Sunday, 10 August 2008

The Prophecy of The Faithful Priest

Having seen the prophesy of the coming King and of the final Prophet, another character and function of the Lord Jesus Christ prophesied in the Old Testament that He is the faithful Priest. Jesus Christ was prophesied, as the faithful Priest was to contrast the failure of the sons of Eli as priests serving in the Tabernacle. The context of 1 Samuel 2:12-36 tells us how the Lord visited Eli the high priest concerning the wickedness of his sons. The Lord said to Eli “Behold the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house” (1 Samuel 2:31). However the climax of this passage that the Lord has said is that there will be a faithful priest that dwell in the house of the Lord without failure.

The prophecy that is found in 1 Samuel 2:35 tells us about the faithful priest that is going to come. The Lord says, “And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind: and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever.” The question is asked, who is this faithful priest that will rise up in this world? Who is in the world the faithful priest that will rise up?

In order to understand who this faithful priest is, it is important to know the history from which the faithful priest will come. A hundred years after God spoke His Word to Eli, there was a king of Israel by the name of king David. David was faithful to the Lord and the Lord has prospered him and his kingdom. However almost the end of his life, some of his friends and his son denied and betrayed him. But there was a faithful priest to king David by the name of Zadok. In this junction we need to understand that Zadok was the son of Eleazar, the third son of Aaron. On the other hand Eli was not from the line of Eleazar but from the line of Ithamar, the fourth son of Aaron (Exodus 28:1). Because of the faithfulness of the high priest Zadok to David the king, the Lord has said that in the millennial kingdom, Israel will be re-established as mentioned in Romans 11. During the millennial kingdom there will be a king by the name of Jesus Christ the Messiah and He will be function in the millennial temple as the High Priest and the sons of Zadok will be priests who will minister in the millennial temple. Ezekiel 40:46 says “And the chamber whose prospect is toward the north is for the priests, the keepers of the charge of the altar: these are the sons of Zadok among the sons of Levi, which come near to the LORD to minister unto him.” Ezekiel 43:19 “And thou shalt give to the priests the Levites that be of the seed of Zadok, which approach unto me, to minister unto me, saith the Lord GOD, a young bullock for a sin offering.” Ezekiel 44:15 “But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord GOD.” Based on these verses the sons of Zadok will be function in the millennial temple worship system and the Lord Jesus Christ, the King will be at the same time as the High Priest.

One may ask a question, how can an animal sacrifice in the alter and ministered by the Jews priests again, when the book of Hebrews says that all the elements of the temple are finished and they cannot take away sins, but only by the blood of Christ? The answer is that the book of Hebrew was written to the Christian Jews and not to Jews specifically, but to Christians who happen to be Jews. In the Old Testament the blood of goat and lamb was established by God not to take away sins but to cover sins from the time of Adam onward as a symbol of ultimately what God will do to Christ. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God will take away our sins. Thus in the coming kingdom, Israel will be function again under the Lord because Christian cannot christianise the Jews neither the Jews can judeazise the Christians. Let us not christianise true Israel, for Israel has special function in the millennial temple. What the Jews will do in the millennial kingdom it will be the same as what we are doing on the Holy Communion. We are not offering again the blood of Jesus Christ or crucifying Him but it was just a remembrance. We are symbolising what the Lord Jesus has done. Jesus has commanded us to do it again and again until He returns. In the same way the Jews will be offering sacrifices in the millennial temple to remember what the Lord Jesus has done for them. This is their distinction from Christians in the millennial and what they will be doing is to symbolise what the Lord has done on the cross.

Therefore when the Lord said to Samuel “I will arise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind: . . . and he shall walk before mine anointed forever”(1 Samuel 2:35), it will be fulfil in the millennial kingdom. Jesus Christ will be the High Priest there, not from Aaron, nor Zadok but He will be form Melchizedek line as mentioned the details in Ezekiel 40-48. Thus the Zadokian priests will be under the Michizedekian High Priest in the coming kingdom.

In relation to what we have seen in the discussion above, now we shall see further the promise of God concerning the temple of God that the Lord will build. In 2 Samuel 7:12-13 we read, “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.” Based on these two verses, one may consider that it is talking about the Solomon’s kingdom but the last phrase in verse 13 says “I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever,” gives the clue that it can not be referring to Solomon’s kingdom. The question is to whom is this prophecy referring to? It is only referring to the Lord Jesus Christ because the Lord will build His temple in the millennial forever. This is not referring to Solomon’s temple because Salomon’s kingdom did not last forever.

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