Here are given injunctions for securing holiness in the Aaronic priesthood. They are of course of a fleshly sort like the priests themselves; but as usual they shadow better things, when Christ came the High priest of good things to come; then the priesthood being changed, there was made of necessity a change also of the law.
“1 And Jehovah said to Moses, Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, There shall none defile himself for a dead one (soul) among his peoples, 2 except for his kin that is near to him—for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother; 3 and for his sister a virgin, that is near to him, who hath had no husband, for her he may defile himself. 4 He shall not make himself unclean, [being] a chief among his peoples, to profane himself. 5 They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh. 6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God; for they offer the fire-offerings of Jehovah, the bread of their God; therefore shall they be holy. They shall not take to wife a harlot or one dishonored; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband; for he is holy to his God. 8 And thou shalt sanctify him; for the bread of thy God he offereth; he shall be holy to thee; for I, Jehovah, who sanctify you, am holy. And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the harlot, she profaneth her father; she shall be burnt with fire” (vers. 1-9).
As duties flow from relationships, so do the first rise according to the second. It was because the sons of Aaron were priests and entered into the sanctuary as no ordinary Israelite could, that these ordinances were imposed on the sacerdotal family. For the first of all obligations is to God, who gives added weight to all the rest. Hence as God was unknown to the heathen, their ethics (and they are the moral code of philosophers to this day) were fundamentally defective. Israel too, being under law, might pursue but could not attain, just because it was “a law” of righteousness they pursued. It was of works, not of faith. Law works out, not love, but wrath. Therefore says the apostle, unlike those of faith, such as are of law-works are under the curse, instead of being blessed with the faithful Abraham. But the Christian has now (as the same apostle intimates in Rom. 4) the great advantage over even him, that Abraham did not go beyond promise, for no more then could be. He was fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to perform; wherefore also it was accounted to him for righteousness. But we believe on Him that raised from out of the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised for our justification. The gospel is not mere promise but accomplishment, which much enhances the grace that is now enjoyed by faith.
We see then that the priest must not defile himself by approach to death, save for the near of kin which were carefully defined. Others might incur the effect; lint it was not compatible with such as drew near to Gods presence, the living God. For his immediate relation, he might defile himself: this the law suffered (2-4), for it made nothing perfect. But they must not, like the heathen, make baldness upon their head, nor shave off the corner of the beard, nor cut into their flesh, as those did who had no hope. God was in none of their thoughts which were ruled by demons, and these last excesses were forbidden to Israelites in general. They profaned the name of their God, and were intolerable in those who presented the fire-offerings of Jehovah, the bread of their God as He graciously called them.
But some living ones were also forbidden to the priests: a harlot, a dishonored woman under a cloud, or one put away. Whatever wives might be for others, the priest was holy to his God. And Moses was charged to sanctify him, as the highest authority in Israel: so his estimation was required in Lev. 27:2, 4. His fellows might be too flexible in such exigencies.
There was another possibility provided against: the priest's daughter might profane not herself only but her father by playing the harlot. This drew out the terrible doom of burning her with fire. Jehovah is not mocked but sanctified in those that are near Him. It is divine government for those under law.
Now the only priests Christianity recognizes are the confessors of Christ. They are a holy and a royal priesthood. The Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts them in the use of more than Aaronic privilege, as do the apostles John and Peter. It is the unbelieving pride of theology to apply priesthood to the gifts of Christ or to local charges as elders. Not once do we find this in the N. T. which in spirit and letter so designates every Christian. There is no such application to ministers in the word. Their function from God is to preach to the world, or to teach the saints. Priests have the wholly distinct place of drawing near to God in prayer and praise, offering up “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” They are therefore bound to keep clear of spiritual death, and leave the dead to bury their dead. They are to reckon themselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus, their consciences purified from dead works for religious service of a living God. Christ is now their life who by His death and resurrection gives them the victory. All things are theirs, not life only but death, things present and things to come. Even Christ's judgment-seat has no terror for them, but awakens earnest pity and zeal to persuade the perishing for whom they know how awful it will be, unless they repent and believe the gospel.
But the Jewish priests of old, the sons of Aaron, were the enemies of the Lord beyond the infatuated people; they and the voices of the chief priests prevailed against the less hardened and heathen Pilate. They are now broken off the olive tree and have lost their standing till mercy work their revival at the close. Hence as there is the setting aside of the commandment going before for its weakness and unprofitableness, the way lay open for the introduction of a better hope, through which we draw nigh to God. Christians exclusively are priests now by virtue of Christ's work and God's call. To make ministers such, and even of a higher grade, is ominously like the gainsaying of Korah: the presumption of the Levite to take the place of the Great Priest. As priests are we called of God, not to uncleanness in any way or degree, but in sanctification as the condition that characterizes the partakers of a heavenly calling.