No one could be more competent than the Lord Jesus to draw aside the veil which separates us from the unseen world. He could speak with divine knowledge. At His first coming to earth His mission was to reveal the heart of God, and to speak of what is befitting the divine presence (John 3:2). But while doing this it was natural that He should present vividly that to which men’s sins are hurrying them if they heed not the warning and come to repentance. Accordingly both the intermediate and the eternal state of the impenitent are plainly set forth in the Gospel records.
Some of the most anxious questions of the human mind are answered in the solemn story of the rich man and Lazarus. This story is often spoken of as a parable. Personally, I am not free so to regard it. First, because it is not called a parable; and second, because it was not customary with our Lord to introduce names into His parabolic instruction. It is simpler to regard Luke 16:19-31 as a divine sketch of the course and end of two persons whose careers the eye of the Lord had noted.
The contrasts in this story are tremendous: Earth, Hades; luxury, torment; beggary, bliss. The question naturally arises, What was the sin of the rich man which involved him in so fearful a doom? Was he morally one of earth’s vilest? Nothing of the kind is stated concerning him. Neither blasphemy, nor adultery, nor any other glaring transgression is laid to his charge. Then what was it that blasted his prospects for eternity? Simply this: he lived entirely for the present, with never a thought of God or his own soul. He was the twin brother, so to speak, of the rich fool of Luke 12:16-21: a neglecter, rather than a deliberate rejector (Heb. 2:3). In connection with God’s government of the earth riches were, for the Jew, a mark of divine favor (Psa. 112:3); but such is the perverseness of the human heart in making everything of the visible and temporal that it becomes exceedingly difficult for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:24-25). The parable of the Great Supper in Luke 14. was intended to show how things which are perfectly legitimate in themselves, and which indeed are favors from a bountiful God to men, may be used to the utter exclusion of God Himself and to the everlasting ruin of the soul.
The beggar’s name was Lazarus; the rich man’s name is not recorded. Lazarus means “God is my helper.” It is infinitely better to have the knowledge of God than to have all the world’s wealth rolled into one’s lap. For of all that which stands connected with a man here below nothing can be carried out of the world but his sins, and these he carries with him right up to the Judgment Throne! The beggar’s name has been carefully preserved for us, for precious in the sight of the Lord is every child of faith, however lowly his station here; the name of the fool who wasted his life (however exalted his standing) is better blotted out.
Is there a life beyond the grave? Often and anxiously the question is agitated amongst men. The Son of God answers it for us here. The beggar died, and was forthwith, not extinguished nor consigned to centuries of insensibility, but carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The position is described from the Jewish point of view. Conscious blessedness and that in the company of the father of the faithful, is plainly set forth. The rich man also died, and of him it is said, “he was buried.” Why is this added in his case? Clearly because the Lord would carefully distinguish between body and soul. The man’s body was buried, doubtless with all the pomp and circumstance that suited so wealthy a person; but immediately afterward we read “in Hell (Hades) he lifted up his eyes, being in torments.” Let me repeat, his body was laid in the tomb, but his soul went to Hades. Beyond all just controversy, this is the Saviour’s meaning in the passage before us.
Hades is not Gehenna. The latter is the lake of fire, to which the lost are despatched after the judgment of the Great White Throne (the mass being preceded by the Beast and the False Prophet, and Satan); Hades is the term divinely employed to designate the intermediate unclothed state.
Luke 16:19-31 Then gives us “a picture of a lost soul in Hades awaiting its final sentence on the judgment day.”
Let us tread softly here—human words may well be few. The sufferer was experiencing a sense of pain (“I am tormented,” vs. 24); of loss (“he seeth Abraham,” etc., verse 23); and of fear (“I have five brethren,” etc., verse 28). Memory also was active (vs. 25). He had no expectation of any change of condition. As we listen to the conversation between father Abraham and the lost one, there is no hint on either side of ultimate annihilation and no suggestion of universal restoration. Neither of these dreams, so popular in our day, occurred to the minds of these men thus conversing in the invisible world.
The rich man asked but two things and both were denied him. He craved a drop of water for himself, and also he pleaded for a special mission to his living brethren. Neither request could be granted. When the border-line is passed, praying time is ended forever.
The five brethren were shut up to the Scriptures. “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.” We are in the same position to-day. No light have we beyond the revelation of God, and in this Satan is determined to destroy the confidence of men around us. The rich man thought that something sensational would appeal to his brethren’s consciences. This Abraham repudiated. It is not a little remarkable that the next person our Lord raised from the dead was a man named Lazarus (John 2). But did this mighty fact strike home to the consciences of the people around Him? Far from it. They only took counsel together to put both Lazarus and the Lord Jesus to death.
I repeat, no light have we beyond the revelation of God in the Scriptures.