We are Called to Be Priests: The Mystery of Aaron & Melchizedek

Then we come to the epistles. If you read Ephesians 4 carefully, it says the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers equip the saints. Do they build the church? They do not build the church. The apostle comes and says: brothers, there’s equipment. He equips the saints for what’s really necessary. How do the saints build up the body? I promise you, we do it in the priestly office.

When the building is built, what does the priest become? They become princes to reign. Kings in apprenticeship. Don’t be too quick to reign, or you might reign over everybody. Let’s consider ourselves as reigning kings, but really under the King. Right now, you are the servants of the King, and He will make us kings of kings and lords of lords. Nonetheless, the building brings in the kingship.

Brothers, it will take a roomful of people – you and me – just like Ezra, Nehemiah, Joshua, and Zerubbabel. What do you have here? You have a picture of a priest, and you have a picture of a king. We must enter the priestly office and let the Lord Jesus Christ flood us, pour into us. We have to exercise our spirit. We have to touch the Lord, and the Lord has to touch us, that he might build up the building and the body.

Now then, how does Jesus Christ do this in us? This is where we come to now.

The Lord Jesus Christ…according to Hebrews, according to the picture in Exodus, according to the picture in Genesis 14…Jesus Christ is pictured to us as a priest after the order of Melchizedek.  Is that the only order He is after? No, it is not. What is the other order? He is a priest in the line of Aaron. How? By being called. Well, have you been called? Alright, do you realize that you are also in the line of Aaron? Because you have been called priests, you are in the line of Aaron.

Let’s look at the two lines, because they are so important. Christ is the High Priest, but a high priest cannot be a high priest until he has someone to rule over. There’s got to be someone lower than the high one for the high one to be there with something below. Do you understand? There’s got to be a hooded group, all with their little turbans on them, turbans that cover their heads, and they’re going to be high priests. Wait until you see what he’s got on his head! We’ve just got a big, beautiful wrapped-around white turban on us. We are priests in the order of Aaron, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the Aaronic priesthood. We have to recover and restore the line of Aaron and the line of Melchizedek.

What did Aaron and Melchizedek do? According to what we read, the Aaronic line has a great distinction. What is it? What kind of a high priest is he? Hebrews 5:1: “a high priest taken from among men, ordained for men.” Do you realize the Lord Jesus Christ stands in the line of Aaron? There has to be a high priest who is a man, and there has to be a high priest also who is something else.

Is the Lord Jesus a man? Yes, and he has been called. He has the right to be in the line of Aaron, and He wears Aaron’s robe.  And He has suffered as a man has suffered, right? Therefore, He can take your problems, your sufferings, your burdens, for He is in the line of a man. He knows you because He has been a man like you, and He can bear them to the Father, as Aaron did. In the Aaronic priesthood, he also died for you. He takes man to God. He takes man to God.

If you read 1 Peter 2:9, it has the same reference as Exodus does. I think it was Exodus 22 we read, wasn’t it? This priesthood we have been called to is holy…not royal…but a holy priesthood. The Lord Jesus Christ is a holy priest who bears…what is it? What is the other priesthood? Melchizedek, and what order is this? It’s royal; it comes from the land of government, the land of Judah, not the land of Levi. Alright, it is a ruling one. What does the Melchizedekian line do? Aaron brings man to God; Melchizedek comes, and he imparts God to man. He imparts God to man.

Now then, you have got to live in the line of Aaron, and you have got to live in the line of Melchizedek. Abraham received from Melchizedek. He received from the line of Melchizedek. What did he receive? What did Melchizedek give him? Bread and wine.

What is the priestly office? How does the Lord Jesus do it? He comes to the Father; He comes right into the Holy of Holies, the holiest place there is, stands before the Father, and intercedes for you. When He enters this holy place, He wears a garment, as do all the priests, and over the garment is an ephod, and the ephod has two little stones right here. One stone has six names, and the other has six names. What are they? The twelve tribes of Israel. What does he have here on his breast? A breastplate. And what’s on the breastplate? The Urim and the Thummim.

He bears the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on his shoulders before the Lord. Do you see that the shoulders are where you bear the strength and the weight of things? Aaron comes and bears the weight of things, but he brings the twelve tribes before God, and he lives in the Lord’s presence with the twelve tribes born upon his shoulder.