What We Are in Christ, We Have Become According to the Power of an Endless Life

All the priests in the Levitical priesthood became priests according to the law of a fleshly commandment. Only those who were of the tribe of Levi could become priests, and they took the things that were to be sacrificed from outside their bodies. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” .

“Behold, I have come—in the volume of the book it is written of Me—to do Your will, O God.” God was not interested in burnt offerings and offerings for sin. This is what the Levitical priests brought for their own sins and the sins of the people. There was no development in that.

According to the flesh Jesus was born of the seed of David. That flesh was like the flesh of all others. . When Jesus came to do God’s will, there was a sacrifice that had to begin in His flesh. God gave Jesus light on what had to be sacrificed—God condemned sin in the flesh. . Jesus offered Himself through the eternal Spirit. . That is where His priestly training had its beginning. When He had put to death all sin in the flesh, He had completed His priestly training, and thus He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, and was called by God as High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. .

Nobody could hinder Him in this development, because in this offering He only had to give account to God. . Neither could death hold Him, because all sin in the flesh had been put to death. Now He can—in contrast to the Levitical priests—serve us forever. .

When we have become Jesus’ disciples, we must also hate our own life. We are baptized into Jesus’ death, and with that our priestly training also begins. . Paul was a zealous disciple when it came to this training. When he received the knowledge of Christ Jesus, he counted all the knowledge he had previously acquired as rubbish. He says: “. . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” .

In the organized Christian assemblies they are ignorant of the training Jesus had. They elect leaders and elders according to their human talents, university and Bible school education, and great positions in the world. Therefore they compete for the majority vote in the assembly, which is to elect the one who will sit on the platform.

“If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” .

Such servants are not dependent on the majority. They are only dependent on Him before whose eyes all things are naked and open. They are not competing against anybody, but have entered into God’s rest. .

Sigurd Bratlie