Parables

The Parable

Two men in sharp contrast

Jesus' teaching in Luke 16 clearly serves one of His main purposes near the end of His ministry. He wanted His hearers to understand the differences between true godliness and Pharisaism. One difference, the theme of the previous chapter, is that real saints rejoice when a sinner repents, and they welcome him into their fellowship. Another difference, the theme of the present chapter, is that real saints have a proper view of earthly wealth. They see it as a tool not for gaining personal pleasure and prestige, but for advancing God's kingdom in this world.

In Luke 16:1-18, Jesus has, with sharp and precise cuts of His critical knife, been exposing the Pharisees as total hypocrites. But because He was driven by mercy and by a loving desire to waken some of them to repentance, He did not stop after telling them how bad they were. He felt that an adequate sermon to such sinners required a candid and clear picture of their eternal destiny. Throughout the remainder of Luke 16, Jesus tells a story traditionally known as the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

This title is, however, unfortunate. The term "parable" generally refers to a story or saying with figurative meaning. In the Parable of the Sower, for example (Matt. 13: 3–9), Jesus is not giving an account of something that really happened. It is realistic enough that the story line could match someone's real experience as a farmer. But whether or not the parable had a counterpart in true events is irrelevant. The purpose of the story is to present a clear picture of some higher truths. To accomplish this goal, all the elements of the story are figures or metaphors of something with spiritual significance.

To call the story of the rich man and Lazarus a parable is therefore misleading. For several reasons, we can be sure that Jesus is recalling the contrasting lives and afterlives of two real men.

1. In His parables, Jesus never gives a name to any human character, but in this story He identifies the beggar as a certain Lazarus. If the beggar is not a real person, the name he bears would serve no purpose unless it has larger significance, perhaps pointing to something the beggar represents, but no one has ever found any figurative meaning in the name Lazarus.
2. Many of Jesus' stories are introduced or followed by language affirming explicitly that they are parables. The person who reveals the figurative nature of a story may be Jesus Himself (Matt. 13:13; Luke 8:11ff.), the Gospel-writer (Luke 14:7), or one of Jesus' hearers (Luke 12:41). Yet nowhere in the context of the story concerning the rich man and Lazarus do we find any suggestion that it is mere fiction.
3. The purpose of this story is to put fear into the hearts of religious hypocrites like the Pharisees, who imagine themselves to be God's darlings when they are really God's enemies bound for damnation. Including a picture of hell in a story about make-believe people and events would not be very effective in alerting sinners to their peril. Therefore, to sharpen His warning as much as possible, Jesus told His hearers about a real man who went to hell, and He described the pain and grief that the man really suffered.

He names the beggar but not the rich man. As a legacy of English church tradition, the rich man is generally called Dives, which is simply the Latin word for "rich." It was probably out of consideration for his family that Jesus withheld the man's actual name.

Jesus begins the story by drawing a contrast between the two main characters.

19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,

21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

Luke 16:19-21

The rich man was rich indeed, endowed by either inheritance or personal enterprise with a standard of living that in ancient Judea was no less than splendid. He had the finest food and fared sumptuously not only on festive occasions, but every day, probably at every meal. The original words imply that his meals were times not only of gorging himself with good food, but also of making merry with his friends. In his prosperity, he was able to furnish them also with fine banquets.

Furthermore, he arrayed himself in "purple and fine linen." The word translated "linen" refers to a fabric properly called byssus. According to Alfred Edersheim, the nineteenth-century Jewish scholar who became a Christian and subsequently wrote a monumental classic on the life of Christ, entitled The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, the rich man's dress was "the finest and most costly, for byssus and purple were the most expensive materials, only inferior to silk, which, if genuine and unmixed . . . was worth its weight in gold. Both byssus—of which it is not yet quite certain, whether it was of hemp or cotton—and purple were indeed manufactured in Palestine, but the best byssus (at least at that time) came from Egypt and India. The white garments of the high priest on the Day of Atonement were made of it."¹

From Jesus' setting of the scene, we also learn something about the rich man's house. The entrance did not open onto the street, but sat behind a protective wall and gateway. Perhaps between the gateway and the house was an expanse of ground or stone giving the house some seclusion from the outer world. A private estate was a privilege belonging only to the very rich.

The beggar's world was far different. Even compared with other beggars, he was greatly deprived, for he had no home or family of his own. A typical beggar lived with relatives who, if he was unable to walk, took him every day to a good place for attracting the notice of people who might look with pity on his disability, whatever it was, and give him money. But Lazarus, after he was laid at the rich man's gate, had nowhere else to go.

Perhaps he was left there by kindhearted souls who hoped that when the house owner and his rich friends saw him, they might offer help in some form. But all passersby who were people of privilege were deaf to his pleas. He was not unreasonable in what he desired. He only cried out for some crumbs from the rich man's table. But the word "desiring" implies a desire that went unfulfilled. So, Jesus' words leave little doubt that the rich man ignored the beggar. It is not that he never saw Lazarus. Far from it. Later in the story we learn that he was able to recognize Lazarus when they both reached the afterlife. But before he died, he always turned away from him, probably with the usual Pharisaical excuse that anyone in such dire extremity must be a sinner under divine judgment—in other words, that Lazarus was getting what he deserved.

Even from the beginning of his stay at the rich man's gate, Lazarus was near death. He was full of "sores," a word that can also be translated "ulcers."² The exact malady he suffered is uncertain, but no one came near to wash or dress his lesions, whatever they were. I should say no human being, for in fact he attracted the attention of dogs. They gladly came and licked his skin. Was their attention helpful? Certainly Jesus does not cast them in an unfavorable light. In some measure they were probably cleaning off dirt and discharge. Certainly they did not look on the beggar as helpless prey to be eaten. All in all, Jesus seems to be saying that the only help Lazarus received was not from fellow men capable of thoughtful compassion in obedience to conscience, but from mindless dogs whose tail-wagging friendliness was only by instinct.

Jesus' reference to assistance from mere dogs was obviously meant to expose just how heartless the rich man was. In Jewish eyes, dogs were disgusting animals because of their willingness to eat almost anything, however unclean. Yet, as Jesus said, they licked the beggar's wounds. To help us appreciate the full scathing effect of His words, we will translate them into plainer terms. He was saying that the rich man was far lower on the scale of kindness than a dirty, drooling dog.

Their destinies after both are stricken by death

Then at approximately the same time the two central figures in the story, the rich man and Lazarus, died.

22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Luke 16:22-23

From an earthly perspective, the rich man seemed to enjoy a better departure from life, for he was given the honor of burial, no doubt with impressive ceremony. But the story mentions no burial of Lazarus. Perhaps he was cast into a common grave. Jesus here is emphasizing the difference between appearance and reality. The world thought that the rich man was the one to be envied because of his wealth and social standing, but it was blind to the futures of these two men. It could not see that they did not share the same destiny. The one to be envied was actually Lazarus. Immediately after he died, he was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom, whereas after the rich man died, he woke up in hell.

The difference in their destinies was dramatic even in their passage to the next world. At the first moment after the rich man's death, he found himself in hell. In this immediate transfer to a new world, he met no one and heard no voice. It was as if he had been summarily dropped into a pit of flames. But when the beggar died, he entered a new world by stages. First he found himself in the care of a reception committee made up of angels. Then he was transported with gentleness and joy to his new residence, a place of delights far beyond his imagination when his only home was a gutter beside a gate.

Jesus then proceeded to describe more fully the two places of destiny. It is certainly no accident that He tells us about hell in the same discourse where He tells us about heaven.

And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

Luke 16:9

The wonderful prospect of heaven is not really complete without a clear picture of the future it enables us to escape. One great blessing in joining the saints is never to taste of hell. And likewise the terrible prospect of hell is not complete without a clear picture of the future it denies us. The greatest curse in joining the damned is never to know heaven.

The resting place of Lazarus was "Abraham's bosom," a term not invented by Jesus but already in use among the Jews. It referred to the place of comfort and peace that all of Abraham's descendants faithful to his God could expect to enjoy after they died. The term was intended not as a literal picture, but rather as imagery derived from their way of dining on special occasions.³ Instead of sitting at a table as we do, they lay on couches that angled off from the edge of the table, so that a man's head was level with chest of the person behind him. Thus, when they spoke of their place of destiny as Abraham's bosom, they were picturing a heavenly feast, where, instead of enduring the troubles of this world, they would recline at table with their ancient father and know his close presence and love.

The term translated "hell" is actually Hades,⁴ the Greek name for the underworld, which the Greeks believed was the residence of all departed souls. The New Testament writers, following the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament in common use in Jesus' day) treat Hades as equivalent to the realm known in the Old Testament as Sheol. One example is when Peter quoted David’s words in Psalm 16:10, "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption" (Acts 2:27). Sheol is the word for hell in the original Hebrew,⁵ but Peter substitutes the word Hades.⁶

In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus reserves the term Hades for the place of torment, yet He also reveals that it is possible for the rich man both to see Lazarus and to speak with Abraham, although a huge gulf falling between the place of torment and the place of rest prevents passage from one to the other. We therefore must conclude that both places—Hades and Abraham's bosom—occupy the same region. From usage of the terms Hades and Sheol in other Scriptural texts we learn that they refer not just to one side of the region, but to both sides; that is, to the whole realm where dead souls, both righteous and unrighteous, await resurrection. Throughout the Psalms and other Old Testament writings, it is clear that among the inhabitants of Sheol, often translated "grave,"⁷ are the souls of the righteous dead (Gen. 42:38—Jacob is speaking; Ps. 30:3—David is speaking; Ps. 49:15—the sons of Korah are speaking; Isa. 38:10—Hezekiah is speaking).

The text of most importance is the one already quoted, taken from Peter's sermon on Pentecost. He said that in fulfillment of David's prophecy in Psalm 16, the soul of the Holy One would briefly abide in Sheol or Hades before God delivered Him from death. It is unthinkable that Jesus, after finishing His work on the cross, had to endure more suffering. On the contrary, as He was approaching death, He said to the repentant thief hanging next to Him, "To day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Since on that day Jesus descended to Hades and remained there until the third day afterward, we can only conclude that He considered a portion of Hades to be essentially a paradise because of its provision of delights. He must have been referring to the place He also called Abraham's bosom. Therefore, He left no doubt that Hades was the proper name for both sides of the great gulf separating the rich man and Lazarus, the side of torment as well as the side of perfect bliss.

Where is Hades located? Scripture provides many clues that it is in the center of the earth. First we will list these clues, then consider common objections.

1. Moses said that Korah and his company descended alive into Sheol (Num. 16:30).
2. Many texts associate Sheol with great depth (Job 11:8; Prov. 15:24; Isa. 14:9).
3. When Samuel and other righteous spirits returned from the dead to confront Saul, they rose from the earth (1 Sam. 28:13–15).
4. Jesus spoke of His coming stay in Hades as three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matt. 12:40). His tomb was just a small hole in the side of a hill. To refer to it as the heart of the earth would be poetic extravagance indeed. He was referring to His soul's stay in Hades.
5. Paul explicitly places Him during those three days in "the lower parts of the earth" (Eph. 4:9).

We in the modern world recoil from this teaching because we know that the earth is round and has a solid core of iron and nickel with a radius of about 760 miles. But the facts actually reinforce the plausibility of placing Hades at the earth's center. A cavity with dimensions of ten miles, giving an overall volume of a thousand cubic miles, would never be detectable from the earth's surface. The absence of conditions essential to physical life, such as appropriate temperature and atmosphere, serves as no hindrance to the life of bodiless souls.

The Bible teaches that the earth's center is the site of yet another chamber of imprisonment. It is called the abyss, translated "deep" (Luke 8:31; Rom. 10:7) or "bottomless pit" (Rev. 9:1, 2, 11; 11:7; 17:8; 20:1, 3). Another name for it is Tartarus (2 Pet. 2:4). When Jesus cast a legion of demons out of the possessed man in the country of the Gadarenes, they pleaded with Jesus that He not condemn them to the abyss. From usage of this term in the Book of Revelation, we learn that it is a compartment of hell used solely for the confinement of many fallen angels, presumably the worst or the most powerful among them. When the Book of Revelation speaks of their release to bring plagues upon the earth during the Tribulation, it clearly informs us where the abyss is located. It sets their former prison inside the earth (Rev. 9:1–3, 11). Notice that "bottomless pit" is a very appropriate name for this place, since at the earth's center there is no gravity and therefore no up or down. It is truly a pit without a bottom.

The Book of Revelation discloses that both Hades and the abyss are like prisons in the sense that either to enter or to leave requires passage through a locked door that can only be opened with a single key. Since it seems to distinguish between the keys to Hades (Rev. 1:18) and to the abyss (Rev. 9:1), we infer that they are probably distinct regions, although both lie at the earth's center.

All the righteous dead remained in the paradise of Abraham's bosom so-called until Jesus Himself departed from it on the day of His resurrection (Hos. 6:1–3; Eph. 4:8–10). He then removed all the righteous dead to heaven, because after His work on the cross, their confinement to an earthly underworld was no longer necessary. As a result of the atonement He had secured for them, they now had a legal standing before the Father which entitled them to abide in His presence. Further exclusion in Hades would not have been the way of love.

Likewise the unrighteous will not always be confined in Hades. After the Millennium, the present earth and heavens will be destroyed in a great conflagration (2 Pet. 3:12; Rev. 20:11), and God will create new heavens and a new earth (Rev. 21:1). In between the extinction of one universe and its replacement by another, God will conduct His judgment of souls who never belonged to the body of Christ (Rev. 21:12–15). Among them will be the remaining residents of Hades. All in the heavenly courtroom whom God declares unrighteous will be cast into hell, but not the same hell as Hades. Rather, they will be condemned to eternal damnation in another place known as Gehenna, which the Bible describes as a place of unrelieved suffering and regret, where "their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:44). It will be "a furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 13:42). Another name for it is "the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:14).

Gehenna will not be part of the new universe that God will create after His destruction of the flawed universe where we dwell now. Rather, the eternal hell will be wholly removed from everything good and situated in outer darkness (Matt. 8:12). It was in fact created long ago for the confinement and punishment of Satan and his angels (Matt. 25:41). The first to be imprisoned there will be the Antichrist and the false prophet (Rev. 19:20). It will not receive Satan himself until a thousand years later (Rev. 20:10).

The rich man's desperate plea

Jesus' chief purpose in the story of the rich man and Lazarus was evidently to give us new information about Hades, especially about the side where souls lie in torment. The details of the rich man's condition are sobering in their impact.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

Luke 16:24

His soul still resided in a form that the rich man perceived as his body, for he believed that he still possessed a tongue. How is it possible for a bodiless soul to retain a body in some sense? We are too ignorant of the invisible world to offer an answer that is any more than speculation, but perhaps the key to at least a partial answer lies in Jesus' words when He first visited the disciples following His resurrection. In Luke's account we read: "Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:36–39).

Compressed within these few sentences are several intriguing suggestions. The first is that although it is possible to see a bodiless soul—more properly, a bodiless spirit—and even to hear it speak, it is not possible to touch it and feel something solid. The reason is that it contains no material particles. The hands of a physical body belonging to an earthly human being therefore cannot take hold of it. But if it is nonmaterial, how can it be seen and heard? Again, we can only speculate, but the spirit of someone bereft of a body may nevertheless be able to generate light in such a way as to create a recognizable image; also, that it may be able emit energy in such a way as to fashion sound waves under the speaker's control.

Looking deeper into Jesus' words, we find a further suggestion—that although a bodiless spirit can be seen, his visible presence does not look exactly like a physical body. In particular, the surface differs in appearance from ordinary mottled and pigmented flesh with protruding bones in various places. Instead it may be smooth and rounded, perhaps even shining if it belongs to a dead saint.

We have sketched how a dead spirit may look to living men. Another question is how self and the surrounding world looks to a dead spirit. From the account of the rich man in hell, we infer that his consciousness of the present moment encompassed all five senses. He could see, hear, feel pain and heat on the surface of his being, and taste dryness in his mouth. Although nothing is said specifically about his sense of smell, his complaint that he was "tormented in this flame" makes it probable that the flame was made doubly agonizing by an overwhelmingly foul smell of smoke.

Moreover, the sensory input concerning his body's condition and circumstances did not build a scene disconnected from self. Rather, he saw it as his own experience. Thus, he retained his personal identity.

Also, he was able to think. He could recognize some other persons also in Hades. He could employ his mind in the work necessary to understand his plight and to conceive desires and to make proposals. And he could engage another person in conversation.

Yet none of these holdovers from earthly humanity was a blessing. On the contrary, they were a curse, because in his body he felt only pain and thirst, in his mind he knew only regret and the longing to escape, and through his conversation with Abraham he merely discovered how far removed he was from the happy fate of the poor beggar he had always neglected.

The same story also gives us a small glimpse of the side where the beggar resided. Notice that the rich man perceived Lazarus as alive and active, to the degree that he imagined it possible for Lazarus to come over and relieve his discomfort. Thus, we find in this story no support for the false doctrine known as "soul sleep," which teaches that the righteous dead are currently sleeping as they await future resurrection. No, although Lazarus existed as a bodiless soul rather than as a creature in possession of both soul and body, he was not asleep. To the rich man, he appeared to be awake. Moreover, as we have said, he was not a nebulous being without distinct parts. The rich man apparently saw him in possession of a finger.

We are reminded of the account recalling when Samuel came to Saul from Sheol. Samuel on that occasion had a visible presence in a bodily form clothed with a mantle, and he had a voice (1 Sam. 28:8–15). He was even recognizable as an old man. The witch who was looking on was terrified at the sight, unlike anything she had ever seen before, despite her claim to be a medium for communication with the dead. She called the ascending spirits "gods." Evidently they were majestic and shining.

The rich man was by no means glorious, however. The only illumination near him came from the sea of flames. Yet it is probable that like Samuel, the beggar would, to any of us earthbound creatures, have looked like a shining god.

Of all the nagging miseries the rich man felt, one of the worst apparently was a sense that his mouth was filled with searing heat like the heat of a desert. He cried out to Abraham a desperate plea that he would allow Lazarus to come over and cool his tongue with a touch of water. The rich man did not ask for much—just a small token of relief. But we who hear the story cannot help but remember that when Lazarus lay outside the rich man's gate and begged for no more than a few crumbs of bread, the rich man responded by contemptuously refusing even to notice that the beggar existed, or so it would seem. The rich man wanted kindness from a man who had never received the least kindness from him.

Abraham's answer

Having sketched the backgrounds of the man in paradise and the man in hellfire, Jesus has well prepared us for Abraham's response.

25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Luke 16:25-26

Abraham said, basically, "No." An interesting sidelight here is their terms of address. The rich man called Abraham "father," and Abraham called him "son." The terms do, of course, reflect their actual relationship, for the rich man was a Jew whose distant ancestor was Abraham. Yet although we understand why the rich man would have positioned himself as Abraham's son when he was seeking Abraham's help—he was of course trying to arouse fatherly concern—we do not necessarily understand why Abraham acknowledged their relationship. If he was not willing to help the rich man, why did he call this reprobate a son, as if he so cared for his soul that he might deliver him from his awful fate. In fact, he would do nothing on his behalf. The reason is that he was reminding the rich man of the full extent of his guilt. Because as a son of Abraham he was well acquainted with the record of Abraham's life, he had no excuse for spurning his forefather's godliness and choosing instead to live mired in ungodliness.

One reason Jesus chose to include the terms "father" and "son" when recalling this exchange between the rich man and Abraham was to challenge the complacency of the Pharisees and other self-righteous Jews. They thought that they were assured a place in God's kingdom simply because they were proud sons and daughters of Abraham (Matt. 3:7–9; John 8:31–40). To contradict this foolish thinking, Jesus stressed that the rich man immersed in the flames of hell was no less a descendant of Abraham than they were.

Abraham denied the rich man's request for assistance and gave two decisive reasons. The first is that each of the men, the rich man and Lazarus, was getting what he deserved. Lazarus had always been the victim of injustice in the form of "evil things" that fellow Jews were unwilling to remove from his life. The implication rising to the surface as we reflect on Abraham's words is that Lazarus must have sought another helper besides the rich man and his friends. He must have cried out for help to God, and God saved him by removing him from this wicked world and placing him in the joyous company of the truly noble and great, like Abraham. The rich man, on the other hand, was chief among the heartless Jews who refused to help him, instead devoting their lives to self-indulgence blind to the needs of others. Therefore, the rich man had nothing left to enjoy, because he had wasted his life in a quest for things of no lasting value. All the pleasure and wealth he had seized for himself in this world had evaporated, never to exist again. As a result, his future had shriveled to a total absence of pleasure and wealth forever.

The second decisive reason that Abraham could not help the rich man is that an impassable barrier separated them. Between the regions of torment and comfort within the larger realm of Hades was fixed a great gulf (literally, "chasm"⁸). Abraham informed his wayward son that to move across it was equally impossible for the damned and for the blessed. Therefore, Lazarus could not come to relieve the rich man even if the former beggar wanted out of the goodness of his heart to help the person who so mistreated him. Likewise, the rich man could not escape from his flaming prison and join Lazarus.

At this point, a reader might say, "Wait a minute. If a great gulf divided the damned from the blessed, how was it possible for Abraham and the rich man to converse as if they were just forty or fifty feet apart? Moreover, how could they have seen each other? And even if they did, how could the place called Abraham's bosom have been a true paradise if its residents watched the suffering of people in flames?" Here are natural questions that might occur to any thoughtful reader. But if he uses them to reject the story, he is displaying a kind of worldly wisdom that we might call sophomoric skepticism because it fails to dig for good answers. Here, the answers require a closer look at what Jesus said. In fact, He gave us no reason at all to think that Lazarus could hear or see the rich man. No, it is doubtful that the company of the blessed were spectators of the ugly scene across the impassable divide. The rich man could evidently see Lazarus, but this capacity was part of the just penalty that he received for his cruel contempt of Lazarus while they both lived in the present world.

Perhaps the only person in Paradise who could hear and see the rich man was Abraham. As the father of all the blessed and also of many among the damned, he apparently exercised oversight of the whole underworld known as Hades. In that role, he may have informed newcomers of their fate—a probable necessity for two reasons. The first was justice; the second, mercy. Justice may have prevented the imposition of dreadful punishment upon a man without informing him of the divine verdict that required it. Mercy may have required the removal of any hope of deliverance from the man's thoughts, lest his anguish be forever compounded by hope unfulfilled. We will suggest further, but only as pure speculation, that the damned were not allowed to curse God for their fate. If so, a warning voice like Abraham's was necessary to inform any lost soul inclined to curse God that the consequence would be even greater suffering. To fulfill his role, Abraham was endowed by God with supernatural ability to see the damned and converse with them.

A second plea, even more desperate

Once the rich man understood that his destiny was irreversible, he felt a surge of anxiety concerning his family still alive in this world.

27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:

28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Luke 16:27-28

The rich man knew that before he died, they shared his twisted interpretation of life, thinking of it as no more than today's pleasure ground. Therefore, it struck him as an alarming fact that they were also headed for the hell that had become his torture chamber. He was particularly concerned about the future of his five brothers. He asked Abraham whether he would send Lazarus to inform them of their peril. He probably was not proposing that Lazarus be raised from the dead. More likely, in keeping with popular superstitions among the ungodly Jews as well in other nations, he wanted Lazarus to visit them in an unresurrected state; in other words, as a ghost.

What a peculiar request! We see in it evidence that the experience of hell had not transformed the heart of this man. In at least two ways, his thinking still stood miles apart from the renewed mind of a man transformed by the Spirit of God.

1. His outlook was still saturated with self-importance. He still looked upon Lazarus as belonging to a much lower social class—indeed as essentially a servant or slave who existed only to run errands for lofty figures like himself. His suggestion that Lazarus be dispatched to bring water to himself and carry news to the earth expressed not respect, but condescension. He even thought that to relieve his own thirst, Lazarus's inferior standing justified sending him through the flames of hell.
2. His kind of love was empty of elementary natural affection. Yes, he wanted news of hell taken to his five brothers, but they probably held a place in his heart only because they were his drinking buddies. We see no evidence that he was concerned about the destinies of his own wife and children. Many readers probably assume that his brothers were now taking care of them. But it is unlikely that they stepped into his place if he had son who was at least a teenager. Among ancient Jews, a son only needed to be thirteen years old in order to assume leadership of a family bereaved by a father's death. Did the rich man say nothing about his immediate family because he knew they were right with God? That's unlikely. In telling the story, Jesus said nothing to relieve our impression that the whole family fared sumptuously every day and that the whole family neglected the beggar at the gate.

One reason that Jesus told us about the rich man's words to Abraham was, I think, to steer us away from a false doctrine very prominent in the history of the church—the Roman Catholic doctrine that many dead souls are consigned to a place of punishment before they are admitted to heaven. The place of punishment is called purgatory.

One fallacy in this doctrine is its assumption that mere punishment can fundamentally change a sinful heart, refashioning it with the same transforming power that the Holy Spirit exercises when a person is born again by faith. But no, even after wallowing in misery within a sea of hellish flame, the rich man could not be trusted to conduct himself ever after as a true saint, whose thoughts and behavior would always be shaped more by love of God and love of others than by love of self.

Another fallacy in the doctrine of purgatory is its assumption that a man can pay for his own sins. But no, the rich man's sinful deeds and selfish tendencies and corrupt habits of mind were liabilities far greater than any payment that he could offer God for tolerating such a flawed creature forever in heaven.

Therefore, a purgatory would serve no purpose in God's scheme of things. However long the rich man dwelt in hell's fire, he would still be ineligible for heaven. He would be ineligible first because he would still bear a load of unpaid sin debt. No amount of suffering in any imagined purgatory could atone for a man's sin. The only acceptable atonement is Christ's death on the cross. Furthermore, the rich man would always be ineligible for heaven because he would still be bound by a sin nature. No amount of suffering in any imagined purgatory could produce a sinless human being capable of functioning properly as a citizen of heaven. The only work equal to this task is regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

A somber warning

Abraham's reply was brief and to the point.

29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Luke 16:29-31

He declined to send Lazarus on a mission to prevent the rich man's brothers from joining him in hell. Why did Abraham refuse? Because they had already received adequate warning of divine judgment. The Jews had in their possession the entire Old Testament, including the writings of Moses and the prophets. In the daily world of these brothers, they could hear local rabbis teach the Scriptures. Also, they could read the Scriptures for themselves, either from copies kept at local synagogues or perhaps from copies in their own possession. From the Old Testament, they should have learned that God will bring horrible judgment upon the wicked (Deut. 7:9–10; Ps. 9:16–17; Isa. 13:11; Dan. 12:2). Moreover in its pages they should have discovered that He will consume the wicked with fire (Ps. 11:5-6; Isa. 66:24; Mal. 4:1).

The rich man, sinking still further into desperation, actually began to argue with Abraham. In words saturated with pretense of higher wisdom, the rich man insisted that his brothers would repent if they received a messenger from the realm of the dead. He went so far as to say, "Nay, father Abraham." "Nay" is a word properly reserved for a speaker who can claim higher authority. The rich man was so lacking in humility even as he sat in hell that he treated God's appointed spokesman, a giant among saints, as if great age had impaired his mental faculties.

Abraham replied in a few simple words overlooking the insult. After all, despite the arrogance of the rich man, Abraham saw him as a distant son now in the flames of hell. Therefore, in Abraham's response we see both patience and pity rooted in deep regret that his own line of descendants included enemies of God. He said to the rich man that if his brothers had given no heed to all the teaching of Scripture on the fate of sinners, they would likewise give no heed to a warning delivered by a dead man.

Yet Abraham was not merely evaluating the rich man's proposal to send Lazarus. His exact words had much larger significance. Jesus quoted them because they pointed to an event coming soon that would amount to a decisive turning point in mankind's history. Abraham said, "Neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." He was referring, of course, to the resurrection of Christ. By giving us these words at the climax of His teaching on hell, Jesus was in essence lamenting that even His resurrection would not change the downward course of the human race as a whole. Most people would still choose a life of sin over a life of repentance and faith. Just as the brothers of the rich man would descend to hell because they never repented after hearing Moses and the prophets, so much of the world would descend to hell because they would refuse to repent after hearing the gospel.

Why does the gospel win so little assent around the world? Because most people get their picture of truth from their social and cultural environments, and increasingly in the modern world, what they learn from these sources suits their sinful preferences. The prevailing philosophy is that the purpose of life is to have as much fun as possible in the present moment. Few people have enough sense to explore the possibility of life forever, even fewer to explore its requirements. Most assume that if there is life forever, they of all people would be eligible. But God says that we will not find Him unless we seek Him (Jer. 29:13)—and also that we must seek Him with teachable hearts, capable of hearing and believing that life forever requires faith in Jesus Christ (Matt. 11:27-30).