You Are a Royal Priesthood

And take some blood from the altar and some of the anointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and their garments. Then he and his sons and their garments will be consecrated. – Exodus 29:21.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. – 1 Peter 2:9-10.

In the Old Testament we see a lot of commandments that belong to God’s chosen, the children of Israel. They were all a set of natural obligations that were meant to foreshadow the spiritual to come. God had chosen Israel at that time to be His people set apart and He did that by choosing the lineage of Aaron as His priests within Israel from that time on.

Sadly, as the Old Testament shows, Israel could NOT keep the commandments and often times rejected the precepts of God to take part in those things common to other nations. However, though some believe Israel forfeited their chosen status, it is not permanent for God’s promises to His people are unfailing and the promises He made to them as a Nation, will come to past but not until the end of the Church age otherwise known as the dispensation of Grace.

That brings us to the New Testament. The Old Testament was God’s covenant with Israel and as I stated, a foreshadow of the covenant to come, not of natural laws and commandments but of spiritual laws written on the hearts of men rather than on tablets of stone.