Who Is the Priest in the Church?

The idea of a priest is central to the Bible, but to understand who the priest is in the church today, we need to look at the whole story of Scripture. A priest is someone who stands before God on behalf of others, offering sacrifices and prayers. We need a priest because we are sinners and cannot come to God on our own. The priest’s duty is to offer a sacrifice for sins and to represent the people before God (Hebrews 5:1).

In the Old Testament, God appointed many priests to serve in the tabernacle and later in the temple. These priests offered different types of sacrifices—some were for sin (Leviticus 4), and others were offerings of thanks and worship (Leviticus 7:11–15). However, these sacrifices had to be repeated over and over, and the priests themselves were sinners too.

In the New Testament, everything changes. Jesus becomes our great high priest. He did not offer animals as sacrifices—he offered himself. “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). After dying on the cross for our sins, Jesus rose again and is now at the right hand of the Father, always interceding for us (Romans 8:34).

Because of this, the old priesthood is now obsolete (Hebrews 7:18–19). The old priests died and were replaced. Jesus lives forever and holds his priesthood permanently (Hebrews 7:23–24). His work is finished—“It is finished” (John 19:30)—and no more sacrifices for sin are needed.

In the church today, we do not have priests in the Old Testament sense. Instead, we have ministers who are called elders, pastors, or overseers (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1–2). Their role is not to offer sacrifices, but to teach, guide, and care for the people of God.

Even more wonderfully, all believers in Jesus are called a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). Through Christ, we all have access to God—not to offer sacrifices for sin, but to offer our praises, prayers, and thanksgiving (Hebrews 13:15).