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Most Protestants, either by conviction or force of habit, have an aversion to priests in New Testament worship. Some ancient writers felt the same way, boasting that such Jewish trappings had been abandoned under the New Covenant. Nevertheless, priests, altars and sacrifices were not altogether missing in the writings of the apostles and descriptions of the ancient liturgy. Just as we have on other occasions encouraged Christians to become familiar with New Testament sacrifices as an apostolic imperative (Philippians 4:18, 1 Peter 2:5), Christians will also do well to understand why some early writers embraced the idea not only of sacrificial altars but also of a sacrificial priesthood, and even “high priests,” to minister at them. Let us set aside (for a moment) the objection to having priests, and focus instead on what those priests were supposed to be offering. Once we do that, instead of finding the later Roman Catholic medieval aberrations, we find an implicitly Protestant liturgy reflecting a desire to live out the new role of Christians as a peculiar, royal priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices in a spiritual temple (1 Peter 2:4-9). Under that construct, ancient Christians celebrated both the end of all propitiatory sacrifices for sin and embraced Malachi’s prophecy of an acceptable well-pleasing sacrifice of New Covenant worship (Malachi 1:10-11), complete with priests, high priests, altars, oblations and, in a figurative sense “incense” to accompany the sacrifices. Continue reading Priests of the New Temple Sacrifice, part 1