THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

256 The Hope of Israel: What Is It?
cities?" (Hos. 13:9, 10). When therefore, any of
Christ's people take part in the salvation of
sinners,
they are engaged in what is pre-eminently a kingly
business ; and in so doing they reign with Christ.
It is much easier to understand how Christians exercise
the office of priests than how they exercise that
of kings. As says Dr. Stafford:
"How Christians are priests we understand
quite well. It means that every Christian has
direct access to Christ and God. It means that
they are persons through whom God mediates
to the world His salvation. When it is said that
Christians are priests, we do not think of robes,
and bells, and candles, and ceremonial performances.
That is, evangelical Christians and
most Protestants do not. Why do we not apply
the same good sense to the Bible when it speaks
of Christians as on thrones and reigning? But
many think immediately of literal thrones and
golden crowns. The whole trouble is with our
thinking."
Surely, if Christ's people are "priests unto God,"
and if they exercise the office of priests in a strictly
spiritual sense, and without anything in their appearance,
their circumstances or their actions to indicate
it, we must needs conclude that they are kings also,
and exercise the functions of kings, in a strictly spiritual
sense ;
it being understood that by "spiritual" is
not meant unreal, but just the reverse.
Dr. Stafford reminds us that a king, of the sort we
are acquainted with, was never God's plan for His
people. He "gave them a king in His anger" (Hos. 13 :
11) ;
and when they demanded of Him a king, He sent