Created to Draw Near: Our Life as God’s Royal Priests
by Edward T. Welch
Crossway, 2019
224 pages (paperback), $17.99
Years ago in Philadelphia, I watched a woman stand paralyzed and in tears on the platform of the subway station. She needed to get on the train, but she was gripped by fear. As several people came over to try to calm her hysterics, it became clear what exactly she was afraid of: falling into the gap between the platform and the train. The fear was, of course, irrational. The space between the two was maybe three inches wide. How her terror would vanish if she could simply understand that.
Admittedly, I have had similar fears, and I suspect you have as well. We are pilgrims on the way, journeying from earth to heaven. Haven’t you ever felt paralyzed on this “side” as you fear what will happen if you try to cross over to the other? Like that poor woman in Philly, we don’t realize that the gap really isn’t that vast after all. “The distance between heaven and earth has always been shorter than we expected” (206–7). This is author Edward T. Welch’s observation in his latest book Created to Draw Near: Our Life as God’s Royal Priests. Welch reveals to us the purpose for which we were created: communion with God. God has made us to desire fellowship with him, yet all too often we think it is an unattainable reality. This book sweeps away that fear and instead offers gospel comfort by reclaiming the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers: a doctrine that teaches us that God is closer to us than we think.
The priesthood of believers was an essential component of the Reformation. Indeed, it was Luther’s conviction that believers themselves, without priestly intercession, could and should approach God that convinced him to depart from the Roman Catholic Mass. Centuries later, Welch perceptively recognizes this is a timely issue once again. Today, we are more isolated than ever. With faces buried in our devices and the world shut out by our headphones, it would seem we enjoy the solitude. But the reality is that people are desperate for communion and fellowship. Welch begins his book by acknowledging that this independent and isolating streak runs deep, but “our desire for closeness runs deeper” (13). And our desire, above all, is to be close to God. We can cure our twenty-first-century loneliness when we live out our identity as priests to God.
To help us to this end, Welch unpacks the biblical conception of priesthood in a threefold manner: exploring the office as it is presented in Eden, Israel, and Christ. In these first two sections especially, I was pleasantly surprised to encounter a new side to Welch’s writing. This book brings more of his gentle and accessible style that the Christian public has come to expect over the past decades, establishing himself as a gifted counselor and practitioner of the soul. But in this work, he proves to be a capable biblical theologian as well.
Created to Draw Near is an accessible introduction to a whole host of biblical themes and concepts, including the Old Testament sacrificial system, feast days, and Israelite liturgical life. Biblical episodes and characters I had not previously connected to the priesthood I now see in a new light, thanks to Welch’s insightful scholarship (the life and times of Jacob is one example). Likewise, familiar theological concepts receive a fresh framing when viewed through the lens of the priesthood: sanctification becomes “progressive nearness” (110); as Christians, we are becoming more and more conformed to Christ, which is to say we are becoming closer and closer to God.
Ample space, and rightfully so, is taken up with reveling in Christ’s role as our high priest. Understanding my role as priest necessitates understanding Christ’s role: “When we consider our identity as priests, we are signing on to more deeply understand ‘Jesus died for my sins’” (155). It is sin that separates me from God. It is sin that alienates me and makes me alone and an orphan. But it is Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross that brings me back to God’s home, sets me at his table, and makes me his child forever. In Christ, God has come near to me to make me qualified to come near to him. “His descent confirms his promise to come near to his people. He did not wait for us to come up to him. He descended to us in gentleness and humility. We have no reason to be afraid but every reason to come” (149).
From this critical foundation, Welch concludes his study by drawing out explicitly in what ways we are to fulfill our role as royal priests in the world today. We are to “do battle” against sin (Welch helpfully focuses on this military aspect of the priesthood, which is often overlooked), discern the body of Christ by promoting her peace and unity, pray for the church and the world, and bless others. “The partner of prayer is blessing,” he writes. “We bless when we have heard the good words spoken in heaven and want to pass them on to those on earth” (194). Interestingly, a treatment of the more obvious priestly function of worship leader was absent. But our primary work as priests, which Welch emphasizes again and again, is simply to be near God—“that is the mission of the priests” (14). What’s not to like about that? Our primary calling is to enjoy God’s presence!
One of the more fascinating priestly motifs that Welch traces out in his book is that of clothing. Adam failed as the first royal priest and forfeited his opportunity to receive a glorious robe of righteousness from God; sin entered the world and “royal investiture became a barely remembered dream” (46). But God will not let us forget why we were made and how we are to be dressed. One way God does this is through the priesthood in Israel, a line designated in part by their clothing. Welch makes the observation, appealing to Exodus 28 and the garments of Aaron, that the first word used to describe the priesthood is “beauty” (85). The beauty of the priest’s clothing represented the people who belonged to a beautiful and glorious God. But the beauty and glory that belong to us as priests is marred by sin. Our hope, then, is ultimately in Jesus and his beauteous robes that clothe us. One thinks of the classic poem “Aaron” by George Herbert (1593–1633):
Holiness on the head, Light and perfections on the breast, Harmonious bells below, raising the dead To lead them unto life and rest: Thus are true Aarons drest. Profaneness in my head, Defects and darkness in my breast, A noise of passions ringing me for dead Unto a place where is no rest: Poor priest, thus am I drest. Only another head I have, another heart and breast, Another music, making live, not dead, Without whom I could have no rest: In him I am well drest. Christ is my only head, My alone-only heart and breast, My only music, striking me ev’n dead, That to the old man I may rest, And be in him new-drest. So, holy in my head, Perfect and light in my dear breast, My doctrine tun’d by Christ (who is not dead, But lives in me while I do rest), Come people; Aaron’s drest.
In Created to Draw Near, we are reminded that we live at the intersection of heaven and earth (23). Indeed, we have a gap before us, and we need to be mindful of it. But that gap between us and God is not as vast as you might think. Thanks to the atoning work of our great high priest, the chasm caused by sin can now be crossed with a single step of faith. For when you have Jesus Christ, God promises to “unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10).
Jonathan Landry Cruse is the pastor of Community Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is a hymn writer whose works can be found at www.HymnsOfDevotion.com.
