The Crucified King by Jeremy R. Treat

Author:Jeremy R. Treat [Treat, Jeremy R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2014-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

The Overlap of Humiliation and Exaltation in Christ

Based on this evidence, any strictly successive interpretation of the two states—“humiliation then exaltation”—must be rejected. Temporally, there is overlap. More importantly, as aspects of Christ’s person and work, humiliation and exaltation are deeply intertwined. Barth speaks of the “inter-connexion” between humiliation and exaltation and helpfully shifts the emphasis from temporal succession to christological simultaneity: “The exaltation of the Son of Man begins and is completed already in and with the happening of the humiliation of the Son of God; and conversely . . . the exaltation of the Son of Man includes in itself the humiliation of the Son of God, so that Jesus Christ is already exalted in his humiliation and humiliated in His exaltation.”41

How can these apparently contradictory aspects be simultaneous in Christ? The key for Calvin and Barth is that Jesus is the God-man who is simultaneously humbled in his divinity and exalted in his humanity.42 According to Barth, “As God he was humbled to take our place, and as man he is exalted on our behalf.”43 Furthermore, the simultaneous humiliation and exaltation of Christ is not a contradiction because Christ always humbles himself (Phil 2:8; cf. Luke 14:11) and is exalted by the Father (Phil 2:9; cf. Acts 2:33).

In other words, Christ is not in two static states of humiliation and exaltation but is constantly humbling himself and being exalted by the Father. Calvin adds that Christ is able to retain his exalted status because he takes on the form of a servant voluntarily.44 In other words, Christ sovereignly accepts a mission of servitude. I conclude with Thomas Torrance that “we are not to think of the humiliation and exaltation of Christ simply as two events following one after the other, but as both involved in appropriate measure at the same time all through the incarnate life of Christ.”45

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