (the agency to conciliate and mediate between God and the community) is found in Jerusalem; but believers in Jesus as the Messiah have started to see Jesus himself as the only one to hold that office (Hebrews). They also see themselves as believers sharing through Jesus this conciliation and mediation and thus forming a common priesthood of the community (1Pet. 2:5,9).

Christ the High Priest

Hebrews is the only and classic early Christian writing that deals with priesthood Christology. Hebrews is too long and complex to do it justice in a short article, so I will try here to highlight only the salient points  of the issue in hand.

Resurrection (13.20) and ascension (7.26) though not elaborated in the argument are certainly presupposed and form a basic background element of the presentation. They are the underlying factors supporting the analogical imagery of the highpriest going into the sanctuary to offer sacrifice. Jesus Christ is highpriest  by virtue of his entry into "the house of God", "the sanctuary not made with hands" (9.24; 10.19-21).

The priesthood of Christ is, together with the sonship, bestowed upon him by God "after the order of Melchisedek" (5.6,10; 6.20. using Ps 2.7; Ps109.4; Gen 14. ) thereby raising the dignity of Christ above that of the Levitical priesthood.  Christ's priesthood supplants that of the Levites.  Melchisedek is viewed by this author as without beginning or end and "as the Son of God he continues a priest for ever" (7.1-3).  He is superior to Abraham whom he blesses and to whom Abraham pays his tithes, and hence Levi's priesthood is inferior to Melchisedek's through the loins of his ancestor ( 7.4-10).  

Other factors of superiority include the following:
 1. The levitical priesthood was served by mortal priests; but Jesus is permanent, "he always lives to make intercession" (7.23-25).  Any human priesthood must therefore necessarily be inferior and useless.  
 2. Being "holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners"  (7.26), Jesus does not need to offer sacrifices for his own sins. No human sinner-priests are required or adequate- because they must offer for themselves.  
 3.  No daily sacrifices are required. Jesus "did this once for all when he offered up himself" (7.26-27).
 4. Now that the highpriest Jesus is "seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven", he has "entered once for all into the Holy Place" offering, not goats' and calves' blood, "but  his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption" (9.12f). He "has offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins" (10.12-14).  Any other priesthood is redundant. 

The whole point of the writing is the inadequacy and worthlessness of any sacrificial system on earth for now there is the perfect one in heaven. This author and his followers would have rejected any Christian priesthood carried out by mortal men; any attempt at instituting an earthly priesthood composed of men would have been diametrically opposed to their Christological belief. This clearly indicates that among these Christians there were no actual Christian priests nor would there have been any need for them.

Note that Hebrews does not mention the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and with it the demise of the priesthood not because it was written before this event but because for the author the fall of Jerusalem is a non-event of no importance;  the temple and its service had already been superseded by the Christ event. Some scholars argue for an earlier date saying that Hebrews would have mentioned the fall of Jerusalem if it had been written after the fall. For the author, the practice at the temple before the fall was not significant at all; in fact for his argumentation, he uses the ideal temple and priesthood from the perspective of the Old Testament writings and not from the actual practice of the corrupt Jewish priesthood of the first century. The main argument of the writing  focuses on the occurrence of the Christ event which rendered the continuance of the service at the temple a hollow service. The author felt no need to interpret the destruction of the temple as punishment for the Jews or as divine confirmation  of his thesis.

The Priesthood of the Community

In Rom 15.16, Paul describes his role in liturgical language: "to be a minister ( 'leiturgos' = 'cultic minister') of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, (so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit "). According to Paul's concept that Christian living is spiritual worship (Rom 12.1), he sees himself figuratively at the altar as priest of the Gospel and the offering he makes is not unblemished animals but the Gentile Community, human beings made a pure and acceptable offering by the Holy Spirit who dwells in them (Rom 8.9-11). In other words, by converting the Gentiles, he makes them acceptable to God. This passage in no way demonstrates any institution of priesthood. 

Apart from the Pauline passage above, the closest we come to a human priesthood among Christians in the NT  is in the concept of the 'priesthood of the community' in 1 Peter and Revelation.

In 1 Pet 2.5 and 9, the author invites his readers to join with Christ, the "living stone", and " like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (2.5). "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (2:9). The author pictures the community  as building a "spiritual house" (cf.also 4.17) and forming, corporately, a priesthood offering their lives as spiritual sacrifices. This concept is a departure from the Jewish concept of the temple, priesthood, and sacrifice. Here we have the community joined to Christ viewed as the temple, the priesthood, and the sacrifice, all one and the same. There is no separation between temple, priesthood, or sacrifice as in the Jewish system. With this author, this ecclesiology clearly obviates the need for an intermediary priest distinct from the "house" and the sacrifice.  Yet this does not exclude spiritual leaders. These leaders, however,  are not priests but  elders (1 Pet 5.1,5). The titles  in verse 9 are transferred from Israel to the community which expresses in its own way the concept of the 'New Israel': thus Ex 19.6 (LXX) "a royal priesthood and a holy nation", and Is 43.20,21 (LXX), "...to give drink to my chosen race, even my people whom I have preserved..."  They are 'royal' because they belong to the king who has chosen them as his special possession, and who through their lives show God's acts and share God's glory, "his marvelous light".

In Revelation, the concept of priesthood is again different  from that in 1 Peter.  In the introductory salutation by John to the seven communities of Asia, the author, (similar to 1 Peter) adopting the motifs of 'kingdom' and 'priests' from Ex19.16 and attributing them to his communities, sees these communities, freed from sin by the blood of Christ, as having been made "to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father," (Rev 1.6) . Yet according to the visionary and revelatory nature of this literature, the communities involved refer to the 'elect' when the Messianic kingdom is established and their priesthood and kingship will be manifested relatively to the Gentiles over whom they will reign. Thus Rev. 5:10,  "you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth"  and again Rev. 20:6,   "Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years."  Surely these passages afford no support to the priesthood as it developed later in the Church.

It is no wonder that the Christian human priest is missing in the NT.  The very early Judeo-Christians did not think of themselves as members of a new religion but as the true Israelites; hence, as long as the temple existed, many of them continued with the Jewish Temple service and had no problem with the temple sacrifices carried out by the Jewish priests. Staying within the Israelite religion their main difference from the non-Christian Jews was their belief in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. 
After the destruction of the temple, a theological upheaval occurred within Judaism, Messianic or not. Since the temple, the sacrifices, and the priesthood were gone, the Jews had to reassess the basis of their religion, which they did by focusing on the Torah and its teachers. Thus rabbinic Judaism started to take shape. The fall of Jerusalem affected Messianic Jews as well, and the more they developed their christology  and their new practices the more they separated themselves from the mother religion now rebuilding itself. Some interpreted the destruction of Jerusalem as punishment from God, as the pronouncements of Jesus against Jerusalem indicate; others did not, such as, the author of Hebrews. Some even developed a certain hostility towards the concept of an earthly temple and preferred the idea that "the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands" as shown in the speech of Stephen in Acts 7.48.

In conclusion, I add these last points.  The Christians both in Palestine and elsewhere were surrounded with the worship of the Graeco Roman religions, including emperor worship, carried out in the Gentile temples. This cultus, neither the Judeo-Christians nor the Gentile Christians were eager to adopt and/or imitate.  Indispensable features of the priesthood were the temple, the altar, and the sacrificial victim in both the Jewish and Gentile systems. These certainly did not obtain in the situation of  Christian house communities in the first century. Moreover, the majority of the early Gentile converts seem to have come from among the 'God fearers' i.e. people who were interested in and sympathetic to Judaism, many of whom were on the road to join as proselites  and, hence, were knowledgeable in Judaic matters. Therefore, these people would understand the development of Christianity as a priestless (i.e. earthly) religion  branching out of Judaism.

In the first century, in Judaism as in paganism, there were priests, but there were no priests within the various communities of the Messianic (i.e. Christian) movement. In the New Testament, priesthood belongs to Jesus Christ alone. The Messianic  communities share in this priesthood as communities, but priesthood does not apply to any individual or special group as distinguishable from the other non-priestly community members. 
 

Dr. Michael Zarb
Cobble Hill, B.C.