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| Q: | Hebrews Hebrews 5:1-6 is a Biblical reference commonly cited to back up the doctrine of the Divine Call. This particular passage seems to have been written to defend and proclaim the Priestly Office of Jesus. To use this passage to defend the Doctrine of the Divine Call seems to be something of a stretch at best, and at worst would appear to add credence to the false concept that an intermediary priest is still somehow necessary in the person of a called Lutheran Pastor. Our Lutheran teaching on this matter would thus appear to be oddly out of step with the other Lutheran teaching that Christians, through Jesus' atonement for sin on the cross, no longer are in need of priests and priestly sacrifices for sin. Would we Lutherans thus be guilty, by using this passage of Scripture, of incorrectly intermingling unrelated concepts? | ||||||
| A: | The use of Hebrews 5:1-6 as a passage in speaking of the NT office of the public ministry needs to be carefully circumscribed. It needs to be made clear that the use of this passage in no way equates the function of the OT office of the priest and the function of the NT office of the pastor. However, this passage does have something to say that applies to any public office of the ministry, be that an OT or NT office. What it clearly states about a public office is this: how a person comes to be a minister in a public office of the church.. Verse 4 states that since the OT high priest was serving in a public office, he could not just take this office for himself (v4). Verse 1 says he had to be selected and then appointed, and verse 4 says he had to be called by God. Since this was an absolute rule for the public office of the high priest, verse 5 adds that even Jesus could not become a high priest without being appointed to that office. Thus the use of this passage in referring to the NT office of the public ministry is legitimate if it is used to explain one point. This point is that a person cannot just decide on his own that he is going to be a public minister and then take that office upon himself. He becomes a public minister only when he has a divine call, that is, when a group of fellow Christians acting under God's guidance ask him to carry out some form of the public ministry of the word in their name and in their stead. | ||||||
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