In reflecting upon the great condescension of the Word become flesh (logos ensarkikos), Herman Bavinck makes much of his progressive road of humiliation. Certainly, all of the incarnation was an act of servitude to his Father's righteous will, but the weight of this servitude became more burdensome as it drew to its climax. Bavinck says in an almost Isaiaic or Pauline fashion:
Christ was not a human hero whose motto is 'Excelsior,' one who overcomes ever obstacle, and finally achieves the pinnacle of his fame. On the contrary, he descended always lower and lower and deeper and more intimately into our fellowship. The way down into these depths was marked by tiers and steps: conception, birth, the lowly life in Nazareth, baptism and temptation, opposition, disparagement, and persecution, agony in Gethsemane, condemnation before Caiaphas and Pilate, crucifixion, death, and burial. The way led ever farther down from his home with the Father, and it led ever nearer to us in the fellowship of our sin and death, until finally in the deepest depth of his suffering he gave utterance to the anxious plaint about being forsaken by God. And then he could also give utterance to the cry of victory: It is finished!
-- Magnalia Dei, pg. 337
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Wow--what a beautiful quote! It almost brought tears to my eyes. To imagine that our God was humiliated like that is almost incomprehensible--yet it is true! What other religion can claim that their god did this? Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ that for a period he became like us so that he could be raised up in glory! And praise Him that we, in our broken, post-Genesis 3 state, can now join him one day in glory!
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