The mystery of the priesthood is one of the most profound revelations hidden within Scripture, yet its deepest meaning has remained veiled beneath centuries of ritual and tradition. Most readers understand the priest as a religious figure who offers sacrifices and mediates between God and the people. That understanding is not wrong, but it captures only the shadow. The New Testament reveals that the priesthood was never an end in itself. It was a prophetic structure pointing to Christ.
The mystery of the priesthood is not about liturgical function. It is about the Person who alone can bring humanity into the presence of God.
Before Aaron: The Priesthood of Melchizedek
The first priest mentioned in Scripture is not Aaron. It is Melchizedek. He appears in Genesis 14:18 without genealogy, without recorded beginning or end. He is identified as “priest of the most high God.” Abraham, the father of the covenant, offers tithes to him. This detail is not incidental.
The writer of Hebrews seizes upon this. Melchizedek is presented as a type of Christ precisely because he stands outside the Levitical order. He has no recorded lineage, no predecessor, no successor. His priesthood is not inherited through flesh. It is declared by divine appointment. “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4).
This means that before the law was given, before the tabernacle was built, before Aaron was anointed, there was already a priesthood that transcended Israel’s system. The Levitical priesthood was always temporary. Melchizedek’s was eternal.
The mystery of the priesthood begins here. If the Levitical system were sufficient, why does the psalmist speak of another order? The answer runs through the entire Old Testament: the Aaronic priesthood was designed to fail forward into something greater.
Aaron and the Priesthood Under Law
When God establishes the tabernacle in Exodus, He appoints Aaron and his sons as priests. Their role is clear. They stand between a holy God and an unholy people. They offer sacrifices. They enter sacred spaces. They pronounce blessing.
Yet the priesthood under law is marked by limitation at every point. The priests must first offer sacrifices for their own sins before they can intercede for others (Leviticus 16:6). They serve behind a veil that separates them from the fullness of God’s presence. They die and are replaced by successors. The repetition of sacrifice, day after day and year after year, testifies that the work is never finished.
Hebrews declares plainly, “For the law made nothing perfect” (Hebrews 7:19). The Levitical priesthood could maintain the system but could not resolve the problem. It could manage sin’s consequences but could not remove sin’s power. It could draw near to the veil but could not tear it open. This is the critical insight. The priesthood under law exposed the need for a priest who could do what Aaron never could: bring humanity fully into the presence of God and keep them there.
The pattern was real. The fulfillment was still coming. As explored in our study of the old and new covenants, the law served as a tutor leading to Christ.
The Day of Atonement and Its Incompleteness
The highest moment of the Levitical calendar was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Once a year the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, bringing blood to cover the sins of the nation (Leviticus 16). The ritual was solemn, dangerous, and deeply symbolic.
Yet the very repetition of the Day of Atonement proclaimed its insufficiency. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Each year the ceremony was repeated because each year the problem remained. The blood covered but did not cleanse. It atoned temporarily but did not reconcile permanently.
The veil remained. The separation persisted. The priest emerged from the Holy of Holies and the people waited outside. This was not failure of design. It was prophecy through limitation. The Day of Atonement pointed forward to a day when a greater priest would enter a greater sanctuary with better blood and never need to return to repeat the offering. This is precisely what the sacrificial blood anticipated throughout the entire Old Testament.
Christ: The Priest Who Entered Once for All
Hebrews presents Christ as the fulfillment of everything the Levitical priesthood shadowed. He is a priest “not after the order of Aaron” but “after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 7:11, 17). He has no predecessor and no successor. His priesthood is permanent because His life is indestructible.
Unlike Aaron, Christ does not offer sacrifice for His own sins. He has none. He offers Himself. “Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:27).
The cross is the altar. The blood is His own. The sanctuary is not made with hands but is heaven itself. When Christ enters the true Holy of Holies, He does not emerge to repeat the ritual. He sits down. “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12).
The sitting down is decisive. Aaron never sat. The priests under law stood continually, their work never finished. Christ sits because His work is complete. This connects directly to the truth revealed in the mystery of the cross: the crucifixion was not tragedy but priestly consummation.
The Veil Torn: Access Granted
When Christ dies, the veil of the temple is torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). This is not a dramatic flourish. It is the theological climax of the priesthood. The barrier that separated God from humanity is removed. What the Aaronic priest could only approach once a year under the cover of blood, believers now enter freely through the blood of Christ.
Hebrews 10:19-22 declares, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.” The veil was His flesh. His death opened the way. His resurrection ensures the way remains open.
The temple in Jerusalem, explored in our article on the third temple, was never meant to stand forever. Its purpose was prophetic. When Christ declared, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), He was revealing that the true temple was His body. And when that body was raised, the need for any earthly priesthood was fulfilled.
The Believer’s Priesthood in Christ
The New Testament does not abolish priesthood. It universalizes it through union with Christ. Peter writes, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). Every believer is a priest because every believer is in the Priest.
This is not democratic theology. It is Christological reality. The priesthood of all believers does not mean that every person is self-sufficient before God. It means that through faith, believers share in Christ’s priestly access. They enter boldly because He has entered first. They offer worship because He has offered the final sacrifice.
Revelation confirms this identity. Believers are described as “kings and priests unto God” (Revelation 1:6). The dual identity that was separated in Israel, where kings could not be priests and priests could not be kings, is united in Christ and extended to those united to Him. This priestly identity is inseparable from what is revealed in the mystery of the kingdom.
The Intercession That Never Ends
The Aaronic priests interceded temporarily and died. Christ “ever liveth to make intercession” (Hebrews 7:25). His priesthood is not a past event but a present reality. He does not merely save and then withdraw. He sustains, intercedes, and maintains the relationship He has secured.
Paul affirms this in Romans 8:34: “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” The believer’s assurance rests not on personal performance but on the priestly ministry of a risen and enthroned Savior.
This is what makes the mystery of the priesthood a gospel declaration and the heart of Christian assurance. Salvation is not a one-time transaction. It is ongoing mediation by the One who died, rose, and now stands as eternal High Priest before the Father.
The Mystery of the Priesthood Unveiled
The priesthood in Scripture moves from shadow to substance. Melchizedek anticipated it. Aaron administered its pattern. The sacrificial system exposed its necessity. Christ fulfilled it.
The mystery is not that God needed priests. It is that God became the Priest. The One who demanded holiness provided the way to enter it. The One who appointed the sacrificial system became the sacrifice. The One who dwelt behind the veil tore it open from within.
This is not a doctrine of historical curiosity. It is the foundation of Christian confidence. Believers do not approach God through human mediators, rituals, or ceremonies. They approach through the once-for-all offering of the Son, who is both sacrifice and priest, both offering and offerer.
The priesthood has not ended. It has been perfected in Christ. And in Him, every believer stands before God with boldness, not because of what they have done, but because of who He is and what He has finished.
Aaron stood and served. Christ sat down and reigns.
The mystery of the priesthood is the mystery of access, accomplished forever in the blood of the eternal High Priest.
