November 8, l987
Bethlehem Baptist Church
Morning
John Piper, Pastor
"And now this admonition is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honor my name," says the LORD Almighty, "I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me. "Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will spread on your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so that my covenant with Levi may continue," says the LORD Almighty. "My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin. "For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction -- because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty. But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi," says the LORD Almighty. "So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law." (NIV)
Last week we looked at the curse of careless worship. And Malachi drove his word against the priests in the temple. Verse 6: "If I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name."
But the sense you get as you read last week's text is that not just the priests but the people too were being careless in worship. For example, in 1:14 the Lord says, "Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock, and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished." This is not just a priestly problem. All over Israel people loved profit, and so brought the worthless leftovers of their business to God.
In today's text Malachi focuses directly on the priests. Verse 1: "And now, O priests, this command is for you."
Before we get into the text let's ask what relevance this has for us. Who are the priests today? Or are there any? The New Testament never uses the term priest to describe a pastor or elder in the church. There is no official priesthood in the New Testament church. The reason for this is very clear: Jesus Christ himself has become a permanent priest for us and the Old Testament priesthood is now obsolete. Hebrews 7:23-25,
The priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
Christ is now the one and only priest between us and God. The reason for this is that his sacrifice was final and his life is indestructible (7:16).
When Christ appeared as a high priest . . . he entered
once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats
and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
(Hebrews 9:11-12)
So the Old Testament priesthood is replaced once
and for all by the priestly ministry of Jesus -- the offering
of himself as the final sacrifice for sin, and the interceding
for us today in heaven. There is no official priesthood in the
New Testament church.
Therefore wherever you find today an emphasis on
the priesthood of the clergy, there you also find minimizing of
the once-for-allness of the sacrifice of Christ. For example,
in the Roman Catholic church the official priesthood is extremely
important because the mass is a real sacrifice. The bread and
cup are really transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ
and are offered up to God for the forgiveness of sins. This repeated
sacrifice in the church necessitated an official priesthood to
administer the sacrifices just like the Old Testament had an official
priesthood to offer the animal sacrifices.
But both the mass and the clerical priesthood minimize
and distort the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on Calvary.
The truth is lost or minimized that there are no more sacrifices
for sin; the death of Christ once for all is sufficient to forgive
all who believe; and that's why there is no more official priesthood
in the New Testament; the priestly offering of sacrifices is done.
Christ ended it.
Instead, Peter calls the whole church a "holy
priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5) and a "royal priesthood"
(1 Peter 2:9); and John says that Christ made the whole church
"a kingdom, priests to his God and Father" (Revelation 1:6).
This means that Christ has opened the way for all of us to come
directly to God through him. We do not need any human mediator.
We can walk with Christ -- our high priest -- right into the
Holiest Place where God dwells and find grace to help in time
of need (Hebrews 4:16).
So there is no official priesthood in the New Testament
church. No church leaders are called priests because of their
office in the church. But this raises the question: Were there
other duties that priests had in the Old Testament besides offering
sacrifices for the sake of the people -- duties that may indeed
be continued in the New Testament?
The answer is a clear yes. Notice Malachi 2:7, "For
the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and men should seek
instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD
of hosts."
In other words the priests were teachers. This part
of their ministry is continued in the church of the New Testament.
Ephesians 4:11 says that Christ gave to the church some pastors
and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
1 Timothy says that there are to be overseers who are able in
teaching (3:2), and that some elders in the church are to labor
in preaching and teaching (5:17; cf. Titus 1:9).
So this part of the priests' duties in Israel is
continued in the elders of the New Testament church -- they are
responsible to teach and guide the church. But they are never
called "priests", because that would imply too much
likeness to the Old Testament office. Pastors do not offer sacrifices
for the forgiveness of sins -- not in the mass or any other way.
We do not offer people Jesus Christ in the mass, we point people
to the finished, all-sufficient work of the cross and directly
to the living, interceding Jesus Christ, by the Word of God.
We are teachers and preachers above all else.
So my conclusion is that Malachi 2:1-9 is very relevant
for us today because the priestly failure that Malachi talks about
has to do especially with their duties as teachers and moral examples
for the people. The failure he warns against would be just as
much failure today!
But now the question rises: Why should you (who are
not pastors) be interested in two messages on the failures and
successes of the pastoral ministry. There are at least four reasons.
So I hope we have laid a foundation now for this
week's and next week's messages -- that is, a foundation for why
this text about Old Testament priests is relevant for pastors
today and why even non-pastors should care about what it teaches.
Of course I have left out what might be the most
obvious reason why a text dealing with pastoral failure is relevant
today, namely, that there is so much of it, especially sexual
failure.
I was reading this week an essay by Erroll Hulse,
a Baptist pastor in Liverpool, England in which he said,
It is a morbid and depressing fact that when it comes
to adultery, there are too many casualties among pastors. Ministers
are just as vulnerable as others. No area, no country, no denomination
is immune. The damage done in each case is irreparable: the breakdown,
as far as ministry is concerned, final. This is a distasteful
subject, but we cannot shirk it. The matter demands faithful
treatment. Let him who thinks that he stands take heed lest he
fall. (The Preacher and Preaching, ed. Samuel Logan, pp. 75-6)
And just this week I was on the phone with another
pastor in the BGC who had preached recently for a colleague.
During the series of meetings they took a walk together and discussed
this issue with great earnestness. Only a few weeks after my
friend returned to his own church he received that word that his
pastor friend was forced to resign over an affair with a woman
in the church -- even though he had looked him right in the eye
and never confessed it.
And what we see today in the moral collapse of the
ministry is not the worst priestly failure. Far more devastating
for the church long term is the doctrinal defection of thousands
of pastors away from the authority and sufficiency of Scripture
and away from Biblical truth.
When the Great Awakening in New England was over
back in the 1740's there were pastors who reacted against the
Calvinistic basis of this great revival and turned to Arminianism.
And then, led by Charles Chauncy, a Boston Congregationalist,
they moved to Unitarianism and Universalism.
And you can feel to this day, 200 years later, the
icy effects of that doctrinal departure on the state of the church
in New England. Would that Charles Chauncy had only committed
adultery! And would that this were our only problem today! Don't
be misled! The pastoral scandals of our day are not the greatest
danger to the church. The great danger is the minimizing of deep
spiritual commitment to doctrinal, Biblical truth.
When God predicted the ruin of his people Israel
in the book of Amos he said that the famine that would destroy
was a famine of the word of God:
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when
I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, nor a
thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They
shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall
run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not
find it.
That's the most devastating priestly failure, and
that's the one Malachi is most concerned with. So let's turn
to the text and see how Malachi treats this issue of priestly
failure.
What Malachi does in 2:1-9 is contrast the failure
of the priests in his day with the successes of the early priests
in Israel's history. In verses 2, 8 and 9 Malachi mentions five
failures. And in verses 5, 6 and 7 he describes what a successful
priesthood looks like.
I think that all we will have time for this morning
is to look at two of the deepest priestly failures -- the two
mentioned in verse 2. And then next Sunday we move straight into
the other verses and round out the picture of the true minister
of the word.
Verses 1-2: And now, O priests, this command is for you. If
you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory
to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse
upon you and I will curse your blessings.
Two priestly failures are mentioned here. First,
the failure to listen to God, and second the failure to have a
heart burden for the glory of God.
1. "If you will not listen. . ." I will
send the curse upon you. One great danger to the pastoral ministry
is that the voice of God in Scripture may be drowned out by other
voices. One of the most frightening things in the ministry is
the possibility that one day we may wake up and read the sacred
page and hear nothing from God.
Why is this so terrible? Because the last line of
verse 7 says the minister of the word is "the messenger of
the Lord of hosts." There is a difference between a lecture
on the meaning of ancient texts and a message from the Lord of
hosts. God has appointed preachers in the church not simply to
lead discussions, not simply to explain problems, not simply analyze
texts, but to herald a message to his people. And you can't herald
what you don't hear.
I heard W. A. Criswell of First Baptist Dalllas quote
the laymen of his church one time. They said, "Pastor, we
know what the editorialists say, and we know what the commentators
say, and we know what the economists and politicians say. What
we want to know from you is, DOES GOD HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY?!"
"If your will not listen . . . says the Lord
of hosts, then I will send a curse upon you."
2. The second priestly failure in verse 2 is the
failure to have a heart burden for the glory of God. "If
you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the
Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you."
Note very carefully the wording here. The issue
is not merely whether the glory of God is the explicit unifying
theme of the minister's doctrine and preaching, but whether there
lies on his heart a burden to see God glorified. "If you
will not lay it to heart (put it on your heart) to give glory
to my name . . ."
The congregation must ask, Is it not only a part
of his theology but also the passion of his soul? Does the glory
of God come before the approval and praise of his people? Does
it come before professional advancement? Does it come before
financial reward and material comfort? Does he come back to it
again and again, like the needle of a compass toward the magnet
of truth, or like a weather vain in a heavenward wind? Does it
come out in private as well as in public, in praying as well as
preaching, in playing as well as studying?
What could be more crucial in calling a pastor, or
praying for a pastor, or holding a pastor accountable than that
he "lay it to heart -- that it weigh on his heart -- to give
glory to the name of God"?
And so I close with this admonition: desire that
kind of pastor, love the word of God and the glory of his name
and pray for that kind of pastor until you have that kind of pastor,
to the glory of our great God and Savior. Amen.
Copyright ©1987, 1997 John Piper
Used by permission.
Piper
Notes
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