"So the Lord said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your father's house with you shall bear iniquity connected with the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you shall bear iniquity connected with your priesthood. 2 And with you bring your brothers also, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may join you and minister to you while you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony. 3 They shall keep guard over you and over the whole tent, but shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary or to the altar lest they, and you, die. 4 They shall join you and keep guard over the tent of meeting for all the service of the tent, and no outsider shall come near you. 5 And you shall keep guard over the sanctuary and over the altar, that there may never again be wrath on the people of Israel. 6 And behold, I have taken your brothers the Levites from among the people of Israel. They are a gift to you, given to the Lord, to do the service of the tent of meeting. 7 And you and your sons with you shall guard your priesthood for all that concerns the altar and that is within the veil; and you shall serve. I give your priesthood as a gift,[a] and any outsider who comes near shall be put to death."
Numbers 18:1-7
The Scriptures warn very clearly against the natural tendency to hanker after the kudos attached to position or authority in spiritual life. 'Seekest thou great things for thyself?' said Jeremiah to his servant, 'Seek them not' (Jeremiah 45:5). In Hebrews 5:4 were a 'No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God'. And in 1 Corinthians Paul stresses the complementary nature of the various callings within the Church, the body of Christ, and warns against trespassing upon another's calling, urging us to be content with what God has called us to do, and to do it with all our might. That will be big enough responsibility to be accountable for in His sight, without coveting others' place. We cannot be more use to God than He chooses to make us, in any case (1 Corinthians 12, also 7:20ff).
And so, here, God gently reminds His people that there are solemn responsibilities attached to the priestly and Levitical offices. Aaron and the Levites, it is pointed out, were to bear the iniquity of the sanctuary, and the iniquity of the priesthood. This means: if the sanctuary were profaned by the intrusion of strangers, or by persons in their uncleanness, the blame should lie on the priests and the Levites, whose responsibility was to have prevented it. Or, if any of the offices of the sanctuary were neglected, or any service not done in accordance with the divine will, they were held accountable for it. Here is a word for the servant of God, with a vengeance! The defilement of the sanctuary, the intrusion of alien things, the neglect of the true work of the ministry these are the things a minister is held accountable to God for! This is why a man cannot afford to fear the face of men, why he must be prepared ultimately to be at odds with whole sections of his people. He fears the face of God more than that of any man, for it is to Him that he must in the end give account. As ministers we are held responsible for the purity of the Church's life and activity. That is burden enough for any man, and will make him more concerned to please God than please any man, whatever the cost.