Romans 15:16

That I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

The word "minister" here, as Lard noted:

is a sacerdotal term borrowed from the temple service and denotes "to officiate as a priest," or perform priestly duties; but that it is used here in any peculiar sense growing out of that circumstance is not apparent. It means simply to minister, or execute the functions of an apostle.[8]

Paul's metaphorical reference to his work of preaching the gospel is no basis at all for supposing a separate order of priests in God's church. True, the apostle Peter wrote, "Ye are a holy priesthood, a royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5,9); but, in the words of Moule:

Who are the "ye"? Not the consecrated pastorate, but the consecrated Christian company altogether. And what are the altar sacrifices of that company? "Sacrifices SPIRITUAL": "the praises of him who called them into his wonderful light" (1 Peter 2:5,9).[9]

When God called Israel out of Egypt, he promised that,

If ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant ... ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:5,6).

But, when such a status was offered to all of Israel, the chosen people were not ready for the privilege, and thus it came about that Levi and his tribe alone took the honor representatively (Exodus 32:36). Therefore, even under the Mosaic dispensation, the permission of a separate priesthood was accommodative only (much in the manner of their later permission to have a king), and was a departure from what had been intended. In the new Israel, which is the church, as Moule observed:

The pre-Levitical ideal of the old Israel reappears in its sacred reality.[10]

All Christians, therefore, are priests unto God, and there is only one high priest, even the Christ himself at God's right hand. He made the great atonement and is now enthroned with the Father himself, and is the "one mediator" between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). In this new Israel, all are sons in the Son, and all are priests in the Priest; and never in the New Testament is there any hint or suggestion of anything that could be analogous to Levi or Aaron. As for any notion that any exception to that principle may be found in the verse before us, Moule emphatically pronounced the negative which every student of the scriptures must feel:

No; for it contains its own full inner evidence of its metaphorical cast.[11]

Of further interest in this connection, it should be noted that the gospel is not offered as a sacrifice to God, but preached to people, the offering being the response of people themselves who present their bodies after the manner Paul commanded in Romans 12:1. Thus, it is not the preacher, even though an apostle, who offers people to God; people offer themselves. From this, it must be plain that "ministering the gospel of God" can only mean preaching it; and any concept of Christianity that would establish a priestly office for the purpose of "offering up the gospel" or any such thing is erroneous.

Being sanctified by the Holy Spirit ... was commented upon thus by Macknight:

According to the law, the sacrifices were sanctified, or made acceptable to God, by being salted and laid on the altar by the priest";[12]

but the Gentiles were made acceptable to God through the Spirit of God, as affirmed in this verse, that Spirit being sent by God into their hearts in consequence of their sonship through faith and obedience (Galatians 4:6). Thus, in the new Israel, no priest is needed to salt the offering. Paul performed no such service for converted Gentiles; he did not give them the Holy Spirit; and, whatever examples there are of the Holy Spirit's being given through "the laying on of the apostles' hands," it was still God, and not the apostles, who gave it.

[8] Moses E. Lard, Commentary on Paul's Letter to Romans (Cincinnati, Ohio: Christian Board of Publication, 1914), p. 440.

[9] H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Pickering and Inglis, Ltd.), p. 410.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid., p. 411.

[12] James Macknight, Apostolical Epistles (Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1960), p. 131.