Theopedia

Priesthood of all believers

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

— 1 Peter 2:9 (ESV)

Definition

The priesthood of all believers is the doctrine that every believer, united to Christ, already has direct access to God and does not depend on a separate priestly class to obtain it. Scripture names the whole church, not an ordained few, “a holy priesthood” offering “spiritual sacrifices” to God and a “royal priesthood” proclaiming his excellencies (1 Pet. 2:5, 9).1 The doctrine does not abolish the church’s own ordained offices: elders and pastors still hold a distinct calling to teach and oversee, one Christ instituted for the church’s service, not as a gate to grace.

Confessional Witness

The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 has no chapter devoted to this doctrine on its own; its chapter on the church describes the gathered congregation without addressing every believer’s own priestly standing. The Second Helvetic Confession (1566), a sibling Reformed confession, states the doctrine under its own heading:

“PRIESTHOOD OF ALL BELIEVERS. To be sure, Christ’s apostles call all who believe in Christ ‘priests,’ but not on account of an office, but because, all the faithful having been made kings and priests, we are able to offer up a spiritual sacrifices to God through Christ (Ex. 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 1:6). Therefore, the priesthood and the ministry are very different from one another. For the priesthood, as we have just said, is common to all Christians; not so is the ministry. Nor have we abolished the ministry of the Church because we have repudiated the papal priesthood from the Church of Christ.”2

This states the doctrine and immediately distinguishes it from ordained office: every Christian shares the priesthood Christ has given the whole church, but not every Christian holds the ministry, the specific calling to teach and administer the sacraments. The same chapter guards the distinction from the other direction as well, warning against anyone taking up that ministry “of their own accord, being neither chosen, sent, nor ordained.”3

Biblical Basis

Peter addresses the whole church, not a subset of it, as “a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” and “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:5, 9). John’s greeting to the seven churches states the same standing in the same breath as Christ’s own work: he “freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (Rev. 1:6). Both texts echo God’s word to Israel at Sinai, that the whole nation, not one tribe alone, would be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” if they kept his covenant (Ex. 19:6), language the New Testament applies to the church as heir of that calling.1

Paul draws the practical entailment: because believers are this kind of priesthood, they are to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1), and the author of Hebrews names the same offering “the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” and “to do good and to share what you have” (Heb. 13:15-16). These are the sacrifices Scripture assigns every believer: praise, obedience, and generosity, not the atoning sacrifice for sin that belongs to Christ’s own priesthood alone (Heb. 10:12).1

Doctrinal Significance

Bavinck grounds this priesthood in Christ’s own threefold office: believers are anointed with the same Spirit that rested on him, and so share, each “in one’s own way and extent,” in his work as prophet, priest, and king.1 As prophets they “declare the excellencies of God” and confess his name; as priests they offer their bodies and praise as living sacrifices; as kings they “fight the good fight” against sin, the world, and the devil, with the hope of one day reigning with Christ.1 Bavinck calls this the “universal office of believer,” a standing that comes before any of the special offices the church later institutes.1

That priority has a limit built into it. Christ does not leave the church without particular offices once he has given it this universal one; he “has also instituted special offices in the church,” offices that “are not a ruling but a serving power” and “exist for the sake of the church.”4 The priesthood of all believers grounds the church’s ordained ministry rather than competing with it: because every member already stands in direct relation to God, elders and pastors serve the congregation’s growth rather than gatekeeping its access to grace.

Historical Development

The doctrine was disputed at the Reformation. Louis Berkhof describes the late medieval church as resting on “an infallible and hierarchical Church, and of a special priesthood, which dispenses salvation through the sacraments.” Luther “regarded the Church as the spiritual communion of those who believe in Christ, and restored the Scriptural idea of the priesthood of all believers,” while still maintaining the church’s unity across its visible and invisible aspects.5

Bavinck ties the same Reformation break to a wider theological dispute over nature and grace. Medieval theology, drawing on a Neoplatonic scheme he traces to the Pseudo-Areopagite writings, treated supernatural grace as an added tier above ordinary human nature, available in fuller measure to those, monastics and the ordained, set apart to receive it. Scripture, Bavinck argues, “knows no such contrast between the natural and the supernatural; it knows only one idea of humanness, one moral law, one final destiny, and one priesthood, which is the portion of all believers.”6 On this reading, the priesthood of all believers was one expression of the Reformers’ wider rejection of a graded, merit-based hierarchy between clergy and laity.

Opposing Views

Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism maintains the “special priesthood” Berkhof describes: an ordained class distinct from the laity, holding a standing the rest of the church does not share and believed to dispense grace through sacraments it alone may administer.5 It grounds that priesthood, and the sacrifice of the Mass it offers, in an authority handed down from the apostles through unbroken ordination, rather than in a standing every believer already holds by union with Christ.

Objections and Responses

Doesn’t this doctrine mean any believer may preach, administer the sacraments, or lead the church without being called to it? No. The same confession that states the doctrine immediately guards against that reading, condemning “all those who go off of their own accord, being neither chosen, sent, nor ordained.”3 Bavinck draws the same line dogmatically: Christ’s universal priesthood does not dissolve the special offices he has instituted in the church; those remain “a serving power,” not a possession the whole congregation may exercise at will merely because every member shares the underlying priesthood.4

Doesn’t calling every believer a “priest” make each one a mediator, competing with Christ’s own unique priestly office? No. The sacrifices Scripture assigns believers are not the atoning kind. Believers offer praise, obedience, and their own bodies as “living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1; Heb. 13:15-16), not a sacrifice for sin. Christ alone holds that office, having “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins” that never needs repeating (Heb. 10:12); the priesthood every believer shares is a share in praising and serving God through that finished sacrifice, not a competing claim to have offered it.

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 21, “The Church as a Spiritual Reality”: “Antecedent to all special offices in the church is the universal office of believer…. they, being anointed with that Spirit, are [made] a holy, royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:5, 9). They are prophets who declare the excellencies of God, confess his name, and know all things; priests who offer up their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God; kings who fight the good fight, overcome sin, the world, and death, and will someday reign with Christ.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. The Second Helvetic Confession (1566), chap. 18, “Of the Ministers of the Church, Their Institution and Duties.” ↩

  3. Second Helvetic Confession, chap. 18. ↩ ↩2

  4. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, chap. 21: “On the basis of these gifts and this office of all believers, Christ has also instituted special offices in the church…. The offices in the church of Christ are not a ruling but a serving power. They exist for the sake of the church.” ↩ ↩2

  5. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969), 542-43. ↩ ↩2

  6. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 11, “The Image of God.” ↩