In his book God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament, Richard Bauckham writes,
The exaltation of Christ to participation in the unique divine sovereignty shows him to be included in the unique divine identity. But since the exalted Christ is first the humiliated Christ, since indeed it is because of his self-abegnation that he is exalted, his humiliation belongs to the identity of God as truly as his exaltation does. The identity of God – who God is – is revealed as much in self-abasement and service as it is in exaltation and rule. The God who is high can also be low, because God is God not in seeking his own advantage but in self-giving. His self-giving in abasement and service ensures that his sovereignty over all things is also a form of his self-giving. (61)
Cruciform Theology 
you know richard is working on, or soon will, a 2 vol. christology, right?
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I did not. I’ll be looking forward to it! I’ve not read much of him as of yet. Christopher Wright refers to Bauckham a lot in his ‘Mission of God’ so that’s where I was introduced to him.
He’s coming to HBU on Tuesday to lecture so I’m looking forward to meeting him.
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he’s a brilliant guy and very very nice.
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Thank you for posting this. I’ll have to look into Bauckham. I was raised to think that God’s “self-abasement” was more of a temporary thing because he “needed” to do it in order to accomplish his redemptive purposes. To think that humility is also part of his very identity, as intrinsic to him as his glory, has profound implications for how I understand him
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