We Believe In Jesus: The PriestSample

Priests are Appointed by God: Hebrews 5:1, 4

In the Old Testament, only God could appoint a priest. Priests were never self-appointed. They couldn’t be voted into office. They couldn’t be appointed by kings or other rulers. And even the priests themselves couldn’t select additional people to serve in their ranks. Consider Exodus 28:1, where God gave this command to Moses:

Have Aaron your brother brought to you … along with his sons … so they may serve me as priests (Exodus 28:1).

The detailed instructions that follow in Exodus 28 show that God’s appointment was an indispensable part of Aaron’s ordination as high priest. And Numbers 18:22-23 goes so far as to say that if any Israelite from another tribe presumed to do the work of a priest, that person would die. Hebrews 5:1, 4 confirms this idea with these words:

Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God... No one takes this honor upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was (Hebrews 5:1, 4).

This same principle also applied not just to the high priest, but to all priests in the Old Testament. 

Besides being appointed by God, priests also had to be loyal to God in order to qualify for their office.