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The Aaronic priesthood was in full force till His death. He was made high priest, not by the legal ritual, but by the oath of God; and this oath was "after the law," not while it was in force. The law continued till His death, hence it was after His death that He was made high priest by the oath of God. He was a sacrifice when He died, not a priest.
He said he had come to restore a portion of the holy Priesthood, even that part which would give them power to baptize for the remission of sins, but not to lay on hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. He promised them that if they were faithful this other power would be given them later. The angel then laid his hands on their heads and ordained them to the Aaronic Priesthood.
What avails fierce contentions over the ashes of the red heifer, the waving of willows or the pouring of holy water? Whether the Sadducees or the Pharisees gain the contention the burden remaineth the same. At times have I thought of turning to the spade and apron and white robe of the Essenes where there be no Aaronic priesthood or bloody sacrifice." "But this Jesus is he an Essene?
The point of these Sermons is, that, in spite of the rigid character of the Jewish law, the formal and literal force of its precepts, and the manifest schism, and worse than schism, of the Ten Tribes, yet in fact they were still recognized as a people by the Divine Mercy; that the great prophets Elias and Eliseus were sent to them; and not only so, but were sent to preach to them and reclaim them, without any intimation that they must be reconciled to the line of David and the Aaronic priesthood, or go up to Jerusalem to worship.
And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews argues most conclusively that since Melchizedek was without beginning or end, and greater than Abraham, and with a priesthood that existed centuries before the Levitical priesthood was instituted, therefore Christ, his great antitype, who is from everlasting to everlasting, and who hath an unchangeable priesthood, is to abolish the Aaronic priesthood, whose institution was for a temporary purpose, and was fulfilled when Christ came, who was a priest not after the order of Aaron because He belonged to another tribe, but a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Many have thought that because it is said he was "without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life," that he could not be a man. But they fail to observe that he was without these things in the Aaronic priesthood. For it is said that he had a genealogy, but that it was not in the priestly family.
He could not be a priest on earth, because the Aaronic priesthood was then in force, and He was not of the Aaronic family. Since He could not be a priest while on earth, it is folly to talk of His becoming a priest at His baptism. He could not become a priest till the law of the priesthood was changed, and that was not changed till after His death.
Then follows the Aaronic priesthood which is composed of a senior bishop with two councillors acting as president of the state of Zion, and an indefinite number of bishops of lower rank with elders, teachers and deacons.
By Him, not by the Aaronic ministry, they are to bring their sacrifices to God. They are to accept exclusion and to turn it into inclusion, into a shutting-up of all their hopes and all their worship into their glorious Christ. And what now is their altar-ritual to be? Such, if we are right, is the connexion.
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