I’ve never been early to any game. I have just recently learned that the original inflamatory gty.org review has been removed. So, this, highlights just how late I am. So, it should be no surprise that I now offer a constructive review of Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly. I say constructive because that gty.org review was a very destructive review of his book from people who are usually more helpful than hurtful. This uncharitable review seems to have motivated a great book giveaway by Crossway to overcome the negative press.
Overall, Gentle and Lowly is a helpful and refreshing read. Dane is a smart author who brings beauty to his prose. His emphasis on the humanity of Christ is helpful. So, what could be improved in the argument? Well, there is a move that Ortlund makes, if it had been stated differently, might have prepared readers to hear his argument rather than react. More on this in a moment, but first to highlight the strength of this book.
The Strength of Gentle and Lowly
To do this, I enlist Frederick Dale Bruner, who encourages us to be wary of teaching that avoids the true humanity of Christ. Listen to this wisdom from his commentary on Matthew:
Practically speaking, this means that one test of a right doctrine of the Holy Spirit in our churches is this: Is Jesus Christ allowed to be a real human being? Or is he too ghostly, yes, too divine? “This is how you will know whether it is God’s Spirit: anyone who acknowledges that Jesus Christ came as a human being has the Spirit who comes from God” (1 John 4:2 TEV).[1]
Bruner wisely realizes that the temptation to dehumanize Christ is prevalent. This is a subtle error that can creep into churches that otherwise hold a high view of Scripture. It is not likely malicious but more likely carelessness. In preaching and teaching it is almost impossible to hit every theological truth in a 40-minute sermon in a balanced way. And with the distance of seven days, much slips through the cracks. If one is not careful, listeners can over time come to a warped view of Christ. Ortlund is correct on this point.
Lest readers think that Bruner downplays the divinity of Christ, or as some have accused Ortlund, I need to let Bruner finish his thought.
As we will see in this Gospel, there is a place for witness to Jesus’ full divinity. But today, even in churches where Scripture and orthodox doctrine are taken seriously, one of the most neglected doctrines is the true humanity of Jesus.[2]
Both Bruner and Ortlund make this point in their respective writings. Yet, those who hold to the Westminster Confession should recognize that the doctrine of the incarnation is a powerful antidote to this tendency. The Son of God “was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person, forever.”[3] This union with humanity is now, since the incarnation, forever. So, the humanity of Jesus matters, and has purposes in the mind of God.
In other words, the veil of human flesh created a visual display of the transcendent holiness of Christ that could be appreciated by Jesus’s fellow humans. In Ortland’s presentation he does a masterful job of painting a beautiful picture of Jesus that is faithful to the presentation in the Gospels. The incarnation is so profound!
So, what could have been done better?
A Way to Make the Argument Stronger and gain Agreement
In his second chapter, Ortlund makes a move which would make some very uncomfortable. On the one hand, he recognizes the tendency to gravitate towards a portrait of Jesus that emphasizes “one side of Jesus more than another” (28). In the process of set-up for his argument, he makes the very moves he cautions against, that “it is impossible for the affectionate heart of Christ to be overcelebrated, made too much of, exaggerated” (emphasis original, 29).
Perhaps, if I might suggest, a better move might have been to emphasize the purpose of the incarnation along the lines of the Westminster Confession. God’s purpose in the incarnation was to create the conditions whereby the dangerous holiness of God might have fellowship with His elect. The mediatorial role of the Son of God began with the incarnation not just the cross and resurrection.
Ortlund wonderfully introduces many puritan authors in his writings including Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). While Edwards was a transitionary puritan, he does describe the wisdom and gloriousness of the work of redemption via incarnation in a way that might have strengthened Ortlund’s argument. Edwards says in Miscellanies entry 571:
Christ took on him man’s nature for this end, that he might be under advantage for a more familiar conversation than the infinite distance of the divine nature would allow of; and such a communion and familiar conversation is suitable to the relation that Christ, stands in to believers, as their representative, their brother, and the husband of the church.[4]
If Gentle and Lowly was argued on the basis of incarnation, that is, in line with the Westminster Confession, I don’t think Ortlund would have had so much negative press.
As Jonathan Edwards observed, there was in God’s great wisdom to make the infinite distance between the holiness of God and his elect less cavernous. To do this, the Son of God veiled his deity with humanity, so He might display those gentle and lowly characteristics that Ortlund, otherwise, highlights so well.
[1] Frederick Dale Brunner, Matthew A Commentary, Vol. 1: The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2004), 26.
[2] Brunner, Matthew, 26-27.
[3] Q. 21 Westminster Shorter Catechism
[4] Jonathan Edwards, The “Miscellanies” 501-832, Vol. 18 The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 108.