THE DEVELOPMENT OF WHAT IS PRIESTLY

J. Wright

Romans 5: 5; 6: 19–22; 7: 4, 22–25; 8: 1–4, 14, 15; 12: 1, 2

I just desire, beloved brethren, to say a word on what is priestly. There has been an emphasis in this meeting on our households and I believe it is important that in every sphere of life there is with us the element of priesthood and its development; that is, that holy conditions are maintained. The maintenance of holy conditions for God is a matter of vital importance in the world in which we are. Firstly in relation to our own bodies, then in relation to our households and then in relation to the assembly. This epistle develops the features of priestliness or what is spiritual and it is not outside the reach of any believer having the Spirit.

Every believer who has the Spirit of God is a priest. But then it is a question of whether I am priestly and whether priestly sensibilities are developed with me. One who loves and serves God is priestly. The spring of it all is love and the wonderful thing is that we can be conscious of God’s love.

What God is toward us is brought out in this epistle. This is the teaching of the gospel for believers. We never get away from the gospel, what God is towards us, and it is the way God secures the heart of the believer. He secures it by shedding abroad by the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer the love of God. It is the conscious enjoyment of that love. Mr. Raven said that he found it a full-time job judging himself and enjoying God’s love. Our brother and sister know something of that, and I am encouraged because l believe that in them there are priestly features. They need to be maintained, and they need to be developed with each one of us.

Romans 6 shows that the development of holiness with us is a practical matter, in the way that our members are yielded to God as instruments of righteousness and in practical righteousness the feature of holiness is developed. It cannot be apart from that. The believer sets himself in that way, light comes into his soul as to God and the members of his body that at one time were yielded to sin, are now yielded to God. So that Paul says here, “But now, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”. What is there going to be for God? It is what the believer acquires in this sense, “ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”. It is what God in His goodness will provide for us; the ultimate which God has for us in a sense is eternal life, that is the enjoyment of life in a sphere of things which is beyond death but which can be known and experienced now. Well these exercises in Romans 6, 7 and 8 are the development of priestly sensibilities—to begin to think for God, to be free from sin; to be free from the world to serve God.

These exercises are intensified in Romans 7 but I was thinking of the marriage bond. Our brother and sister have entered today into the marriage bond, it is not a bond that they had together before, although they had affection for one another. I was struck in what they said, having entered the marriage bond, that they would love and support one another. Well, beloved brethren, it is a great thing to have a marriage bond with Christ Himself, the new Husband, to enter into that, to be faithful to our committal to Christ, “to be to another”. “So that, my brethren, ye also have been made dead to the law”; that is the law as a legal system.

A priestly person does not get away from the thought of law, the spiritual side of the law. But we “have been made dead to the law”—that is the law as a legal system making its demands which we cannot meet—“by the body of the Christ”. That is, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, has gone into death that we might be free from the law and its legal demands upon us. But it says, “to be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God”. I think that the fruit to God is seen in spiritual persons, priestly persons, who consider for God. What a Husband we have. One who loves us! He never ceases to love us. What a blessed thing it is to have this link with Christ, and to have a resource in Him! He will support us while we are on the line of committal to God, desiring to do His will and not going our own way. He has been raised up from among the dead and He will support and strengthen us with His priestly service; He will ever remain true to it. Of course, He could not support us if we go a self-willed way, if we turn aside from Him. He would not support us in that. But however weak we feel, if we are committed to Him and committed to God’s interests He will support us and strengthen us.

So at the end of this chapter there is one who says, “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man”. There is brought about in the believer something corresponding to Christ, the One who could say, “thy law is within my heart”, Psalm 40: 8. We do not get away, beloved brethren, from the thought of law, and in our path and course here we are to be governed by it. I delight in it, “the law of God according to the inward man”. It is something which the believer delights in. Of course in this chapter he finds that he has not the strength in himself to fulfil it and that brings him to dependence on the blessed Holy Spirit. We are dependent upon Him for fulfilling righteousness. As we have been taught, the fulfilling of righteousness is ‘the filling out in integrity of every divinely appointed relationship’—our relationship with God and our relationship with one another. Our brother and sister have entered into a new relationship today as husband and wife and they will need the Spirit’s help for filling that out in integrity. The Spirit will help them as they depend upon Him and as they desire to do what is right.

Romans 8 is a great milestone in the believer’s history when he comes practically to recognise the Spirit of God. When the Lord Jesus was here in manhood He characteristically did things in the power of the Spirit, He moved here in the power of the Spirit. That power is available to us as we depend upon the blessed Holy Spirit. I thought of the verses later in this chapter as to sonship. Our brother has referred to the inheritance. It is in the Spirit’s power that we enter into the inheritance and it is in the Spirit’s power that we enter into the consciousness of sonship. As we know sonship underlies priesthood, and the relationship of sonship is an eternal, an abiding relationship. What is priestly is needed for the present time, it is provisional, in the maintenance of conditions here for God in an unholy scene. But sonship is an eternal and abiding relationship and we enter into it in the power of the Spirit. It says, “for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. It is a great thing to be consciously led by the Spirit of God. We know that this came about typically later in Israel’s history, when the inheritance was before them, the land was before them. I commend to our brother and sister, the wonderful heritage we have, and we can enter into it in the power of the Spirit. So God gets His portion from sons. It is not only a question of what light we have but what there is inwardly, subjectively, the Spirit of God leading us in that way—“As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. Then it says, “For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. That is a cry of conscious enjoyment of the relationship that we have with the Father, we cry Abba, Father. Well, beloved brethren, may we be stimulated in this.

I was just thinking of Romans 12 where Paul is appealing to the saints to present their bodies; he says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice”. The committal our brother and sister have made today is for all the while they are here, and this is a committal for all the time we are here; we commit our bodies a living sacrifice to God, it is a suitable body, it is a holy body. In Corinthians it says that you are not your own, but here it is your body. God has given it to you, and here it is a suitable vessel to be presented to God. We are to know how to keep our vessels in sanctification and honour.

This is a suitable vessel to be offered to God “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service”. In this way you prove what the will of God is. It came into the ceremony today as to committal to the will of God, what it is. We prove that the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect. It is a committal to God and we prove this as we commit ourselves to it. This is the way, I believe, that holy conditions are maintained personally, householdly and assembly-wise. May the Lord help us in it.

Word at a marriage, Adelaide
23 April 1997