Among shorter works on Jesus, God Crucified by Richard Bauckham is easily the most profound and informative book I have ever read. The book revolves around the concept of monotheistic christology, a term coined by N. T. Wright in Climax of the Covenant. Bauckham and Wright read the New Testament with Jewish lenses, seeing and hearing what Paul meant when he writes that Jesus is Lord (read=YHWH).
The phrase, Jesus is Lord, so often underappreciated today, communicated depths of meaning to the Jews. Whenever Jesus was described as Lord, the Greek word for YHWH of the Old Testament, they were struck with the offensive claim that the carpenter’s son is part of the identity of God!
Moreover, as Bauckham points out, the path of God’s greatest of glory is through His own death. For God in Christ, the way up is the way down. These insights and truths continue to exalt Jesus to new heights of glory and adoration in my own heart and mind.