What is a Presbyter? This question has received different answers and none of them fit all the facts of the Church as it emerges from worship of the Promised Son of God.
Ken Collins has an interesting (very Protestant) explanation. He writes: “In the New Testament, the Temple has hierarchs and the church has presbyters. Most translate hierarch as priest, which is really incorrect, because priest is just an English contraction of the word presbyter. But if the translators put down priest for presbyter, it looks like they are discrediting churches that do not call their clergy priests. But if they put down presbyter, which is the untranslated Greek word, or elder, which is the word’s meaning, they discredit the churches that are so old that the word presbyter turned into priest as the language of their members changed.”
Let’s unpack Collins’ suggestion that there is a disjunction between temple priest and church priest. When did this happen in history? Where do we find this expressed in Scripture? We can say that there was a disjunction when the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. thus bringing the sacrificial system to an end. However St. Paul and St. John clearly believe that there is an eternal priesthood that nothing can destroy. They see it as a fixed ordinance in the Kingdom of God, derived from the one True Priest, Jesus Christ. In other words, the only priesthood that the Apostles knew was the priesthood that maintained itself through a particular kinship pattern from before the time of Abraham. This so that Jesus Christ, the Promised Son of God, would be born to Abraham’s bloodline.
Collins is right that many churches don’t have priests. These are churches far removed from the Holy Tradition received by the Apostles. Most are products of the Reformation and the many subsequent mini-schisms that characterize churches that don’t hold to the sacramental center of the faith embodied by the priesthood.
Now to Collins’ most provocative suggestion: that the oldest churches somehow morphed the word “presbyter” into priest over time. This is simply not the case.
The true meaning of presbyter is clarified when we accept that the Holy Tradition received by the Apostles concerns the Son of God whose Blood was shed for the life of the World. This Jesus Christ was born to a long line of ruler-priests who are identified with the “order of Melchizedek” as an eternal priesthood. Presbyter simple means ruler-priest. The true priest of the Church receives his authority from this Holy Tradition which was already well established before the time of Abraham.
Why Does God Sing?
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26 comments:
where do you find this disjunction in Scripture?
You find it in the NT descriptions of the role of the presbyter. He is a teacher, not a priest. If even one instance of a sacerdotally priestly function for the presbyter could be demonstrated in Scripture then I'll gladly eat my hat.
until then, I'm afraid Collins is right - the NT presbyter is not the equivalent of the OT priest, the Scriptures never make that association.
If the presbyter is only a teacher, his office doesn't point to the Presence of the Blood/Cross, which St. Paul sees at the center of our Faith. This is how Paul keeps Christianity from the spiritual vagueness of the Gnostics. Setting this aside has allowed much of Protestantism to slide in gnostic theology.
St. Paul writes of Reality as the pleromic “mystery of Christ” and he identifies this as the heart of the Gospel. It is the central message of the Apostle’s writings and the Reality of which the Creeds speak.
Jesus Christ is the fullness (“pleroma”) of all things in heaven and on earth, both invisible and visible. The term “pleroma” was used among the Gnostics to describe the metaphysical unity of all things, but Paul uses it to speak about how all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ in human bodily form (Col. 2:9).
Against the Gnostics, the biblical writers used this concept to explain that the mystical Body of Christ fills heaven (glorified Saints and Heroes of Faith) and earth (militant Saints). Reality, is constituted of the fullness of all things hidden and revealed in Christ. Paul wants the churches to understand that they are “entrusted with the mysteries of God”, so that they may faithfully proclaim Reality so that truth-seekers “may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ” (I Cor. 4:1, Eph. 3:9 and Col. 2:2). This is why I have written that "Reality is Cross-shaped" here: http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2009/03/reality-is-cross-shaped.html
For the Gnostics, the pleroma is undifferentiated, but for Paul the pleroma is the manifestation of the benefits of the “Blood of Jesus.” Paul never allows the churches to wander far from the Blood of Jesus that brings eternal life. The presbyter not only teaches about His Blood, he is a sign pointing to His Blood (as much as he is "in Christ.").
Paul articulated his understanding of the pleroma as early as his second missionary journey when he preached to the Athenians that, “in Him [Jesus Christ] we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) Paul’s thoughts on this developed further as he continued to reflect on the Hebrew Scriptures, prayed and fasted, and received greater illumination by Christ. We find the fullest expression of the pleroma in Romans and in Ephesians: "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. (Ephesians 1:7-10) And in Hebrews we find that the priesthood of the Son of God is connected to the "order of Melchizedek". This distinguishes the Christian presbyter from priests of faiths that reject Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Finally, the priest of the Church does not perform blood sacrifices because that work of Jesus Christ is once and for all. (This is where we run into problems with Transubstantiation.) Orthodoxy recognizes the presence of the real Body and Blood in the Divine Liturgy, and as it also holds the binary distinctions of Scripture between heaven and earth, the ancient priest code requires that should the priest accidently cut himself and bleed in the presence of the Blood, he must immediately leave the holy place. There can be only one Blood that purifies, redeems and secures unto eternal life. The priesthood is the single institution on earth that represents this Reality.
A teacher is no substitute for a priest. And were the presbyter only a teacher, Holy Tradition would not exclude women from the priesthood. Since blood is not involved if there is no priest... Besides, women gave instruction in ancient Israel (Deborah, Huldah).
Peter! Let's hear more from you on this.
You might find this of interest: http://www.forwardinfaith.com/artman/publish/article_487.shtml
Forward in Faith may be the leaven in the loaf.
Sorry, David, I didn't mean to confuse you with Peter.
Alice, would it be ok if I published up a detailed reponse on my own blog? I think this topic requires something like that.
And no offence taken over the misnaming - trust me, happens all the time.
I forgot to answer your previous post - I would simply love to see you do some further study. A phd would be of benefit to many of us, especially those of us who instinctively disagree - there's nothing more stimulating that disagreeing with someone who is well thought through!
David, as this question poses a challenge to the forming Anglican Church in North America and also to the universal Church, it would be helpful to open a forum at your blog. Go for it! I look forward to reading what you have to say and will comment.
Please leave another comment here with your blog's URL so readers can go there for further comments.
You might want to look at 2 Chronicles 15:3 which speaks of a teacher-priest, but appears to distinguish this from the role of priest as intercessor who offers sacrifice.
The priesthood didn't disappear with the NT; it just happened to coalesce in Jesus, from the tribe of Judah, and was no longer from the tribe of Levi. Paul and others in the NT exhort the believers to offer up themselves and their praises as priests to God, for they, as Christ's body, were a royal priesthood and a kingdom of priests. The early church erred in thinking that it needed to have a hierarchical human priesthood to oversee the church and administer the Eucharist. We can see in the New Testament itself that the Gospel was being misunderstood, and that believers and the church were falling into the same pattern of unbelief that characterized Israel. Just because the early church instituted a priesthood doesn't mean it was any more correct in doing so than the Israelites were in creating a golden calf or building high places. Men would much rather have a hierarchy mediating between themselves and God than have direct access to the Father with the concomitant responsibility of listening to and following and obeying the Holy Spirit. Men would rather be religious than make the effort to be spiritual.
The priesthood which the Apostles knew was indeed corrupt in many ways. Jesus, the true Priest, shines HIS light on that corruption, and proclaims in HIS Sacrifice once offered the authentic priesthood which is identified with "the order of Melchizedek" is an eternal one. Every authentic priest is a sign pointing to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Israel was indeed a nation of priests because of the intermarrriage of the lines of priests (Judah was not a priest) but Tamar was the daughter of a priest and Jesus' bloodline is traced through the mothers. In as much as the Church is the New Israel, we can speak of the Church as a nation of priests, but this does not mean that the office of priest has disappeared. That's not logical. Not every Israelite was a priest, only those men of the lines chosen by God. Likewise not every man can be a priest in the Church, only those chosen by God to stand in apostolic succession.
In as much as the Church is the New Israel, we can speak of the Church as a nation of priests, but this does not mean that the office of priest has disappeared. That's not logical. Not every Israelite was a priest, only those men of the lines chosen by God. Likewise not every man can be a priest in the Church, only those chosen by God to stand in apostolic succession.
And that is where the early church erred. It assumed that it was "not logical" (Mr. Spock?) for man no longer to need the mediating office of priest and the need for a human priesthood. So "apostolic succession" became the means of justifying a resurrection of the Levitical-type priesthood under the covering of the new covenant, and eventually (rather quickly, in fact) the covenantal anamnêsis of Christ's death became a sacrificial rite, required to be administered by an ordained class. But that system was no more of the New Covenant or an act of the New Man or a display of the New Creation than the golden calf was Israel's God. In fact, the ascendance of a human priesthood when Christ had made His entire body a kingdom of priests whose Spirit-led lives and sacrifices and praises to God were to manifest His life in and among and through all the members of His body was in many ways a reversion to the Old Covenant and a rejection of the New Covenant.
Only Protestants regard the New Covenant as discontinuous with the Old Covenant. The result is that Protestants end up with a dualistic view of the world which isn't biblical.
Only Protestants regard the New Covenant as discontinuous with the Old Covenant. The result is that Protestants end up with a dualistic view of the world which isn't biblical.
????? Maybe some Protestants, but not the ones I've known.
The New Covenant isn't discontinuous with the Old; however, the Old was incomplete, inadequate, ineffectual and inferior in comparison with the New, to which it was only meant to point and serve as a shadow of. St. Paul said as much in several of his epistles. The New Covenant is no more discontinous with the old than a butterfly is discontinuous with a caterpillar, or an adult human is discontinuous with a prepubescent child.
But adults are to put away childish things, and butterflies no longer eat and live like caterpillars, and the members of the Body of Christ are all to grow up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, not retain an intermediating priesthood when Christ alone is and is to be the everliving and continually-interceding priest for each and all of them.
Are there not different types of covenants in the Bible? Some are unconditional and unchanging, based on God's unchanging nature.
You say that "The New Covenant is no more discontinous with the old than a butterfly is discontinuous with a caterpillar..." This leads many to "emergent church" theology, a Protestant idea influenced by evolutionary principles. St Paul can't be pressed into this mold.
Consider this: the essence of the caterpiller is in the butterfly and the essence of the butterfly is in the caterpiller. We have no essential change, only flux. If you put away the Priesthood as a "childish thing", you better be certain that you aren't setting aside a God-ordained sign of Jesus Christ.
Consider this: the essence of the caterpiller is in the butterfly and the essence of the butterfly is in the caterpiller. We have no essential change, only flux. If you put away the Priesthood as a "childish thing", you better be certain that you aren't setting aside a God-ordained sign of Jesus Christ.
"We have no essential change, only flux."
?????
1. We have been made children of God.
2. We have a new nature.
3. God has put His spirit in us.
4. We have been born again of/by the Spirit.
5. We are seated in heavenly places with Christ.
6. Christ is our life.
7. We have been crucified with Christ.
8. Christ lives in us.
9. Any person in Christ is a new creation/creature; the old things have passed away, and new things have come.
10. Though formerly dead in our transgressions and sins, we have been made alive together with Christ.
11. We have put off the old man with its practices and have put on the New Man who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of its Creator.
Etc., etc.
I call that "essential" change (i.e., a change in one's essence and being), not "flux."
Why in heaven's name would any Christian who has tasted and experienced Christ want to retain or continue to submit to or live by the weak and beggarly and ineffectual and insufficient and inadequate and inferior appurtenances of the Old Covenant? Why would any Christian want to submit to or promote or himself be an ordained member of a priesthood that mediates or adds to that which is directly and freely available and given to the children of God under the New Covenant by repeating ad infinitum ad nauseam that which is a resurrected relic of the old and fading? Why would any Christian prefer to live by the life of the elder son when the Father is willing to and delights to welcome and embrace the prodigal son?
Baptismal regeneration is restoration of communion with God and a restoration of our essence "in the image of God."
The priesthood is a sign that points to the Son of God who came into the world to save sinners by HIS shed blood. The Pleromic Blood of Jesus Christ is the scarlet thread that weaves Old and New together and makes them of one essence.
You might want to read other thoughts on this in the comments here: http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/calvinism-as-heresy/
I'm quite familiar with Eastern Orthodox anthropology, soteriology, ecclesiology, hierology, liturgy, etc. But for the reasons I mentioned, I think (in agreement with David Ould, I assume, though he hasn't posted further on this) that it was wrong for the early church to import or impart the office/role/function of priest a la the Levitical model into and onto the New Covenant.
I don't deny that the Old and New Covenant are one essence. What I reject as antithetical to the Gospel and as being a reversion to the fading-away Old Covenent is the continuation in the church of an ordained human priesthood, whether as a vicar of Christ or only as one who points to Him. Christ is the high priest and the head of the church, which is his many-membered body, and the conversion of the bishopric and/or presbytery into a priesthood that is necessary to pray for or to effect a Eucharistic change and offer or re-present Christ's sacrifice so the faithful can partake of Christ is a step backwards.
You say that "it was wrong for the early church to import or impart the office/role/function of priest a la the Levitical model into and onto the New Covenant." Your argument then is based on your post-16th century view of the early Church, which is not historically accurate. Further, this mistaken ecclessiology leads to mistaken Christology and a bad reading of the Scriptures.
Consider what Fr. Stephen Freeman has written on this: "On NT priesthood. Those who belong to “priestless” Churches, actually have no idea what the NT Church did, since their own churches have no historical continuity with the NT church. It’s not possible to simply work from the text of the NT and speculate about what kind of ministry they had. There is a single and solid tradition from the NT Church (Rome and Orthodoxy were one and in agreement then). There is no “priestless” Church professing the faith (let’s leave the heretics out of this) that is known to the pages of history in the early centuries. It does no good for someone to come along 1500 years later and start telling the Church what the NT ministry is about.
There is the single priesthood of Christ – but it is made manifest in the ministry of the Church, in Bishops and Presbyters – in a sacramental manner. Those who deny this have passed over into make-believe Churches with which it is impossible to argue because they can make them up any way they want to. But there is a single Tradition received from the Apostles and it is quite clear as to the nature of a presbyter (priest). There is no particular argument over this in the writings of the early fathers."
There is a single and solid tradition from the NT Church
That is the questionable assumption upon which the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches build and base their ecclesiology. While a priesthood tradition appears early in church history and remains largely unbroken for centuries afterwards, its existence and growth is no more proof that it was right or what Paul had in mind for his gospel or what Jesus had in mind for His church than what Israel did after Moses died is proof of what God wanted for His people.
Anonymous, you may argue this view but without specifics, I'm not persuaded. Martin Luther wouldn't agree with you either.
Further, I'm convinced that all attacks on the "heavenly ordinance" of the One Priesthood are encouraged by the devil whose defeat is sealed by the Blood of Christ.
I am not attacking the One Priesthood.
But I'll let David Ould continue to debate the point re: whether the presbytery should have become a priesthood, as what I've said is sufficient for my point.
Personally, I recommend reading the early church fathers, some of whom were taught by the Apostles themselves. Seems like you can't get closer to the original source than they. It's what enlightened me to the truth of Orthodoxy, since I had no knowledge of church history from my Baptist upbringing.
It's like seeing San Francisco for the first time out of the fog! I do hope David and Anonymous do some real research.
Angela
Angela, I agree and I love your San Francisco analogy!
Personally, I recommend reading the early church fathers, some of whom were taught by the Apostles themselves. Seems like you can't get closer to the original source than they. It's what enlightened me to the truth of Orthodoxy, since I had no knowledge of church history from my Baptist upbringing.
It's like seeing San Francisco for the first time out of the fog! I do hope David and Anonymous do some real research.
Angela
If you read all my posts, you'll see I wrote:
I'm quite familiar with Eastern Orthodox anthropology, soteriology, ecclesiology, hierology, liturgy, etc.
As for the early church fathers and the Apostolic Fathers: been there, done that (read some of them in Greek as well). But further reading showed that those who buy the Orthodox/Catholic tradition have been sold a bit of a bill of goods re: it being the faith that was supposedly believed by everyone, everywhere, and always.
Keep reading. You will know the truth, and the truth will free you.
"the faith that was supposedly believed by everyone, everywhere, and always."
You mean the Faith pertaining to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek?
Alice C. Linsley said...
"the faith that was supposedly believed by everyone, everywhere, and always."
You mean the Faith pertaining to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek?
I have never denied that Faith. That Faith has pretty much been believed by Christians everywhere and always.
My bone of contention is with the idea that the presbyteroi and/or the episkopoi were to become an essential ecclesiastical office of a mediating ordained human priesthood that was take the place of the Apostles and offer and distribute the body and blood of Christ in a manner similar to the OT Levitical priests.
That this is indeed what happened in church history I do not deny. Nor do I deny that the Orthodox and Catholic Church can appeal to and point to the Apostolic and Early Church Fathers to make their case that this has been the Church's tradition and practice, and that the Protestant ecclesiology and hierology are much later innovations.
But that the leaders and/or members of Christ's body chose to have human priests preside over it as vicars of, or pointers to, Christ does not mean that it was what either Jesus or the Apostles taught and intended should happen in the Church.
That is and has been the main point of what I've posted here.
Anonymous,
So where were the Christians cut from the same cloth of belief and practice as yourself for the first 1500 yrs? You mean to say that the apostle John immediately taught error to St. Ignatius of Antioch?
Did the true church disappear for 1500 years and then re-surface immediately after 1517 or thereabouts? Where could one go to hear the truth of the gospel spoken after the death of the Apostles? Where were all the Reformed Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Evangelical Protestants in the first centuries of the Church? Why didn't Josephus or Eusebius write of these kind of Christians?
So you're saying Christ allowed the bishops, and early martyrs of early centuries of the Church to immediately fall into heresy? Was it heretics who convened at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage which decided upon the Canon of Scripture?
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