Order and Holy Orders: A Scriptural and Wesleyan Reflection on Ordination, Part 1
Photo by Sakki
If contemporary Wesleyan Christians think about ordination, or polity in general, we often, as pragmatic Protestants, think functionally. What structures do we need to get certain things done in a particular social institution that we call the Church? I want to suggest that this is precisely the wrong starting point for Wesleyans, or any Christians, to begin reflecting on this subject. Ordination was instituted among God’s people in the Old Testament and was assumed among His people in the New. The Christian Church, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, included instructions for ordination in the texts preserved as her canon of scripture.
While ordination is a function of the church and does help the church function, it is not simply utilitarian, an arbitrary preference of governance to be changed or disposed of when it seems pragmatic to do so. It is not a human institution to serve human needs and ends. Rather, ordination, scripturally and historically, is part of the sacramental life of the church, a means of grace, by which the sanctity of the Church is maintained and advanced for the mission of God. It has been instituted by God for His people for His ends. In this article I will focus on the first order of ordination, that of the laity.
The Origin of Ordination
Ordained Ministry is an aspect of God’s ordering mission of salvation for the sake of material creation. It is part of God’s purpose to redeem creation by incarnating His love and life, through a chosen people. God orders His people for the sake of His redemptive mission for the world. This was true of Israel’s mission, and it is true of the Church’s. As with every mission, the ordering of creation involved calling and sending.
We see this in the first verses of Genesis, with the description of God’s action to create. God sends forth His Spirit to hover over the face of the deep, over the dis-order. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:1-2). Formless void, chaos, “the deep” – these are “no thing.” Nothing. And nothing does not and cannot sustain life.
Next, God sends forth His Word to call light from the chaos. “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God called the light day, and the darkness, he called night. And there was morning and there was evening, the first day” (Gen 1:3). God’s Word divided and named, creating order from dis-order. God created some thing from no thing: day and night, heavens and earth, sea and land. This divine ordering created sanctified space, set apart within the void, where life could emerge and flourish: plants, fish, birds, land animals. Every day, God blessed the new order, named it good.
On the sixth day, God created mediators of his image within this order, to maintain it for the blessing of creation. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). Together, male and female represent God’s image in creation and are sent forth on God’s mission, to expand and uphold His blessed life-giving order. “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’” (Gen 1:28). And Humans receive an extra blessing from God, as “very good” (Gen 1:31), to serve as His called and sent ministers in creation.
Such was God's perfect will for the created material world, for God’s ordained order: male and female, in God’s image, with joint dominion in creation. Together, men and women mediate God's image, God’s blessing, and God’s rule in creation (prophet, priest, and king – the functions of ordination in the church). Therefore, ordination, even in our fallen world and imperfect church, is not about tasks in an institution, it is about God’s plan to redeem. Ordination is not a privilege. It is a responsibility, which once accepted, cannot be laid aside, and for which one will be judged ultimately, as Adam and Eve were judged for not upholding God’s order.
Three Orders in the Church: Laity, Deacon, Elder
When we examine the New Testament scriptures, and the Wesleyan tradition as it developed, we encounter three related orders of ministry: one with a mission to the world, and two subdivisions of the first (the third being a subdivision of the second) with missions to the Church.
The primary order is the laity, sent as ministers of the gospel to the world. They minister “in the world” (Jn 17:11) but set apart from it, “not of the world, just as [Jesus was] not of the world” (Jn 17:14).
The secondary subgroup of the laity is the order of deacon, who are called from among the laity, set apart within the laity, and sent as servants to the laity.
The third subgroup of laity and deacon is the order of elder, who are called from among the deacons, set apart within the diaconate and laity, and sent to oversee the ministry of deacons and laity. They bear responsibility for oversight of Word, Sacrament, and Order in the Church, as subordinate functionaries in Christ’s offices of prophet, priest, and king to the Church.
Laity remain in the world but are set apart from the world for ministry to the world. Deacons remain within the laity but are set apart from the laity for ministry to the laity. And elders remain both deacons and laity, but are set apart from deacons and laity as overseers of the ministry of deacons and laity. Servants of the Church (deacons) are members of the Church (laity). Overseers of the Church (elders) are both members of the Church (laity) and servants of the Church (deacons). The distinction of Order comes from where they are called and to whom and for what they are sent.
The Primary Order: The Laity -- “People” of God and Bride of Christ
All Christians are called out from the world into the church, into the people of God, “called out of darkness and into his marvelous light” (1 Pt 2:9). The word “laity” comes from the Greek word laos, which simply means “people.” God’s people are called into the Church, which is why the Greek word for “church,” ecclesia, comes from ek, “out” and kaleo “to call”. The laity (or people of God) are those called out from the world. By this call laity are set apart, elected, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Pt 2:9) by faith, having heard “the Spirit himself” testify with their “spirit that [they] are God’s children” (Rom 8:16).
As called and consecrated people, the laity are sent as God’s ministers to the world, agents of God’s creation recovery mission. Laity “proclaim the excellencies of him who called” them (1 Pt 2:9); they offer their “bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God,” which is their “true and proper worship” (Rom 12:1); they uphold “the royal law found in Scripture” (Ja 2:8), “the perfect law that gives freedom” (Ja 1:25). Though laity do not bear the responsibility of word, sacrament, and order in the Church, they are agents of word, sacrament, and order in the dark chaos of the world. This mission in the world echoes humanity’s call from, and mission to, creation in Genesis 1, which waits in “this dark world” (Eph 6:12) “in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed” (Rom 8:19), hoping that “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).
Laity “are the light of the world, a city set on a hill” (Mt 5:14). Laity are in the world to “shine before others, so that they may see [their] good works and give glory to [their Father] in heaven” (Mt 5:15). Laity call others out from the world and into the church. Lay proclamation in the world, by what they say and do, and “by the power of signs and wonders through the power of the Spirit of God" (Rom 15:18-19), begets faith in non-believers, which "comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
Methodists’ adoption and promotion of lay preaching was a logical extension of this mission, because such “extraordinary” evangelistic and prophetic ministry (JW, Works IV, Sermon 121, “Prophets and Priests,” p.75-77) was exercised in the world. Laity could and should preach in the world, but Wesley did not cede responsibility for oversight of the word in the Church. Wesley, as an elder in the Church of England, established standards for lay preaching and held his lay preachers accountable for truthful ministry of the word. This was the reason for the Standard sermons, the Notes on the New Testament, and the model deed for Methodist preaching houses. That said, when deacons or elders proclaim the gospel, or perform any other ministry, in the world, they do so as laity.
The ordination rite for the laity comes through washing in the sacramental waters of baptism, where believers participate materially in the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection. They are “buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, [they] too may live a new life” (Rom 6:4). Traditionally, those baptized are anointed with oil, with the laying on of hands, a sign that they are “marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing [their] inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession” (Eph 1:13-14). For those baptized as infants, the rite is completed through confirmation, with profession of faith, anointing with oil, and the laying on of hands. This sacramental act sets them apart for their holy vocation as ministers of the renewal of creation.
This rite of baptism is also believers’ pre-marriage mikvah, the Jewish ritual bath for women preparing for marriage, which in Jewish thought is the day she is “reborn” to approach her impending marriage clean and pure. Baptism sets believers apart as chosen by the bridegroom. He “gave Himself up for her to make her holy, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word” (Eph 5:25-26), all in preparation for final union with “the one who has the bride” (Jn 3:29), “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:26-27).
Conclusion: What Is Old Is New
On that day, when “the holy city, new Jerusalem” comes “down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Rev 21:2), God “will dwell with [his people]” and “they will be his people, and God himself will be with them” (Rev 21:3). This celebration will commemorate the reconstitution of the order of Genesis 1, the redemption of creation. God will “create new heavens and a new earth” (Is 65:17). There “will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Rev 21:4) and God makes "everything new" (Rev 21:5)!
This “marriage of the Lamb” does however require that “His Bride has made herself ready” (Rev 19:7-8), that the church’s “whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes 5:23). That making ready of the Church is the responsibility of the two specialized orders of ministry within and among the church, which assist and direct the whole church to “clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Rev 19:7-8). Those orders, of deacon and elder, will be the focus of Part 2.
Scott T. Kisker is the Associate Provost at Asbury Theological Seminary and is an ordained elder in the Global Methodist Church. He serves on the Firebrand Editorial Board.