at the cross you beckon me

Descent into hell: is it humiliation or exaltation? Why would you say so?

Can't it be both? It's exalation, because as the words of the worship song "In Christ Alone": "For every sin on Him was laid, here in the death of Christ I live." If he took the sins, then he therefore has to take the punishment, which is eternal damnation. If he decended into hell, then we can see the qualities of exalation: he rose over it, he reigns over it, and hell now has no power over us because he is exalted above it for he went to it, and came back. Howver, if the other includes his death, burial, and suffering, it also intertwines with that, because clearly there was suffering in hell!

The classical Christian teaching about Jesus Christ as fully human and fully divine is confessed in the creeds and councils of the early church.
This is cool. I think we often (to use Christian-ese terms) get trapped in issues of dogma versus doctrine when talking about anything related to Jesus. And we collide on such things and get into verbal fistfights about who is right and who is wrong theologically. But in almost every single Christian cirlce, this is one universial truth. And so, it's cool to see how this one crucal thing goes all the way back and was even agreed on and acknowleded then.

Author Comments:
I like things that make me use vocab, such as the exalation versus humilation, but the English major still runs deep in me even though I switched to psych and ministry. I like how many classic Christian teachings aren't just tied to one particular church, but are more universial Christain truths.