‘There
was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared
sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of
sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell
from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it
was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The
rich man also died and was buried. And
being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and
Lazarus in his bosom. ‘Then 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.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember
that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil
things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this,
between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass
from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ ‘Then he said,
‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for
I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this
place of torment.’ Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let
them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from
the dead, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and
the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ (Luke 16:19-31)
It is generally believed that the account of the rich
man and Lazarus represents afterlife realities, if not being a true story
itself. It is the bedrock of the belief in Abraham’s
Bosom as the place where dead saints resided prior to the ascension of
Jesus Christ. The suffering of the rich man is also assumed by others as grounds
for extrapolating details of Hell.
Because of this belief in its factual authenticity the
story is often not regarded as a parable as, to many people, the term ‘parable’
implies fiction. However, others who believe that parables may be based on true
stories (the story of the Good Samaritan is often referred to as a true story
and a parable at the same time) have no qualms about referring to the above
passage as the parable of the rich man
and Lazarus without doubting it as accurate historical detail.
There are many areas of this story to address when it
comes to refuting its common interpretations, so I have felt it necessary to
divide this section into four further subsections.
Consideration
1: the use of names does not prove anything about the historical accuracy/inaccuracy
of the account
It is the naming of a character – Lazarus – that has led
many to regard this as a factual account. Why would Jesus tell a story and give
a specific name to one character if that character were not real? It seems that
no other parable that Jesus told contained a named character who was evidently
fictional. But such reasoning, though understandable, is not particularly
credible. Are storytellers prohibited from giving names to their characters
because they are not real? Is there a particular rule that says that, if Jesus
were to name someone in a story, it must be a true story? If He did not do it
in any other place, is He forbidden to do so here?
The name Lazarus,
meaning ‘God has helped’, is certainly an appropriate name for the character.
The one who received no help from the man who had the material means to help
was eventually helped by God. Could Jesus have called him Lazarus for this reason alone?
Notice also the end of the account: the rich man’s
brothers would not be convinced of their danger even if Lazarus rose from the grave (v31). Jesus’ audience was a group of
Pharisees: the same sect that refused to believe when a man called Lazarus did rise from the grave in John chapter eleven. Was Jesus
employing the name Lazarus in the
parable for this purpose? Would some of the listeners here be present when the
dead Lazarus was raised, therefore proving by their rejection of the miracle
that the statement by Abraham in the parable was correct? Though I find the
parallels a little striking I cannot be dogmatic about this, particularly as it
is John, not Luke, who records the resurrection of Lazarus. But what this
suggestion does is illustrate that the use of a name like Lazarus does not prove that this had to be a real story. There is
no doubt, at the very least, that the meaning of the name Lazarus is relevant to the parable.
It is also assumed that because the rich man is called
‘a certain rich man’ then this
must refer to a specific factual character. Within the Gospels, the assigning
of individuals or places as ‘certain’
(‘a certain man’, ‘a certain king’, ‘a certain city’) often concerns, as expected, real people and
places (e.g. Matthew 8:19). It may therefore, to us, seem unnatural that a fictional
character or place be assigned as ‘certain’,
but such is the case in these verses: Luke 13:6; 18:2; 19:11-12.
It is therefore wrong to assume that ‘a certain man’ has to refer to a real
person. If we understand the context to be a parable then it is perfectly
acceptable that ‘a certain man’ can
be fictional. The Greek word used in verse nineteen, translated as ‘certain’, has within its scope the
meaning ‘anyone’ (τις
– tis),
which means that our English word ‘certain’
could be misleading. We do not have to assume that there was a particular real-life
rich man. And if parabolic characters may be assigned as ‘certain’ individuals, what prevents a fictional character from
being named if it suits the story’s purpose?
Additionally, if the Lazarus of Luke chapter sixteen
were a real man, with the events in the account being accurate historical
detail (or at least representative of details of Sheol), then why would Jesus and Luke fail to record the name of
the rich man? Why should Lazarus be named but not the ‘certain rich man’ who is as fundamental to the story as Lazarus?
*A weak, yet
popular, argument is put forward by those who go as far as saying that the
account of the rich man and Lazarus cannot be called a parable because of the
naming of characters. However, In Luke 18:9-14, Luke expressly describes a
certain story told by Jesus as a ‘parable’, in which God is named twice
and the very real sect of the Pharisees named once. So, at the very least, we
can know for certain that a parable may give names to characters, meaning that
there should be no problem with labelling the rich man and Lazarus as a parable.*
Consideration
2: the context strongly suggests that it is a fictional parable
The context of chapters fifteen and sixteen in Luke
further lends weight to the claim that the
rich man and Lazarus is a fictional parable. There are two events described.
The first is the complaints by the Pharisees and scribes that Jesus was
socialising with ‘the tax collectors and
the sinners’ (Luke 15:1-2). Jesus responds to these complaints by telling a
‘parable’ (singular). He
proceeds with what we, the readers, would normally say were two parables (the lost sheep and
the lost coin), though the latter is not described as a parable. One should
assume then that these two parables are essentially one.
There then follows the account of the prodigal son.
The narrative format of the stories changes from ‘what if this happened to you?’ to ‘a certain man…’ but no detail is added between these accounts to
suggest that the context has changed. The last thing we know is that Jesus
spoke ‘this parable’ (15:3). Does
this not suggest that the prodigal son story is also part of this one parable – one parable that consists of
several ‘sub-parables’? Why must we assume it to be a factual account? The
context gives us no clue as to its factual authenticity.
Following immediately on from the parable of the
prodigal son is the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16:1-8). The only
detail added by Luke between these stories is that Jesus now directed it at his
disciples (16:1), but verses fourteen to eighteen show that the Pharisees were still
listening. Does this not suggest that all this teaching remained within the same
social and biblical context as Luke 15:1? Would it not also suggest that the unjust steward was part of this set
of (sub) parables?
Verses thirteen to eighteen describe the second event
that provides a context for our understanding of the account of the rich man
and Lazarus (though it is not so much a new event as a development within the
same event):
“[Jesus
said]... You cannot serve God and mammon.” Now the Pharisees, who were lovers
of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him. And He said to
them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your
hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of
God. The law and the prophets were
until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone
is pressing into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than
for one tittle of the law to fail. ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another
commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery. There
was a certain rich man...’’ (Luke
16:13-19)
The words ‘you
cannot serve God and mammon’ evidently went against Pharisaical practice
and beliefs, prompting Christ’s condemnation of their hypocrisy. I would think
that the reference to the law on divorce carried a symbolic suggestion of the
Pharisees’ guilt: by serving wealth they were effectively divorcing themselves
from servitude to God and committing adultery. Alternatively, Jesus’ inclusion
of these laws may have been relevant because there was financial gain for the
Jewish male divorcee at the expense of the (ex) wife. If this is true, then
divorce and avarice were uncomfortably interconnected for these Pharisees.
This context, which started back in chapter fifteen
verse one, then flows naturally into another story (parable) concerning the
deceit of riches – the rich man and
Lazarus. It begins with ‘there was a
certain rich man...’
There is therefore every reason to view this account
as linked to the parables of the unjust steward and the prodigal son (only this
time more context has been provided by the short exchange between Christ and
the Pharisees). Furthermore, there is every reason to link the unjust steward and the
prodigal son to the ‘parable’ at
the beginning of chapter fifteen (the lost sheep and the lost coin). Thus the rich man and Lazarus is a parable.
But once this link to the preceding stories is
established, one must also alter another preconception about the account:
namely, the need to view it as fact. There is no need to view the story of the
lost sheep as factual in order to appreciate the point. There is no need to
view the story of the lost coin as true either. This is likewise true for the
stories of the prodigal son and the unjust steward. Why, if these stories need
not be true to be effective, would the
rich man and Lazarus need to be true? Remember, they are essentially one
parable.
Consideration
3: this is not a warning about Hell nor a description of Hades
Then
His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?” And He said, “To
you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the
rest it is given in parables” (Luke 8:9-10)
If the mysteries of the Kingdom were to be hidden from
the Pharisees, as Jesus stated, why would He then teach something in detail to warn them of things
to come? Jesus had chosen to speak to non-disciples in parables when it came to
the mysteries of the Kingdom of God so that they would not understand, and so
that only the disciples could
understand.
The Kingdom had come as a mystery (for example, see
Matthew chapter thirteen) and therefore anything that precedes the visible
manifestation of the Kingdom would have to be considered part of the mystery.
If there is an intermediate state for the saint prior to the return of Christ
then this must also be a part of the mystery. And if this be the case, then
Jesus would only communicate such truths in parables so that the wider audience
could not understand. He would not
teach it clearly to the people from whom it should be hidden. But the
standard interpretation of the account does exactly that. It is a passage that
is regularly preached to those classed as ‘non-Christian’ in the hope that they
will respond to the parable by faith and escape Hell. But they would need to be
a disciple in the first place to understand it!
In one respect at least, this parable has a strong
contrast with the parable of the unjust steward. The first was spoken to the
disciples while the Pharisees listened in. The second was spoken to the
Pharisees while the disciples listened in. In both cases, however, if we are to
be consistent with Luke 8:9-10, the only audience who would be able to decipher
the parables would be the disciples. The message was for the disciples and gave
them a reason for obeying the lesson from the previous parable: do not love and
serve riches, for those who do so are judged with accuracy according to how
they used them.
Abraham
said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he
said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will
repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ (Luke 16:29-31)
Notice the link between these verses and what preceded
the parable (vv13-18). Jesus had said that ‘the
law and the prophets were until John’. He made reference to a law on
divorce/adultery and linked it to the Pharisees’ infidelity to God. Abraham, in the parable, said that the rich
man’s brothers ‘have Moses and the
prophets’ to convince them of what they should do, thus denying the rich
man’s appeal to send Lazarus back from the dead. It is easy for us to follow
the rich man’s logic: had Lazarus been resurrected he could have warned the
brothers. But the conclusion is this: what Moses and the prophets had written
was enough to warn the brothers of the danger ahead. Contained within the
Hebrew Scriptures was sufficient detail for knowing and following God’s will.
Outside of the parable, and among the Pharisaical audience, there was an
inability to reconcile what Jesus was saying about riches to what was written
in the law and the prophets. Jesus was not changing the Scriptures they professed
to trust in; He was fulfilling them. The Pharisees simply did not understand
the Scriptures in the first place, which would consequently lead to them
denying God’s evident power in resurrecting certain individuals.
Jesus could have explained this more clearly but He
chose to speak to them in parables. In other words, we have no authority to
take the account of the rich man and Lazarus as a clear expression of what
happens after death. The purpose of the parable regarded riches and judgement –
this was the context, not the afterlife.
Consideration
4: it is an exaggerative story; it cannot be trusted to detail realities
It must be admitted that the details of this parable
are unique. Jesus seems to use an
‘immediate afterlife’ story to tell the parable. If such an intermediate state
does not exist was Jesus then misleading his audience with a false doctrine,
and consequently us also? Should He not have clarified somewhere that this sort
of afterlife situation does not really occur and that He was just employing it
as a story-telling device?
Though I appreciate the sentiment I believe that we
are importing our
expectations, not only into how Jesus should have spoken, but into how first
century Jews should have expected to be spoken to. How do we know that the
listeners would have heard this account and automatically thought, ‘this man is
saying there is conscious experience
in Hades’? Consider the Scriptures that all those present had access to.
The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked [the king of Babylon], the scepter of the rulers; he who struck the people in wrath with a continual stroke,
he who ruled the nations in anger, is
persecuted and no one hinders.
The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into
singing. Indeed the cypress trees rejoice over you,
and the cedars
of Lebanon, saying,
‘Since you were cut down, no woodsman has come up
against us.’ “Hell from beneath is excited about you,
to meet you at
your coming; it stirs up the dead for you, all the chief ones of the earth; it has
raised up from their thrones all the kings of the
nations. They all shall speak and say to you:
‘Have you also become as weak as we? Have
you become like us? Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
and the sound
of your stringed instruments; the maggot is spread
under you, and worms cover you.’ (Isaiah 14:5-11)
With the use of evident poetry (talking trees no less),
Isaiah describes an afterlife where dead kings still sit on their thrones then
rise to comment with disdain on the death of a greater king. Who today would
dare to describe Hell in such a manner?
“The
dead tremble, those under the waters and those inhabiting them. Sheol is naked before Him, and Destruction
has no covering. He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing. He
binds up the water in His thick clouds, yet the clouds are not broken under it.
He covers the face of His
throne, and spreads His cloud
over it. He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, at the boundary
of light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished
at His rebuke. He stirs up the sea with His power, and by His
understanding He breaks up the storm. (Job
26:5-12)
If Job and Isaiah were permitted to stretch beyond the accepted realities of death in what they said, how much more the greatest prophet of them all, Jesus? It would seem to me that, given the poetic nature of much of the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus had perfect license to exaggerate the story of the rich man and Lazarus if it were to get across the significant points. More importantly, His culture likely understood this.
Furthermore, how
do we know that the Pharisees even held to such a doctrine as Abraham’s Bosom? Many Bible teachers
look at the term and assert that the Jew of that time was familiar with this as
a place where one’s soul went after death. It is claimed that there is
extra-biblical evidence for this belief. In fact, I have found such evidence to
be sparse (no more than two
rabbinical writings that mention Abraham’s
bosom as an experience for those who die: Kiddushin 72b – written after the New Testament period –
and Shab. 89b; this is hardly a wealth of support), though what would it matter
if every Rabbi was teaching this for centuries anyway? It would not make it
biblical.
The popular interpretation of this account has it set
at a time prior to the Lord’s return, meaning that the rich man, Lazarus and
Abraham would be without their resurrected bodies. Their physical bodies (or
what remained of them) would be in the grave. Following doctrinal lines, this
would infer that all three characters presently existed as immaterial souls
only.
However, physical language is used. The rich man opened his eyes and saw Lazarus at a
distance. He cried out. He asked that
Lazarus would be permitted to dip his
finger in water in order to cool his tongue.
He was feeling torment in a flame.
The idea that Lazarus and Abraham were in Heaven (espoused
by those who do not hold to the Abraham’s
Bosom doctrine) must also be questioned. How could the rich man see them
from where he was? The Lord Jesus had to pass through the heavens to go to the Father’s right hand (Hebrews 4:14)
so the location of God the Father’s dwelling place must be beyond the reach of
even the furthest discovered galaxy. The rich man, on the other hand, died, was
buried, then lifted up his eyes in Hades:
the place from which he saw Lazarus. If these were true events, how could the
rich man have seen Lazarus, with or without his physical eyes?
Returning to the recurrent term, Abraham’s Bosom, I have found myself curious of its origin,
location and meaning. This is its only
occurrence in the Bible. Given my aforementioned suggestion that it may not
have been as familiar a cultural term as some make out, as well as the fact
that punctuation was not used in early Greek texts, I am tempted to think that
the capital ‘B’, which many theologians apply, is unnecessary. Abraham took
part in the story. He was there when it happened. As such, I don’t think it
facetious or irreverent at all to suggest that the location of Abraham’s Bosom was between his neck and
waist, not an actual dwelling place. Reclining against someone’s bosom was a
place of privilege during the time of Jesus’ ministry (John 13:23). Is it not
possible that the rich man saw Lazarus in a place coveted by all sincere Jews:
the bosom of the father of their faith? To suggest that all the faithful go to
a place like this would be to suggest a large bosom.
I think this is a reasonable argument, though I must
emphasise my belief that this scene only took place in the minds of Jesus’ audience, not in actuality. For me, this is
a parable designed to condemn the rich Pharisees who were listening (16:14) but
not understanding, and spoken in order to let the disciples consider how the
Pharisees treated those they looked down upon, and – most importantly – how God
will judge precisely according to how
we treat others.
I believe that this last point on God’s justice is
strongly supported by Jesus’ narrative use of the ‘crumbs’ and ‘water’.
Lazarus had reached such a point of desperation that he longed for even the
crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. When the time of judgment came, however,
it was the rich man who was desperate for just a drop of water.
If this were a true story, should we really expect a
starving man to crave for crumbs when he needs a meal? Furthermore, Lazarus was
outside at the gate, not under the
rich man’s table. What man, in an act of charity, would sweep up his crumbs and
bring them out to a beggar? Ought we really to think that Lazarus hoped for
such an act? I can only make sense of this if Jesus were using hyperbole in
order to express the desperation of the Lazarus character.
Likewise, what use is a drop of water to a man
suffering in a flame? Why did the rich man only ask for his tongue to be
touched with a drop from a man’s finger? Why not a drink? Why not removal from
the flame? I can only assume it was because there was no real flame, there was
no real water and there was no rich man. The whole story, to me, is part of an
inflammatory parable. The desperation
of the man he neglected became the measure by which the rich man was judged.
For
with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. (Matthew 7:2)
I think the most important character in the whole
parable is the rich man – for it is his
fate that demonstrated most clearly the fate of the Pharisees. Having already
shown their disregard for ‘the sinners’
with whom Jesus socialised (Luke 15:1-2), the treatment of ‘the lost’ had clearly become a relevant
subject in this part of Luke’s gospel – enough to warrant sufficient parables
to stretch into the next chapter. Why therefore should ‘the rich man and Lazarus’ not also be part of this section? In the
parable, Lazarus would represent the ‘lost’ man who was ‘found’.
But aside from the aforementioned list of objections
to the common interpretation of the text, there are still other unanswered
questions. Why would Abraham have been given authority over a place inhabited
by the dead? Where was this promised to him in Genesis? Are we not missing a
more evident promise that would have been closer to his heart (or ‘bosom’)?
The promised inheritance (Genesis 12:1-3; 13:14-18; 15:1-21; 17:1-22)
was an earth-related promise, not an ‘afterlife’ promise.
If Abraham’s
Bosom and the rest of Hades/Sheol are two separated parts of the
same location, why would it require angels to carry Lazarus to his part but the
rich man to do no more than be buried and open his eyes? Whether Abraham’s Bosom was in Hades/Sheol or Heaven, how was it possible for a verbal conversation to
take place between two locations separated by ‘a great gulf’? What comfort is there in an ‘afterlife’ where the
righteous dead witness the torment of the unrighteous dead? What did Lazarus do
or believe to be designated a ‘righteous man’, as he is often used to represent?
Is the account telling us that rich people go to Hell and beggars go to Heaven?
Is the parable even related to the distinction between redeemed and unredeemed?
Looking at the text more closely, I find the events
far too bizarre to be taken as literal. But as a parable, where only one
central truth needs to resound, it is understandable and relevant to the
context. The details of conversations, physical sufferings, angelic actions all
serve as a platform to support the parable’s one main point on judgment – so
they do not need to be consistent with real life (or ‘afterlife’) experiences.
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