Did Christ institute an ordained priesthood, or is every believer a priest with no separate priestly office?
32 verses are cited on this page. Each one links to its chapter in the Greek text.
But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people.1 Peter 2:9
The common priesthood of all the baptized, which the Catholic Church affirms without qualification.
...a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.1 Peter 2:5
Every Christian offers spiritual sacrifices. This is real priesthood, not a figure of speech.
The ancients therefore that are among you, I beseech, who am myself also an ancient.1 Peter 5:1
Yet in the same letter Peter addresses a distinct body of elders with authority to shepherd the flock. The general priesthood did not abolish a particular office.
And you shall be to me a priestly kingdom, and a holy nation.Exodus 19:6
The words Peter applies to the Church were first said of all Israel, and Israel nonetheless had an ordained Aaronic priesthood. A universal priesthood and a ministerial one coexisted by God's own arrangement.
And as they were ministering to the Lord, and fasting, the Holy Ghost said to them: Separate me Saul and Barnabas, for the work whereunto I have taken them. Then they, fasting and praying, and imposing their hands upon them, sent them away.Acts 13:2-3
The verb is leitourgeo, the word for public cultic service and the word behind liturgy. Luke uses it of what the church at Antioch was doing when the Spirit spoke, and the laying on of hands follows in the very next verse.
And when they had ordained to them priests in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord.Acts 14:23
Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in each church, an ordered office from the first missionary journey.
Neglect not the grace that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with imposition of the hands of the priesthood.1 Timothy 4:14
A grace is in Timothy, conferred through the laying on of hands.
...stir up the grace of God which is in thee, by the imposition of my hands.2 Timothy 1:6
Paul names his own hands as the means of that grace.
...that thou shouldest ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee.Titus 1:5
Titus is left behind with authority to ordain, and the pattern continues past the apostles.
Impose not hands lightly upon any man.1 Timothy 5:22
A warning that makes sense only if the rite conveys something real.
Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.John 20:23
Christ gives to the apostles an authority he does not give to the crowds: to forgive and to retain sins.
Do this for a commemoration of me.Luke 22:19
The command to do this is given at the supper to the apostles, not to the multitude.
Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God.1 Corinthians 4:1
Stewards entrusted with the mysteries, a term the Fathers read of the sacraments.
Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil.James 5:14
The sick are to send for the presbyters specifically, whose prayer and anointing forgives sins.
...sanctifying the gospel of God, that the oblation of the Gentiles may be made acceptable.Romans 15:16
Paul describes his own ministry in priestly and sacrificial vocabulary.
For every high priest taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins.Hebrews 5:1
Hebrews reserves the word for the levitical priesthood and for Christ, the strongest argument against a Christian priesthood, honestly stated. The silence is real: the New Testament uses presbyteros and episkopos, not hiereus, of Christian ministers. The Catholic explanation is that these books were written while the temple still stood and hiereus meant the man who sacrificed at its altar; the word became usable for Christian ministers only after the levitical priesthood ended. Note also that the English word "priest" descends by contraction from presbyteros, not from hiereus, so an English speaker calling a presbyter a priest is using the New Testament's own word.
As he saith also in another place: Thou art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech.Hebrews 5:6
The psalm says for ever, which is why this priesthood does not pass to a successor the way Aaron's did. A priest ordained in the Church does not hold a second priesthood alongside Christ's. He acts within the one that never ended.
If then perfection was by the Levitical priesthood, what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchisedech? For the priesthood being translated, it is necessary that a translation also be made of the law.Hebrews 7:11-12
The objection at its strongest: the priesthood changed, so the old order is finished. What the passage says changed is which priesthood, from Levi to Melchisedech, and Melchisedech is the priest who brought out bread and wine.
...but this, for that he continueth for ever, hath an everlasting priesthood.Hebrews 7:23-24
Christ's priesthood does not pass away, so it needs no succession of the levitical kind.
If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest: seeing that there would be others to offer gifts according to the law.Hebrews 8:4
Read as a rule against earthly priests it proves too much, since it would also forbid the Levitical priests it presupposes. The reason given is that those offices were already filled under the law, which is a statement about the Levitical order, not about priesthood as such.
And every priest indeed standeth daily ministering, and often offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man offering one sacrifice for sins, for ever sitteth on the right hand of God.Hebrews 10:11-12
The contrast is between sacrifices that never take sin away and one that does, not between one offering and none afterward. The Church has never held that the Mass repeats Calvary. It holds that the one offering is made present, which is why the Lamb in Revelation stands as slain in heaven while seated in glory.
All the baptized are priests, and the Church proclaims this as loudly as Peter does (1 Peter 2:9). But a universal priesthood has never excluded an ordained one, as Israel shows, since the same God who called the whole nation a priestly kingdom also ordained Aaron and his sons. Christ chose twelve and gave them what he gave no one else: to do this in his memory, and to forgive and retain sins (Luke 22:19; John 20:23). The apostles handed that office on by the laying on of hands, and Scripture says a grace was thereby given and is in the man who received it (1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6). The strongest objection is honest and must be granted: the New Testament never calls a Christian minister hiereus, because while the temple stood that word meant a levitical sacrificer. Yet Paul describes his own ministry as priestly service offering an acceptable oblation (Romans 15:16), and within a generation Clement and Ignatius speak freely of bishops, presbyters, and deacons in priestly terms. The Council of Trent (Session 23) defined that Holy Orders is a true sacrament instituted by Christ, conferring grace and an indelible character. The priest at the altar adds nothing to Christ's priesthood. He is the instrument through which the one Priest still acts.