To Which Priestly Order Do Christians Belong….Levitical or Melchizedek?
June 22, 2008 6 Comments
We had a guest speaker at church this morning. One of the things that he said caught my attention. It was nothing that was heretical or that could cause disention. In fact, I wonder if I might have been the only person to take notice of it. He was discussing the priesthood of believers. So what did he say to inspire this post? He said that believers were of the Levitical priestly order.
I whole heartedly believe in the priesthood of all believers. I have been under the impression that believers were under the same order as Jesus. Hebrews 5:5-6 says “So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; (6) as he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” Since we are adopted siblings of Jesus I have always assumed that we are also adopted into His priestly order. I have not done any research into this topic so I could be wrong.
Do you know which priestly order believers are part of? If so, which and what is your reasoning/
The Everyday Christian 
I agree with you: we are united with THE Priest, Christ Jesus, and we represent Him (2 Cor. 5). Those of the Levitical priesthood were Jewish, right? I hardly see how that applies to Gentile Christians. What were his proof texts, and what was his point?
God bless,
Billy
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Billy,
He gave no proof texts. He said it matter of factly. When he first said it I had the thought that he might have misspoken but now I don’t think that was the case. It seemed that he assumed this statement was fact. I don’t think he was trying to mislead anyone.
I thought about asking him about it (in a nice way) after the sermon but decided not to. Had it been my pastor who said it I would have but this was someone who was a guest in our church and it was not worth chancing the question being taken wrongly.
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Not to stray from your question, but Baptists are notorious for using the “Priesthood of the Believer” doctrine to argue that no one can tell them what to believe. Actually the doctrine, biblically, is about serving the Lord and it’s hard to find any connection to the commonly held viewpoint. I’m curious what the context of his comments were.
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Brett,
Unfortunatley, I do not remember the entire context. He started in Luke and jumped around a bit during the sermon. I do remember that he was not using the priesthood of the believer doctrine to say that no one could tell another person what to believe.
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Tom,
Melchizedek Priesthood was first, then the priesthood was handed over by Christ to the Levites to establish the human representation of God through man. This human priesthood would represent God much in a way a minister represents God. This was abolished after Christ came, died and was resurrected again to “the order of Melchizedek.” So true christians we know are “of the body of Christ” or spiritual Israel. That much is at the least safe to say, but it goes to make sense that Christians – they whom lives are hid in Christ are of the same order of Christ – Gal 2:20 “I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me…” Christ does have his human assistants, yet only He alone can make intercession on our part. Not so sure that we could be considered on the order of Melchizedek as this might imply spiritual rather than of the order of Melchizedek. Interesting question!
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James,
I am afraid I must disagree with you a bit. Nowhere that I am aware of does it say the Christ handed over the priesthood. God did create the Levitical priestly order when He gave the Israelites the Law of Moses. They were to serve as intercessors for the Israelites. There were also limitations on their office. They were priests only while Melchizedek was prophet, priest, and king. Jesus came as prophet, priest, and king.
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