Once upon a time, there was a place where God could chill with God’s likeness, made for that very purpose. In Genesis, it’s depicted as a lush garden. But because God made the Humans with the ability to truly love and truly relate, they could choose to go their own way, deluded and abusing their authority.
A bit later, God connected to a family. It was a pretty awful family, broken and filled with the same delusion and abuse seen in the Humans’ choice to scrabble for their own way (1). The family was bad, but God stepped in, again and again, gently showing them a different way—a loving and self-sacrificing way—through tiny increments that they could barely accept. That family grew larger, and eventually, God allowed them to build a space that resembled the Garden at the beginning—a place where God and humans could be together (2). Despite this, the people wanted God to be far from them—they didn't trust God’s permissive love and they were afraid of God's incredible power (3). So they chose a small subset of themselves to be priests—ambassadors between God and the people. Humans once again distanced themselves from God and created their own authority structures, and God let them.
God’s plan all along was for all the people of this family to share God’s original way of love and social justice with all the other nations—in Exodus 19:6, God calls the people of Israel a “nation of priests” (4). Eventually, the same corruption that had spoiled things at the Garden ran amok in the people to the point that they were even worse than the other nations on earth (5). Even the priests were utterly corrupt, and the priesthood became about authority and power.
Everything changed when Jesus came. While the previous people and priests of God had seen glimmers of God’s way, Jesus completely embodied this way of living—Jesus is the fullest, truest realization of God’s character (6). Everything he did, from eating with the scum of the town to railing against profiteering, xenophobia, and corruption in the religious circles, was the act of a true priest—the true ambassador between God and Humanity (7).
In 1 Peter 2, Peter writes that as the apprentices of Jesus, we too are part of the holy priesthood. We are now ambassadors to the world, called to show the world a better way—a way that’s not controlling or spiteful or power-hungry or self-centered. In chapter 2, Peter emphasizes that God’s way doesn’t pay heed to social status. By choosing to honor everyone and living as servants, we act as true priests, offering up our authority and superiority as spiritual sacrifices to God.
Written by Tanner Riley, '22
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Notes
This family became known as the children of Israel. They descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel, whose lives were full of deceit and betrayal. You can read about their messed up lives in Genesis 12-50. In my opinion, the most sketchy was Jacob/Israel, who you can read about starting in Genesis 25.
This new Garden-place was the Tabernacle, a tent of worship that was the center of the Israelites camp. It was later “remade” as the Temple of Solomon, which had the same “Garden-esque” artwork in it and served the same purpose. The Gospel of John says that Jesus "tabernacled" among humanity... indicating that Jesus is the new and improved way for God to be with humanity (John 1:14).
The people can’t stand being close to God--Exodus 21:18-21. They also later distanced themselves from God even more when they insisted on having a human king--a decision that only led to bloodshed and misery (1 Samuel 8).
Also, you can see God’s intentions for Israel and the nations of the world in passages like Genesis 12:1-3, Exodus 12:37-38, Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Mark 11:17, and Revelation 7:9-10.
Yeah, several prophets proclaim that God’s chosen ambassadors to the world actually ended up even more corrupt than their “barbaric” neighbors who hadn’t received a more direct revelation of God. (Ezekiel 5:5-7, 2 Kings 21:9).
Jesus is the fullest revelation of God’s character— Hebrews 1:3 says, "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature," and Colossians 1 says, "[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation ... And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."
He absolutely ate with the social outcasts (Mark 2:16) and consistently opposed religious nationalist “us-vs-them” thinking. The religious leaders of the time had a system that heavily favored ethnically Jewish people who were living in the area. They made God/worship very hard to access for anyone who lived in the ‘Diaspora,’ or any foreigner who wanted to worship or seek the God of the Jews. They even rejected the northern half-Jewish Samaritans. See Mark 11:17, Matthew 8:10, Luke 16:19-31, Matthew 23, and Matthew 25:31-46 for examples of Jesus' opposition to heartless legalism.
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