Stage 2: Ministry from Within

The Lord begins the plan of redemption—the Levitical priesthood.

In the Old Testament, God prepares to introduce His King, setting the stage for the redemption of earth. He begins with Abraham, through whose offspring He intends to recover the planet and bless all its nations (see Genesis 17). But His chosen people—the children of Israel—wind up enslaved in Egypt. He then summons Moses, using him to deliver Israel, and declares His desire to make Israel "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6).

God's original intent was that all Israel would be "priests." This plan was short-circuited, however, when the people rebelled against Moses' leadership following the fashioning of the golden calf. Only the Levites stood by Moses. As a result of this key incident, priesthood in the nation of Israel became restricted to this one tribe (see Exodus 32). (By the way, we should not give the Levites too much credit for their loyalty on this occasion, since they were prompted mostly by tribal affiliation to Moses.)

In the New Testament, we learn that Jesus desires for all those who name Him their Lord to be His ministering "priests." In an interesting parallel of the Old Testament experience, Church tradition singles out the "priesthood" as a select few. So instead of all the people of God reaching out to minister to the world, we end up with a segment of the Church ministering to itself—just as the priests of Israel ministered only to Israel.

Yet look at what the Scriptures say about the Church serving as ministering agents of Jesus Christ: "To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (Revelation 1:5-6, emphasis added).

Some people take these verses to mean that we will reign on earth when Jesus returns. But John is speaking in the past tense: The text says that "He loved us and washed us"—and we know this has already happened. Then John says, "He has made us kings and priests"—again, the tense of the verb indicates that this has already happened. We are His kings (who have dominion) and His priests (who worship) now. (This is not to discount the millennial rule; simply speaking, we do not have to rule all the earth to rule some of it.)