Leaders in the Christian Church

"The Old Testament attests two distinct kinds of authorization rituals.

First, the elaborate ordination of Aaronic priests elevated them to a higher cultic status that authorized them to have more intimate access to God’s presence than the laity. This elevation was for life, and it was only for males. 

Second, the simple commissioning of Joshua, with hand-leaning, authorized him to fulfill a representative leadership role for the Israelite community. 

The New Testament has only equivalents to the simpler commissioning ritual with hand-laying in order to authorize administrators and missionaries for their tasks, with no indication that they thereby gained elevated status in terms of access to God.

Absence of priestly ordination in the New Testament corresponds with the absence of human priests as cultic mediators in the New Testament Christian Church.

In the New Testament, the only priestly mediator is the divine-human Christ, who ministers in God’s temple in heaven (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 2:17; 4:14, 15; 5:5, 6, 10; 6:20; chapters 7–10). 

All Christians comprise “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6), just as all Israelites were to be “a kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6). 

There are leaders in the Christian Church, but they do not have greater access to God than other Christians do, so an ontological distinction between priests or ministers and laypersons does not apply to New Testament Christianity. 

The tradition of sacramental ordination in Christianity is not from the New Testament; it entered Christian tradition from the Roman ordinatio (Latin) tradition after New Testament times." 

Roy Gane