AP

Review of Jonty Rhodes, Man of Sorrows, King of Glory, Wheaton: Crossway, 2021.

This book was recommended to me by a Reformed Baptist, and I was glad he did. It is a meditation on Philip Bliss’s hymn of 1875:

Man of sorrows, what a name

For the Son of God, who came

Ruined sinners to reclaim:

Hallelujah! What a Saviour!  

The whole hymn is used as a launching pad to explore the two states of Christ (His humiliation on earth) and His exaltation (now in heaven, but beginning with His resurrection); and also His threefold office of prophet, priest and king.

Rhodes has written a work full of insights and apt sayings. In explaining how Christ became true man in order to save human beings, body and soul, Rhodes cites Gregory of Nyssa who affirmed that the good shepherd ‘carries home on His shoulders the whole sheep, not its skin only.’ It is the Son of God who came to reclaim ruined sinners. None other could do so. As George Smeaton put it: ‘A mere man could no more redeem the world as he could create the world: the Restorer of man must be the Maker of Man.’ Or, to cite Thomas Goodwin: ‘Heaven and Earth met and kissed one another.’

‘In my place condemned he stood,’ wrote Bliss. Rhodes points to God’s being well-pleased with His Son when He was most angry with him (Phil.2:10; Matt.27:46). There are depths here which are beyond us, but Rhodes is surely convincing in saying that God was angry with Christ’s ‘profession’ as mediator, not His sinless person. He is surely right in saying that Hebrews 4:15 does not mean Christ experienced corrupt desires, any more than He had to become a Chinese woman in order to save Chinese women.

The person and the work of Christ go together. Herman Bavinck called the resurrection “the ‘Amen!’ of the Father to the ‘It is finished!’ of the Son.” His priesthood was perfect, and His work as prophet continues. As Heinrich Bullinger says in the Second Helvetic Confession: ‘The preaching of the word of God is the word of God.’  

There are some stimulating suggestions. For example, Romans 10:14 is translated not ‘of whom they have never heard’, but ‘whom they have never heard’ i.e. Christ was speaking. Rhodes does not press this, but it fits in with the notion that Christ preaches on earth through His servants. Thomas Cartwright explained it: ‘As the fire stirred giveth more heat, so the Word, as it were blown by preaching, flameth more in the hearers than when it is read.’

It is Christ who builds His church; we do not build it for Him. One friend made the wry comment to Rhodes: ‘We believe in the priesthood of all believers but not the presbyteriate of all believers.’  

The theme of both the hymn and the book, and indeed the Bible is: Hallelujah! What a Saviour! Well might we imitate King George II who is supposed to have been the first to stand during Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. Reading this book will add a depth of understanding as to why this was done.

–  Peter Barnes