II.
The Priesthood.
St. Peter changes the figure from " a spiritual house " to " a holy priesthood." After saying, " Ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house," he adds, " to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
To understand the meaning of this abrupt change of figure, we must bear in mind that St. Peter was " the Apostle to the circumcision." He wrote to Jews, and he sought to show them that by becoming Christians they lost neither temple, nor priest- hood, nor sacrifices. They had them all. They were themselves all. They were the temple, " built up a spiritual house," for God's own habitation. They were priests unto God ; " a holy priest- hood." And it was their privilege " to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
The New Testament writers were men whose earlier days had been passed in a Church where sacrifices were offered, where there was an altar, a priest, animal victims. It is true that their ordin- ary weekly worship was presented in synagogues which had no altar, no priest, no victims ; where the desk took the place of the altar, and the reader of the priest. But none the less the temple was the place where the culminating act of worship took place, and in that temple the chief place was assigned to the altar, and the chief function devolved upon the priest. Sacrifice — real
1 Felix Adler.
I PETER II. 4, 5 ^2>
sacrifice — the actual offering of oxen and sheep and doves — real sacrifice was the chief rite of the Church to which the Apostles in their earlier days belonged. Hence the language of sacrifice was familiar to them as household words, so familiar that they could not throw it off when they exchanged Judaism for Chris- tianity. But though they did not wholly abandon the old phrase- ology, they gave to it a new and higher meaning. They applied it to the offering of self rather than of oxen or sheep. Chris- tianity went deeper than Judaism. Judaism was content with the offering of bulls and goats. Christianity was content only with the offering of spiritual sacrifices. These it declared were the only sacrifices acceptable to God.
1. They were a spiritual Priesthood. — God dwells in us, and so the obscurest, humblest Christian is greater than the most vener- able and splendid of the buildings which kings and nobles and mighty nations have enriched with gold and silver and costly marbles, which have been adorned by the genius of famous painters, and in which many generations of men have worshipped God. It is man that is sacred, above all when made one with Christ. God is a spirit, and He dwells not in material buildings, no matter by what solemn and mysterious rites it may be attempted to consecrate them. He, a Spirit, dwells in the spirit of man and reveals His righteousness and love in the life of man.
11 To me the poor seamstress that turns into Westminster Abbey for half an hour's quiet and peace and meditation on Christ who has saved her is more sacred than the memorable building which is associated with the most famous events in the history of our country; and she should be treated with greater reverence. To me the beggar in his rags on the steps of St. Peter's is more sacred than the vast church which is the material centre of a communion extending over the whole world. In the Christian man is the true shekinah, even though the visible glory which was the symbol of the true has now passed away. The inner life of the Christian man is the true holy of holies. God is there.^
^ It is certain that to the writers of the New Testament, the word Priest, when not applied to the sacrificial functionaries of the Jews, implied a spiritual function of every believer. It is never once applied by them to the officers of the Christian community. It did not summon up to their minds the ceremonies
» R. W. Dale.
74 THE TEMPLE OF LIVING STONES
of public worship, but the acts of common life. And this mode of speech became habitual with the early fathers. These fathers, says Bishop Kaye, used a language directly opposite to that which counts the New Testament use of these words as merely metaphorical. " They regarded the spiritual sacrifice as the true and proper sacrifice, the external sacrificial act as merely the sign and symbol." ^
2. They were an holy Priesthood. — In the Jewish dispensation this meant no more, possibly, than an outward separation to the service of God — the priests in the temple, the vestments of their ministry were said to be ceremonially holy. But certainly more is meant by the Apostle in the text than this ritual and external sanctity. The holiness of which he speaks consists in the posses- sion of that mind which was in Christ Jesus, in the reinstatement in us of that image of God which was lost by the disobedience of the fall.
^ In one of the old Cathedrals in Europe the guide bids the visitor watch a certain spot until the light from a window falls upon it. There he sees, carved on a rafter, a face of such marvel- lous beauty that it is the very gem of the great building. The legend is, that, when the architect and masters were planning the adornment of the cathedral, an old man came in and begged leave to do some work. They felt that his tottering steps and trembling hands unfitted him for any great service ; so they sent him up to the roof, and gave him permission to carve upon one of the rafters. He went his way, and day by day he wrought there in the darkness. One day he was not seen to come down, and going up they found him lying lifeless on the scaffolding, with his sightless eyes turned upward. And there they saw a face carved on the rafter, a face of such exceeding beauty that architects and great men bared their heads as they looked upon it, and recognized the master in him who lay there still in death.