^{page 346 note 1} The phrase is Marcus Borg's. See his Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 31ff. I will discuss this more below, on p. 25 n. 90Google Scholar.

^{page 346 note 2} One need only note the number of recent journal articles, indeed, whole journal issues dedicated to the topic, e.g., Modern Theology 2 (April 1986), Theology Today 54 (October 1997) and Word & World: Theology for Christian Ministry 18 (Summer 1998). As for the variety, consider that major works on the Trinity have emerged in the last decade or so from a Liberation theologian (Leonardo Boff), Feminist theologians (Elizabeth Johnston, Catherine Mowry LaCugna), theologians with ‘Neo-orthodox’ sensibilities (T. F. Torrance, Colin Gunton, Robert Jenson), an Episcopal theologian with ‘Liberal Protestant’ sensibilities (David Cunningham) and an Evangelical theologian (Peter Toon), to name just a few.

^{page 346 note 3} Such critiques have taken academic and more public forms. Of the former, consider Sōlle, Dorothee, Suffering, trans. Kalin, Everett R., (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), pp. 22–32Google Scholar and Brown, Joanne Carlson and Bohn, Carole R., Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989), pp. 26ffGoogle Scholar. Of the latter, consider the much publicized rhetoric of the Re-Imagining Conference held in Minneapolis, MN in 1993. The comment of Delores Williams was frequently quoted as representative: ‘I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff. See Christianity Today 38 (April 4, 1994): 74Google Scholar. In December, 1994, The Christian Century named the Conference the second top story in religion in the past year. See The Christian Century 111 (December 21–28, 1994): 1211Google Scholar.

^{page 347 note 4} John Dominic Crossan's Jesus as wandering cynic philosopher/civic agitator and Marcus Borg's ‘inclusive’ Jesus are two examples.

^{page 347 note 5} For example, the theological journal Interpretation has devoted its January 1998 and 1999 issues to the theme of atonement,’ [b]ecause of the signal importance of the symbol of the cross and because of the present controversy surrounding the suitability and meaning of atonement language’. See Interpretation 52 (January 1998): 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

^{page 347 note 6} Gustaf Aulén's book, Christus Victor, has been very influential in suggesting there are three basic ways of understanding Christ's reconciling work. (Cf. e.g., Harvey, Van A., A Handbook of Theological Terms, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1964, ‘Atonement’, p. 34)Google Scholar. To be sure, some theologians suggest a different set of three (e.g., Colin Gunton sees the metaphors of ‘victory’, ‘legal justification’, and ‘sacrifice’ as determining his ways of explaining atonement. See The Actuality of Atonement, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988)Google Scholar. Still other theologians argue that the variety of scriptural metaphors and images—and the ways they often interrelate—suggest Christ's work should be understood in more than just three ways (e.g., Alister McGrath recognizes the Christus victor and exemplarist approaches, but echoes Gunton by subdividing what I label ‘vicarious sacrifice’ into sacrifice and legal approaches. See Alister E. McGrath, ‘Soteriology’, in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought.) I appreciate the insights of both alternatives, and am not claiming that my exposition of these three models will exhaustively explain the richness of Scripture's atonement imagery. But I do contend that every essential aspect of this rich diversity can find an appropriate place somewhere under these three basic rubrics, and that there is real theological value—systematic certainly, but even more pastoral and catechetical—in such an organization.

^{page 348 note 7} Biblical citations are from the NRSV. I will occasionally alter them to more accurately reflect the original Greek.

^{page 349 note 8} Hooft, W. A. Visser't, The Kingship of Christ, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

^{page 349 note 9} Perhaps the Preacher's words can be amended: ‘There is nothing new under the sun, only variations on a theme’. In the process of my research, I have discovered that John Henry Newman made—in an Easter sermon entided ‘The Three Offices of Christ’—a number of the same structural connections among Christ's office, work and the Trinity that I will make in this article. See Newman, John Henry, Sermons Bearing on Subjects of the Day, New Edition, (London: Rivingtons, 1871), pp. 52–62Google Scholar. However, he does not develop the Trinitarian connection (it is limited to one brief paragraph, p. 55), and what he does offer differs greatly from my line of exposition.

^{page 350 note 10} I should note that I do not intend to imply an adoptionist Christology by starting with Jesus’ baptism, only that this event inaugurates his public status as God's anointed.

^{page 350 note 11} Cf. 1 Kings 19:16 (The Lord commanding Elijah to anoint Elisha as his successor); Exodus 28:41, 29:7–9; Leviticus 8 (The Lord commands Moses to anoint Aaron and his sons as priests); and 1 Samuel 9:15–17, 27–10:1 (The Lord instructs Samuel to anoint Saul, ‘to save them [the people of Israel] from their enemies’. Cf. God's later instruction to Samuel to anoint David to replace Saul as King, 16:1, 11–13).

^{page 351 note 12} To view the temptation narratives as describing a general messianic testing is not particularly controversial, but very few current biblical commentators interpret the three temptations as corresponding to the prophetic, priestly and royal dimensions of Jesus' messiahship. For a list of three who do, see Luz, Ulrich, Matthew 1–7 – A Commentary, trans. Linss, Wilhelm C., (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), p. 185, n. 14Google Scholar. Luz himself argues for the more general messianic interpretation, stating that the ‘Achilles’ heel of [a more particular] interpretation is the second temptation’, which is, to his mind, not explicit enough in pointing to a priestly messiah. He implies that comparable messianic passages in 2 Esdras 13:35–38, Revelation 11:3–13, and a Jewish midrash (Pesikta Rabbati 36.2) lend support to his more generalist reading. I do not find his position entirely persuasive, and this is not simply because I am concerned primarily with theological interpretation and pastoral application rather than historical-critical reconstruction. His reference to the midrash is especially interesting. In part, it is a question of who might have influenced whom: the earliest suggested date for the compilation of the Pesikta Rabbati is 355 AD, with a 7th century date more likely. (See Braude, William G., trans., Pesikta Rabbati, Yale Judaica Series, Nemoy, Leon, ed., Vol. XVIII, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 20–26Google Scholar, for a discussion of dating.) Yet let us suppose this particular midrash does represent a much earlier tradition. If it did influence the gospel accounts of the temptation, then a ‘priestly’ reading of the second temptation might well be precluded by the words to which Luz refers: ‘Our Masters taught: When the king Messiah appears, he will come stand on the roof of the Temple and will make a proclamation to Israel, saying: Meek ones, the day of your redemption is come’ (p. 682 in the Braude edition). It does not mention anything priestly, indeed, it speaks of ‘king Messiah’. Yet what are we then to make of a passage that appears earlier in the same midrash (36.1, pp. 678–79)? That passage states: ‘[At the time of the Messiah's creation], the Holy One, blessed be He, will tell him in detail what will befall him: There are souls that have been put away with thee under My throne, and it is their sins which will bend thee down under a yoke of iron and make thee like a calf whose eyes grow dim with suffering, and will choke thy spirit as with a yoke; because of the sins of these souls thy tongue will cleave to the roof of thy mouth. Art thou willing to endure such things? … The Messiah will say: Master of the universe, with joy in my soul and gladness in my heart I take this suffering upon myself, provided that not one person in Israel perish; that not only those who are alive be saved in my days, but that also those who are dead, who died from the days of Adam up to the time of redemption; and that not only these be saved in my days, but also those who died as abortions; and that not only these be saved in my days, but all those whom Thou thoughtest to create but were not created. Such are the things I desire, and for these I am ready to take upon myself [whatever Thou decreest]’. If such a passage does not evoke a priestly understanding of the Messiah similar to the one Christians came to affirm about Jesus' self-sacrifice, I do not know what words could.

^{page 352 note 13} As an indication of this common view, note also the crowd's response in Jn. 6:14 to Jesus' feeding of them.

^{page 353 note 14} Cf. the promise in Dt. 18:15ff and the summary description in Dt. 34:10–12.

^{page 353 note 15} This image is reinforced when read in a canonical context with The Letter to the Hebrews.

^{page 354 note 16} Ex. 17:2–7

^{page 355 note 17} Many of those currently interested in the Trinity also seek to avoid such abstraction, yet still fall into it. The most common mistake is to use the Trinity as a source for general concepts (e.g., ‘community’, ‘unity in diversity’) that then are explicated in ways separated from the Biblical narrative. Compare the early and later chapters of LaCugna's, Catherine MowryGod For Us – The Trinity & Christian Life, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991)Google Scholar and the alliterative chapter titles of Cunningham's, David S.These Three Are One – The Practice of Trinitarian Theology, Challenges in Contemporary Theology, eds. Ayres, Lewis and Jones, Gareth, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Inc, 1998)Google Scholar. Both authors seek to return the Trinity to a central place in Christian life and worship, but they do so in ways I think fundamentally mistaken. Both authors tend to reduce the meaning of the Trinity to a set of general principles, from which practical corollaries are then deduced. The move is reminiscent of the Liberal Protestantism of Adolf von Harnack, who reduced the essence of Christianity to three basic themes, which each age was then to explicate in its own terms, informed in no substantial way by the specifics of the biblical narratives. The inevitable result is that the Zeitgeist, rather than the concrete witness of scripture, fills out what is ‘essential’.

^{page 355 note 18} Like many showing renewed interest in the Trinity, I recognize the ‘epistemological primacy’ of the economic Trinity: we can speak of the immanent Trinity because of the encounter with the economic. But I also maintain the ‘ontological primacy’ of the immanent Trinity; otherwise, one runs the risk of modalism. Thus, the economic Trinity reveals the immanent Trinity, even while the immanent Trinity is the basis for the economic Trinity.

^{page 355 note 19} Cf. Crossan, John Dominic, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991)Google Scholar.

^{page 356 note 20} Cf. Acts 10:36; Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 8:6, 12:3; Phil. 2:11.

^{page 356 note 21} Consider the representative words of Hooft, W. A. Visser't (The Kingship of Christ, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948, p. 67)Google Scholar: ‘What then is the rock bottom of the faith of the primitive Church? It is expressed in two words: Jesous Kurios, ‘Jesus is Lord’. As we dig down deeper and deeper into the strata of the tradition we come finally to that simple affirmation’.

^{page 356 note 22} Acts 2:36, 10:36.

^{page 356 note 23} Phil. 2:11.

^{page 356 note 24} E.g., Acts 2:32–35's interpretation of Ps. 110.

^{page 356 note 25} Jn 20:28; Rom. 10:9 and 1 Cor. 8:6.

^{page 356 note 26} Eph. 4:4–5; 1 Cor. 12:3.

^{page 356 note 27} Eph. 1:21 and, evidently, 1 Cor. 12:3. Cf. the attitude regarding the true Lord and false lords pervading the whole book of Revelation.

^{page 356 note 28} ‘No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’.

^{page 356 note 29} 1 Cor. 15:20–28 and Heb. 2:14.

^{page 357 note 30} Jn. 11:17–45; Mk. 5:22–24, 35–43 / / Mt. 18–26 / / Lk. 8:40–56; Lk. 7:11–17. Cf. also the story of the Centurion's slave, Lk. 7:1–10 / / Mt. 8:5–13.

^{page 357 note 31} Mk. 1:21–27, 5:1–20; Mt. 12:28 / / Lk. 11:20.

^{page 357 note 32} Mk 1:29–34, 3:22–27, 14:34–36; Lk. 8:43–48; Mt. 12:15–21.

^{page 357 note 33} Jn. 18:33–38; Lk. 13:31–32. Cf. Heb. 1:8–9 and Rev. 12:10–11.

^{page 357 note 34} Mt. 8:23–27 / / Mk. 4:35–41 / / Lk. 8:22–25.

^{page 357 note 35} See Pss. 89:8–9, 107:28–31; Jer. 31:35; Is. 51:15.

^{page 357 note 36} Cf. Lk. 21:25 and 2 Esd. 16:12.

^{page 357 note 37} 2 Mac. 9:8.

^{page 357 note 38} Cf. Mt. 12:28 / / Lk. 11:20.

^{page 357 note 39} Mt. 28:18. Cf. Lk. 10:22.

^{page 358 note 40} See Jn. 5:30, 8:28, and 14:10.

^{page 358 note 41} 1 Cor. 15:28.

^{page 358 note 42} Thus, Pannenberg's objection that the ‘kingly office’ is not rightfully ascribed to Jesus does not finally wash. In a nutshell, Pannenberg seems to confuse the popular expectation regarding the awaited messianic king with Jesus' redefinition of such kingship. See a summary of Pannenberg's position in Stroup, George W., ‘The Relevance of the Munus Triplexfor Reformed Theology and Ministry’, Austin Seminary Bulletin 98 (June 1983): 26–27Google Scholar.

^{page 358 note 43} See Jn. 6:15.

^{page 358 note 44} See Mt. 26:51–54.

^{page 358 note 45} Wright, N. T., Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 2, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996)Google Scholar. See especially pp. 96–98, but also 168–182, 191ff., 226ff., 461–467, 472–474, 529–539, 544–552, 609–610, and 652–653.

^{page 358 note 46} Cf. 1 Sam. 8.

^{page 359 note 47} Jenkins, David E., ‘Holy Trinity and Promise: What is Good News in Today's World?’ Sewanee Theological Review 35 (Pentecost 1992): 230Google Scholar.

^{page 359 note 48} 2 Cor. 12:9.

^{page 359 note 49} Rev. 12:10–11.

^{page 359 note 50} Cf. Rev. 17:12–14.

^{page 359 note 51} Cf. Eph. 6:10–17.

^{page 359 note 52} Cf. Eph. 1:17–22 and 1 Jn. 5:4–5.

^{page 361 note 53} Jn. 1:29.

^{page 361 note 54} Rom. 3:24–45.

^{page 361 note 55} Eph. 5:2.

^{page 361 note 56} 1 Jn. 4:10.

^{page 361 note 57} If one recognizes that this act of sacrifice by the Son is a perichoretical act of the whole Godhead, then one can understand why certain critiques of vicarious sacrifice are finally unfounded. In particular, Enlightenment concern that it is immoral because it punishes the innocent can be seen as too simplistic, because such concern is based on presuppositions that are too individualistic and ahistorical. Similarly, feminist theological critiques that the Father's ‘required’ sacrifice of the Son represents ‘divine child abuse’ or serves to justify child abuse would have merit if one assumed any or all of the following: 1) a heterodox understanding of the Father and the Son, either implicitly tritheistic or Ebionitic, in which the will and work of the Father is understood as distinct from and in some sense imposed upon the Son or the (merely) human Jesus. 2) A modernist individualism, which posits the radical autonomy and isolation—moral and otherwise—of humans, and by extension, of the Father and Son. 3) A Feuerbachian understanding of the character and purpose of theological description as being at root the projection of human norms and examples we are to follow, rather than reflecting a transcendent, divinely self-disclosed and unique reality which may require of us something quite different than mere imitation. 4) A tendency to psychologize theological language, rather than understanding it in its own terms and nuances. However, given the fact that the orthodox position does not share these assumptions, such critiques appear beside the point.

^{page 362 note 58} Phil. 2:5–8; Jn 10:18.

^{page 362 note 59} See Gaster, T. H., ‘Sacrifices and Offerings, OT’, Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4, pp. 148–153Google Scholar. de Vaux, Roland, in his Ancient Israel, vol. 2, Religious Institutions, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1965), pp. 451–454Google Scholar, offers a very similar list: sacrifice as gift, as means of union with God, and as expiation for sin.

^{page 363 note 60} Lk. 2:22–24.

^{page 363 note 61} Gaster, IDB, p. 149.

^{page 363 note 62} Gunton, Colin, ‘The Sacrifice and the Sacrifices: From Metaphor to Transcendental?’, in Feenstra, Ronald J. and Plantinga, Cornelius Jr., eds., Trinity, Incarnation and Atonement – Philosophical and Theological Essays, Library of Religious Philosophy, Vol. 1, Morris, Thomas V., general editor, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), p. 217Google Scholar.

^{page 363 note 63} Cf. the binding of Isaac, and Abraham's faith that ‘the Lord will provide’, Gen. 22:1–14.

^{page 363 note 64} Rom. 8:29; Heb. 12:23.

^{page 363 note 65} 1 Cor. 15:20–22; Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5; 2 Thes. 2:13–14. Cf. Acts 26:22–23.

^{page 363 note 66} Col. 1:15. Cf. Rom. 8:19–23.

^{page 364 note 67} Cf. Lev. 21:6 and Num. 28:2–3.

^{page 364 note 68} 1 Cor. 11:23–26; Mk. 14:22–24; Mt. 26:26–28; Lk. 22:14–20.

^{page 364 note 69} While Anselm's position is often caricatured as portraying a God overly preoccupied with affronts to the divine honor, his position is actually much more nuanced. Anselm observes that ‘[a]s far as God himself is concerned, nothing can be added to his honor or subtracted from it.… But when the particular creature, either by nature or reason, keeps the order that belongs to it and is, as it were, assigned to it, it is said to obey God and to honor him.… But when it does not will what it ought, it dishonors God, as far as it is concerned, since it does not readily submit itself to his direction, but disturbs the order and beauty of the universe, as far as lies in it, although of course it cannot injure or stain the power and dignity of God’. See Anselm of Canterbury, Why God Became Man, in Fairweather, Eugene R., ed., A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham, trans. Fairweather, Eugene R., Library of Christian Classics, Vol. X., (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1956), pp. 123–124Google Scholar.

^{page 365 note 70} John H. Hayes, following the lead of Jacob Milgrom, argues that the labels ‘purgation’ and ‘reparation’ sacrifices are more accurate and therefore more helpful translations of the Hebrew terms than those given in the NRSV (and RSV). See Hayes, John H., ‘Atonement in the Book of Leviticus’, Interpretation 52 (January 1998): 8 and 10Google Scholar.

^{page 365 note 71} Cf. Gaster, T. H., IDB, vol. IV, pp. 151–152 with the Hayes article just citedGoogle Scholar.

^{page 365 note 72} The word is Hayes'. See Hayes, , Interpretation, p. 8Google Scholar.

^{page 365 note 73} Gaster, T. H., IDB, Vol. 4, p. 152Google Scholar.

^{page 366 note 74} Gaster, T. H., IDB, Vol. 4, p. 153Google Scholar. Emphasis mine.

^{page 368 note 75} The full quote is: ‘With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations’. It comes from his second inaugural address delivered on March 4, 1865, just weeks before the end of the war and his assassination.

^{page 368 note 76} Gunton, Colin, The Actuality of Atonement, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), pp. 122–123Google Scholar.

^{page 369 note 77} Rom. 12:1–2.

^{page 369 note 78} Heb. 13:15.

^{page 369 note 79} Heb. 13:16; cf. Phil 4:18.

^{page 369 note 80} 1 Pet. 2:1–5.

^{page 369 note 81} Jn. 1:1

^{page 369 note 82} Jn. 1:4, 9

^{page 369 note 83} 1 Cor. 1:22–25, 2:14, 3:19

^{page 370 note 84} Blindness is often portrayed in Scripture as not just a physical, but a spiritual malady. The gospel of John plays with the double meaning frequently (e.g., the classic interchange in Jn. 9), but other witnesses use it as well to describe the effect—or lack of effect in the stubborn!—of Jesus' prophetic work (cf. Mt. 15:10–14, 23:16–26 and Lk. 6:39–42).

^{page 370 note 85} Mk. 1:21–22, 27; Mk. 11:27–33 and parallels.

^{page 370 note 86} Jn. 7:16–18

^{page 370 note 87} Lk. 10:21–22

^{page 370 note 88} Mt. 18:12–13 (/ / Lk. 15:3–6) as well as Lk. 15:8–10.

^{page 370 note 89} Cf. Mt. 21:11, 46; Mk. 6:15; Lk. 7:16; Jn. 4:19.

^{page 370 note 90} Calling Jesus a prophet has become a common device for rejecting traditional claims of his unique place and role in God's work, from Thomas Jefferson's truncated portrayal of Jesus as a great moral teacher (but nothing more) to Marcus Borg's classification of Jesus as one example of the genus ‘spirit person’ (as were Moses and Elijah, but also Honi the Circle Drawer, Hanina ben Dosa, the apostle Paul, the Native American Black Elk, the Buddha, Francis of Assisi Muhammad, Lao-Tzu and by implication numerous others. See his Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), pp. 31–36Google Scholar and 44–45n.42).

^{page 371 note 91} Mt. 8:2, 6, 25, 9:28, 14:28–32, 15:22–28, 17:14–15, 18:21, 20:30–34

^{page 371 note 92} Mt. 8:19, 9:11, 12:38, 19:16, 22:15–18, 23–29 & 34–36.

^{page 371 note 93} Mt. 26:25, 49.

^{page 371 note 94} Ez. 36:26–27, Jl. 2:28–29.

^{page 371 note 95} Jn. 1:32–33, Acts 1:5, 2:38, 8:14–17, 11:16, 19:1–6.

^{page 371 note 96} Is. 61:1–2, Lk. 4:18–19.

^{page 371 note 97} Mt. 3:16 / / Mk. 1:10 / / Lk. 3:22. Cf. Jn. 1:32.

^{page 371 note 98} Lk. 10:21.

^{page 372 note 99} Mt. 27:50; Lk. 23:46; Jn. 19:30.

^{page 372 note 100} Cf. Mt. 11:25–27 (/ / Lk. 10:21–22).

^{page 372 note 101} Acts 11:15–18; 1 Cor. 6:11.

^{page 372 note 102} Cf. 1 Cor. 12:3b.

^{page 372 note 103} 1 Cor. 12:4–11; Gal. 5:22–26. Cf. Acts 4:32.

^{page 372 note 104} 2 Cor. 3: 12–18.

^{page 373 note 105} Cf. Rom. 12:2 and 1 Jn. 4:1.