The Messiah Comes to Middle-Earth

Images of Christ's Threefold Office in The Lord of the Rings

Philip Ryken

• Editore: IVP Academic
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780830888863
• Argomento: Theologie & Religion
• Categoria: Literatur & Kunst im Christentum

How can we grasp the significance of what Jesus Christ did for us? Might literature help us as we seek to understand the Christian faith?J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has generated much discussion about the relationship between Christianity and literature. It is well known that Tolkien disliked allegory. Yet he acknowledged that his work is imbued with Christian symbolism and meaning.Based on the inaugural Hansen Lectureship series delivered by Philip Ryken, this volume mines the riches of Tolkien's theological imagination. In the characters of Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn, Ryken hears echoes of the threefold office of Christ—his prophetic, priestly, and royal roles. Guided by Ryken, readers will discover that they can learn much about the one who is the true prophet, priest, and king through Tolkien's imaginative storytelling.Based on the annual lecture series hosted at Wheaton College's Marion E. Wade Center, volumes in the Hansen Lectureship Series reflect on the imaginative work and lasting influence of seven British authors: Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.

1

The PROPHETIC MINISTRY of GANDALF the GREY

As the Nine Walkers seek passage through the Misty Mountains, by way of Moria, they face terrifying evil. Dark spirits have been awakened from the deep, and their drum beats roll through the mine, echoing in the caverns and throbbing fear into the heart of the Fellowship of the Ring: doom, doom. A grim company of orcs attack, accompanied by massive trolls. For a moment, the Walkers narrowly escape, but soon their enemies are after them again: doom-boom, doom-boom!

As they run for their lives, the leader of their company—Gandalf the Grey—suddenly faces an enemy he has never met before. It is “like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it. . . . In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs.”1 The fell creature is a Balrog—one of the last fiery demons who rebelled against Ilúvatar, the One God.2

As the Fellowship comes to the final bridge out of the mountains—the Bridge of Khazad-dûm—Gandalf seeks to hold the narrow passage long enough for his friends to escape. “You cannot pass,” the wizard says. “Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.” For a moment, the Balrog seems to wither. But then he draws himself up to his full height, leaps on the bridge, and strikes with deadly force:

At that moment Gandalf lifted his staff, and crying aloud he smote the bridge before him. The staff broke asunder and fell from his hand. A blinding sheet of white flame sprang up. The bridge cracked. Right at the Balrog’s feet it broke, and the stone upon which it stood crashed into the gulf, while the rest remained, poised, quivering like a tongue of rock thrust out into emptiness.

With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. “Fly, you fools!” he cried, and was gone.3

It is easy to recognize Gandalf’s heroic stand against the Balrog as an act of Christlike love. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends,” Jesus said (Jn 15:13). And this is precisely what Gandalf does: he sacrifices his life so that his friends may escape the dark power of evil. What I wish to argue is that Gandalf is Christlike in a particular way—that his work as a wizard is analogous to the ministry of the biblical prophets and thus illuminates both the office of Christ as prophet and the prophetic calling of every Christian. In the unforgettable character of Gandalf the Grey, J. R. R. Tolkien has portrayed the archetypal prophet.4

But this is only one-third of the argument that I wish to make in these inaugural Hansen Lectures.5 There are really three main Christ figures in The Lord of the Rings, and each one echoes a different aspect of the work of Christ—what theologians call his “threefold office” as prophet, priest, and king.

At the conclusion of his excellent book The Philosophy of Tolkien, Peter Kreeft astutely observes, “There is no one complete, concrete, visible Christ figure in The Lord of the Rings, like Aslan in Narnia. But Christ is really, though invisibly, present in the whole of The Lord of the Rings.”6 Perhaps this pervasive Christology helps to explain the unique power of Tolkien’s epic fantasy, which some regard as the greatest fictional work of the twentieth century. The character of Christ is not a single thread in the story but is deeply woven into the entire narrative fabric. Indeed, is it possible for us to think of a book that more richly incarnates the themes of the gospel?

As Kreeft continues, he tells us more specifically where to look for the real but invisible presence of Christ:

He is more clearly present in Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn, the three Christ figures. First of all, all three undergo different forms of death and resurrection. Second, all three are saviors: through their self-sacrifice they help save all of Middle-earth from the demonic sway of Sauron. Third, they exemplify the Old Testament threefold Messianic symbolism of prophet (Gandalf), priest (Frodo), and king (Aragorn).7

I wish to explore these connections more deeply by surveying the history of Christian thought on the threefold office of Christ and by considering how reading Tolkien can help us live out the prophetical, sacerdotal, and regal dimensions of our own calling as Christians. My approach will be literary, theological, and practical as I consider first “The Prophetic Ministry of Gandalf the Grey” and then “Frodo, Sam, and the Priesthood of All Believers,” concluding with “The Coronation of Aragorn Son of Arathorn.”

CHRIST’S THREEFOLD OFFICE IN THE CHURCH FATHERS

We begin by tracing some historical-theological background from the early church.8 Apparently, the first theologian to describe the work of Christ in terms of his prophetic, priestly, and kingly ministry was Eusebius, the early fourth-century bishop of Caesarea.

Eusebius began his famous Ecclesiastical History by defining the term Christ, which, he noted, went all the way back to Moses and his anointing of Aaron as the high priest in Israel. The Messiah—or the Christ, to use the later Greek term—literally means “the anointed one.” The majority of occurrences of this term in the Hebrew Bible refer to anointing the shepherd-king of Israel with holy oil (e.g., 1 Sam 10:1; Ps 89:20).9 Eusebius also found the term in Psalm 2, a messianic song for the Son of David. On the basis of these and other scriptures, the venerable historian concluded that the work of Christ as the anointed one pertains to more than one Old Testament calling:

Thus, it was not only those honoured with the high priesthood, anointed with prepared oil for the symbol’s sake, who were distinguished among the Hebrews with the name of Christ, but the kings too; for they, at the bidding of God, received the chrism from prophets and were thus made Christs in image, in that they, too, bore in themselves the patterns of the kingly, sovereign authority of the one true Christ, the divine Word who reigns over all. Again, some of the prophets themselves by chrism became Christs in pattern, as the records show, so that they all stand in relation to the true Christ, the divine and heavenly Word who is the sole High Priest of the universe, the sole King of all creation, and of the prophets the sole Archprophet of the Father.10

The Old Testament priests, kings, and prophets were images or patterns, but there is only one true Christ, for whom Eusebius offered high praise:

He did not receive the symbols and patterns of the high priesthood from anyone; He did not trace his physical descent from the acknowledged priests; He was not promoted by the soldiers’ weapons to a kingdom; He did not become a prophet in the same way as those of old; He did not receive from the Jews any rank or pre-eminence whatever. Yet with all these, not indeed in symbols but in very truth, He had been adorned by the Father. . . . He is more entitled than any of them to be called Christ . . . being Himself the one true Christ of God.11

Among the church fathers who followed Eusebius, the threefold office of Christ—or munus triplex—received little more than occasional mention. We do find the golden-tongued preacher John Chrysostom telling his congregation in Constantinople that “in old times, these three sorts were anointed”: prophets and priests and kings.12 We also find Peter Chrysologus, the fifth-century bishop of Ravenna, saying in one of his sermons that Jesus “was called Christ by anointing, because the unction, which in former times had been given to kings, prophets, and priests as a type, was now poured out as the fullness of the divine Spirit into this one person, the King of kings, Priest of priests, Prophet of prophets.”13

CHRIST’S THREEFOLD OFFICE IN SACRED SCRIPTURE

We will have to wait until the Protestant Reformation in Europe—which we will consider in the next chapter—to see how this three-dimensional schema gets developed in Christian doctrine. In the meantime, we should recognize that in commenting on Christ’s threefold anointing, Eusebius, Chrysostom, and other patristic scholars were tapping into a rich vein of biblical truth. There are three primary forms of leadership in Old Testament Israel: prophet, priest, and king. To observe how these leaders operate and interact is to understand in many ways God’s purposes for his people.

We can illustrate this from prophetic ministry. From Moses to Malachi, the prophets performed miraculous signs and gave God’s Word to God’s people, boldly speaking truth to power in the contemporary situation and perceptively foretelling the future.14 This answered the people’s need for guidance and deliverance.

Each of the Old Testament prophets received a divine call to sacred ministry. Think of Moses at the burning bush (Ex 3:1-10) or Isaiah in the temple, where he saw the holy Lord lifted high on his lofty throne (Is 6:1-8). The biblical prophets were not self-appointed; they were sent by God. On occasion—and here Elisha is the notable exemplar (1 Kings 19:16)—they were anointed for their holy office with sacred oil.

The biblical prophets fulfilled their calling to communicate God’s Word, yet they were not without their flaws. Moses struck the rock in sinful anger (Num 20:2-13). Elijah ran away from his calling, threw himself down under a tree, and told God that he had had enough (1 Kings 19:1-10). Jeremiah cursed the day that he was born (Jer 20:14-18). As they considered the failings of these and other prophets, careful students of the ancient Scriptures looked in hope for God to fulfill his promise and raise up a prophet like Moses—one who would have God’s very words in his mouth (Deut 18:15).

Enter Jesus, the Christ. In his singular person, Jesus fulfilled the promise of the prophetic office and indeed of all three offices, as various theologians have noted. Here is how the Anglican bishop John Henry Newman summarizes the ways in which our Savior fulfilled his threefold office, from a notable Easter sermon he preached in 1840:

Christ exercised His prophetical office in teaching, and in foretelling the future;—in His sermon on the Mount, in His parables, in His prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem. He performed the priest’s service when He died on the Cross, as a sacrifice; and when He consecrated the bread and the cup to be a feast upon that sacrifice; and now that He intercedes for us at the right hand of God. And He showed Himself as a conqueror, and a king, in rising from the dead, in ascending into heaven, in sending down the Spirit of grace, in converting the nations, and in forming his Church to receive and to rule them.15

For Karl Barth, who uses the threefold office of Christ as the structure for his soteriology, Jesus Christ is “the God-man who is instituted by God Himself, and who in the midst of world-history exists in His name, with His authority and in fulfillment of His will, suffering as High-priest, ruling as King and revealing Himself as Prophet.”16 Richard Mouw says, “We might put the case this way. In ancient Israel’s social economy, God saw fit to develop three separate offices—prophet, priest, and king—along distinct and distinguishable lines. The roles and functions were separated for developmental preparatory purposes. But with the coming of Christ the offices are now gathere...