A. Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time.

Why the word “humiliation”? One of Hodge’s descriptions of the incarnation gives us a clue: “his stooping to take into personal and perpetual union with Himself a nature infinitely lower than his own.”1 We have said that the classic text for the humiliation of Christ is Philippians 2:5-8. So let’s start there.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Here is a passage which covers the whole of what our answer to Question 27 covers. 

In each of these areas, we must think carefully what it would mean for any of these aspects of his human nature and human experience are “beneath him,” which is really what the idea of “humiliation” approaches. There may be something fitting and other things unfitting. Or, perhaps, the same thing that happens to Jesus may be both fitting in one sense, and yet unfitting in another sense. 

The Humiliation of the Flesh

This takes some thought. The word “humiliation” may have connotations that some evil circumstance has occurred. Certainly that will be involved in this concept. But this is where we have to remember our total doctrine of man. There is the essence of man per se and there is the sinful nature in Adam’s fall. Since we deny that Jesus was affected by the latter, we are forced to conclude that the Incarnation was a taking on of good human nature—though “not yet glorified” (Jn. 7:39).

The first aspect is the way that his entrance into the world was not hailed as it ought to have been. Yes, the angels announced it to the shepherds (Lk. 2:9-14) and yes, the wise men came paying homage (Mat. 2:11). However, they also “laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk. 2:7).2

Even the natural pattern of a woman giving birth to all who enter the world—since the beginning being mired in the curse—is now redeemed. Watson answers the question,

“Why was Christ born of a woman? (1.) That God might fulfill that promise in Gen iii 15, ‘The seed of the woman shall break the serpent’s head.’ (2.) Christ was born of a woman, that he might roll away that reproach from the woman, which she had contracted by being seduced by the serpent. Christ, in taking his flesh from the woman, has honored her sex; that is, at the first, the woman had made man a sinner; so now, to make him amends, she should bring him a saviour.”3

So, the pattern of glory through suffering—exaltation through humiliation—is not a gift of being in Christ only to the male, but also to the female, and on the grand scale of redemptive history.

Even granting his perfect humanity, that the eternal Person of the Son became man necessarily implies an act of humility with respect to station. So Paul says,

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

These are important distinctions because one can look at the Incarnation from the perspective of what is being brought up (those in union with Christ) rather than what is condescending to our level (i.e. Christ himself). The Lutheran view has the former focus, so that Hodge says,

“The Lutheran theologians exclude the incarnation as an element of Christ’s humiliation, on the ground that his humiliation was confined to his earthly existence, whereas his union with our natures continues in heaven.”4

Yet Brakel seemed to be of the other mind: “Therefore the assumption of the human nature as such was not the humiliation in and of itself, but rather qualified His Person to be the Mediator.”5 Hodge wanted to stick to the language in Scripture, particularly with Philippians 2:5-8 in mind; but Brakel pointed exactly to that verse to say that, “His humiliation is defined, not as the assumption of the human nature, but as consisting of humble circumstances: to be in the form of a servant.”6

Reformed theologians are at one with the whole catholic and orthodox tradition in that this humiliation was of the Person of the Son, and yet did not pertain to the divine nature as such. Charnock says of this that,

“The glory of his divinity was not extinguished nor diminished, though it was obscured or darkened, under the veil of our infirmities; but there was no more change in the hiding of it, than there is in the body of the sun when it is shadowed by the interposition of a cloud.”7

The Humiliation of the Law

That he was “born UNDER THE LAW” (Gal. 4:4) implies that he was often subject to condescending lectures and scorn about the law that he himself authored. We know this on the occasions where he was accused of breaking the Sabbath or other purity laws, as for example when he touched lepers or was too close to prostitutes. 

“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Heb. 12:3).

This was especially ironic when it came time for the trial. The trumped up charged against Jesus (Mat. 26:59-60). The spitting and the striking of his face (Jn. 18:22, Mk. 14:65). 

Even the mundane aspects of the human life—because they are subject to the curse—even they must be added to what our answer calls THE MISERIES OF THIS LIFE. For example, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Mat. 8:20).

Such descriptions ought to be building in us a humbling effect. If Jesus knowingly underwent such a journey to rescue and bring us home, what is our earthly home but an outpost, no matter if it was in a tent or a homeless shelter. The conviction ought to be forming for the Christian that there is no place too low, no station to far beneath what I was expecting. 

Even in considering the cross, the Scriptures several times emphasize the terrible irony of substitution, namely that the only innocent One was placed in the dock by those who were scheduled in heaven’s courts to be destroyed. The expressions about being handed over to the Gentiles only intensified this sense, so the words were fulfilled: “For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me” (Ps. 22:16).

“And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified” (Mat. 20:18-19). 

So Peter charges them in that same way: “you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23).

The Humiliation of Suffering

Although we spoke of the passive obedience of Christ as located at the cross, we do not want to ignore, as part of the humiliation of Christ, that pain of being rejected or despised during his whole course on earth:

“he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isa. 53:2-3).

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (Jn. 1:11). Not only the Jewish people, but his own family—“And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’” (Mk. 3:21). “So his brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.’ For not even his brothers believed in him” (Jn. 7:3-5).

The last part of that course showed him consciously anticipating that greatest suffering: “being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Lk. 22:44).

Brakel divides the suffering element of Christ’s humiliation into “His suffering of soul and His suffering in body.”8 But why did his soul have to suffer? He offers a few reasons having to do with typology and the fulfillment of the Scriptures. In addition, consider that it was legally necessary: “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezk. 18:4), and the punishment is from him who “can cast both body and soul into hell” (Mat. 10:28). It was also experientially necessary.“For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted”  (Heb. 2:18).

It is important to note that in considering all of these limitations upon the human Christ, that we must not diminish his will in this. Remember how Jesus said, 

“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (Jn. 10:17-18).

The Humiliation of Death

In addition to the physical torture, the death of crucifixion was inherently shameful. This is well attested in descriptions by Cicero, Seneca, and Josephus. 

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Mat. 27:46)

The shame of it was not merely the cultural reality of the Romans, but according to the Jewish law, “for a hanged man is cursed by God” (Deut. 21:23). And so that, “Jesus also suffered outside the gate” (Heb. 13:12) is called a “reproach” (v. 13). 

Ultimately, however, it was that the reality of sin was placed upon him and he was treated by God at that point as “made sin” (2 Cor. 5:21), “a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13).

For all of that, there is a transition from humiliation to exaltation that is built into the low point. “See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted” (Isaiah 52:13). This event of the cross is called a glorification by Jesus: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (Jn. 12:23). “What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (Jn. 12:27-28)

This statement from the Puritan John Flavel is a fitting place to close:

“Was not this astonishing self-denial? That he, who from eternity, had his Father’s smiles and honors, he that from the creation was adored, and worshiped by angels, as their God, must now become a footstool for every miscreant to tread on.”9

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1. Hodge, Systematic Theology, II:611.

2. WLC Q. 47. How did Christ humble himself in his conception and birth? A. Christ humbled himself in his conception and birth, in that, being from all eternity the Son of God, in the bosom of the Father, he was pleased in the fullness of time to become the son of man, made of a woman of low estate, and to be born of her; with divers circumstances of more than ordinary abasement.”

3. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 192-93.

4. Hodge, Systematic Theology, II:611.

5. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, I:576.

6. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, I:576.

7. Charnock, Discourses on the Existence and Attributes of God, I:339.

8. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, I:576.

9. John Flavel, Works I:95.