All Stung In Vain

"Did you see Christ subjected here in hell?"
One giver of torment asked another.
"I sure did; was Satan glad when He fell!"
"O, He didn't fall like any other;
He walked into this place like the owner!
How we cheered, and ran to begin our work;
Demons came quickly from ev'ry corner,
Eager to torture, though He did not shirk;
He bore it all in silent fortitude!
When no more fiendish hurt was there to do,
He stood tall in majestic rectitude*;
The straighter He stood, the smaller we grew!"
Hell could not long hold heaven's Lamb of Grace;
All stung in vain the Maker of the place!

*righteousness

We may not often realize it, but Jesus Christ created hell and everything that was made.

"In the beginning was the Word*, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God from the beginning. Through him all things were made." (John 1:1-3) *Jesus Christ

As mentioned before in this column, God came to earth and lived as a man named Jesus. He was innocent of any sin, including Adam's original sin (His mother was a virgin until after His birth), yet He was crucified unjustly. In so doing, He took our sins upon Himself. He died on the cross, was placed in a tomb; yet on the third day, He was resurrected to life, with a healed body that still contained the scars of His wounds inflicted three days earlier. During His brief stay in the tomb, His soul entered hell, and He suffered all the degradation that Satan and the other fallen angels could inflict upon Him. For that short interval, Satan thought he had defeated God.

Instead of Satan's victory, it was Jesus who won by walking out of hell; defeating death by coming back to life; and, above all, by installing grace upon mankind, that any who accept Him as Lord, repent of sin, and loves others as He did make a 180 degree turn from going to hell to living in heaven eternally.

John depicts the mystery of the Trinity as well as anyone can by stating that Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. The Trinity is our way of knowing the different beings and forms that God assumes interacting with men: He is God the Father; God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. He is all of these, but He is one ultimate being. We cannot explain this to everyone's understanding, certainly not to followers of Islam, who regularly accuse Christians of worshiping 3 Gods.