[Gottesblog] "On the Priesthood" – Larry Beane

On the Priesthood

By Larry Beane,

 

Those who read theology from the first fifteen hundred years of the church will find the office of the ministry referred to as the “priesthood.” In fact, I theologically appropriated the title of this post from St. John Chrysostom, whose book is still studied in seminaries. The book is about the pastoral office, not about the priesthood of all believers.

Obviously, the words “priest” and “priesthood” are nuanced and require context.

For example, ministers of Pagan religions are often called priests. Mormons and Freemasons use the term “priesthood.” Within Christianity, laymen of both sexes are also called priests. To this day, not only Roman Catholic pastors, but also ministers in the Anglican and Orthodox communions are called priests.

Some Protestants - and even some Lutherans - argue that the Old Testament Church had priests, but in the New Testament, all believers are priests - thus drawing an equivalency between the clergy and the laity. The proof text of this neo-Marcionite understanding of the “priesthood of believers” is 1 Peter 2:9:

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.

The Greek translated as “royal priesthood” is “βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα.”

The Old Testament people of God are described in our English translations not as a “royal priesthood,” but rather as a “kingdom of priests” - as in Exodus 19:6, in which God directs Moses:

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.”

However, what is often unnoticed or unspoken is the fact that the Septuagint renders the expression “kingdom of priests” as “βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα”!

So it isn’t like St. Peter has created a new category of lay-priests for the New Testament Church. Rather, He is quoting Moses in Exodus 19 and applying it to the saints of the New Testament. In other words, even in the Old Testament, where Aaronic and Levitical priests held a priesthood distinct from the laity, nevertheless, even in Israel, there was a priesthood of all believers. And yet this universal priesthood did not negate the priesthood of the called and ordained ministers who were set apart by their vocation of service.

St. Paul speaks of his service in the Holy Ministry to the Gentiles as “the priestly service (Greek: ἱερουργοῦντα) of the gospel of God” (Romans 15:16).

The most commonly used word to describe one in the Office of the Holy Ministry in our Book of Concord is “priest.” And this is not merely the acceptance of the term to describe the Roman clergy, as many people claim. The expression “our priests” - meaning Lutheran priests - is found in the Augsburg Confession in Articles 23 and 24, and in the Apology in Article 14.

Some people argue that the Lutherans stopped using the term “priest” by the time of the Formula of Concord. But this is simply not true. One of the voluminous examples can be found in a recent Gottesblogpost quoting a 1616 order from a margrave regarding the conduct of the liturgy by Lutheran priests.

Some of the objection to the term has to do with the association of priesthood with sacrifice. But there is certainly a sense in which all Christians - including the clergy - offer sacrifices. Of course, these are not propitious sacrifices, not the shedding of blood as an atonement. But these are sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise, what our Book of Concord refers to as Eucharistic sacrifices. In Romans 12:1, St. Paul speaks of Christians offering themselves as “living sacrifices.”

In Lutheran church bodies where the traditional order of clergy has been retained: bishop, priest, and deacon, the term “priest” is obviously more common. You will find this in the Scandinavian, African, Baltic, Indian, and Russian Lutheran churches. This nomenclature even appears in the LCMS Reporter in an article that mentions “Swedish Lutheran priests.” It should be noted that maintaining the traditional church order of bishops, priests, and deacons was the explicit preference of the reformers, and it is stated as such in the Book of Concord (Apology 14:24):

The Fourteenth Article, in which we say that in the Church the administration of the Sacraments and Word ought to be allowed no one unless he be rightly called, they receive, but with the proviso that we employ canonical ordination. Concerning this subject we have frequently testified in this assembly that it is our greatest wish to maintain church-polity and the grades in the Church [old church-regulations and the government of bishops], even though they have been made by human authority [provided the bishops allow our doctrine and receive our priests]. For we know that church discipline was instituted by the Fathers, in the manner laid down in the ancient canons, with a good and useful intention.

I find it a distracting innovation for some modern LCMS writers to refer to the laity as the “priesthood” and the clergy as something else. It is as though in the Lutheran confession, a man is defrocked from the priesthood upon ordination. These kinds of severances from our past - both post- and pre-Reformation - give the impression that we are sectarian, or at least that we align ourselves with the radical reformation rather than the catholic chain of continuity that links us back to the apostles and to our Lord Himself.

We should not try to exert a Lutheran distinction just for the sake of it, especially when the overwhelming theme of the Book of Concord is to make the case that we are Catholic Christians in continuity from the early Church and not an innovative heresy. We don’t make that case every well when we insist on shunning the traditional terminology that Book of Concord employs.

As is typical with our Symbols, the Apology delivers the right balance between distinguishing our theology from that of our Roman Catholic adversaries, while not throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the manner of our Protestant adversaries:

“They are accordingly called priests, not in order to make any sacrifices for the people as in the Law, so that by these they may merit remission of sins for the people; but they are called to teach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments to the people.

Nor do we have another priesthood like the Levitical, as the Epistle to the Hebrews sufficiently teaches. But if ordination be understood as applying to the ministry of the Word, we are not unwilling to call ordination a sacrament. For the ministry of the Word has God’s command and glorious promises, Rom. 1:16: The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Likewise, Is. 55:11: So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.

If ordination be understood in this way, neither will we refuse to call the imposition of hands a sacrament. For the Church has the command to appoint ministers, which should be most pleasing to us, because we know that God approves this ministry, and is present in the ministry [that God will preach and work through men and those who have been chosen by men].

And it is of advantage, so far as can be done, to adorn the ministry of the Word with every kind of praise against fanatical men, who dream that the Holy Ghost is given not through the Word, but because of certain preparations of their own, if they sit unoccupied and silent in obscure places, waiting for illumination, as the Enthusiasts formerly taught, and the Anabaptists now teach.”

— APOLOGY 13:9-13