Priesthood
Typological treatment in the corpus
The Levitical/Aaronic priesthood of the Old Testament, as an institution of mediation between God and the people, is identified by Jones, Warnock, and Noordzij as a type of the royal priesthood in Christ. The Levitical system is bound to earthly lineage and ritual; the antitypical priesthood is heavenly in origin, based on an indestructible life, and accessible to all who are in Christ.
Biblical anchoring
| Reference | Context |
|---|---|
| Ex. 19:6 | Israel destined to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” |
| Ex. 40:12-16 | Threefold priestly ordination: washing, anointing, sanctifying |
| Lev. 8:1-36 | Consecration of Aaron and his sons: anointing, blood, seven days of priestly ordination |
| Heb. 6:20; 7:15-17 | Christ as high priest after the order of Melchizedek, by the power of an indestructible life |
| 1Pet. 2:9 | ”A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” |
| Rev. 20:6 | Firstfruits of the resurrection: “they will be priests of God and of Christ” |
Typological interpretation by author
Warnock
Warnock treats the priesthood in The Feast of Tabernacles as the distinguishing mark of the sons of God who will fulfill the antitypical Feast of Tabernacles. The Aaronic priesthood — calibrated to earthly lineage — gives way to a priesthood of the Spirit:
“‘But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people…’ (1Pet. 2:9). A royal priesthood! A priesthood of kings, and a kingdom of priests! A company of overcomers, who have power with God and with men!”1
The royal priesthood is for Warnock a corporate reality, not a private spiritual status. 1Pet. 2:9 addresses the people of God as a whole: “a chosen race, a holy nation.” Each title was previously applied to Israel (Ex. 19:6) — now applied to the church as the new covenant people. The “royal” qualifier is essential: this is not merely an intercessory priesthood but a governing priesthood. Warnock insists that the overcomers who fulfill the Feast of Tabernacles exercise this dual function concretely — priestly access to God and royal authority among humanity. This is not latent potential but the eschatological vocation of those who have grown up into Christ. The nature of this priesthood:
“As priests they have power with God, and as kings they have power with men… in fact he reigns by interceding.”2
The dual axis of priestly-royal authority distinguishes the Melchizedekian order from the Aaronic. Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18) was both king of Salem and priest of God Most High — the two offices united in one person. The Aaronic priesthood separated these functions: priests interceded with God, kings governed the people. But the antitypical priesthood reunites them in Christ — and thereby in those who are “in Christ.” Warnock traces this through Heb. 7: the Melchizedekian priest “reigns by interceding” — his royal authority is exercised not by force but by prayer. This is the theological ground of Warnock’s conviction that the mature sons of God will govern creation through intercession, not through political or ecclesiastical structures. The essential distinction from the Levitical system:
“This priesthood knows nothing of father, mother, genealogy, beginning of days nor end of life. It is the sphere and realm of the Spirit of God, a priesthood and a Kingdom which the sons of God shall enter into as they grow up into Christ.”3
This characterization — no father, mother, genealogy, beginning or end — is drawn directly from Heb. 7:3’s description of Melchizedek, who “has neither beginning of days nor end of life.” For Warnock this is the defining mark of the antitypical priesthood: it belongs to an entirely different ontological order from the Aaronic system. The Levitical priesthood was genealogically determined (Ex. 2:1), time-limited (priests served until age fifty, Num. 4:3), and subject to death (requiring a succession of priests, Heb. 7:23). The Melchizedekian priesthood is none of these things: it is “by the power of an indestructible life” (Heb. 7:16). The sons of God who enter this order do so not through natural descent but through spiritual transformation — the transformation of the Tabernacles age — and they exercise their priestly ministry in the realm of the Spirit, where the genealogical and temporal limitations of the flesh have no jurisdiction.
In Crowned With Oil (chs. 4-5) Warnock further develops the priestly ordination and anointing oil:
Washing with water (Ex. 40:12). Priests washed at the laver — cleansed by Christ’s blood, but the living Word carries the efficacy of that blood (John 15:3). As with the leper’s cleansing: living water mixed with the blood of a trespass-offering bird (Lev. 14:5-7):
“This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not by the water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.”[^b-warnock-7e]
Clothing in new garments (Ex. 40:13). Stripped of old garments, washed at the laver, then clothed in fitted garments “for glory and for beauty.” The new man (Col. 3:8-10) as priestly garment.
Anointing oil (Ex. 30:23-25). Five ingredients characterize the Spirit-life in the believer: myrrh (suffering/self-denial), cinnamon (rising upright), calamus (meekness, bends but does not break), cassia (incorruptible wood of the cross), olive oil (Holy Spirit as base). The oil must not be poured on flesh (Ex. 30:32) — it is holy, solely for priests:
“The oil is not for the flesh… They will bring forth no fleshly kingship and fleshly priesthood, but a priesthood of the Spirit, from an indestructible life.”[^b-warnock-7f]
Breastplate with Urim and Thummim (Ex. 28:30). Priest bears the judgment of the people on his heart. Urim (=lights) and Thummim (=perfections) as type of Christ Who is the revelation of God in Himself. After the exile the physical objects disappeared, but God placed Urim and Thummim in the hearts of His prophets.
Warnock connects this to the Melchizedek order: Christ as Priest-King on the throne (Zech. 6:13) bears the full revelation of God’s will in His heart. The Aaronic priesthood was time-bound; the Melchizedekian is from an indestructible life (Heb. 7:16). The Aaronic priesthood — calibrated to earthly lineage — gives way to a priesthood of the Spirit:
“‘But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people…’ (1Pet. 2:9). A royal priesthood! A priesthood of kings, and a kingdom of priests! A company of overcomers, who have power with God and with men!”1
The royal priesthood is for Warnock a corporate reality, not a private spiritual status. The nature of this priesthood:
“As priests they have power with God, and as kings they have power with men… in fact he reigns by interceding.”2
“This priesthood knows nothing of father, mother, genealogy, beginning of days nor end of life. It is the sphere and realm of the Spirit of God, a priesthood and a Kingdom which the sons of God shall enter into as they grow up into Christ.”3
Noordzij
Noordzij describes the royal priesthood in Taking Hold of the Plow as the anthropological destiny of the one who is called — not an office but a way of life formed through sanctification and anointing:
“Everyone who knows themselves called to the royal priesthood should take hold of the plow and ask the Father to consecrate, sanctify, and anoint them with His Spirit.”4
The active “taking hold of the plow” (Luke 9:62) is for Noordzij the idiom for decisive commitment to the priestly vocation. It is not an ecclesiastical appointment but a personal response to a calling — a surrendering of the self to the process of consecration, sanctification, and anointing. The threefold priestly ordination (Ex. 40:12-16: washing, anointing, sanctifying) becomes the template for Noordzij’s understanding of the spiritual formation of the royal priest. The calling is universal — “everyone who knows themselves called” — but its actualization requires active commitment. Before the priest can serve others, he must himself be formed through this process. Priestly service therefore begins with encountering God before serving people:
“Then he, when he clothes himself in ‘linen’ (=rest), may stand before Him to serve Him (Deut. 10:8).”5
The “linen” of the priestly garment is for Noordzij a richly suggestive typological symbol. Linen is the fabric of rest, not of fleshly effort: in contrast to wool (an animal product, symbol of bodily labor and self-generated energy), linen is cool and associated with the heavenly realm (Dan. 10:5; Rev. 15:6). The priest who “clothes himself in linen” enters a mode of service that is not driven by fleshly activism but by Spirit-led rest. Deut. 10:8 — “to stand before the Lord to serve Him” — defines priestly service as standing before God as its primary posture, not running about before people. Noordzij uses this to critique institutional religious activism: the church that is always doing but never resting before God has confused the Levitical pattern (perpetual activity) with the Melchizedekian (rest as the source of service). The result of the spiritual life is priestly identity:
“Thus we become a living sacrifice, a true priest, a spiritual temple and much more (1Cor. 3:16, Rom. 12:1).”6
The threefold identity — living sacrifice, true priest, spiritual temple — maps onto the threefold priestly ordination of Ex. 40: washing (purification → living sacrifice), anointing (anointing → true priest), sanctifying (sanctification → spiritual temple). Noordzij integrates 1Cor. 3:16 (the individual as temple of the Holy Spirit) with Rom. 12:1 (the body as living sacrifice) to show that priestly identity is not a future eschatological status but a present transformational process. The priestly calling is simultaneously vocation and reality-in-formation: the linen garment is not an end-goal but a daily choice for rest over activism. For Noordzij priestly identity is not institutional but pneumatic — it cannot be conferred by ordination, only formed through lived encounter with God.
In The Feast of Tabernacles, Noordzij develops the priestly process of becoming further. Royal priesthood is not a static state but a process of growth:
“Every Christian who hears the voice of the good shepherd and follows him, out of the ‘stall,’ will in time be able to become a true king and priest. For it is a process of becoming. Belonging to the priesthood is something other than being a priest (cf. 1Pet. 2:9).”7
The distinction “belonging to the priesthood” versus “being a priest” is for Noordzij theologically decisive. Every believer belongs to the royal priesthood by virtue of new birth (1Pet. 2:9) — but not every believer is a mature royal priest. This is Noordzij’s equivalent of Paul’s distinction between “children” and “mature” (teleios, Heb. 5:14): the calling is universal but its actualization requires growth. The “good shepherd” image (John 10:11-16) suggests that the path out of the “stall” — the institutional, controlled religious environment — is a necessary dimension of this maturation process. The priestly vocation cannot be fully exercised from within the safety of the religious system: it requires a willingness to follow the Shepherd into exposed, uncharted spiritual territory. The typological ground of this becoming-process is the threefold priestly ordination of Ex. 40:12-16:
“Then it will become clear who has been ‘made a priest to reign as king upon the earth’ (Rev. 5:10). Mature, royal priests! Washed, clothed in linen garments, anointed, sanctified (Ex. 40:12-16).”8
The convergence of “mature, royal priests” who are “washed, anointed, and sanctified” (Ex. 40:12-16) is for Noordzij the eschatological Feast of Tabernacles fulfillment in miniature. The temple consecration (Ex. 40) and the priestly ordination (Lev. 8) constitute the OT typological foundation: these were the defining moments at which God’s dwelling among his people and his priestly servants were inaugurated. The antitype at the eschatological fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles will be the appearance of the corporate body of mature royal priests — “made a priest to reign as king upon the earth” (Rev. 5:10). This is not a private spiritual achievement but a corporate manifestation: the fully formed priestly body appearing with Christ in glory (Col. 3:4) as the culmination of the entire spiritual formation process Noordzij traces from Ex. 40 through 1Pet. 2:9 through the Feast of Tabernacles fulfillment. The order of Melchizedek — imperishable, by the power of an indestructible life (Heb. 7:16) — is the endpoint of this process: a priesthood that death itself cannot interrupt.
Jones
Jones connects the priesthood in The Laws of the Second Coming to the first resurrection and the millennial reign:
“Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.”9
This priesthood of the firstfruits is for Jones the eschatological fullness of what the Levitical priesthood typologically depicted. The Levitical priests mediated between God and Israel; the royal priests of the first resurrection mediate between God and all creation — including Israel, the nations, and ultimately even those subject to the “second death.” Jones grounds this in his universal restorationism: the priesthood of the overcomers in the Millennium is a redemptive institution, not a private reward. Rev. 20:6 makes explicit that these priests will “reign with Christ for a thousand years” — reigning as priests, which for Jones means exercising authority through intercession and mediation rather than through coercion. The first resurrection is the prerequisite: only those who have died and risen in Christ can exercise this Melchizedekian priesthood, because it requires “an indestructible life” (Heb. 7:16) as its basis — not biological succession. This is the ultimate antitype of the typological trajectory of the Levitical system: what the Aaronic priests depicted in shadow, the firstfruits priests embody in eschatological reality.
Related types
- Connected: melchizedek (the antitypical priesthood bears the order of Melchizedek, not of Aaron)
- Connected: feast-of-tabernacles (the priesthood as the qualification of the overcomers who fulfill the Feast of Tabernacles)
- Via number symbolism: 24 (24 priestly divisions as type of governmental perfection)
Footnotes
Footnotes
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Warnock, FOT (The Feast of Tabernacles, 1951), ch. 9 (on 1Pet. 2:9). ↩ ↩2
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Noordzij, HP (Taking Hold of the Plow), section “Calling to royal priesthood”. ↩
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Noordzij, HP (Taking Hold of the Plow), section “Calling to royal priesthood”. ↩
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Noordzij, HP (Taking Hold of the Plow), section “Calling to royal priesthood”. ↩
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Noordzij, HLF (The Feast of Tabernacles), section “Royal priesthood in Christ — Process of Becoming”. ↩
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Noordzij, HLF (The Feast of Tabernacles), section “Royal priesthood in Christ — Process of Becoming”. ↩
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Jones, EJ (The Laws of the Second Coming), ch. 8 (on Rev. 20:6). ↩