Dan Migliore on the Munus Triplex, Part 1 – Soteriology

By -
Ever since Gustaf Aulen’s seminal work, Christus Victor, dogmatic work on soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) has had to grapple with the brute fact that there is no single “official” way to think about Jesus Christ’s saving work in the theological tradition. While various streams of the tradition sink their roots in different patterns of thought or emphasis, none of these are exclusive and each must be brought into conversation with the others. Furthermore, there has been increased recognition that there are multiple ways of thinking about Christ’s saving work attested in scripture. So this multiplicity is not only in reception, as it were, but also in origin. This is, of course, to be expected given the nature of the event.

In any case, Migliore lays out very briefly one of the ways of handling this multiplicity within the Reformed theological tradition. And he does so by employing one of that tradition’s fun little Latin phrases. All the different theological traditions have these phrases that are shorthand for a whole modus operandi (see what I did there?) within that tradition. This one pertains to thinking through the person and work of Jesus Christ with reference to his “threefold office” of Prophet, Priest, and King. Here is how Migliore ties this bit of christology to soteriological multiplicity, having recently rehashed the three primary soteriological positions (he calls them “Christ the Victor,” “satisfaction,” and “moral influence”):

Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 186.
John Calvin’s doctrine of the three offices of Christ (munus triplex) offers help in keeping our understanding of the atonement open and inclusive. Calvin says that Christ acts as our prophet, priest, and king. In this doctrine of the three offices, Calvin is able to include the teaching of Jesus, his sacrificial death, and his lordly rule. We might restate Calvin’s teaching of the three offices of Christ as follows: Christ as prophet proclaims the coming reign of God and instructs us in the form of life appropriate to that reign (moral influence); Christ as priest renders to God the perfect sacrifice of love and obedience on our behalf (satisfaction); Christ as designated king rules the world despite the recalcitrance of evil and promises the ultimate victory of God’s reign of righteousness and peace (Christ the Victor).

==================================

Comments

Mike said…
I am certainly thankful for the "munus triplex" way of looking at Christ. Do you know, is it "original" with Calvin (i.e., is he the first person to have framed it quite that way - I know he would certainly - and rightly -claim it as biblical, not "original" in the sense of novelty)?

Did you happen to see Richard Muow's article in the May issue of "Christianity Today" that acknowledged (I thought somewhat begrudgingly) that there are multiple ways of looking at the atonement, but that subsitutionary atonement was still "the best"? He made some good points, but I think anytime one says, "Sure, there are multiple ways, but the one I like best is, in fact, the best," means one has kind of missed the point.

There are some good "munus triplex" hymns out there, too. That's actually one of the few reasons I like "We Three Kings" - it's nothing reliable on the magi themselves, but it nails the three offices of Christ!
June 25, 2012 2:15 PM
W. Travis McMaken said…
I'm not sure whether it is original with Calvin, but it is certainly marginal before him (and it may be original to him).

I looked only very briefly at Mouw's piece. One is, of course, entitled to having one's favorite. But one should also be expected to make an argument about why that favorite is the most comprehensive, etc (i.e., is able to incorporate positively the concerns of the others).
June 25, 2012 2:19 PM
bfad said…
I like this connection. It should be helpful when discussing soteriology with some of my friends who are hung up on penal subsitutionary theology being the only "biblical" view of the atonement.
June 25, 2012 5:43 PM
T. Baylor said…
Mike,

Gerald McCulloh has a pretty decent historical survey of the topic in the link below if you are interested in the background. Basically, he argues that the theme develops out of Scripture [surprise!] and is familiar to the Medievals prior to Calvin

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ddxpLZ_zG7UC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=medieval,+Munus+triplex&source=bl&ots=aefhYXCjxW&sig=6clO-00MPE8elITKlZuc2AqVRQ4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ipgbUObcOKiT0QWK-YHQDw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=medieval%2C%20Munus%20triplex&f=false
August 03, 2012 4:29 AM
Post a Comment

Popular Posts

So, You Want To Read Karl Barth?

By -
Image
Every now and then I am asked for advice about studying Karl Barth. So, I thought that I would share some of my standard advice here. But, before I do that, let me just say that I am by no means a Barth expert as compared to the people whose books I will mention below. I would be thrilled to find myself in their league one day, but as of yet that remains a distant dream. Still, I have been reading Barth for long enough, and under the supervision of a number of the scholars that I will mention below, that I think I can provide a decent orientation. I have never read Karl Barth before. Which of his books should I read first? Barth’s most famous work is the monumental 13-volume Church Dogmatics . Reading the CD with understanding is not an easy thing, so you definitely do NOT want to start here. Luckily, there are two smaller works by Barth that serve as helpful introductions to his work. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction - Based on the lectures that Barth delivered duri
Keep reading

So You Want to Read….Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

By -
Image
"I fear that Christians who stand with only one leg upon earth also stand with only one leg in heaven." "The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from everyday Christian life in community…may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; for in the poor sister or brother, Christ is knocking at the door." "Since ethical thinking in terms of realms is overcome by faith in the revelation of the ultimate reality in Jesus Christ . . . there is no real Christian existence outside the reality of the world." "People who reject their bodies reject their existence before God the Creator." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer Prelude Andreas Steinhoff [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons I envisioned having a lot of time for blogging this summer, but that simply has not been the case - the last month has been a crazy one, to say the least. For two weeks, I was working at a theology summer camp of sorts, the Duke Youth Academy, and s
Keep reading

2010 KBBC: Week 1, Day 5

By -
“You Wonder Where the Spirit Went”: Jenson and Barth on the Hiddenness of God By Peter Kline I am entering into a conversation that Jenson has already begun with Barth. In a constructive essay on the hiddenness of God (Jenson 2000), Jenson considers Barth’s position on the matter only to find it lacking. I want to explore why Jenson has problems with Barth on this issue, as well think critically about his constructive alternative. I will suggest that Jenson is only partly right in his diagnosis of Barth; he in fact overlooks the heart of Barth’s teaching on divine hiddenness. The reason is that he looks in the wrong place for Barth’s pneumatology. Jenson can’t find the Spirit in Barth not because the Spirit isn’t there, but because the Spirit is hidden . These considerations will open out into a comparison of Barth and Jenson on the logic of revelation. By “logic” I mean: what is discourse about God’s revealedness and hiddenness supposed to accomplish? Part I Jenson focuses his a
Keep reading

2010 KBBC: Week 3, Day 1

By -
On the Monstrosity of Christ : Karl Barth in Conversation with Slavoj Žižek & John Milbank By Paul Dafydd Jones For a while, I hoped to frame this conversation in terms of a dramatic interchange – something along the lines of “A Slovenian philosopher, a British theologian, and a Swiss dogmatician walk into a bar…” Alongside an eye-wateringly hip assemblage of cinematic references, literary allusions, and comedic scenes – my early favorites being when Barth imagines a young adult novel, entitled Are you there God? It’s me, Žižek , and when Milbank waxes poetic about the Twilight movies – I wanted to engage some topics that would likely receive attention, were the authors to meet for drinks. Primarily, I envisioned an intense discussion of the logos asarkos and the logos ensarkos , with Milbank talking up the former category, Barth emphasizing the latter, and Žižek asking whether recent debates are but symptoms of secret puzzle, embedded in the Church Dogmatics – a puzzle that
Keep reading

Karl Barth on Hell, the Devil, Demons, and Universalism – A Florilegium

By -
Image
You know, all the most interesting topics. Although Barth often confessed that he didn’t find these questions particularly interesting. At best they might draw sideways glances, as it were, as one travels the theological road. But I found a number of places in the records of Barth’s later conversations that I thought folks might find interesting, so I’ve collected them here. And if you aren’t familiar with the term “florilegium,” here you go ! All these texts are from the first volume of Barth in Conversation , with pages numbers given in parentheses along the way. As usual, italics are in the text and bold is mine. Hell “Now we come to hell. You shouldn’t laugh! There is nothing to laugh at! What does hell mean? I think hell means to be in the place where you are once fore all damned and lost without ceasing to exist, without losing the image of God, being what you are but being damned and lost, separated from God, whose creature you are, separated also from your neighbor, from
Keep reading