THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD STICK

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1 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD STICK MAY 15, 2018 We are talking about the Old Testament tabernacle as the center of worship for the Old Testament people. It is important because the tabernacle was the center of everything that happened in the Old Testament as far as the worship, but also the communal life of the people. We have to look at the tabernacle, and I am spending a lot of time on each of the facilities in the tabernacle because this is true, and also because each of the facilities and each piece of equipment in the tabernacle, all of it actually looks forward to our own Catholic worship. In between, because all of that comes to fulfilment in Christ, what we get to see is how Jesus fulfilled every single part of the Old Testament tabernacle, all of the facilities, all of the worship. We saw last week with the liturgical year and the liturgical calendar that the people followed that Jesus understood his own ministry based on what he knew of the Scriptures and the liturgical year. They go together, obviously. I find that fascinating because that s been true of me, too. I have been able to understand what God wants from me in my own ministry because of what I pull from the Scriptures as well. I have spent a lot of time speculating on and chewing on and ruminating on the wonder and the wondering about whether or not Jesus knew the specifics of his ministry until they were revealed to him through the Scriptures. I wonder that because that is how it has come about for me, and I know that he limited himself through the incarnation, through the taking of a human body. He limited himself in the order of the knowledge as he received it and the amount of that knowledge. I talk about that quite a bit in Fearless. I just find it fascinating. I bring him up because he is our High Priest, and today we re going to talk about the priesthood. Everything that happened in the tabernacle was facilitated by the priesthood. Originally it all began with Aaron, who was Moses s brother. Moses had a speech impediment. We believe he may have been a stutterer. He asked God for help in going to Pharaoh and asking if the people could go to Mt. Sinai to worship. Remember that all of the controversy with Moses and Pharaoh was over God wanting his people to come to Mt. Sinai to worship for a couple of days and Pharaoh wouldn t allow it. I love the fact that God finally, after illustrating through all of these plagues, he finally just said If you re not going to do what I ask, I m just going to take them out from under you altogether. I love that because that is a great principle in our own spiritual lives. God will not suffer the devil or Satan to keep us in bondage to sin. Dear One, that is your promise. That promise comes to you through the high priest ministry of our savior and Lord Jesus Christ. I love this. The priesthood was a huge thing for me because as a non-catholic I never even really considered anything aside from the lay priesthood of the people when I read these Old Testament verses about God s priesthood. I was always taught that the institutional priesthood was done away with, that God just didn t need it anymore because now we have Christ and we don t need a priesthood at all. Because of that, when I read about the priesthood in the Old Testament tabernacle I never even considered that would have an application to the Church in the New Testament. It does. It absolutely does. I want to come at this as a convert coming into the Catholic Church. If you are a cradle Catholic then you have been around this idea of priesthood for your whole life, but for me it was a new idea. I seem to have had this veil of ignorance over me. I remember in movies that had a Catholic priest in them, or say for instance the Godfather movies, I don t know why but I never actually considered that priests were actual real people and that they perform a real function in the New Testament church. They just seemed so far removed from my experience or my knowledge that I never considered that I could have something to do with them or vice versa. The same with my most favorite movie of all time, The 1 P a g e

2 Sound of Music. After I came into the Church I remember watching that movie again after I was Catholic and realizing Oh my gosh, these people are Catholic! It seems so ignorant that I could have been like that. I found the idea of priesthood so compelling once I understood how the elements of the Old Testament tabernacle testify to the institutional priesthood; not only because the tabernacle required the priesthood to be able to do all the stuff in the tabernacle, but also because the lampstand when we get to it actually proves that there must be an institutional priesthood along with the lay priesthood exactly as it was set out in the Old Testament tabernacle, and also how it was prophesied for us in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel s temple actually gives us both of those priesthoods, and it also does so in what I recall as a Catholic and a non-catholic way. I can t wait to get to that. In Exodus 28 and 29, we get a lot of information about the Old Testament priesthood. We see that there were particular garments. One of the criticisms that I remember as a non-catholic about Catholic stuff is that it is so elaborate. It s so rich. They should spend all that money on the poor. Why all the gold? Why all the elaborate decoration? It was such a criticism for Catholics because everything was beautiful and intricately and richly decorated. I just remember that being a criticism, and yet look at what it says in Exodus 28. It says that God tells them This is what you shall do for the garments of the priesthood. It says, You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother he is talking to Moses, and Aaron will be the first high priest for glory and beauty. I find that interesting because they were supposed to be clothed in very particular ways because God wanted them to look glorious and beautiful. That is because he himself are both glorious and beautiful. He wants his representatives to also have that sort of communication and that sort of feel to them. Everything, not just here in the garments of the priest, in the tabernacle of the Old Testament was dictated by God. God, Dear One, loves glory and beauty because himself is glorious and beautiful. He wants everything that represents him to also be glorious and beautiful. That s not just outer, he wants the inner bit too. That comes in the New Testament, but right now we re in the Old Testament where everything is about physical and literal ideas. This tabernacle communicates God s desire to live with his people. It communicates his desire to draw them in close, into the closest possible relationship between him and them. He outlines and prescribes and specifies down to the very last detail how he wants everything done. That is because the tabernacle, remember, is both a precursor to the Church but both the Church and tabernacles are foreshadows or precursors to the heavenly temple. The institutional priesthood began with Aaron, Moses s brother, who was given to Moses as a gift in order to go to Pharaoh and speak clearly because Moses had what we think was probably a stuttering problem. We looked a little bit at Exodus 28 where the garments for the priesthood are outlined for us. If you re looking at the chapter and paragraph headings you see there are garments for the priesthood, the ephod, the breastplate, other priestly garments that would be the mitre; there was a hat like our bishops cap they wore. In Exodus 29 is the consecration of the priests and their daily offerings. I wish I had the time to go through the preparations that they made upon their consecrations. There were washings, there was vesting. There were sacrificial offerings. There was a sacred meal. All of that was part of their consecration to God. Consecration just means to be set apart for in service, or to be particularly holy in a particular way. That was part of their preparation and consecration their ordination, we should say. Exactly as they were anointed for sacred service the Messiah was also anointed specially. He is called The Annointed One. That is actually what the word Messiah means: The Annointed One. He was especially anointed by the Holy Spirit for his office of high priest as well. 2 P a g e

3 In Exodus 29:9, it says that the priests office shall be theirs by perpetual statute, thus you shall ordain them. What is interesting about that for me as a convert, especially when I began to really study the tabernacle in light of the Catholic Church and the liturgy of the Catholic church is that, like everything else in this Old Testament tabernacle and liturgy prescription and specification, all of it was meant to be perpetual. That doesn t means until Jesus comes, and that also doesn t mean until the New Testament gets here. It means forever. There must be an institutional priesthood after Jesus comes and is crucified, resurrected, and ascended. There must be an institutional priesthood because there was in the Old Testament and it was said that it should remain forever. That is exactly what happens in the Catholic Church. The priest is called the prince of the sanctuary in Sirach 45:15-17, and we see that his function is outlined there very specifically. He is to offer sacrifice, bless the people, and teach and apply the law. I find that to be really interesting. All of the garments were for very specific reasons. The priest s girdle -- he wore something like an apron around his waist and a tunic was under that girdle was embroidered after the pattern and color of the veil that separated the sanctuary from the holy of holies, but also the veil that separated the outer courtyard from the sanctuary. It was embroidered similarity. It had the same colors. The colors in the tabernacle were blue or purple, a royal color; red, the color of blood, and gold, which would be divinity. They served barefoot. That is part of why Moses was asked to take off his shoes when he saw Moses in the burning bush. They served barefoot in the tabernacle. I actually asked my godfather when I came into the Church, because I knew that Easter Vigil was going to be over 3 hours long, can I go barefoot? I actually was thinking about this, because of Moses being told take off your shoes, you re standing on holy ground. Here these priests served in the tabernacle barefoot. I thought Hey, if they are supposed to there must be a good reason, and I knew the reason so I thought maybe I could too. But he said Nah, I don t think so. He s very wise and holy and I know he was advising me properly. I m sure everyone would have looked sideways at me. The point in the institutional priesthood in the Old Testament and why I pay so much attention to it, and the reason I did even as a non-catholic, is because I began to understand that the Catholic priesthood does not offend Jesus s priesthood, it gives witness to it. This is the same principle with talking to the saints and asking for their help. Jesus is not offended by our attention to other people unless we place them above him. We don t place the Catholic priesthood above Christ. We know that everything that happens in the Catholic Church happens in him, with him, and through him. He maintains the primary focus as the high priest in the New Testament. If you have a high priest you must also have other priests, because the function of the high priest was to be the highest of all the priests. Let s go to Revelation 1: I ve mentioned this many times throughout our discussions of the tabernacle, because it is in Revelation that we see the heavenly worship occurring right now. It s happening right now just the way we see it in the whole book of Revelation. When St. John sees this vision of heaven, what he sees is Jesus standing in the middle of seven lampstands. Those lampstands are the lampstands of the Old Testament tabernacle. It s the menorah of the Jewish faith. In fact, in the tabernacle it was man-sized. (I ve mentioned that before and I cannot wait until we get to that piece of equipment because you are not going to believe the symbolism and foreshadowing contained in that lampstand!) He is wearing priestly vestments and he is speaking the scriptures. It talks about this sword. His word is coming in and out of his mouth like a two-edged sword, and we know from Hebrews 4:12 that sword is the word of God. He is holding seven stars in his hand. Stars, in the scriptures, are very often the term used for angels. Angel would be the messenger of the church, the 3 P a g e

4 messenger of the church would be the bishop. He is the one in charge of the churches, the actual literal local churches in the New Testament. We see that St. John is actually going to write seven letters to seven churches there after this vision that he sees from Christ because Jesus is going to tell him to. The angels that Jesus is holding in his hand the seven stars, or seven angels, or seven messengers are the bishops of the churches. What is interesting there is that some theologians believe that the seven churches there remember that seven is the number of divinity is not just an illustration but they are representative of all of the churches of church history. So, the first letter would have been to the earliest church, the second would be to the next era of church history, the third would be to the next era, and so on and so on all the way through to the church at Laodicea, which would be the modern church or else the very last church of church history. When we see that Jesus is holding the seven stars, the reason that is important is because he is holding the church of history all the way from the beginning to the end in his hand. That is in his right hand, and his right hand is the hand of authority. That means that Jesus is directing and in the center of all that is occurring in the churches of the New Testament and all of history. It is he who is the high priest. We see that when St. John sees the eternity of heaven. We also know that the New Testament book of Hebrews was written to Jews in part to explain the fulfilment of the old covenant priesthood and that law in Christ. Throughout that whole book we learn that Jesus is the new Moses and he is our new eternal high priest, specifically in Hebrews 3:1 that calls him the apostle and the high priest of our confession. That means that he is the highest and first apostle and the highest and first priest of our new confession, meaning the new covenant, meaning the Church. If you have a first apostle you must also have other apostles. That is why we have the 12 apostles. They are the first bishops. Then you have the high priest, and if you have a high priest then you necessarily must have other priests. That is why I say the Catholic priesthood does not offend Jesus s own priesthood, it gives witness to it. Jesus s own apostleship and priesthood did not in any way prevent the apostleship or priesthood of the 12 disciples that he called and ordained to succeed him here on earth. We see in the book of Hebrews that Moses was God s faithful servant, whereas Jesus is God s faithful son. There is a house to which Moses was faithful, says Hebrews 3. That is the tabernacle that we are studying. There is also the house of God to which Jesus is faithful, and that is the Church, also called the living stones that make up the tabernacle of the Church. We are the body of Christ. Jesus himself is the new temple, he said of himself. We are his body here on Earth. Jesus is faithful to the house of the Church of God. Because perfection is the end of every divine arrangement, we see that the Old Testament system, because it could not bring about perfection and in the Bible perfection means holiness or maturity or completeness, and it could not do that because there was no grace in yet because Jesus had not come -- it had to be changed. I was brought up hearing and believing and being taught that it was completely knocked down and started from the ground up, but that is not the case. The Old Testament tabernacle and the Old Testament priesthood had to be changed, the book of Hebrews says, but it doesn t say it had to be destroyed and completed redone. It wasn t like a hard drive crash where you have to go dump your computer and start over with a new computer. It was more like a revision. Everything about the New Testament church and liturgy is built on the structure and skeleton of the old. That is what we are going to see in the prophesy of Ezekiel, if we get to it. It had to be changed, not eliminated. The New Testament priesthood is not through a physical progeny as the Old Testament Aaronic priesthood was. It is instead through Christ s spiritual selection. He selects and ordains the apostles, 4 P a g e

5 and that is how we see that he has changed even the way the priesthood would be given to particular people. In Hebrews 7:18-19 we see that what was wrong with the old law was that it could not bring people to maturity or holiness. It could not bring us to God because there was no grace in it yet. Because it communicated no interior sanctity and because it gave no power to do the good that it commanded, it had to be changed. The introduction of grace through Christ is what makes the new covenant better. The writer of Hebrews actually uses the term better over and over again in the book of Hebrews to describe the new covenant. It s the grace that is conferred through the sacramental system of the New Testament priesthood that will bring about perfection now and bring us near to God, it says in Hebrews 7:19. We know that the Church is the body of Christ. We see that, St. Paul tells us that in 1 Corinthians 12:12. The Church is the body of Christ on earth, his hands and his feet. That means that a New Testament institutional priesthood is necessary. What Jesus does in eternity the Church does in time and history. What Jesus fulfils in himself he also brings forward in the New Testament into history through the Church. The main point, then, of the New Testament inaugurated in Christ through his high priest ministry is that this better covenant has a better priesthood because it has an eternally better high priest whose ministry takes place through it. That is why we say in the mass through him and in him and with him we can be brought to God through his ministry. He then is a mediator of better covenant established on better promises. Christ came as the high priest of the good things to come. That is also in Hebrews 9:6-11. Then, the writer of Hebrews emphasizes that although the Old Testament priesthood was inferior, it testified to the priesthood to come by showing us what the New Testament priesthood should look like. This is really important, because the sacrifice of the new covenant at Passover, the Pascal lamp on the cross and in the Eucharist was offered once for all. We see that illustrated for us in Hebrews 10:10. That is why the Church says that the mass is not a recrucifixion, as some non-catholics say, but the same eternal sacrifice made present to us, or represented to us in time through the body of Christ on earth. It s the same eternal sacrifice offered on every Catholic altar, by Christ, through the New Testament priesthood. Jesus made that one sacrifice once for all, and he continues to offer it (sort of, because he is outside of time so it s not like it s over and over and over) in the eternity of heaven, as St. John saw in his Revelation. When John sees the altar, what he sees is the lamb as though he were slain on the altar. The lamb continues to be slain on the altar of heaven, exactly as the Church offers to us in every Catholic mass. It is Christ himself that we are offering and consuming through the Eucharist. We see that the book of Hebrews tells us, and we see it all through the New Testament, that is the only sacrifice that is acceptable. It is the only one that can eternally atone for sin. All of our righteousness, it is said, is as filthy rags, because we can t offer a sacrifice perfect enough or eternal in order to atone for sin. That is why it was prophesied in Malachi 1:11 that from the rising of the sun, even until the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles and every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord God of hosts. We see right there, and I will show you also in Ezekiel, that the Old Testament prophesied the New Testament priesthood. This does not mean just Jesus. Jesus is not the whole priesthood. He is in the sense that it all flows from him, but he is the high priest and there are priests under him in the same way that the Old Testament priesthood came through Aaron and then there were Levites given to the Aaronic priesthood to help. There were so many sacrifices and so many people God had to give the Levites to the priesthood to be helpers. In the same way, Jesus ordains the bishops. He selects them by his own 5 P a g e

6 selection we don t really know what the criteria are. He does it out of his free choice and divine intuition. It s his priesthood and he ordains them through the Holy Spirit. Our line of bishops occupies the place of the high priesthood of the Old Testament, and they come to authority through Christ who is the high priest. Their high priesthood comes through him. We see Jesus as the high apostle and he ordains apostles. We see Jesus as the high priest, and he ordains other high priests. Then the bishops also have the priesthood to help them. When the Church got bigger and bigger and the sacrifice of the mass because more widespread, the bishops themselves could not do it all. Now we have the priesthood under the bishop. They occupy that same place that the Levites did. The Catholic priesthood is in institutional. But, one of the most prevalent arguments, as I shared earlier, that non-catholics level against Catholics is that Christ s high priesthood eliminated the need for any other sort of the New Testament institutional priesthood. They make this argument on the basis of the book of Hebrews, but more particularly on 1 Peter 2:5 and 2:9, which says that the laity is also a priesthood. It is called the common priesthood in the Catholic Church. In my non-catholic church it was called the priesthood of the believer. The argument is We re all priests. We don t need an institutional priesthood because we are all priests. The Bible says so. That s the same argument that the children of Israel made against Aaron and Moses and the high priesthood. In Numbers 16 we have the example of that rebellion against authority. I don t have time to go through the whole thing, and I ve talked about it before so I won t, but through that example the people accuse Aaron and Moses of pridefully elevating themselves over the people through this institutional priesthood. They felt justified in that because Exodus 19 says that all of Israel will be a kingdom of priests. This is the very same argument that I grew up hearing against an institutional priesthood. We also see it in the New Testament in 1 Peter 2:5 and 2:9. It s almost an exact quote of Exodus 19:6. We see that we you and I make up what is called the common priesthood, just like the Old Testament Israelites were the common priesthood of the priesthood. But, there was also an institutional priesthood and God defended it. He called each tribe to take its tribal staff and put it in the holy of holies, and whichever rod or staff he caused to bud or flower would be the staff of the man through whom the high priesthood of the tabernacle would come. It was Aaron s rod. (Rod and staff are interchangeable terms). They all put their tribal staffs into the holy of holies, and Aaron s rod budded. But, not only did it bud with leaves and flowers it also had fruit. This dead stick suddenly because fruitful, and that was a picture of how God was going to make fruitful the priesthood of Aaron. He used it to defend the high priesthood in addition to the lay priesthood. Rebellion against the priesthood, we see in the Old Testament, results in dissention, division, and correction. If you look in the New Testament that is true as well. That is why Protestant churches split and split, because there is no authority through that priesthood. That is why God gave it to us. We saw that God perpetually confirmed that, because he asked for Aaron s rod to be kept in the ark of the covenant forever as a sign of God s selection and desire for an institutional priesthood. God defended his institutional priesthood to the people who murmured against it. The rod of Aaron was supposed to remain in the ark of the covenant as a reminder to the rebellious Israelites that Aaron was indeed the progenitor of a perpetual institutional priesthood. It was meant to keep watch over the people, because the word almond (remember that his staff was an almond branch) has a root that means to watch. The priesthood keeps watch over the people. I am going to unpack that a lot more when we get to the lampstand in the interior of the sanctuary of the tabernacle. In any case, God gave the Levite tribe, as I said, to the Old Testament priesthood as assistance and helper in the things 6 P a g e

7 pertaining to the tabernacle. They were supposed to a gift, it says in Numbers 18:6. Priesthood itself is a gift. Again, if you go back to Revelation 1:12-20 you see Jesus as the high priest standing in the middle of the golden lampstands holding the seven stars. We know that the number seven is symbolic of divine completeness, so the lampstands we already know are representative of all of Church history. God watches over his people through the New Testament priesthood. It says in Hebrews 13:17 that our New Testament priests and bishops keep watch over our souls. When Jesus ordained the apostles and called them, instead of the 12 tribes we have the 12 apostles. He was ordaining a new priesthood in a new people and new 12. You can see through that correlation between the two 12s that Jesus is doing something new. He is creating a new priesthood and a new people under these new 12 men. Unlike the Old Testament Levitical priesthood, the New Testament priesthood we know, because of Hebrews, is better. We see that in Ezekiel 44. I want to go there now and I am going to show you how the Bible, in the prophets of the Old Testament, prophesied the situation we have now where we actually have Catholic and non-catholic priests, in the sense of pastors, who exist alongside an institutional priesthood, and that legitimate institutional priesthood actually offers a real sacrifice. This was prophesied in the Old Testament in the prophet Ezekiel, who everybody in Christendom understands is prophesying the New Testament church. Let s go to Ezekiel 44. We are going to start in chapter 43 and we are going to hit the high spots by looking at the paragraph headings here. In 43 the chapter heading says the temple, the Lord s dwelling place. Ezekiel sees a vision. This is a prophesy. He sees a vision very similar to what St. John saw in the book of Revelation, only this is in the Old Testament. This is not part of the Church yet, but what he sees is the New Testament church, this new temple that God is going to build. What is so cool about this prophesy is that everybody in Christendom, Catholic or non-catholic, if they are orthodox and they pay attention to Ezekiel and the prophesies in the Bible, they understand this to be a vision of the New Testament Church. What we see in Ezekiel 43:5, it says, The spirit lifted me and brought me into the inner court, and behold the glory of the Lord filled the temple. We see that God s spirit is occupying this new temple, the Church. Then we see the dimensions of the altar. There is an altar in the New Testament church, a real altar. In order to have a real altar you must have a real sacrifice. In my non-catholic church, we called it the altar when we went forward and re-dedicated our hearts or made some sort of decision concerning our lives and God, and that was called the altar. There is a sense in which our hearts are a sacrifice, but in context it is literal. We are talking about an actual sacrifice, and we know that biblically the only possible righteous sacrifice is the one that Christ makes. He is the only one who can make an atonement for sin that is both eternal and efficacious, because he is sinless. We see the dimensions of the altar and the consecration of the altar. Then we begin chapter 44 where we see the eastern gate and the prince, then those that are admitted to the temple, then we see the laws governing the priests. This entire chapter is where we see some of the particulars that have to do with the New Testament and we can draw some very interesting conclusions and correlations from this chapter and what we see happening in the Catholic Church, and the church in general, right now. It is important to note that Ezekiel was both a prophet and a priest. He was actually martyred, similar to Jeremiah who was also a prophet. Because of that, Ezekiel was concerned by liturgy. I believe that is why God gave him this particular vision. He would have had a natural affinity for anything that had to do with the temple, because he himself was a priest. There is this guy called the prince. It says in 7 P a g e

8 Ezekiel 44:3 because he is in the prince, he may sit in it to eat bread before the Lord. He shall enter by way of the vestibule of the gateway and go out the same way. This prince is going to eat bread in the presence of the Lord. This is interesting, because that is exactly what the priesthood in the New Testament does. It eats and offers the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ, bread and wine turned into the body and blood of Christ at Jesus s own words. We see there is a supposed to be a prince here. The prince cannot be Christ himself or the high priest of the New Testament priesthood because he is going to offer sacrifices for himself. We see that in chapter 43. The priest is somebody else, but he is in the prince. We know that would be Peter, the very first Pope. Peter is the one who is called the prince of the sanctuary. He is the one who is given the keys of the kingdom. The only place that shows up in the scriptures is in Eliakim in Ezekiel, I believe in Chapter 28. This prince, or priest, is given the keys to the kingdom in that chapter. Remember that prophesies speak directly to something that is happening in that particular time that it was written but also for the future. Eliakim was an actual person who was a priest. He was replacing somebody else and he was given the keys to the kingdom. Jesus uses the exact same words when he says to Peter I am giving you the keys of the kingdom. The kingdom idea illustrates the priesthood but also the administration of the kingdom. We see it in Genesis when Joseph is made second under the Pharaoh and he is the administrator of the kingdom. It doesn t actually use the word keys but it s the same principle. Peter is called to be both a priest and a prince, just as this chapter of Ezekiel prophesies in the New Testament church. Then we see in verse 6 all the way through the latter part of that chapter that there will be bread. when you offered my food, the fat and the blood, then they broke the covenant because of your abominations and you have not kept charge of my holy things but you have set others to keep charge of my sanctuary for you. Thus says the Lord no foreigner, uncircumcised of heart or uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter my sanctuary, including any foreigner who is among the children of Israel. I was just trying to point out my food, because there is actually food here in this New Testament church. But look in verse 10: and the Levites who went far from me when Israel went astray, who strayed from me after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity. They shall be ministers in my sanctuary as gatekeepers of the house You can read this. It starts in Ezekiel 44:10 and goes through the end of the chapter. In this section, it is talking about the Levites who went far from me when Israel went astray. That is when Jeroboam split over Solomon s taxation. When Solomon died his army general, Jeroboam, came up against Solomon s son. He said, Look, you ve got to do something. We need easement from taxes, and the new king said Absolutely not, we re not doing anything about it. And so Jeroboam said Okay, then we re leaving. And he split the kingdom and he went north up to Samaria and he established a worship structure there and he led the people into idolatry. He established a new priesthood that was not ordained in the ways of the Old Testament. It had new sacrifices and new altars because it was away from Jerusalem. Jeroboam himself led the people astray into idolatry as such by splitting apart from the true faith, and he did that out of aggravation with the king. He had no right to do that and there was really no legitimate priesthood at that point because they were not ordained in the Old Testament and the way that God said they should be. The point is that in this prophesy there are two kinds of priesthoods: One that is allowed at the altar of the Lord to offer bread and wine and one that is not. Then there is also a lay priesthood. There are pastors who will be ministering at the altar and they will do so because they are the true ministers to the altar. But then there is another set that do not minister at the altar of the Lord in bread and wine because they have been judged, and they have been judged from their splitting of the orthodox faith. We see this in the book of Ezekiel as a prophesy of what would happen in the New Testament church. 8 P a g e

9 What that means is that there will be non-catholic pastors and there will be Catholic pastors. The Catholic pastors will minister at the real altar with the bread and wine, and the non-catholic pastors won t. It is a judgement, because they are not part of the true church. By that I mean that while they are part of the church, they are not part of the sacrificial system of the church. They have separated themselves in the same way that Jeroboam did so. They have followed Martin Luther in the same way that the Old Testament people followed Jeroboam. I hope that made sense. 9 P a g e