IT should ever be before the Christian’s sight that Christ Himself is the key to the mysteries of true Christianity. Were this principle more fixed in the minds of Christians, very much of the infidelity and the superstition of the day would have no place with them. The Lord is now risen from the dead, and ascended to glory on high, having been once slain, and from His position of glory the peculiar blessings of Christianity issue forth. Our present paper has for its subject the Christian priesthood, and we recognize what this really is, as we recognize the glories of Christ in His priesthood on high.
In the Jewish economy, God, in His sovereignty, called Aaron to the priesthood, and ordained that Aaron’s sons should be the priests in Israel; hence, such only as were descended from Aaron could minister before God, and for the people in the worship of God. Now the Son of God, by the oath of God, is consecrated High Priest for evermore (Heb. 7:2828For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore. (Hebrews 7:28)), and the Jewish priesthood is put aside. Christ is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister there of the sanctuary, which Jehovah Himself has made (8:1, 2) a holy place, worthy of Him whose honor it is to serve there. Wondrous, indeed, is the grace of God! For serving His people who are on earth, and being in God’s presence for them in heaven, is an honor to the Son of God.
The glory of the Son of God in His high priestly office, eclipses that of every other high priest, and the holy place in heaven itself, of God’s ordaining, in which Christ now ministers, occasions every earthly sanctuary to be but a mean thing. The old sanctuary in Israel was made of earthly things, after the pattern of heavenly things; the excellencies of its shadows consisted in the heavenly realities they portrayed. Now the crowns, the honors belong to God’s High Priest in heaven; the tiaras and the tinsel to manmade priests on earth. True Christianity does not concern itself with such earthly things as gold and jewels, but with heavenly realities.
As the family of the high priest of old formed the true priestly class on earth, so now that class is formed solely of the people of the High Priest above—Christ, the Lord. In Israel there was an inner circle, comprised of the Levites and the priests; in Christianity every one of Christ’s people is of the same circle, and is a priest to God. There can be no inner circle in true Christianity, since all of Christ’s people are, in Him, absolutely near to God. The whole company of those whom Christ has cleansed by His blood are a kingdom of priests to God and His Father, and they are priests by virtue of the work of Christ. “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (Rev. 1:5, 65And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, 6And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (Revelation 1:5‑6)). The people of God collectively are “an holy priesthood,” and “a royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:5, 95Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)
9But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: (1 Peter 2:9)), and they have, each one of them, “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” (Heb. 10:1919Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, (Hebrews 10:19)). Thus does the Holy Spirit of God use the inspired pens of John, Peter, and Paul to teach us who are of the Christian priesthood.
The glory of Christ in heaven in His present ministry in the presence of God for His people, is bound up with the truths of Christian priesthood, as also are the privileges and holy liberty of His people on earth in their worship.
We search the New Testament Scriptures in vain for the mention of any priestly class among Christians; indeed, the only priests there spoken of are Jewish or heathen, excepting, as we have observed, the whole company of true Christians. No man is a priest to God now, who is not washed by Jesus the Lord in His own blood, and whom Jesus the Lord has not Himself made a priest.
In Judaism the priests stood between God and the people, and were His divinely appointed agents to bring to God the sacrifices of the worshippers, but when, at the sacrifice of His Son, God rent the vail of the Temple, such service came to an end. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)), and now “through Him we both” (Jews and Gentiles) “have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” (Eph. 2:1818For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. (Ephesians 2:18)).
Before the establishment by God of a priesthood upon this earth, the heathen had priests, who, dwelling in their idol temples, engaged themselves with their mysteries.
These men stood aloof from the generality; they were venerated as having access to the gods, and were regarded with superstitious awe by the masses of their nation. The notion of a class being by virtue of their class holy men, is common all over the earth, but is refused by true Christianity.
Every evangelic minister of God rejects the assumption of a priestly class, and abhors the idea of a priest offering sacrifice to God to propitiate Him on behalf of sinful men, or of a priest standing between God and those who would approach Him. And we may say that no one, who knows that Christ died for him, and washed him from his sins in His own blood, and has made him a king and priest to God, His Father, could tolerate in his soul the assumption of a man standing between Him and God. No such freedman could bear the bondage of going to the priest instead of going direct to his God.
The present belief in the priestly class grew up in Christendom by degrees. Towards the close of the first century the pretension of the Christian ministry to direct sacerdotal claims was first asserted, and gradually the notion of a sacred order of men amongst Christians leavened Christianity. As individual piety waned, so the spirit of having a man’s religion conducted for him by another developed; as men’s souls grew in distance from God, so they were glad to have mediators and intermediaries in their religious services. By degrees the doctrines of, “Go to the holy man,” supplanted the gospel truth of “Go to the blessed God.” As time went on, tier above tier, arose the spiritual orders, each one higher and more important than the other, till the spiritual edifice was gradually reared, and, as this building grew, so were the spirits of the generality of Christians further and further removed from the early simplicity, and from God.
As an example of the enormous change that had come over the minds of Christians from that which existed in apostolic days we give the words of Cyprian (3rd century): “The bishop is in the church, and the church is in the bishop; and if anyone be not with the bishop, he is not in the church”—and also a quotation from a writing of the same period: “The bishop.... the mediator between God and you.... your king and governor, your earthly God.... As we may not address ourselves to Almighty God, but only by Christ, so let the laity make known all their desires to the bishop by the deacon, and let them act as he shall direct them.” Thus, early in the Christian era, were men made slaves of a class.
With the ascendency of Rome the power of the priests prevailed, and as Romish teachings grow, so does the idea of the priestly class hold men’s minds. It has been recognized for many years that, if a man be a priest, he is a holy man by virtue of his office, and that by that right he possesses powers of a spiritual kind. A priest, Rome teaches, even if he should be living in “deadly sin,” has ability to stand between God and man, and can obtain the ear of God!
Holiness becomes God’s house forever, and it is but the greater condemnation for a man who professes to be near God, to live in sin, while such an one cannot have the ear of God, or access to Him, since God is holy. If any Christian is living in sin, he is at a moral distance from God; any other thought is a reproach upon the very holiness of God Himself. Alas! then, for the cause of Christian morality, as the assumption of the priests increases in our land!
The Lord gives the simplest of His people a very easy rule for judging of a man’s spiritual pretensions: “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” (Matt. 7:1616Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (Matthew 7:16)). If the fruit be bad the tree must be bad, for a good tree does not bring forth corrupt fruit.
As we look back upon the times when the early simplicity of the Christian faith being no more, a class had risen up to hold men’s souls in their sway, we may trace immorality upon immorality, and cruelty upon cruelty, wickedness upon wickedness to that class. The murderers of God’s saints, the men who systematically prevented the word of God from reaching their ears, the men whose lives were often so horribly wicked that the world cried out against them, were of the class of the persecuting priests. The Waldenses in their day (about 1000 A.D.) rejected the common belief of Rome, they repudiated image-worship, declared the mass to be an abomination, the host an idol, and purgatory a fable. These men were tortured and slain in Spain, in France, and in Germany, and, under the leadership of priests, fagots were lighted at the entrance of caves into which they had fled, and men, women, and children suffocated.
Time would fail to record a thousandth part of the slaughter, at the hands of the persecuting priests, of faithful Christians for the crime of believing God’s word; for very rivers of the blood of Christian men have flowed in Christendom. Were the slaughterers heathen we should not be surprised, but when we know that these men of blood called themselves the priests of God, we are aghast with horror. We judge them by their fruits, and, whatever their pretensions to holiness, their corrupt fruit witnesses to their real character.
The most marvelous system of cruelty that Christendom ever knew, and one which surely out vies every system of pagan cruelty, is that of the inquisition— “the Holy Inquisition,” as it is called. About the year 1200, terrible powers were delegated to the inquisitors both by popes and kings. Woe to such as read the Bible, or possessed the Book in their native tongue, and woe to the Jew in whose hands was the Talmud! No hope, no mercy was to be bought or received from the inquisitors. The wretched victim of their spleen would be shut up in a dark dungeon, and with scarce food enough to keep him alive, and, if he did not confess to the charges, true or untrue, brought against him, he would be tortured, while, if he did confess, he would be slain. Never was such a tyranny of darkness as that of the inquisition, conducted by men calling themselves the priests of God.
Let us picture to ourselves one of the scenes of horror of the inquisition, called an Act of Faith—an “Auto da Fé.”
It is the country of Spain, in 1683. The royal court has assembled, and the glory of the kingdom is present to witness the torture and the death of the victims of the inquisition. The officers of the inquisition, preceded by their banner, kettle drums, and trumpets, arrive, and the inhabitants of Madrid, dressed in their best, are in great excitement to see the show. A hundred poor creatures, or more, are to be destroyed or degraded, some are to be burned, others are to be scourged. Now the nobles of great Spain descend to the executioner’s work; they lead the victims to be burned, and bind them with thick cords to the stakes.
Amongst these is a Jewish maiden of seventeen years of age, a girl of remarkable beauty. From the scaffold, where she is bound, she looks upon the queen, and appeals to her majesty, whose canopy is close beside her: “Great queen, will not your royal presence be of some service to me in my miserable condition? Have regard to my youth, and oh! consider that I am about to die for professing a religion imbibed from my earliest infancy!” But the queen dares not say a word, for the girl has been declared a heretic by the inquisition.
Now mass is celebrated, and the chief inquisitor bowing to the altar, and with the gospels of God’s mercy to man in his hands, and with a cross borne before him—emblem of the dying love of Jesus for His enemies—demands of the king the oath to destroy all heretics. And the slave of the priests, the King of Spain, bareheaded, takes the oath, and thus the scene of blood begins.
Of the twenty-one men and women then burned, some thrust their hands and feet into the flames as if unmoved by the torture, and the rest of them died with perfect resolution.
Our comment on these deeds of darkness, perpetrated in His name, shall be Christ’s words, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
We pass over some six hundred years, and come to the enlightened days of our own century. In 1809, part of the great Napoleon’s army was stationed at Madrid, and one of his generals forced his way into the building of the Holy Inquisition. Discovering a secret passage, they descended into a large square room, called the Hall of Judgment, in the center of which stood a large block with a chain fastened to it. Chained to this block the accused had to sit, with the throne of judgment and the raised seats of the holy fathers around him.
Leading off from this hall were cells, in which many a wretch still lived. All chained down, all naked, and some but children of ten years of age, and some men and women of seventy.
Again, the explorers discovered other chambers—these were the places of torture, and in them were the instruments of cruelty, some for breaking every bone of the body, some for tearing the flesh into ten thousand fragments. Perhaps, the most ghastly of these was the Virgin—a large figure richly dressed, and having the appearance of a beautiful woman, with outstretched arms. The victim was driven up to this figure, and when he closely approached it, it opened, seized him, and a thousand knives cut him into as many pieces.
It may be urged times have changed, and that we live in very different days. But men’s hearts have not changed, and the priests of Rome have not changed. Even in our own land such as so closely follow their steps, tell us to our faces, that the sword should be used against the people who will not obey them! We may be assured that the special class of persecuting priests, which has persecuted for hundreds of years, will persecute again if they get the opportunity.
So recently as the year 1883, a Spanish newspaper, referring to the burning of a large number of Gospels by order of the Government, thus writes: “Thank God, at last we have turned towards the times, when heretical doctrines are persecuted as they should be.... Catholic Barcelona.... has had the very great pleasure of witnessing an ‘Auto da Fé,’ in the last part of this century ... There is but a step between this event, which we now record, and the setting up of the Holy Inquisition. The re-establishment of the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition must soon take place. Its reign will be more glorious and fruitful in results than in the past.... Our Catholic heart overflows with faith and enthusiasm....What a day of pleasure will that be for us when we see freemasons, spiritualists, freethinkers, and anti-clericals writhing in the flames of the Inquisition.”