1 Kings 12:31

Jeroboam is a cunning politician. He sets up one calf at Bethel, on the boundary with Judah, and the other at Dan, the northern edge of his territory. He shapes his worship to match the worship the law of Moses laid down. "A house of high places" takes the place of the temple. In place of the Levitical priesthood he puts "priests from all classes of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi." Israel had its Feast of Tabernacles, so Jeroboam set up a feast of his own, one month later. He sets up an altar at Bethel to match the bronze altar, places it before the idol, and burns incense on it instead of burnt offerings (vv. 31-33). All this "he had devised of his own heart"!

"And he made a house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi." This broke God's law about the priesthood outright. See Num. 18:1-7. And he did not stop there. He clearly held the rightful priests and the Levites under suspicion, and he refused their service. "For Jeroboam and his sons," we read, "had cast them out from serving as priests to the Lord, and he appointed his own priests for the high places, for the demons, and for the calves which he had made" (2 Chron. 11:14-15).

God had appointed the family of Aaron as priests, and the Levites to serve them. But Jeroboam refused this claim and appointed priests of his own choosing for worship of idols in high places (v. 15). Therefore the priests and Levites moved to Judah, leaving the lands that had been given them among the ten tribes (vv. 13-14). What else could they do? Jeroboam's idolatry had left no room for priests of the Lord.

Thus, despite its misleading external forms, this religion was a complete forsaking of the worship of the Lord, an instrument of polity in the hands of the government. Lulled by false appearances, souls were kept far from the true God, and the king of the line of David became a stranger to them.

No doubt people, acting in self-will, can set up an organisation of their own. They can elect or appoint officers and give them the names Scripture uses. But these so-called elders and deacons of the various sects are no more elders or deacons by God's order than Jeroboam's "house of high places" was the temple of the Lord. They are no more so than the priests he appointed, "not of the sons of Levi," were the priests of the Lord, or than the feast he set up in the eighth month, "the month which he had devised of his own heart," was the feast of the Lord (1 Kings 12:31-33).

God had said, You shall worship in the place that I shall choose. Dan and Bethel were Jeroboam's choice. Today many seek to serve God and "worship" Him in the way and the place that suits them. But the New Testament teaches us that the place must be of God's choosing. It is the place where Christ is in the midst, and where the Holy Spirit is free to lead in true worship. God had also chosen Aaron and his sons to serve Him as priests. Jeroboam had no access to God's priests, so he "made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi." Christendom has its counterpart: it sets up a "priestly class," often made up of unconverted men (or women!), and sets aside the divine principle that all believers are priests.