Of the most discomforting and difficult Christian doctrines is that of hell. Atheists reject it as a deplorable doctrine of the devils they disbelieve. Some Christians contend that the reality of hell does not square with the character of God as loving. As such, they choose other alternatives such as annihilation or eventual universal salvation of all souls, regardless.

I will not go into details as to why I find the two alternatives unappealing. But it is crucial that Jesus, who is God, spoke most about hell as a real place of eternal torment, meaning that anyone takes it for granted at their peril.

For my case, I desire to speak of hell as the destiny of the self-absorbed or self-centred. We all know how a selfish person is ‘a living hell.’ And here I define hell as a place where the self-absorbed get to spend their eternity imposing their ceaseless torture on themselves.

Picture hell as the world of those whose life dream was to keep God out of their plans. God is absent from their new year’s resolutions. Their daily routines and pursuit of boundless pleasure scream: to us, God is irrelevant. Well, as we have no good apart from God (Ps 16:2), to be without God is to be without good. And hell is the absence of goodness. It is when God finally excuses Himself from those who continuously and consciously reject Him.

The Psalmist says things like ‘the wicked… falls into the hole that he has made for himself, his mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull the violence returns’ (7:15-16).

Or ‘the enemy came to everlasting ruins’ (9:6). Or again ‘the nations have sunk into the pit that they have made; in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught’ (9:15).

What we find in such texts, though not a fully developed doctrine of everlasting torment, is the idea that God’s equitable judgment is coming. We see that those who live for the self must face their insufficiency as sustainers of their moral and material universe. As such, they fall into the holes they dig. Their self is a hidden trap that entraps them, ‘and in his own skull, the violence returns.’

Hell is our violence returning to our skull. It is our unatoned for sin facing us with fangs plunged deep into our self-absorbed pride. It is when we must meet our insufficiency as a final and irreversible end.

But hell will surprise its inhabitants. Those who lived for self at the expense of others are surprised when the universe suddenly rejects their orders. They face the justice of living as though they were a law unto themselves.

We make so much noise about justice but forget that justice tends to be desirable until it is against us. Then we hate to face it. Hell is the justice we hate to face. It is the justice we hate.

Crucially, hell is filled with autonomous beings. It comprises of those who will not willfully bow their knee to God. C. S. Lewis aptly put it this way: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice, there could be no Hell.”

Hell is the end of a life lived for self. It is rebellious man’s unexpected but deserved destiny, the destiny of the self-absorbed and selfish. It is the sinner’s undesired justice and what remains when the goodness of God departs, leaving the sewage and stinking self that we are without Him. Hell is the fitting end to a career of autonomous rebellion, a capstone to selfishness. It is the trophy for idolatry, the crown of thorns on a skull sinking and collapsing on itself.

The self-absorbed self is a black hole, devouring all that comes its way. But it is the nature of the depraved self to turn inward, thereby continually consuming itself in hopeless and helpless obstinacy. The self without God is hell itself. God may now restrain its madness, but eventually, he will unleash it to its just and destructive end.

There’s no escape from the terminal end of self-absorption. Those who do not repent and turn to God in Christ have made their bed in hell. But there is no sleeping on it, for hell is only painful and restless torture.

𝐼𝑓 𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝐺𝑜𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑡 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑; ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑜𝑤; ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑖𝑚 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑠, 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑠 𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑠. Ps 7:12-13

Read more here and here.