NOTES for Rev 22:13
The traditional representations of the vast majority of peoples on earth about the universe suppose the existence of two or three worlds. Mostly it is about the upper world - the world of the gods and the superior spirits, the median world - the world of people and the lower world - the world of the deaths or the world of the darkness, where with the shadows of the deaths live usually even the lower and bad spirits. In certain cases the median world and the upper world unite, but the lower world is always perceived, as distinct, separated from the world of the living. In principle, the biblical view of the world does not distinguish itself mainly from the traditional: it is about the "heavens", the spiritual world, the world, where dwells God, the world, that we can consider "superior", the "median" world of the living and the "lower" world of the deaths, which is called in Hebrew sheol (in the biblical books of the Greek language, the sheol is called in Greek "Hades ", which means in English "hell").
But the biblical view of the world begins to change already in the time of the later prophets, to whom was revealed the reality of the messianic kingdom (they called it even sometimes the Kingdom of God). And in the liturgical experience of the time of the First Temple, the Kingdom revealed itself to the people, as visions of the Throne of Glory, this God's Throne, which saw certain prophets (for example, Isaiah of Jerusalem). These revelations changed the view of the people, the community on "the upper world": because this Kingdom of God, which is associated exceptionally only with "heavens", by remaining foreign to the world of people, according to the testimony of the prophets, one day, with the coming of the Messiah, had to enter also the world of people.
In the context of the prophetic tradition become also clear the words of the Savior about the Kingdom, which "is near". He, in fact, came so that the Kingdom can enter into our world, by transfiguring it. But if the whole world becomes a part of the Kingdom, all the old divisions in it stop being relevant. Now, after the coming of the Messiah, we cannot already speak any more about the "heavens", which exist separately from the "median world": because the Kingdom enters now into our world, and there is no more the old border between it and our world.
On the other hand, there is no more also "the lower world", the Sheol in its former quality: because with such a quality it is incompatible with the Kingdom. Remains only the Kingdom itself widening its spiritual space into our world, and what is called in the books of the New Testament "outer darkness". And this outer darkness exists with regard to the Kingdom because there is in the world powers and people, for whom the Kingdom is unacceptable, and who in their turn, are incompatible with the Kingdom. They are in the outer darkness, on the bad side of the transformed world. Not because they are expelled, but because of this choice, that they made by their own will.