The Vision of the Tabernacle

Chapter 15

The Ministers of the New Covenant

Introduction

The Bible says that the Christians are a kingdom of priests (1 Pet. 2:9) and have become ministers of the new covenant (1 Cor. 3:6). This is the reality of what was shown in figure in the Old Testament. We have seen many aspects of the New Testament Christian service from the different items of the tabernacle. In this chapter we will see some characteristics of the ministers of the new covenant that are presented in the New Testament.

The Ministers of the New Covenant are Priests

Chapter 14 of Romans presents many practical aspects of the living of the church, especially what it says with respect to receiving one another in spite of the differences in secondary matters such as eating and the keeping of days. Then in verse 17 Paul speaks about the kingdom of God saying that it is “not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Today, therefore, in the age of the Spirit of reality, the church is the kingdom of the heavens, or speaking more accurately, it is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens, whose manifestation will come in the millennial kingdom.

The church is also a kingdom of priests (1 Pet. 2:9). All the Christians became priests of God at the time they were regenerated. Initially this blessing was exclusively for the children of Israel (Exo. 19:6), however, they lost it due to their unfaithfulness. Today this blessing has been transferred to us who have been regenerated, the Christians, God’s people in the New Testament. Now we have a responsibility to bring men to God (cf. Rom. 15:16). We must help people to be identified with Christ’s work on the cross. Once men are saved, they rejoice, praise and sing because of the cross of the Savior. However, our job has not ended there because God is still not completely satisfied. Why not? The reason is that not only does man need God but God also needs man.

God created man as a vessel to contain Him. Adam should have eaten of the tree of life, which represents God in Christ as life, in order to receive the divine life and live by it. In this way, man would have expressed God and exercised dominion for Him. However, because he was deceived by Satan, man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and sin, the nature that causes him to sin, entered into him. For this reason he needs to be redeemed by the blood of Christ, the Son of God and the Son of man. The Son of God was our substitute on the cross, dying in our place for our sins.

We receive the reality of this fact when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our biggest problem, which is our separation from God due to sin, was then resolved. Nevertheless, for God this is not adequate because His original desire was not to save man from sin, but to enter into him as life that man might serve Him. Therefore, after we have led people to be regenerated, we need to continue on in our priestly service by reconciling them again to God, leading them to serve Him. This is our function as ministers of the new covenant.

The ministers of the new covenant are priests who are calling people from the outer court to the Holy Place that they might satisfy God. This is typified by the five pillars. However, we still need to go further in our service to God. We need to be the four pillars for the Lord; we need to be in constant fellowship, face to face with Him, so that we might draw others to the Holy of Holies. When we live like this, we are apostles and ambassadors of Christ, representing God.

In order for us to become priests of God we simply need to be regenerated. However, in order to be ministers of the new covenant, we must take care of God’s calling; and in order to be ambassadors, we must be sent by God. When we become ambassadors of Christ, we can no longer live in any way that we please, expressing our old fallen nature. Rather, all the time and in every situation, we must represent, manifest and express Christ. How can we do this? We can do this only by remaining in constant fellowship with Christ, beholding Him face to face in the Holy of Holies for “forty weeks,” with our heart fully turned to Him. We must seek this day by day because only in this way will we be able to be genuine ministers of God.

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