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personality rather than His teaching is little more than an exaltation of pedagogy by example
over pedagogy by precept.” Christ is after all only a great teacher. Present day Modernism is
entirely under the sway of this liberal school. Even in Barthian theology there is an emphasis
which might seem to bring it very much in line with modern theology. Walter Lowrie correctly
says: “It is characteristic of the Barthian Theology that it thinks predominantly of the Mediator
as Revealer.”[Our Concern with the Theology of Crisis, p. 152.] We are told repeatedly by Barth
and Brunner that the revelation is the reconciliation, and sometimes it seems as if they regard
the incarnation as in itself already the reconciliation. Then again the reconciliation is
represented as the revelation. In the recent Symposium on Revelation Barth says: “Jesus Christ
is the revelation, because in His existence He is the reconciliation. ... The existence of Jesus
Christ is the reconciliation, and therefore the bridging of the gulf that has opened here.”[pp. 55
f.] The cross is sometimes defined as the revelation of the absolute contradiction, the final
conflict between this world and the other. Consequently Zerbe says that the death of Christ,
according to Barth, is not exactly an atonement of the second person of the Godhead for the
sin of the world, but “a message of God to man, indeed the final message; the fundamental
negation; the judgment on all human possibility, especially the religious.” But while it is true
that in Barthian theology the Mediator is primarily the Revealer, this does not mean that it fails
to do justice to His sacrificial and atoning work.[Cf. especially Brunner, The Mediator, Chapters
XVII-XXI.] Sydney Cave even says in his The Doctrine of of the Work of Christ: “For Barth the
cross is central in the Christian message. ‘Everything shines in the light of His death, and is
illuminated by it.’”[p. 244.]
II. The Priestly Office
A. THE SCRIPTURAL IDEA OF A PRIEST.
1. THE TERMS USED IN SCRIPTURE.
The Old Testament word for priest is almost without
exception kohen. The only exceptions are found in passages which refer to idolatrous priests, II
Kings 23:5; Hos. 10:5; Zeph. 1:4, where the word chemarim is found. The original meaning of
kohen is uncertain. It is not impossible that in early times it could denote a civil as well as an
ecclesiastical functionary, cf. I Kings 4:5; II Sam. 8:18; 20:26. It is clear that the word always
denoted someone who occupied an honorable and responsible position, and was clothed with
authority over others; and that it almost without exception serves to designate an ecclesiastical
officer. The New Testament word for priest is hiereus, which originally seems to have denoted
“a mighty one,” and later on “a sacred person,” “a person dedicated to God.”
2. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN A PROPHET AND A PRIEST.
The Bible makes a broad but
important distinction between a prophet and a priest. Both receive their appointment from
God, Deut. 18:18 f; Heb. 5:4. But the prophet was appointed to be God’s representative with