Paul as Priest

...to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:16)

This is the beginning of a whole section here in Romans 15 where Paul relates some of his own reasons and background for the work he is doing. As I read this verse a few questions came to my mind.

What does it mean to minister as a priest?

What is involved in his offering of the Gentiles?

Why is it important that this offering become acceptable?

What is meant by this offering being sanctified?

I'm not sure I have enough knowledge or education to fully answer the first question. However, I once heard a definition of the work of a priest that left a deep impression on me that I believe may give some important insight.

A priest is a person who's assignment is to convey the truths of God to other people. In addition, it is also his responsibility to take upon himself the burdens, problems and sins of the people that he ministers to and bring them to God. In so doing he is both mediating as well as training the people by example how they are to become free from the destructive influences of the sins that enslave them. So in essence, a priest is a very close friend of God and is to also be a very close friend of the people – very much like a Friend of the Bridegroom. However, his first loyalty is always to his God.

When I went to look up some of these words in the original I noticed that in the KJV this reference to priest is completely missing. However, when I looked up the Greek word for ministering the idea of priest is very clearly a central part of the meaning of this word. But for whatever reason those translators for King James decided to leave out any reference to priests here. But I think it has significant bearing on what Paul is trying to get across.

In the many functions that God ordained for priests, there was a lot of offering going on. Most of the time we generally only think of the blood offerings where a priest was to take an animal sacrifice that a person brought to the sanctuary and offer it up to God on the altar after the sinner killed the animal. This was to make it clear in the mind of the sinner the terribly and deadly effects that sin always has on our lives and the need for their reconciliation and reconnection with their only Source of life. The role of the priest was to offer up this sacrifice to God as a symbol of the atoning sacrifice that would happen in the death of Jesus on the cross.

But the sacrifice mentioned in this verse is not that kind of offering. I noticed in the original language that this offering was specifically mentioned as a bloodless offering. That is different than the blood offerings for sin in the sanctuary services. This was more along the line of offerings of food, grain, oil, etc. There were specific instructions for each of these offerings and the symbolic significance for each one is not so clear in most of our minds as the blood offerings. But one thing is clear – every offering brought to God was to be sanctified or made holy in order to be acceptable in God's presence.

This is noted later in this verse where Paul mentions his desire for his offering of the Gentiles to be made acceptable by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Greek word for Holy, as in Holy Spirit, is almost identical to the word for sanctified. So in reality, whatever it is that needs to happen to make an offering acceptable will align it with the characteristic that is the very identity of the Spirit of God. (For more on the real meaning of the word holy, see my home-grown dictionary page.)

So, given the context of the work of a priest, what is in Paul's thinking when he talks about offering Gentiles to God?

In the first part of this verse he makes it clear that he was a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. Just like a priest was to be a representative for God to the people, Paul felt strongly that God's purpose for his life was specifically to be God's representative to people outside the Jewish culture and religion who knew little to nothing about the true God of heaven. This he elaborates on further in this chapter. So part of Paul's passion for reaching out to people who knew almost nothing about God was to enlighten their hearts and minds about God and attract them to become part of a sanctified offering to God themselves. Paul was simply an agent for Jesus Christ, a channel through which Jesus could accomplish His desires to draw all people unto Himself. Paul's part in this activity was partly to help organize this offering for God, to introduce people to God's heart by revealing the love and passion that God has for them which is the essence of the gospel, the good news.

But why is it important that the offering of Gentiles be made acceptable to God? What does that say about God?

This is precisely where a person's inherent biases about God will most likely surface. The reasoning behind our assumptions about what it means to prepare to meet God reveals what we really think God is like, whether He is angry, indifferent, moody, fickle, looking for excuses to punish, or whether He is consistently loving, kind, patient, just, fair, good and full of joy and peace. Generally our concept of God is a strange mixture of these things, an amalgamation of sorts that is derived from our childhood, our religious prejudices and assumptions and our life experiences. But our present beliefs about God will strongly influence what we are willing to consider seriously when new information comes our way.

I am at a point in my life where my internal picture of God has gone through radical transition. But there are a number of new (to me) understandings that are becoming firmly rooted in my mind and heart about what God is really like. These new understandings about God are in sharp contrast with much of what I was taught and mentored growing up, but I find them much more consistent with what I read from the Bible and even what seems fair and right in my own heart. So the answer that I sense to this question is very different now than the answer I would have supposed a number of years ago.

In the Old Testament sanctuary services and instructions there was a lot of emphasis on things being done correctly and everything utilized in those services being sanctified for that use. At the initiation of the sanctuary in the wilderness, everything was sprinkled with blood to set it apart in everyone's minds from the other things of everyday life. It was set apart exclusively for service to God, which is what the word holy means. Likewise, the priest's were also set apart for God's service and as the service continued to operate for hundreds of years the offerings brought to the sanctuary were also sanctified or set apart before they could be properly offered up to God. If this was not done the consequences could be fatal which did happen at times. Think of the stories of Nadab and Abihu as well as Uzzah.

Many people would point to these stories as prime examples of the reality of an angry God who had no patience for people who made mistakes or worse yet who might be somewhat unpredictable or very demanding in His requirements. This causes many to believe that the God of the New Testament is very different than the God revealed in the Old. But contrary to these assumptions, I am now seeing much more clearly in these stories our need to understand properly the real danger of not becoming synchronized with the immense power of God's passion before coming close to His presence. God never changed. It is not a matter of anger or impatience on God's part but a matter of respecting the intense power inherent in His nature of passionate love and absolute purity.

We have little problem understanding our need to deeply respect the dangerous power of high-voltage lines that carry thousands of volts of electricity across our countrysides. We would consider it the height of stupidity for someone to think they could just touch these lines with impunity without regard for the laws of electricity. But when it comes to God's presence and the protocol that must be respected if we are to be united with the greatest Source of power in the whole universe, we seem to have an inherent reaction of rebellion and resistance to God's requirements. Of course, resistance is our greatest enemy when dealing with electricity and likewise I am learning that resistance is also our greatest danger when dealing with spiritual realities.

I believe that Paul had a much better grasp of all this than most people today, which is why he knew that his desire to bring Gentiles close to God would require that they be sanctified or made holy in order for his offering to be safe in God's presence. And the way to make something or someone safe to enter the presence of intense power, whether it be high-voltage electricity or the even higher voltage of God's presence is to align them properly, especially at the heart level, with the way God thinks and operates. For an offering to be safe in God's presence it most importantly must become disconnected from “ground”, from the world's way of thinking and reasoning and to become synchronized with heaven's way of thinking, the assumptions and attitudes that pervade the presence of the angels and all the unfallen beings throughout the entire universe.

What was startling to people in Paul's day was that he was so bold as to believe that Gentiles could participate in this presentment to God right alongside Jews, God's chosen people, who before this time were considered to be the only people “safe” enough to come into God's presence. God had chosen Paul as a special envoy to open up the narrow box that had so long restricted the thinking of religious people and show that anyone anywhere could be a part of God's true family if they were willing to become molded and re-formed in the image of God.

The distinction between Jew and Gentiles is almost a non-issue for most people today. But we have our own versions of prejudice in religion that is along the very same lines. The denomination we belong to or even the sub-group within that denomination can become a very important barrier in our thinking to the much grander plans of God for His children. Our nationalism can also be a means of prejudice in our hearts without our realizing it. It disturbs me many times when we ask for prayers for our troops but never even think of equally praying for our enemies troops with the very same fervor. But this betrays our failure to live in harmony with the teachings of Jesus that we claim to be following.

Lord, prepare me for encountering Your presence by cleansing me of all resistance to Your ways of thinking. Fill me with Your unconditional love and re-form my heart to be reflective of Your perfect ways. Write Your laws upon my heart and fill me with Your Spirit and Your perspective – for Your name's sake.

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