(tm) Eternal Service to God
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The concept of eternal service to God as His royal priest is a fourth aspect of the Christian salvation common to the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles and the new heaven and earth reign of Christ. The entire nation of Israel was a "kingdom of priests" before God.
And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. (Exodus 19:6)
By commanding the Israelites to live outside in booths made with tree branches, God was guiding them to the reality that they were not like the other nations of the earth. The Jewish family indeed had some astonishing historical events to call to mind—events that to this day are deeply meaningful, not only to the person who is Jewish by birth but also to the Christian saints.
A man named Abraham, living in one of the large, advanced cities of his time, was chosen by the Lord and directed to leave his home and go forth into a strange country. God appeared to him on several occasions and required holy living of him—"holy" in the sense of personal devotion to God.
God blessed Abraham and his family, and after two generations his descendants went down to live in Egypt because of famine in the land to which Abraham had been called. Several hundred years later, when the descendants of Abraham were numbered in the hundreds of thousands, the same Lord revealed Himself to Moses and called Abraham’s children to leave Egypt and go into a strange country just as He, the Lord, had required of Abraham hundreds of years previously
Egypt, refusing to let God’s servants go, was destroyed as a result.
Never before had God sacrificed one people in order that a second people might come to worship, serve, and know Him. Never before had God formed a highway in the midst of the sea, caused water to flow from a rock, fed a hungry multitude with bread from Heaven. Never before had God led one nation of people into the homeland of another nation, helping the invaders destroy the inhabitants who were defending their families, houses, and lands.
Never before nor since has God revealed Himself and blessed an entire nation of people after this fashion. No other country of people ever has received commandments and ordinances that regulated the conduct of daily living. Israel, and Israel alone, has a history that a person can meditate on for seven years, much less the seven days of the feast of Tabernacles, and never comprehend fully its significance.
Each of the seven feasts of the Lord is designed to illustrate the truth that Israel is a called-out people, a nation of priests. All the peoples of the earth belong to the Lord. But Israel belongs to God in a special way, and the Christian Church is part of the same Seed of Abraham.
The feast of Tabernacles, with its requirement for living in booths, portrays in a dramatic manner that the nation of Israel plays a unique role among the peoples of the earth. Israel is a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a "peculiar treasure" to God above all other nations.
The priestly responsibilities and privileges of Abraham in his day, of Abraham’s descendants at a later period, of the Christians now and during the Kingdom Age, will be brought to fulfillment in the new heaven and earth. The Wife of the Lamb, the new Jerusalem, will be immersed in the fullness of God Almighty, will gaze in resurrection purity on God’s face, and will serve and represent Him throughout the ages of ages, world without end.
Christ Himself will write on each overcomer the name of God, the name of the new Jerusalem, and Christ’s new name (Revelation 3:12). The purpose of the three names is to seal forever the identity of the individual. He now belongs to and is an indivisible part of God.
The overcomer is forever a pillar in the Temple of God, a supporting, integral, essential element of the structure. Apart from him the building collapses. It is marred, losing its symmetry and perfection. Each overcomer is an inseparable unit of God’s dwelling place in the earth.
Christ writes on each overcomer His new name. What the new name of Christ is we do not know. But he who bears the name of Christ is of the Personality and Presence of God Almighty. Under God, Christ is All in all in the new heaven and earth, and those who have His new name written on themselves are His Presence wherever they may go (Galatians 2:20).
The peoples of the new heaven and earth will recognize the priests of God. They will understand God has sent Christ and loves those whom Christ has chosen as He loves Christ (John 17:23).
And the Gentiles [nations] shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. (Isaiah 60:3)
But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles [nations], and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. (Isaiah 61:6)
And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles [nations], and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. (Isaiah 61:9)
The new Jerusalem, the holy city, the Wife of the Lamb, will be a kingdom of priests among the nations of the earth.
And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. (Revelation 22:3,4)
The members of the Body of Christ will serve God throughout eternity. Eternity will be a "new week" because the memory of the fall of Adam and Eve, and the subsequent thousands of years of rebellion and uncleanness, tragedy, and anguish, will have been erased from the consciousness of the peoples of the earth.
From the original rebellion in Heaven to the fiery judgment on Gog and Magog, the total guilt, tendency, and effects of sin will have been purged from the earth. All evildoers will have found their place in the Lake of Fire. The family of God will be so united in the fullness of His Glory that resistance to His will shall be unthinkable. Every creature, circumstance, and thing in the creation will be radiant with the Personality of Christ.
The concept of a priest is that of a person who represents God to people and people to God. We must have considerable experience as a believer before we can bring God’s grace and Glory to another person. When we attempt to minister to another human being in the time of his or her deepest need we are as a "tinkling cymbal" if we never have had fiery trials ourselves.
When Paul exhorts us in Philippians to "rejoice in the Lord alway," and we understand he was a prisoner in Rome and being closely guarded at the time, we can take heart in the hour of our tribulation.
But our real problem as a priest arises when we approach God in order to render service directly to Him. Our God is so holy that the efforts of humans to please Him, no matter how sincere and conscientious, are often not perfectly acceptable.
We are so inadequate that we can only throw ourselves on His mercy. Thousands of years of travail have been necessary in order to bring forth God’s kings and priests, the Body of Christ, the Temple of God, the Wife of the Lamb.
We would have no hope at all of becoming an eternal servant of the Lord if it were not for the redeeming blood of Christ. Through Him, and only through Him, we have boldness to enter the Presence of God and to present our needs before the Throne. Our access to the Throne in prayer, through the blood of Christ, marks the beginning of our acquaintance with the Father (Hebrews 4:16).
Calvary provided us with the price of our redemption, and with the living Substance of God that we must eat continually if we are to be created a servant of the Lord. The Substance of Christ is the Divine gold that must be refined in us by endless testing, night and day, day after day, year after year.
The ministries and gifts of the Church groan in travail as the burden of the Lord comes upon us, transforming us, guiding us, rebuking us. All the fiery furnaces of affliction and the desolate wildernesses to which we are subjected are the crucible in which the gold of God is refined.
Meanwhile, the Seed of Christ is growing in our heart as the Holy Spirit is invading and conquering the life processes in us. We are being created in the image of Christ. There is not one element of our being that is not of the greatest interest to God and that will not be subjected to the most intense scrutiny of the Godhead. We are being made the eternal priests of God Almighty and must be able to dwell in the consuming Fire forever.
As soon as we have been received into the Kingdom Age we shall have a thousand years of exposure to the Glory of God—the blazing Holiness that transfigured the face of Moses, at which no man can gaze and live. We shall be bathed in the holy Fire continually.
Prolonged exposure to God’s Glory will refine and mature the Divine gold in us. The glass-like transparency, so prominent in the new Jerusalem, will characterize our personality. Still, we scarcely will be able to minister before Him in the manner that Christ ministers before Him. We are speaking now of the Ancient of Days, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, at the memory of whom the demons tremble in terror.
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