Articles
A Kingdom of Priests
"Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel" (Exod 19:5-6).
What did it mean when God says Israel would be a kingdom of priests? To understand this, we need to first understand that the main job of a priest was to act as a mediator between God and man. Priests would offer sacrifices on behalf of man to God (Heb 5:1), pronounce blessing on the people (Num 6:22-27), and teach the people the words of God (Lev 10:11).
When God told Israel they would be a "kingdom of priests," they already had priests within their nation (Exod 19:22, 24). God had already determined that Aaron and his sons would be priests in Israel (Exod 28:1, 4, 41). It is a mistake to assume (as some do) that "priesthood" is something God immediately took away from Israel and limited to the Levites. Rather, what is going on here is that there are actually two distinct acts of mediation taking place. The Aaronic priests are the mediators for God and the nation of Israel. But Israel as a whole is also envisioned as a nation that acts as a mediator for the world at large.
How did Israel act as mediator for the world? How did they help bring the nations to God? Here are some suggestions:
- Israel was supposed to be an instructive example of holiness
"The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you" (Deut 28:9-10).
This feature of Israel's "priesthood" explains the conditional nature of God's promise in Exod 19:5-6. The people cannot truly fulfill the instructional role of priest for the nations unless they actually keep the commandments themselves. Keeping the commands of God would help the nations realize the wisdom of Israel's God (Deut 4:6).
- Israel was supposed to intercede for the world with prayer and sacrifice
Examples of Israel interceding on behalf of Gentiles are sparse, but there are several in Scripture. The earliest actually comes from before Israel was a nation, when Abraham was seen praying for the pagan king Abimelech (Gen 20:7, 17). In the land of Egypt, Moses has to pray on behalf of wicked Pharaoh to remove various plagues (Exod 8:28-30; 9:28; 10:17). Even though Pharaoh hates Moses and refuses many of his requests, he still strangely treats Moses as a priest who can bridge the communication gap between himself and Yahweh. When Solomon dedicated the temple, he prayed on behalf of foreigners (1 Kgs 8:41-43; 2 Chr 6:32-33). Even after the exile, when Israel is subjugated, one of the assumptions of the Persian king Darius was that the people of Israel would offer sacrifices and pray on behalf of his life (Ezra 6:9-10). The point of all of this is to show that Israelites were long available in the OT to play a "priestly" intercessory role for outsider Gentiles.
- Israel was supposed to fulfill God's promises by bringing the Messiah into the world
God had previously promised to Abraham (Gen 12:3; 22:18), Isaac (Gen 26:4), and Jacob (Gen 28:14). Paul makes the point that Israel had been "entrusted with the oracles of God" (Rom 3:2). While this can refer to their preservation of God's inspired word in the OT scriptures, it can also refer to their unique position in relation to the promises of those oracles. As God's servant, Israel was supposed to be a "light to the nations" (Isa 42:6; 49:6). Yet the NT sees this promise as ultimately fulfilled in Jesus—a "light for the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32; Acts 13:47). That "light of the world" (cf. John 8:12) which Israel was supposed to set up for all other nations is ultimately realized in Jesus, who came into this world through Israel.
Today, we are part of the spiritual Israel. The Scripture now exhorts us saying, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Pet 2:9). Having been grafted into Israel, we now serve as a kingdom of priests (cf. Rev 1:6). As Israel was supposed to be an example of holiness, so we must be. As Israel was to intercede for the world with prayer, so we must do (cf. 1 Tim 2:1-4). And as Israel was meant to bring the light of Christ into the world, so Christ charges us to take his light into all the world. May we proclaim his excellencies! May we fulfill our role as a kingdom of priests!
