Are We “Kings or Priests” OR “Kings and Priests”?

Is an individual both or one or the other?

Recently, I heard it conveyed separating the two. Though this was a new perspective for me, I certainly understood it. The Priest is the individual whose full-time occupation is ministry. This person’s livelihood is in the churchhouse. Versus the King being the believer who makes his living in the secular world.

The point of making this distinction was to imply that one is no more spiritually relevant than the other. While a certain admiration and respect is given to the Priest for being God’s conduit in ministry, it is the King who delivers the Priest's words to the world because of his/her interactions there.

Do I agree? To an extent. My perspective had always been that any believer is both King and Priest, a royal priesthood, no less.

It’s ironic to me that very few if any peoplegroups to exist throughout the history of the world have been led by a monarch or head of state of any kind who was also a priest or religious leader at the same time. It wasn’t even true in Israel. I haven’t studied enough world history to say for certain, but I can’t think of any king-priests save two: Melchizedek and Jesus.

Hebrews 5 tells us that Jesus is the great high priest of the New Testament believer after or under Melchizedek's priestly order. Indeed, the purpose of mentioning this relationship between Jesus and Melchizedek is to demonstrate that they both were kings in the earth who also ministered: Jesus, being the Son of God, the Most High King, and preaching and teaching in the temple; and Melchizedek, who is identified as a king in Genesis 5 but also in that passage, as the high priest, receives the tithe from Abram.

My take on it, the king-priest was God’s intent all along. He made us in this His image and likeness and gave us a domain over which to rule. And even now, given our acceptance of Christ and thereby being likewise born of God, would it not be fair to say that we are king-priests even as He?

To answer the question that entitles this lesson, I say both beliefs are true. Only the perspective separates these beliefs. In the natural realm, we are either king or priest. From the spiritual perspective, we are both.