Week 14 The Experience of Life
LESSON FOURTEEN
THE UNIVERSAL PRIESTHOOD
Hymn 848
Scripture Reading:
1 Cor. 14:31 For you can all prophesy one by one that all may learn and all may be encouraged.
1 Pet 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people acquired for a possession, so that you may tell out the virtues of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
THE WHOLE BODY SERVING BEING THE GREATEST RECOVERY TODAY
We have to see that if the one-talented ones do not rise up to serve, there is no way for the church to go on. The priesthood is a universal priesthood. This is the greatest recovery of this century. Many people think that the matter of service is the work of a few people, but true service is that in which the whole Body is involved. As long as this matter is not fully recovered, we have to go on speaking. (Messages Given during the Resumption of Watchman Nee’s Ministry, p. 338)
THE UNIVERSAL PRIESTHOOD OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Everyone Preaching the Gospel
The priesthood that God ordained for everyone is one in which all the saved ones are priests. Moreover, the foremost offering in the New Testament is the offering of the saved sinners to God. This is the first function of the priests of the New Testament.
For this reason, after the coming of the New Testament age, God revealed to the last priest of the Old Testament, John the Baptist, that he was not to offer up bulls and goats anymore. Instead, he should offer up sinners in Christ. After this, the Lord Jesus came. He was also a real priest. He continued to bring sinners to salvation. The Lord Jesus also sent out disciples to preach the gospel. First, He sent out the twelve (Luke 6:12-16). Then He sent out seventy (Luke 10:1-24). After His resurrection the Lord said to the disciples, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:18b, 19). The Lord sent us to all the nations to preach the gospel to every man, baptizing them into Himself, and offering them up as sacrifices to God. In the Epistles Paul also said that he “should be a minister of Christ Jesus to the nations, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, that the offering of the nations might be acceptable, having been sanctified in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:16).
Everyone Attending Home and Group Meetings
In Colossians 1:28 Paul said, “Warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man full-grown in Christ.” To be presented full-grown is similar to being picked as ripe fruit in an orchard during harvest time. This whole process of growth is included in the home meetings, the group meetings, and the district meetings. In the end, through these different meetings we will be perfected step by step until we can finally be presented to God full-grown.
Everyone Prophesying for the Lord
Today we have to see that we are all New Testament priests. Everyone needs to preach the gospel. Everyone has to attend the home meetings and group meetings. Everyone must prophesy. When we prophesy, we have to exercise our spirit. There must be not only the revelation and the light; there must be the inspiration also. In the way Christ will be spoken into others. Only when all these things are put into practice can the universal priesthood be realized. (The New Testament Priests of the Gospel, pp. 38, 41)
References: CWWN, The (Set 3) Vol. 57, ch. 10; The New Testament Priests of the Gospel, ch. 3; CWWL, 1963, Vol.3, Basic Principles for the Service in the Church Life, ch. 1.
