In this post I want to look at the biblical mandate for believing that all followers of Jesus are priests. The idea of a priesthood is, of course, older than the NT church. Priests had an essential role in OT times when they acted as intermediaries between God and the people of Israel. Their key role was in offering various sacrifices to God on behalf of the people in the Temple.

But in Jesus this priestly role is done away with because he himself became our great high priest. Hebrews 6:20-10:25 is the key passage in understanding this and the central truth here is that Jesus, in his death on the cross, became the perfect, once-and-for-all sacrifice for us. Because of Jesus there is no further need for any blood sacrifice and the way is clear for us to enter into God’s presence – thus doing away with the need for a priest to stand between us and God. When we become one with Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit (signified by baptism), we stand in God’s presence without any human intermediary.

There are two other key NT verses that refer to priesthood – 1 Peter 2:9 and Revelation 1:6 (and 5:10) – which refer to the whole body of believers as priests. Peter takes this reference from OT passages that refer to Israel’s role in bringing God’s light to the nations. The priestly role that Israel had is now shared with – or, depending on your point of view, replaced by – the church.

So the biblical perspective is that all followers of Jesus (you may want to add all baptised followers) are priests and have the right and ability to enter into God’s presence. This does not change depending on what role an individual has in a church setting (you do not have more or less of this ability if you are the pastor or the cleaner), nor does it change depending on your theology of what he/she does. So, for example, it does not matter whether or not you have a sacramental view of communion – a non-ordained person would still be able to preside over it.