In ancient Israel, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest made a sin offering of a bull and a goat. God instructed the priests that the carcasses of the bull and the goat were to be burned outside the camp of Israel. The reason for this was that spiritually speaking, the sins of the people had been transferred to the bull and the goat, thus making the animals’ carcasses ceremonially “unclean.” Anything considered ceremonially unclean had to be removed from the camp of Israel because God was in the midst of the camp. God’s holiness demands that uncleanness be removed from his presence. God cannot sustain fellowship with uncleanness.
Le 16:27 “But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp, and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire.
Scripture teaches that we will spend eternity with God in the New Jerusalem. Hell is outside the heavenly city, away from the presence of the Lord.
Re 22:14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. Re 22:15 Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.
2Th 1:7 and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, 2Th 1:8 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 2Th 1:9 These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
C. S. Lewis called Hell the “Great Divorce” in his book of the same title. Hell divorces the wicked from God and from the righteous. Jesus explained that there is a great chasm fixed between Paradise (Abraham’s Bosom) and Hell.
Lu 16:26 ‘And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’
