Divine Offices

Patriarch, Priest, Judge, Prophet, King, Scribe, Apostle and Bishop

Introduction

What is the difference between a Judge and a King?

How does an Apostle differ from a Prophet?

What does a Patriarch do that a Bishop does not?

What distinguishes Deacons from Scribes?

And why does God appoint such a variety of offices at all?

These questions have long stirred in me a desire for deeper exploration. I am convinced that understanding the offices God grants to individuals will yield manifold fruits—spiritual, ecclesial, and theological. Among them, I would highlight the following:

First, it will orient us properly within the narrative of Sacred Scripture. This includes not only a clearer grasp of the roles and behaviors of biblical figures, but also a sharper discernment of God’s specific purposes for them. Each office carries its own authority, burden, and symbolic meaning, and to read Scripture without understanding this hierarchy is to miss the structural logic of divine revelation.

Second, it will grant clarity in discerning our own role—and that of others—within the Church today. For the sake of the Gospel, we must not wander in speculative confusion about what God intends us to do. We are most effective when our intellect is illumined by the Holy Spirit, when we act not from human anxiety but from supernatural certainty, moving boldly to accomplish the Will of God without resistance.

Third, it will enable us to see the continuity between the Old and the New Covenants. In this, we will come to perceive the miraculous unity of Scripture and the traditional architecture of the Church, the Bride of Christ. It will become evident that all which was substantially present in the Old remains present in the New. God did not abolish the priesthood, nor eliminate the prophet or the king. These offices among many others endure—some in ordinary form, others in extraordinary form, as God wills them. Certain vocations may not be manifest in every generation, but none are erased from the divine economy. In this sense, all the graces once poured out through the Old Covenant continue to flow—now gathered and overflowing into the Church, that great basin formed from the pierced Side of Christ. From that Rock, the Living Water flows still, and with it comes not only the offices of old, but greater graces than those of former ages, cascading from Heaven into the heart of the Church.

The Foundation

We must first understand that God, in His infinite wisdom, has deigned to express His wondrous nature through distinctions within creation. It is vital to grasp that in Himself, God is utterly simple—Divinely Simple—not composed of parts or passions, not bound by time, nor divided in His attributes. In God there is no real distinction between Mercy and Justice, between Love and Hope, between Past and Future. He is the Eternal One, the Timeless One, He Who Is (Exodus 3:14)—the Boundless, Living Essence of Goodness and Being itself.

To speak analogically, the Divine Essence may be likened to an endless sea of pure white light—purer and more radiant than the eye of flesh could ever behold. This light, too brilliant to be perceived in its unity, is refracted through the prism of creation—through time, space, matter, spirit—and so it appears to us not as a single color, but as a spectrum. The light is One, yet we behold it in a thousand hues: blue for hope, violet for humility, red for sacrifice, green for kindness, grey for patience, and so on. These colors, these virtues, are not external to God, but are reflections of His glory, made visible and imitable by mortal creatures. They are His perfections refracted through the world He has made. He is the Light; creation is the prism; we are the recipients and mirrors of His splendor.

Genesis 1:26–27

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Thus, what appears to us as contradiction—such as mercy opposed to justice, or gentleness to wrath—is reconciled only in Him. In Him, all virtues are one. In Him, love does not compete with truth, nor does judgment negate compassion.

Exodus 15:3

The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name.

Exodus 15:26

And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.

The manifold is unified in the Mystery of His Essence, and only when we are united to Him will we understand how every tension resolves in absolute simplicity.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Among the inanimate, this divine principle of distinction becomes evident through the diversity of form—solids, liquids, gases—and their countless expressions. Some materials are esteemed for beauty or usefulness, others for their mystery or incorruptibility, and some possess no discernible function at all, but draw us to wonder through their properties alone.

In the animate world, the diversity increases in majesty. Thousands upon thousands of species of flora and fauna each serve their place in the great liturgical harmony of nature. Each bears within itself a pattern and a role: propagating its kind, contributing to the ecosystem, participating in the renewal of life itself. The animate, in turn, vivifies the inanimate; the elements exist to nourish the living, to give substance and structure to that which moves and breathes.

But the highest expression of divine distinction is found in the intelligent creation: angels and men. Among these, there is the visible and the invisible. Humanity, with its many races, languages, and capacities, reflects divine creativity in time and matter. The angels, according to sacred tradition, are organized into nine choirs—distinct not merely by rank, but by nature, each an entirely unique species. They are innumerable, and among them, no two are alike. The hierarchy of the unseen exceeds the seen, and the variety of their splendor surpasses our comprehension.

In both man and angel, God has placed a creative impulse—a thrice-holy resemblance to His own infinitude. First, in their composition: they are made for glory, built for worship, and endowed with intellect and will. Second, in their place within the cosmic symphony: to govern, to serve, to adore. Third and finally, in their moral capacity: the freedom to choose, to imitate, to become, by grace, what God intended from the foundation of the world.

This earthly life, this fleeting time beneath the veil of mortality, is the soul’s single chance to gather—to absorb, by grace—all the colors of divine virtue, and to return them to the Source. Each virtue we embody is a shard of that pure Light, offered back to the Father as a drop in the Infinite Sea of His own majesty. This, then, is our dignity: not that we possess anything of ourselves, but that we may receive all from Him—and give it back in love.