Servant, proclaimer, priest

The New Testament proclaims the priesthood of all believers. What then is the role of the clergy? How does their role differ from that of the rest of the members of the church?

Rex. D. Edwards is an assistant secretary of the Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

A church historian writes, "In spite of its affirmation of the priesthood of all believers, there is perhaps no function which Protestantism has so much neglected. Not only have Protestant laymen not assumed the priestly role, but until recently even the clergy have shunned it. A major task for Protestant churches today, not merely the clergy but the whole church, is to understand and accept their priesthood."1

The church is a people; a community of human beings, a people of God—a community having a depth and a significance beyond the human. The whole church, as the people of God, has a ministry and priesthood. "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" (1 Peter 2:9*).

This priesthood, this ministry, belongs to the people as a whole. It is understood collectively. It is mistaken individualism and egalitarianism that talks about the priesthood of all believers as if this priesthood could be divided up into equal shares among all of the people. All do share in it, but they do so in different ways. We must never separate ministry and church, for the ministry is to be understood in the context of the church; but just as certainly we must not simply absorb the distinctive ordained ministry into the general ministry of the whole church. The very idea of the church as the people of God, as the body of Christ, implies differentiation within the over arching unity—for a body is not an assemblage of identical organs, nor is a people a collection of individuals all alike.

Yet while we must make a distinction, we must not divide. Though the ordained ministry is distinctive, it is exercised in the context of the church and cannot go it alone.

Since all ministry is the gift of Christ to His church and a participation in His own ministry, we can see the basic functions of a Christian ministry most clearly by looking first at Christ's ministry as the New Testament shows it. We can group the functions of that ministry under three main headings.

Ministers serve

The first function of ministry is service. The Greek word used in the New Testament for ministry is diakonia, "service." Saying that the first function of ministry is service might at first seem utter tautology, for is not all ministry service? But the tautology has to be uttered because one of the most unfortunate effects of the sociological factors in Christian ministry dominating the theological factors has been the obscuring of the servant function, especially in ages of clericalism. To be sure, one could never get away from the fact that ministry means service, and the pope has always had as one of his titles "Servant of the Servants of God." But there have been many times in history when this title must have seemed ironic in the extreme.

Certainly Jesus' ministry was one of service. The early church understood it so and applied to Christ Isaiah's image of the suffering servant. The great Christological passage of Philippians says that Christ emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7), and the word here translated "servant" is doulos, a word signifying the abasement of a very slave.

Jesus expected His disciples' ministry to follow the pattern He had set. He said, "You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:42-45). And in John's Gospel we read His words, "You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you" (John 13:13-15).

It is right that one of the ancient orders of ministry in the Christian church should bear the name diakonate. This term symbolizes for us the obscure, the unspectacular servants that are very much at the heart of Christian ministry. Deacons get no publicity; they are simply attendants belonging to an "inferior" order of ministry. Could it be that our unwillingness to serve simply and in obscurity has led to the decline of the diakonate, and could it be that Christian ministry cannot be restored to complete health until the diakonate has been resurrected in its true functions?

But let us spell out in more detail the kind of service demanded of Christian ministry. Again we look to Jesus Christ. We find that His service was directed above all to the sick, the handicapped, and the rejects of society. His was a ministry of healing in the broader sense, a ministry of bringing wholeness—that is, salvation—to those whose lives had been blighted for whatever reason. This same service to human need lies at the foundation of ministry today.

Paul broadened the idea of a ministry of healing, flavoring it more with the general idea of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:19). Reconciliation makes Christian ministry distinctive . . . reconciliation of those who are estranged from each other, reconciliation of those who are shattered internally, reconciliation of all to God. To be sure, this reconciliation must go to the root of what has been divided and deal with the disruption in a drastic way, if necessary. But Christians always look to final reconciliation. This is what differentiates their approach from that of others, such as Marxists, who also profess their concern for the needy.

Christ's serving ministry also struck the note of suffering—He was the suffering servant. Suffering is inseparable from ministry. Indeed, sometimes all the Christian minister can do is stand with the other, sharing his or her suffering and absorbing some of it. When Christ spoke about coming to serve rather than to be served, He also said that He would give His life a ransom for many. His words give us a glimpse of the depth of commitment the service of the ministry demands. Though there are few who respond to this full depth, I think we have all known some saintly Christian ministers who have literally spent themselves in service.

Nowadays we often hear the expression enabling ministry. This expression describes very well the kind of service we have been trying to portray. Enablers do not impose solutions, nor do they obtrude their own agency. Rather, they help people to come to themselves and so to find reconciliation before God. Here again our ministry is patterned after that of our Lord, Whom the New Testament pictures as bringing out the possibilities in those whom He met. "In every human being He discerned infinite possibilities. He saw men as they might be, transfigured by His grace —in 'the beauty of the Lord our God' (Ps. 90:17, KJV). Looking upon them with hope, He inspired hope. Meeting them with confidence, He inspired trust. Revealing in Himself man's true ideal, He awakened, for its attainment, both desire and faith. In His presence souls despised and fallen realized that they still were men, and they longed to prove themselves worthy of His regard. In many a heart that seemed dead to all things holy were awakened new impulses. To many a despairing one there opened the possibility of a new life" 2

The enabling ministry is by no means a passive ministry; it is an active and costly ministry, but a self-effacing one. It is a ministry of "letting be" in the strongest sense of that expression.

Ministers proclaim

While the Gospels portray Jesus as the suffering Servant, they also picture Him as the authoritative Teacher: "They were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes" (Mark 1:22). In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus fearlessly revised the law of Moses: "You have heard that it was said to the men of old. . . . But I say to you . . ." (Matt. 5:21, 22). Jesus spoke out against the religious establishments of His day. He overthrew the tables of the money changers and cleansed the Temple of those who had commercialized it. All this too is ministry, but it is an aspect of ministry beyond that which we considered under the heading of service. We may designate this second major aspect of ministry with its inevitable accompaniment of authority as proclamation.

Near the beginning of his Gospel, Mark says that Jesus "came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God" (Mark 1:14). And as he concludes his description of Jesus' ministry, Mark says that the disciples continued His ministry of proclamation, for "they went forth and preached everywhere" (Mark 16:20). Their proclamation had authority not because of those who proclaimed it but because God commissioned them to proclaim a message to mankind.

Within the total context of ministry proclamation is by no means opposed to service. Indeed, each needs the other. On the one hand, there may be times when we may best commend the gospel through the silent witness of service, but a time must come when we shall make that gospel articulate in words. On the other hand, a mere proclamation unaccompanied by service would verge on hypocrisy.

Proclamation itself takes several forms. When it is directed to those outside the church it takes the form of evangelism; such was the nature of the first preaching. When it is directed to those within the church, for their upbuilding and instruction in the faith, it is part of the church's teaching office or magistenum. And then there is the prophetic preaching, which may be directed either within the church or without, and which subjects both church and society to the critique of God's word.

It may be difficult to distinguish the service of the ordained in the cause of reconciliation from the ministry of the whole church. But the ministry of proclamation more distinctly belongs to the ordained. In fact, many Protestants regard proclamation as the great work of the ministry and jealously safeguard the right to preach.

However, it would be wrong to make preaching and teaching exclusively the prerogative of the ordained, as if one could neatly divide Christians into an ecclesia docens (teacher) and an ecclesia discens (learner). We are all, in a sense, teachers, and all, in a sense, learners. To think out the meaning of the Christian message for today and then to proclaim it is a task that demands the cooperation and shared insights of pastors, theologians, and lay people. This task has been called "cotheologizing," and I regard it as just as important as the related ideas of collegiality and concelebration. All of these forms of cooperation demonstrate the interrelatedness of all ministry within the church, though they should not blur proper distinctions.

Again, we must remember that while ordained ministers must be willing to hear and learn from their lay brothers and sisters, they have the special responsibility of leadership in maintaining the purity of the church's proclamation and teaching. Sometimes in the prevailing egalitarian atmosphere, one fears that those who ought to be leading the church are running away from the ministry of proclamation and teaching with all its weight of responsibility and, by so doing, are creating bewilderment in the church.

Ministers intercede and celebrate

I come finally to a third group of ministerial functions. These are the priestly functions. In some ways these sum up and unite the two aspects of service and proclamation, for the priest is essentially a mediator, a representative who can face both ways—representing the church in humility before God and representing God's authoritative word to the church.

We have seen that there is a priest hood that belongs to the whole church. But within the church there is a special exercise of priesthood by pastors. This again is a sharing in the priesthood of Christ, and to understand it fully we must go back to His example.

Several passages in the New Testament either explicitly or implicitly represent Christ as a priest. At the beginning of the book of Revelation, the risen Christ, clad in shining priestly garments, dramatically appears to John the divine with a message for the church for which He has died and for which He remains infinitely concerned.

The Epistle to the Hebrews goes into much greater detail on the priesthood of Christ, explicitly contrasting His priesthood with that of the Old Testament. The sacrifices of animals could never take away sin, but Christ, our High Priest, has offered the sacrifice of Himself. He is both priest and victim, the true Mediator who has rent the veil of the temple and opened a way into God's presence. The writer compares this new, transcendent priesthood of Christ to the eternal priesthood of Melchizedek.

Then there is the great high priestly prayer in John's Gospel. Here Christ intercedes for His own on the very brink, as it were, of His death and sacrifice. And with this may be compared the similar image of Christ as the Good Shepherd, the Chief Pastor who gives His life for the sheep.

Some wonder whether these New Testament passages reserve the priesthood to Christ alone, so making the extension of His priesthood to the Christian ministry illegitimate. It is true that the Epistle to the Hebrews does not explicitly extend ministry in Christ's priesthood to His followers. But surely A. H. Baverstock makes a good point when he says the very title of High Priest implies that others are associated with Him in His priesthood. 3

We are on surer ground with the high priestly prayer in John's Gospel. That prayer falls into three parts. First, our Lord prays for Himself as the climactic moment approaches. Then He prays for the twelve whom the Father has given Him out of the world, and His prayer is "Sanctify them in the truth.... For their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth" (John 17:17-19). The verb here translated "sanctify" or "consecrate" is the Greek hagiadzo. Earlier this same verb was used to speak of Christ as He "whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world" (John 10:36). It seems clear that there is a parallel between the consecration and sending of Christ and that of the twelve. And since the third part of the great prayer intercedes for the church as a whole, it seems clear also that in this second part of His prayer Christ was asking for the apostles a participation in a priesthood distinct from that which was given to the whole body of the faithful.

Finally, the Good Shepherd image adds confirmation to this understanding, for there is no question that Peter and the apostles were also shepherds. Indeed, "pastor" has become one of the most common designations of an ordained minister.

So, in a special way pastors share a priesthood derived from Christ. While it is true that the New Testament never calls ministers "priests," Christians have come to see the priestly role of Christ reflected in their ministers and use priestly terms in describing them.

What specifically, then, are the priestly functions of the ministry? Above all, they involve baptism and the Lord's Supper. In baptism, the pastor incorporates someone into Christ's body. In the Lord's Supper, or the celebration of the Eucharist, the pastor, in reciting again the words of Christ at the Last Supper, stands in a sacramental relation to what Christ Himself did in offering His own sacrifice.

Is it these priestly functions that distinguish the ordained ministry from the general ministry of the whole church? It is well known that in an emergency a layperson may baptize, and certainly in the absence of a pastor a layperson may preside at the Lord's Supper. And there is no clear evidence that this did not hap pen in the early days of the church. Yet this fact may not point to the ideal. One cannot, of course, legislate for extremely abnormal situations or say what may be proper for a group of laypeople washed up on a desert island. But certainly one can surmise that this apparent lack of order or this diversity of order in the early church was a temporary—and, it would seem, an unsatisfactory—state of affairs that soon gave way to a more orderly situation in which the church safeguarded the Lord's Supper and baptism by entrusting their celebration to duly commissioned officers. The church at Corinth is surely more of a warning than an example for contemporary Christians.

So T. W. Manson asks, "What is the position of the people whom we ordinarily regard as ministers? Are they just laymen who have lost their amateur status?" 4 The differences are occupational (i.e., those of function), not positional (those of status).

James D. Glasse sums it up well when he says: "The minister's education gives him more information and sometimes a different kind of information than is available to the layman. Thus as an educated man the minister has a special role to play. He also has special functions in the church at which, as an expert man, he becomes more skillful than the layman. He has different functions as an institutional man which further separate him from the laity. His right to function under his own self-discipline as a responsible man tends to remove him from lay scrutiny and control."

And what "binds him to the laity in the priesthood of believers"? Glasse suggests, "He is the same kind of dedicated man as the layman, dedicated to the same end as every Christian: the increase of the love of God and neighbor in the world."

"He who called the fishermen of Galilee is still calling men to His service. And He is just as willing to manifest His power through us as through the first disciples. However imperfect and sinful we may be, the Lord holds out to us the offer of partnership with Himself, of apprenticeship to Christ. He invites us to come under the divine instruction, that uniting with Christ, we may work the works of God."—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 297.

 

Reference Notes:

* Unless otherwise noted, Bible texts quoted in this
article are from the Revised Standard Version.

1 E. Olenn Hinson, The Church: Design for
Survival (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1967), p. 95.

2 Ellen G. White, Education (Mountain View,
Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1952), p. 80.

3 A. H. Baverstock, Priesthood in Liturgy and
Life (London: Faith Press, 1917), p. 25.

4 T. W. Manson, Ministry and Priesthood:
Christ's and Ours (Richmond, Vs.: John Knox
Press, 1959), p. 41.

5 James D. Glasse, Profession: Minister
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1969), pp. 81, 82.


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Rex. D. Edwards is an assistant secretary of the Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

November 1989

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