The Priesthood
Protestants refer to a priesthood of believers (1 Peter 2:9), and
therefore have no ordained priests.
So why do we
need a priesthood?
The idea of a priesthood
of believers comes mainly from the Old Testament.
Exodus 19:5-6 “‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and
keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples,
for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a
holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of
1 Peter 2:4-5 “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has
been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also,
as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ.”
Jesus Christ is the ultimate high priest. He is the one Mediator
between God and man. We share in His
priesthood because we are one with Him.
We are anointed at our baptism with the words “prophet, priest,
and king.”
We are Christ’s representatives in the world. We are the only Jesus that some people will
ever see. We are the Body of Christ in the world.
We always say that God should take care of all of the wrongs with
the world; but
God can’t do much without His Body, just like we can’t do much without our
body.
There are 2 main reasons for having ministerial priests:
1. They offer sacrifices – in the Old Testament, like today, no
one but a priest could offer a sacrifice.
2. Priests in the Old Testament had a reconciliatory role. In the Old Testament, there were really bad
things you could do to be an outcast (such as being a leper, touching a dead
body, or eating pork). You were unable
to go into the temple if you did these things.
Priests in those times were necessary to proclaim people to be clean, so
that they would be admitted back into the temple. Priests would represent God before the
people, and the people before God.
Priests could eliminate the social stigma of being outcast from the
temple. Romans 15:16: “But I have written very boldly to you on some points so
as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be
a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel
of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified
by the Holy Spirit.”
Why do
priests have to be celibate?
In the Bible, Jesus’ apostles were not all single men – Peter,
the first Pope, had a wife. The Eastern Rite still admits married priests, and
in the Western Rite, celibacy is a matter of expediency, not doctrine: an
unmarried man can devote himself exclusively to God with an undivided heart. The monastic ideal of celibacy eventually
became the rule of the Church, and priests were no longer allowed to marry in
the Middle Ages.
Matthew 19:12: “For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their
mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there
are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept
it.” Paul was unmarried, and had no
desire to marry. He encouraged the
Corinthians to remain unmarried (1 Corinthians 7:8). Celibacy is a foretaste of what is to come in
the
Take me back to the apologetics page!
How can a
priest forgive sins?
Jesus faced the same question: John 20:21-23: “So Jesus said to
them again, ‘peace be with you; as the Father has sent
Me, so I send you.’ And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to
them ‘receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have
been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been
retained.’” Just as Jesus has the
authority to forgive sins, He gives that authority to His Apostles. Protestants say this is just a gospel
proclamation to the “priesthood of believers.”
However, there is no indication that this authority was given to
Christians in general. The authority
Jesus conferred on the Apostles has been passed down by the Apostles (by virtue
of their inherited authority) to the bishops, the successors of the
Apostles. This authority has been passed
down from bishop to bishop, unbroken, from Christ to today’s bishops.
The Sacraments are not there because God needs them; they’re
there because we need them. When
non-Catholics think of Confession, they look at it in terms of an obligation.
They envision lots of Catholics lined up outside of confessionals on Saturday
to forgive the sins they committed on Friday, so they can go to Mass on
Sunday. Protestants look at the
Sacrament of Reconciliation is blasphemous at worst and unnecessary at best.
Reconciliation
There are three reasons why we have reconciliation:
1. Sin is a spiritual disease, which requires a cure: many times in
Scripture, sickness is mentioned as a condition of sin. Biblically, the most
common form of sickness that pictures sin is leprosy. Leprosy is a skin disease caused by a
virus. It starts as a little red spot,
and slowly gets bigger, spreads, and forms a ring. Anything inside of that ring starts to turn
white. That decay starts to advance to
the point where body parts start falling off.
It is almost always fatal. This
is a good allegory for sin. It starts
off small, gets bigger, more destructive, and starts tearing you apart. Sin in the Body of Christ is like sin in our
body. As part of the Body of Christ, sin that affects the Body is eventually
going to affect me, and vice versa.
Under Biblical law, if a person is healed of leprosy, the person could
not just go to the door of the temple and proclaim that they were healed,
because they were cut off, and because the disease was contagious. You have to go around saying “unclean!” when
you have leprosy. After many years of
hearing this from you, people are going to be standoffish if you suddenly claim
to be cured. Leviticus 13 tells us that
if someone has contracted leprosy, then they cannot be admitted into the
worship of God again until the healing is confirmed by the priest. Jesus upholds this when he heals the 9
lepers. He tells them to go show
themselves to the priest, even though He has already healed them. Even though they had been healed, they still
needed to be reincorporated into the community.
When we fall into spiritual leprosy, mortal sin, we must show ourselves
to the priest.
2. The Church is a Body. In a human body, when one part is
injured or sick, the first line of defense is the rest of the body. Reconciliation isn’t a matter of whether to
go to God or to a priest. It is assumed
when you go to Confession that you’ve already dealt with the sin with God. When a priest absolves a Christian of sin, he
is acting in the name and authority of Christ, as one part of the body (here,
the Body of Christ) ministers to another.
3. There comes a time in every Christian’s life when he or she
needs to seek counsel regarding a sin.
Most pastors spend more time counseling than they do preaching and
studying the word. Most Protestant
Seminaries are considered remiss if they don’t have a major in psychology. Most major Churches have a counselor on
staff. This need for counsel is built into us.
This need is met in the confessional.
The priest administering the Sacrament is going to give you
counsel. He’s going to try and give you
some good advice, if he’s doing his job.
A priest is trained and qualified to listen and give counsel, and
authorized to absolve those who need it.
Reconciliation is not a carwash.
We need to have a mind to change, when we go for forgiveness. It fulfills the need we have to hear “you’re
forgiven” from another human. If you
don’t hear that, then you can’t really be sure; it’s human nature to doubt your
own feelings. In Reconciliation, you have
assurance that you’re forgiven. 1 John
1:9: He forgets our sins. Sacrament of
Reconciliation is the Church’s official prayer that you will overcome sin in
your life. It conforms
us to the likeness of God’s Son.
When do we need reconciliation?
In Scripture, Paul calls some sins “worthy of death.” There are sins that, left unforgiven,
will keep you from heaven. Why would Paul tell Christians that some sins are
“worthy of death” if it were impossible to lose salvation?
Confession is required during Lent, and sometimes during
Advent. Recommend 4 times a year. It’s a good idea to go a lot so that you can
keep a short account of your sins with God.
The Eucharist
Matthew 26: 26-30: “While they were eating, Jesus took some
bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and
said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ And when He had
taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all
of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for
forgiveness of sins But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the
vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s
kingdom.’ After singing a hymn, they went out to the
Sacrificing
Jesus again?
Romans 6:8-10: “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that
we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the
dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin
once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.” Jesus is not
constantly dying, or being sacrificed again. Hebrews 7:25-27: “Therefore He is
able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He
always lives to make intercession for then.
For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent,
undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not
need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own
sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when
He offered up Himself.” Catholics
believe that Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice is just that. It occurred in a single time and space, but
it is an eternal event, beyond the limits of time. Jesus is God, an eternal being. His Death is an eternal event, which
transcends time and space. This is why people who died before Jesus’ time or who were born after
Jesus’ death can be saved by His Sacrifice.
Rev 13:8 calls Jesus the Lamb slain “from the foundation of the
world.” When
A New
Passover
The nature of the Mass can be understood if you look at where it
came from. You must begin at the
original Passover. Moses commanded the
Israelites to put the blood of a lamb on their doorpost to save their firstborn
children. Not only did they do this, but
they had to eat the lamb as well. If all
you did was put the blood on your doorpost, your firstborn child would still be
dead the next morning. In like manner,
we are commanded to feast on the Lord’s Body and Blood. You must eat the Lamb of God, who takes away
the sins of the world. At the Jewish
Seder meal, a Passover tradition, 4 cups of wine are used: The cup that Jesus uses at the institution of
the Eucharist is the third cup in the Seder.
1 Corinthians 10:16: “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a
sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in
the body of Christ?” The 3rd cup of the Seder meal is the cup of
blessing. After sharing His Blood, Jesus
says “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on
until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom” (Mt
26:29). Jesus stops here; the Seder is
left unfinished. This is comparable to
stopping the Liturgy of the Eucharist after the Consecration of the bread and
wine.
We don’t hear of a cup again until Jesus is in the Garden. Matthew 26:39: “And He went a little beyond
them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it is possible,
let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as
You will.’” He’s talking about the
fourth cup of the Seder meal. Jesus
partakes of the fourth cup when he is on the cross, when the soldiers give him
the sour wine and vinegar on the sponge.
Then he says “it is finished.” (John 19:30) Jesus finishes the Passover when he is on the
cross. If this is true, then the reverse
is true. Jesus’ Sacrifice on the cross
began in the Upper Room. In this case,
Jesus’ drinking the third cup is a prophetic action: an event that a prophet
would do that symbolizes something that is about to happen. In Hebrews 6:20, Jesus is called a priest in
the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek is
mentioned in Genesis 1417: “and Melchizedek king of [Jeru]
More Support
When King David brings the Ark of the Covenant into
Was it meant
to be taken symbolically?
One frequent accusation against the
John 6:11: “Jesus then took the loaves, and having given thanks,
He distributed to those who were seated; likewise also of the fish as much as
they wanted.”
A common misconception about John 6 is the idea that Jesus didn’t
really multiply the loaves and fishes, but he merely got greedy people to
share. This is simply not a
possibility. These people want to make
him King right after the multiplication of the loaves (v. 14-15). They wouldn’t do this if he had merely gotten
them to share.
Jesus chastises them for seeking physical food, and declares that
he is Manna from Heaven, and tells people to eat His Flesh. Jesus then intensifies his statement in v.
53: “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.’”
The Law of Moses forbids the drinking of blood, and consequently most of the
people who were following him left. His
Apostles came to him later and told him it was a hard saying. He didn’t back down though; Jesus was willing
for the Twelve to leave him over this issue: (v. 67) “You do not want to go
away also, do you?” This is the issue over which Judas decides to betray
Jesus. Why would Jesus use such a
graphic term (that you will die without eating Jesus’ Body) if he really merely
wanted people to accept him as their personal Lord and Savior?
A Protestant might ask, “So how can you believe that the Host is
more than bread?” To which a Catholic
could reply, “How can you believe that Jesus is God?” If you take a Host and
look at it under a microscope, you’ll find bread. If you took Jesus and looked at him under a
microscope, you’d find a man.
Protestants readily acknowledge Jesus’ Divinity (it is impossible to be
Christian without belief in that).
However, Jesus says more about the Real Presence than about His own
Divinity. In 1 Corinthians 11:24, Jesus says: “…do this
in remembrance of Me.” Protestants will
take this to mean that you don’t need to take it literally. The Greek for remembrance, anamnesis, really means that you must not
only remember, but put yourself in the position of a person present when the
event happened. Jesus is re-presented at
the
He Wasn’t
Kidding
1 Corinthians 11:27-30: “Therefore whoever eats the bread of
drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body
and the blood of the Lord. But a man
must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of
the cup. For he who eats and drinks,
eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not
judge the body rightly. For this reason
many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.” We are the Body of
Christ because we partake of His Body.
All Christians believe that we have a God who loves us so much that He
would rather die than live without us.
Catholics believe that God loves us so much that He becomes bread for
us.