Let's talk about hell

The Rich Man being led to hell (Luke 16:14-31)
By David Teniers the Younger - 1647

I think that I spent a lot of time talking and writing about the God of Love, God our Father. What I realized lately is that while talking about God's love all the time I have failed to acknowledge the other side of Him, God of judgement. Before coming into terms with a God who would send His beloved creation to hell, I need to come into terms with the fact that there does exist a hell. Among the people who believe in God, afterlife, and heaven, many resist the idea of hell. When we think about hell, the common image is that of fire. But I need something more than that, hell can't be just about a lake of fire where sinful souls burn forever. As humans, we don't like to be burned by fire, it hurts our body, not our soul. So what kind of effect would fire have for a soul in hell? So it's not fire that makes hell HELL, there has to be something more - something to torment a soul with. 

Imagine yourself as a person who likes to beat people up - punch them, kick them, bite them, do enough to hurt them bad without killing them. Not only that you enjoy doing it, somehow you also have an idea that people on the receiving end of it is enjoying it also. Now imagine yourself being locked up in a small room filled with people of the same mentality - you don't enjoy getting hurt, but you enjoy hurting others. You need to stay alert every living moment to make sure that nobody attacks you. You also are not happy because your source of happiness - hurting others - is obstructed, everybody else in that room is on alert too. You are too proud to talk to others about a peace deal, and you are too arrogant to look for a way out of there.  You continuously look for a weaker person to attack, but can't find none - everybody in the room has the same 'talent'. Now that room is more like hell -  a place filled with selfish, self centered, and self absorbed souls who wants more and more but not getting enough of it. 

Humans are created to be in God's immediate presence - we might not feel it in our everyday life, but it's there. When we base our lives on anything but God, the end product - even if it is a good one - becomes addictive. It becomes something we have to have to be happy. But the problem with addictive substances is that the kick gets worn out quickly, and you will need a bigger quantity of the same substance to maintain the equal kick as the time goes on. Even with more of the addictive substance, the satisfaction would never be the same over a period of time. So one would need more to get the same kick, but the same kick becomes less satisfying. Such a condition would lead way to isolation, blaming others to justify one's own selfish behavior. Gradually other things such as denial, delusion, self-absorption will follow, disintegrating a human being. Fire represents disintegration, fire also represents hell. You are in hell even when you are alive, when you allow yourself to be disintegrated. Hell then becomes a continuation of life on earth - no body, just soul, into eternity. 

But selfish and self-absorbed people are not all that miserable on earth, so why would they be any more miserable in hell? Remember that little room we talked about earlier, the room filled with sadistic people. What torments them is the lack of victims - everybody in there wants to abuse others, and nobody wants to take abuse. In the world that we live in, there are always people who take abuses (often, involuntarily) - the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the widows and the children. A selfish man never runs out of victims in this world. But that's not the case in after life - a selfish man's soul will be separated from an innocent man's soul and there would be no interaction between them. The only other souls the selfish man would have contact with is the ones similar to his. And that's where the misery comes in - you are seeking the substance to satisfy your addiction, unfortunately so is everybody else. They are in a rage with their pride, paranoia, self-pity, and a certainty that everyone else are idiots for their selfish behavior. All their humility is gone, along with any sanity that was left. 

Hell is a self-made prison of one's own self-centeredness. The inmates are checked in voluntarily because they chose to live freely - away from the love of God, and they lack any concern for the neighbor. No one would ever leave hell because they are in a supreme state of self-denial - their pride would not let them ask for mercy. They continue to disintegrate in a big lake of fire. In short, hell is one's freely chosen identity apart from God's love and mercy, wherever that might be. 

"This is the way of those who trust in themselves.

       and the end of those who take pleasure in their own mouth.

Like  a herd of sheep they will be put into Sheol,

       and  death will shepherd them.

Straight to the grave they descend,

       where their form will waste away,

       Sheol will be there place" (Psalm 49:14,15)