The Pastor – Does He Exist?

If you’re a good swimmer you might want to take a deep dive into The Pastor Does He Exist? by David H.J. Gay. This book, at about 350 pages is not for everyone. However, if you like church history, this book contains details of how the church fathers introduced error and how future generations exacerbated this error.

The great causality in the corruption of the New Testament system, about which I have been writing, is not church life, or men. Far from it. Most damage has been done to nothing less than the glory of the person of the Lord Christ himself. Really? Yes, indeed!

The grievous consequence of this pastor business, the grievous error in it, is not some technical point of church order and structure. Certainly not. No! Rather it is this: When men invent a third order of minister, when they invent the notion of the pastor, they are in fact – albeit unwittingly – fulfilling a basic instinct ingrained in fallen man; namely, the need of every sinner to find a priest to represent him before God, and a visible priest at that. The widespread existence of a priesthood is no accident. Men and women all over the world, in all sorts of cultures, in every culture, crave a priest. It takes various forms, but the craving is there.

Let me stick with Christendom. How rife is the need for a priest in Christendom! I say ‘need’, but throughout Christendom, men demand, crave, hanker after such an individual. Many think they need a priest for their babies as they enter the world, so that he, with his ministrations, can get these babies right with God, will give them their so-called Christian name by sprinkling drops of water on them, and muttering some hocus-pocus over them. Some of these babies as they grow up, take it further. They need a priest – or even a bishop – to confirm their spiritual status in some way or another, and bestow the Holy Spirit upon them through the laying on of his hands. They need a priest to administer the communion to them. They need a priest to make their marriage ‘proper’. They need a priest to offer them words of comfort when they pass through affliction. They need a priest to absolve them from their sins. They need a priest to tell them the words of God. Above all. they need a priest who will make sure that all is well at their death, and will ensure their safe and certain passage to the realms of bliss. Men hanker after a priest, I say; they crave the comforts of a professional minister and his religious ministrations. At all stages of life, they want a priest to perform the rites of passage for them.

Reader, do not make the mistake of thinking the above paragraph applies only to those churches which openly speak about having a priest. Far, far from it! Many believers and churches are guilty of it in some form or another – not excluding those who are most vehement in their dislike of the word ‘priest’. Of course, most dramatically is it seen in the Roman abomination, with its so-called Vicar of Christ, and his priestly legions. But, distressing to report, the principle is not only a feature of Popery. It is alive and kicking in the evangelical world. Oh, we may have jettisoned the gaudy trappings of medievalism, yes, but we have replaced them with our own Reformed and evangelical trappings and props, right enough!

My point is, by breaking Christ’s ordinances on this subject, evangelicals (including the Reformed) pander to this craving. Ordinary – what a dreadful word – ordinary believers, so they are told, are lay people; they really do need a member of the special class – one of the clerics – to lead and preside over their worship, to minister holy things to and for them.

And it is but a short step from this for the ordinary people to let their clerics ‘do’ their worship on their behalf. Ordinary Christians cannot be expected to learn directly from God’s word, can they? They need the professional expert, the man of God, the Lord’s servant, the Lord’s sent-servant, the Lord’s anointed to teach them, don’t they? They need a professional minister to pray for them, not infrequently to pronounce (if not to bestow – but not, as it should be, to ask) God’s blessing on them as they leave the meeting house. It is not unknown for Reformed or evangelical men to pronounce the aaronic benediction (Num. 6:24-26) upon a congregation at the close of a service, even with uplifted hands, palms facing the congregation – copying Aaron who addressed the people, not God, with this benediction (Num. 6:23). Do such men not fear they might be trespassing on Christ’s prerogative (Luke 24:50)? Or, worse, are they aping him? No man today has this right or power. If 2 Corinthians 13:14 is thought to justify it though it needs proof that Paul was not simply praying there – it was an apostolic blessing. Compare Romans 1:7; 15:13; 16:20,25-27; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 16:23; Galatians 1:3-5; 6:18, for example.

For many ‘ordinary’ believers, in their need, their professional pastor counsels them. In their ignorance, he guides them. In their sin, he intercedes for them. Nothing wrong with this, of course. Except… when the pastor takes the place of Christ. And, not infrequently, he does. Hackles will rise at this, but I say it again. For the ‘ordinary’ believer, too often the visible pastor is more real than the invisible Christ. Yet all these vital ministries belong to Christ. They are properly his, and only his. He is the Pastor of his people. But, once the human priest has got his feet under the table, he will eventually replace the Son of God.

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