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Sermon preached at
The American College Chapel
On October 3, 2004
Half a millennium ago, a German monk named Martin Luther started a two-fold revolution in ministry. (1) He rejected the authority of the Pope over other bishops, and (2) he also rejected the ascetic ideal of monastic life. Though initially the whole gesture was meant only as an academic exercise, and not as a war on Rome, Luther later moved far beyond mere criticisms of church abuses. He now believed that man’s only path to salvation lay through faith, rather than through pilgrimages, prayers to saints, and the purchase of indulgences.
Luther argued that no real salvation could be had second-hand, through the intercession of others.
On October 31, 1517, Luther, nailed his Ninety-five theses to the great door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Each stroke of his hammer echoed through the corridors of the great stone edifice and also reverberated through the recesses of the hollow heart of a decadent church.
The Ninety-Five Theses were aimed at the very destruction of the Roman Catholic priesthood, which stood between believers and their God.
Over many years a 'priesthood' had grown up in the Roman Catholic Church that had come between the ordinary Christian and God. Most people believed that no one could come to God except through that priesthood. When Luther emphasized that Christians were saved 'by faith alone' without any work by man, it aimed a blow not only at Salvation by Works, but at the whole idea of priesthood. He challenged the authority of the pope and replaced it with the authority of the Bible.
Like a lion, Luther roared against the pretensions and tyranny of the whole priestly class, especially in the 36th and 37th theses: 'Every truly contrite Christian has plenary (complete) remission from punishment and guilt due to him, even without letters of pardon. Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has a share given to him by God in all the benefits of Christ and the Church, even without letters of pardon.’
Luther insisted that everyone who trusts in Jesus Christ is a priest… The Church on the other hand taught that there is no salvation outside of the priesthood's mediatorial function, and no person by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ may approach the Father with confidence!
The sacerdotalism of the Roman Catholic Church began in the third century, especially by Cyprian (d. 258), Bishop of Carthage. Cyprian treated "all the passages in the Old Testament which refer to the privileges, the sanctions, the duties, and the responsibilities of the Aaronic priesthood, as applying to the officers of the Christian Church." He completely failed to grasp the central thesis of the Epistle to the Hebrews. He was blind to the fact that "the only High Priest under the Gospel recognized by the apostolic writings, is our Lord Himself"
In the Middle Ages, religion became the basis of European civilization. Bishops and abbots were great landholding Lords. Every village had its church. The clergy had their own courts. The most advanced form of government was that of the pope. The Church was doing a good work while at the same time becoming very rich and powerful too. But the Europe of the later Middle Ages knew only a decadent church that was becoming more unchristian. Rome lost much of its spiritual authority when it became just another Italian state, and the pope another Italian ruler intent on extending his lands and filling his purse. There is no denial of the fact that there were many good abbots and monks. But there were also some wolves in sheepskin. There could be no respect for a man like the Borgia Alexander VI, pope from 1492 to 1503, who kept mistresses, fathered illegitimate children, had his enemies murdered and said after he had bribed his way to the papal throne: ‘God has given us the papacy; let us enjoy it.’ Unscrupulous priests squeezed money out of gullible people by exhibiting what were supposed to be the miracle-working relics of saints, but in some cases at least were simply collection of animal bones.
The Church of the later Middle Ages presented the picture of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones. Well might one have asked: Can these dry bones live?
The time was at hand when a man would appear, at whose mighty voice, the dry bones would stir. Yes, Martin Luther, the German Hercules, was that man at whose voice the dry bones of the church stirred.
The Protestant Reformation that he championed, was strengthened by the European Renaissance. The spirit of questioning that marked the Renaissance was directed finally against what had been the highest authority in medieval Europe – The Universal Church. Even by about 1500 A.D. several Northern Renaissance Humanists suggested that the Roman Catholic Church had lost sight of the spiritual mission proclaimed by Jesus. Instead of setting an example of moral leadership, they said, the popes acted as political leaders and warriors. Instead of encouraging inner piety, priests concerned themselves with the details of ceremonies. Ritualism numbed the ethical passion of primitive Christianity. Christian ethics became churchly ethics. The church substituted itself for the kingdom of God. By that substitution it absorbed all the spiritual energies.
So, one of the things about Christians that was 'rediscovered' at the Reformation was the 'Priesthood of All Believers'.
The biblical doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is found throughout the Scriptures (Ex. 19:6; Hos. 14:2; Ps. 50:23; Ps. 51:17-19; Ps. 141:2; 1 Pet. 2:5-9; Heb. 13:10-16) and it was practiced in the early church. As Dr. R. Laird Harris, a biblical scholar, writes, "First century Christianity had no priests. The New Testament nowhere uses the word to describe a leader in Christian service.”
The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ annulled the Aaronic priesthood, as we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers opposes the unbiblical doctrine of sacerdotalism and the existence of a Brahmin-like priestly class within the church. When Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg, he was declaring war against the idea that salvation was mediated through the priesthood via the sacraments. His theses were anti-sacerdotalistic1 and spoke against the theology that supernatural life could be created through baptism, brought to growth by confirmation, nourished by the Mass, and healed of all diseases by penance and extreme unction. Luther rejected the idea that through sacraments a priest could control an individual's life both here and hereafter. I have good news too.
The good news is that many Catholic scholars now think Luther was right and the 16th century Catholic polemicists (those who argue) did not understand what he meant. Vatican II (1962 – 1965) accepted Luther’s contention, that in a sense, all believers are priests; and though the council left the Roman church’s hierarchy intact, it enhanced the role of the laity. More important, the council moved the Bible to the center of Catholic life and urged continual reform.
"The purpose of the church should not be to bring men into subjection to the church, but rather to train them into a royal priesthood capable of bringing the world into subjection to Christ the King . . ..
The church whether Catholic or Protestant has by and large paid lip service to the New Testament doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, because its hierarchy has distrusted the implications of the doctrine, and because it has seen the church as an end in itself, not as an instrument." For us too, our calling to be the followers of Christ, many a times, begins and ends with church services like this one.
Ministry simply means service, an act of help or assistance. In the New Testament, it is understood as the right and responsibility of the whole people of God. The word for ministry or service is diakonia. It is a great New Testament word, which calls the church to a life of servanthood. As Christians we are all expected to be in the ministry, not just the clergy alone.
The priesthood of all believers is one of the three foundation truths in the New Testament; the other two being the gifts of the Spirit and the example of Jesus Christ.
Peter in his First epistle, chapter 2, verse 5 writes that believers corporately are ‘being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ’. The church is ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood….’
According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the Church’s great High Priest. Through Christ’s priestly work, all believers are made God’s priests. We all have a priestly service to bring.
This means three things:
1. All believers have direct access to God.
2. Christians are priests to each other, that is, drawing one another closer to God.
3. Believers are God’s priests in the world. As priests, believers present God to the world and gather up the world’s concerns and present them to God.
Even the Protestant world soon forgot the implication of a universal priesthood of believers and there is every evidence that many of us are treading on the same dangerous ground. Because we have lost sight of this concept of the church we have forsaken the ideal of the Master for our lives. He said, "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." But the sons of God now come, not to minister, but to be ministered unto. The result is that the saints are no longer participants in the arena but spectators in the grandstand. The pulpit has become the sacred precinct of a professional dramatist and resembles the stage for a polished performance rather than a speaker's stand for sharing one’s life and experience to others of like faith.
Thus the congregation is spoon-fed for years and never learns to feed itself. The fact is that we are delivering babies who never intend to grow, enrolling students who never intend to graduate, enlisting soldiers who never intend to fight, and registering racers who never intend to run. Our motto has become "There he is Lord, send him!" The Ship of Zion is no longer manned by a volunteer crew working for sheer love of the Captain, but is steered by a pilot and an assistant pilot, while the remainder are paying passengers who are going along for the ride and complaining as they go.
It is astounding how much dead weight there is in the average congregation. Dead timber produces no fruit and dead weight must be dragged along. Somewhere along the way we have missed the very essence of the Christian concept and the result is I would say that we have the greatest accumulation of unused talent and the richest deposit of spiritual energy of any group of people on earth. We may not be guilty of untouchability but what about untouched ability? According to the word of God, our greatest source of power is not in the class of men and women who are permitted or ordained by the church to become priests, but is in the lives of those in the pews. Reformation was a call to discover and utilize that tremendous power residing in the priesthood of all believers.
The First Epistle of Peter, chapter 2, verse 9 says,
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, and a people claimed by God for his own, to proclaim the triumphs of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light….
My last word on this theme is: The word of God knows nothing of a clergyman or layman.
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Lesson 1: Exodus 19: 1-6
Lesson 2: Hebrews 4: 14-16