This is a common fallacy among Protestants. Now that Jesus has become our high priests, priests are no longer needed; in fact, they detract from the priesthood of Christ. We don’t need priests now because Jesus has become our one and only High Priest.
We believers are all priests in the New Covenant. We are the “priesthood of all believers” and there is no need or biblical suggestion that there should be priests in the Church.
This is a typical reaction to the priesthood in the Catholic Church. Is it valid? Did the Catholic Church create a man-made institution to supplant the work of Christ. The answer, of course, is a resounding NO. The priesthood was intended for the Church from the beginning, practiced by the very first Christians and is easily and readily defended from the Bible and the very earliest traditions.
Jimmy Akin has an excellent article that lays it all out in a simple and understandable way. You can read the whole thing here. See his debate on the priesthood here.
But here is a simple chart to help visualize the correspondence between the Old and the New Covenants remembering that the Church is the New Israel and would be assumed to have a similar structure of priesthood, authority and structure.
OLD TESTAMENT = Aaron the High Priest + Levitical Ministerial Priesthood + Priesthood of all the Israelites
NEW TESTAMENT = Jesus the High Priest + Ordained Ministerial Priesthood + Priesthood of all believers.
The parallels are always remarkable because, well, that is the way God intended it to be. Welcome to the fullness of the faith and Scripture in the Catholic Church!
The post Old Testament Priests; New Testament Priests – Isn’t Jesus our ONLY Priest Now? appeared first on Defenders of the Catholic Faith.
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