And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things, and mocked him.
Jesus had been teaching His disciples about money, and others were listening. Their answer was not an argument but a laugh, and Luke tells us where it came from: they loved money.
The Lord had been speaking to His followers about handling money. The listeners who reacted were the Pharisees, and one commentator notes exactly which nerve had been struck.
Now the Pharisees, not the disciples, come before us. The passage describes them as lovers of money. The Lord's teaching to the disciples did not touch their forms or their legalism; it touched their love of money. After they had "heard all these things," they "ridiculed him." The evil He had warned the disciples about was at work in the Pharisees with nothing to check it.
The term Luke uses is not a general grasping after more. It is a specific word, and it is striking where else it turns up.
The Greek word philargyria means, literally, "love of money." It is the miser's sin, and a person can indulge it while professing religion. So Luke 16:14 applies it to the Pharisees, and 2 Tim. 3:2 applies it to those who had a form of godliness but denied its power. This love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, 1 Tim. 6:10, and those who go after it are liable to wander away from the faith, and to pierce themselves with many sorrows.
Their scorn had a logic behind it.
But that cuts deep, for the Pharisees are in His audience. They are the eager defenders of the law, and at the same time they are lovers of money. So they mock Him. Had the law not promised every earthly good to the man who kept it? From there the step was easy. A man who had never felt how hopeless his condition was on that basis could treat the profits of his own greed as the sign that God accepted him.
Their greed also shut a door.
The greed of the Pharisees (v. 14) kept them from going after the things that belong to faith. Those things were unseen, and in their judgment too far-fetched to trust. They went after the good things of this present life, as though they could use the things of God however they pleased.
Jesus had said no servant can serve two masters. The Pharisees' response demonstrated it in front of everyone.
By rejecting the Lord's teaching, the Pharisees proved it was true. They clung to money and despised the Lord; they could not serve both. So the Lord announces God's judgment on them. Judgment is needed where influence is great, and that influence is unholy.
He did not defend Himself. He shifted the case from the opinion of onlookers to the knowledge of God.
They cared only for the outside, for what people can see and what people admire. They ignored the God who cares about the state of men's hearts, and whose thoughts are completely opposed to men's. In the end God's thoughts will stand and men's thoughts will fall.
Commentators press this verse home rather than leaving it with the Pharisees. One gives a working definition of the sin, and refuses to let the discovery of it drive anyone away from Christ.
What He taught was a heavenly principle, and they loved money. Greed is living for this world, and we are greedy just so far as we are laying our plans for this world. Now, when you find such corruption in yourself, what do you do? Do not let it lead you to give up Christ. Let it lead you to put on your armour.
This sin is also good at hiding from the conscience it lives in.
The Pharisees loved money, and they could only turn Christ's teaching into a joke (see Luke 16:14). The same will be true of everyone who catches the same infection from them. They will not see how the truth rightly applies, whether about greed or anything else. They will try to define it in a way that suits them. They will interpret it, adjust it, trim it down and bend it, until they have succeeded completely in getting their conscience out from under the edge of God's truth.
- Heard. Jesus aimed His words about money at the disciples. The Pharisees overheard, and the teaching touched their love of money, not their legalism.
- Money. The word means "love of money" — the miser's sin. A person can carry it while still professing religion.
- Mocked. They laughed because the law had promised good things to whoever kept it. Their own wealth looked to them like God's approval.
- Weighed. They clung to money and despised the Lord at once, and no one can serve both. God weighs the heart, not the outside, and His verdict stands.
- Warned. The same greed hides easily in any conscience. When you find it in yourself, do not give up Christ — put on your armour.
And he said to them, *Ye* are they who justify themselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what amongst men is highly thought of is an abomination before God.
The Pharisees listening to Jesus loved money, and they laughed at His teaching about wealth. He answered with one sentence that overturns the scale men use to weigh themselves: who decides what a life is worth, God or the crowd?
Their mockery had a reason behind it. The law promised earthly good to the man who kept it. So a full purse looked like a certificate of God's approval, and a man could judge his own case.
But that cuts deep. The Pharisees are in His audience, and these zealous defenders of the law are at the same time lovers of money. So they mock Him — had not the law promised every earthly good to the man who kept it? From this, one easy step followed for a man who had never felt how hopeless his condition was on that footing. He could treat the fruit of his own covetousness as the token of his acceptance with God. So, as the Lord told them, they justified themselves before men. But justification is not man's work; it is God's. What human law lets a man judge his own case?
The words "God knows your hearts" move the case into another court. There motives count, not just actions.
Another light falls on human actions and motives. In the end a standard other than man's will weigh them. The judgment of our fellow men is one thing; the judgment of God is another. So a work was going on, and is still going on, because God will have reality.
People whom God has justified do not need to build a reputation. Yet the pull of what men think never quite lets go.
Not so those who are justified before God by faith. Such people do not justify themselves before men any more than before God. They do it only when they let nature work and slip from their own ground of faith. Even so, they are not free from the snare of covetousness. As far as men's thoughts sway them, they lie open to it.
The Lord does not say "inferior." He says "abomination." Human nature has no presentable side to offer God.
The best the flesh can offer to God is no more acceptable than the worst. "What is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15) is a hard lesson to learn.
We use those same false scales on other people. God calls the scales themselves an abomination.
The moral sense, the natural conscience, self-righteousness, the laws of society, and the judgments of men supply us with false weights and measures. We carry them around with us more than we realise. But they are an abomination (Deuteronomy 25:16). In our thinking, the way of the prostitute and the tax collector is worse than the easy, respectable course of the world. If we had the balances of the sanctuary, we would weigh things differently.
Once you accept the verse, popular agreement stops being evidence that a path is right.
People all around us will tell us what we must do and not do here among men. What suits man is their standard and measure. But the child of God walks straight on and pays no attention to what they say. What suits God is His standard and measure. They have the way marked out as plainly as can be, and it looks reasonable and satisfying. But that means nothing to someone who walks by faith. He knows that whatever everyone agrees is the right way must be wrong (Luke 16:15); that is the broad way.
The verse takes away prosperity as proof of God's favour. What it clears the ground for is a door anyone may enter.
Prosperity was no test of divine favour. What is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Since John, the kingdom of God is preached. So pressing into it is now an urgent matter, and that for "everyone," because grace opens the door to anyone.
- Measure — Two scales exist. Men weigh by what shows; God weighs the heart, and His verdict is the one that stands.
- Mockery — The Pharisees laughed because they read wealth as God's approval. Their own greed became their proof of it.
- Manufacture — Self-justification puts a man in the judge's seat over his own case. But justification is God's work, not man's.
- Abomination — Not just weak but detestable. The best the flesh offers God is no better than the worst.
- Open Door — Prosperity proves nothing, so standing counts for nothing. Grace lets anyone press into the kingdom.
The law and the prophets [were] until John from that time the glad tidings of the kingdom of God are announced, and every one forces his way into it.
The Lord has just told a story about a dishonest manager and warned that no one can serve two masters. The money-loving Pharisees sneered, and His answer draws a line through history at John the Baptist: one age ended, and the news of God's kingdom now goes out.
John was the last messenger God sent before Jesus came.
John, the forerunner of the Lord, was the last of the long line of the prophets of the past dispensation. With him, God's words under the old covenant reached their full stop. With Christ, the new words began.
So what exactly stopped at John? Not the Old Testament writings themselves.
"The Law and the Prophets" was the standard name for the Old Testament as a whole — the Scriptures of an age already past, though they had not passed away with that age. They were past as the sole and governing truth. What they had been preparing the way for had now come, or at least was near. This new truth must be the higher truth. But for that very reason it must bear witness to what came before it, and confirm it. No truth can pass away.
The Pharisees had built their standing on keeping the law. These words were devastating for them.
The law was given to a people who were already God's people, and the prophets called that people, owned as His, back to the law. John closed this scene. Now a kingdom was set up, and entry into it came by the energy of individual faith. So the door opened to all who had that faith from God. This changed everything. It was not law nor prophets, but God's kingdom announced to all who had faith to enter in. Those who clung to the flesh and to self were left behind. Men might accept them, but the Lord left and deserted them in His kingdom.
This way of thinking did not stop with the Pharisees.
The religion of the world always stands on the same ground as the Pharisees. It assumes, more or less, that God favours it now, and it treats worldly rank and wealth as the sign of that favour. Faith looks away from present things since sin came into the world.
Notice the verb in the verse: the kingdom is preached. That word tells us what the kingdom was not yet.
The kingdom was not established. If it had been, the power of God would have settled everything. Order and peace would have reigned. But it was not so. It was preached — preached by prophets, and by those who were more than prophets. These prophets were insulted and rejected. For them the wilderness and death were a home or a reward. The hypocritical nation would have nothing of it. Only the energy of faith, going through suffering, could take hold of it.
Luke's "forces his way in" and Matthew's "violence" describe one and the same test.
The testimony about the kingdom, in either form, was putting everyone to the test. It meant the path of a rejected Christ, outside the world. On that path a person must deny self and take up the cross to follow Him. And all this against the opposition of every principle of man and his world. It needed the holy energy of faith to break through every obstacle. That faith is wholly for Him, whose claim on His own is absolute.
Some read the verse as sinners forcing their own way into salvation by sheer effort.
No. The violent who take the kingdom by force are not unsaved sinners who seek salvation and must seize that salvation by force. Salvation is by grace. It is God's free gift. The sinner is not saved by his violent efforts, but by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The word everyone reaches beyond Israel to the Gentiles, the nations outside the Jewish people.
Luke had already spoken of the highways and hedges. His wording opened the door to the Gentiles, without naming them outright as the "whoever" so often quoted by Paul. "Everyone," he says, "forces his way into it." It was a matter of preaching and of faith. So the Gentile who would listen to that preaching and have that faith would enter in, like anyone else.
Matthew records a similar saying, but with a different weight.
It is not the same here as in Matthew 11:12, where "the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force." There the question is the true hope of Israel, and the need to break through all that opposes faith. But here much more ground is opened to man if he believed.
- Until — the law and the prophets ruled up to John. They are not cancelled, only no longer the last word.
- Since — good news is preached, not a kingdom set up in power. Its messengers met scorn and death.
- Everyone — the door is faith, not family line. So the word reaches past Israel to the Gentile who believes.
- Forces — entry costs something. Faith breaks through a world that rejected Christ. But no effort buys salvation; it is God's free gift.
- Left behind — men respected the money-loving Pharisees, yet they stood outside the kingdom they assumed was theirs.
But it is easier that the heaven and the earth should pass away than that one tittle of the law should fail.
Jesus had just told the Pharisees that the kingdom of God is now preached, and that the law they boasted in was giving way to it. He guards at once against a wrong conclusion: not the smallest mark of that law will fail.
Jesus is answering men who prided themselves on the law while ignoring the preaching of the kingdom around them.
The law they boasted in was being replaced by the kingdom of God. The law had laid down what was needed for man's life on earth, and the prophets had foretold God's coming kingdom on earth. The time of the visible, world-wide kingdom had not yet come. But it was coming in another form, through preaching, and already in this spiritual form men were beginning to press into it. The Pharisees were blind to all this, and were staying outside. But, though the kingdom was replacing the law in this way, not one stroke of the law was going to fail. In its own sphere it still stands in full majesty.
An era can end without the law that ruled it being at fault.
This was not because the law had failed: it had not, but man under it had proven a total failure. The law is the word of God: not one iota of it can fail, though all temporal things (heaven and earth) pass away.
You might expect the law to lapse at two points: when the thing it pointed to came, and when Christ tightened what Moses had allowed.
The passing of that old order did not mean that the law had failed. It could not fail. Heaven and earth might pass away sooner than one stroke of the law fail. It did not fail when the thing it pointed to came. Nor did it fail when the allowance Moses made for their hard hearts was put right, and the new order perfected what the law could not enforce.
The "dot" in this verse points to the smallest marks in the written text.
The iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet, like the yod in Hebrew. The tittle is a hook-shaped mark. In Hebrew it separates letters that would otherwise look the same. If, as our Lord says, not even the smallest parts of the written law will pass away, how much less the instructions God once gave!
Because this promise covers even a stroke of the pen, writers draw from it a conclusion about how God gave the Bible.
The suggestion that inspiration is not verbal destroys the absolute authority of the Bible.
The next sentence applies the claim where His hearers were slack.
The Pharisees had used the permission of divorce to approve a licence that the whole spirit of the law spoke against. Now all this was to be put right. A man who divorced his wife and married another would now commit adultery, and so would the man who married a divorced woman.
If the law itself had expired, this verse would be untrue. One writer presses that point against a common misreading of Romans 7.
The law is not dead. If it were, our Lord's words would be proved false. And not only one stroke of the law but the whole of it would have failed before heaven and earth pass away… We are the ones dead to the law; the law is not dead to anyone. Romans 6 shows the believer dead with Christ to sin, and Romans 7 shows him dead to the law, "so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code."
So the new thing Jesus brings never comes at the law's expense.
The grace of God never conflicts with His law, but, on the contrary, maintains its authority in its own sphere. Nothing clears, establishes, and proves right the law — and every other principle of God — like His grace.
- Era — The kingdom of God is now preached, and the law the Pharisees boasted in was giving way to it. They were the ones left outside.
- Failure — The old system passed, but the law never failed. The failure was in man under it.
- Stroke — The promise reaches down to the smallest letter, and to the mark that tells one letter from another. That is why writers read it as a claim about how God gave Scripture.
- Test — Christ proves it at once. Their easy divorces were a licence the law's own spirit condemned.
- Death — Nothing here has died except us. We are dead to the law, not the law to us; grace vindicates it rather than voiding it.
Every one who puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery; and every one that marries one put away from a husband commits adultery.
Jesus has just told the Pharisees that not the smallest stroke of the law will fail. Then comes this hard word about divorce, and it raises two questions: why is it placed here, and how binding is a marriage before God?
Verse 18 supplies the proof of that claim, and it lands on the men listening.
But though the law was being replaced in this way by the kingdom of God, not the smallest stroke of it was going to fail. In its own field it stands in all its majesty. It is "holy and righteous and good," and its moral commands still remain. The particular command the Lord emphasized in verse 18 was no doubt a tremendous thrust at the Pharisees. They were very slack in such matters, while they kept themselves busy with their tithes of mint, anise and cummin.
Their slackness was not theoretical. It showed in how easily they dissolved a home while claiming to be the law's defenders.
And to one proof of it the Lord referred, and clearly condemned their practice — that of getting divorces for trivial reasons, to satisfy a whim or the pleasure of the moment. Many around them were seeking salvation while they were indulging their fleshly desires.
The Pharisees thought Moses was on their side.
The Lord added verse 18 because the Pharisees took advantage of what the law had said, to allow divorce for virtually any cause. Deuteronomy 24:1 had required a man, if putting away his wife, to give her a certificate of divorce (Matt. 19:3-9). But the Lord calls divorce and remarriage adultery, though Matthew 19:9 gives the one exception. And if one were to marry a woman divorced from her husband, he committed adultery. This is clearly a case where the first husband had not remarried, for adultery is the violation of the marriage bond. ... A believer should be most careful to honor God in marriage, with the firm intention of proving consistently faithful. If one is divorced by his spouse, then let him make sure from Scripture that his circumstances allow him to marry again.
Why call a second marriage adultery? The answer lies in what a divorce court can and cannot end.
The Lord's words imply that the first marriage is still valid before God. A marriage made before God and man is not broken by a divorce granted in a court of men. It is broken by sexual union with another partner afterwards, even when that happens inside a new marriage. This applies just as much to the spouse who does the divorcing. ... According to God's thoughts, the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, because he violates a marriage that still exists before Him.
Luke records the saying with no qualification at all. That absence is deliberate and worth noticing.
Yet this one and only exception is missing in Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18. Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 does not mention it either. We only find it again in Matthew 19:9, though in slightly different wording. The Lord does not say that divorce is unavoidable when one partner is sexually unfaithful. He says only that in such a case the remarriage of the other partner after a divorce is not adultery.
Another writer argues that even Matthew's exception is not a loophole. Sin has already broken the bond in that case:
The exception Matthew gives about this appears neither in Mark nor Luke. It is not really an exception: the divorce only confirms the break in the law of marriage which sin had already made in that case.
It is tempting to read this as harshness. The reverse is argued: the concessions in the law were an admission of weakness, not kindness.
Apart from that one allowed cause, another marriage by the husband or the wife is only adultery. Courts of law may legalize adultery of this sort if they wish. But they cannot sanctify it, or remove the brand which the Lord here puts on it. How clear it is that the grace of Christianity is as far as possible from laxity! — that law is more tolerant here than grace can be. The law's easing of the symptoms only proved that it could not heal. Grace will not just ease symptoms, because it heals.
Commentators differ on whether the verse looks beyond literal marriage. One writer asks why it closes this section at all, and points to Romans 7:
Is it not striking that in the very next verse our Lord uses the same illustration the apostle reasons from at the start of Romans 7? ... Undoubtedly both principles apply to the literal fact most truly and in the letter. But can one doubt the connection with the verse before and the context? If it is so connected, it is a striking instance of the one Spirit throughout Scripture. If not, it is very hard to see why such a statement should close the Lord's words on this subject.
- Context — The verse is not a stray topic. It proves the point just made: the law's moral force still stands.
- Charge — The Lord gives their easy divorces a real name: adultery. It falls on the one who remarries and on the one who marries the person put away.
- Bond — The charge sticks because a court ruling does not dissolve what God holds. The first marriage still stands before Him.
- Exception — Luke, Mark and 1 Corinthians 7 record no exception. Matthew 19:9 alone allows one, and only where sin has already broken the bond.
- Walk — Law tolerated what grace will not, because grace heals instead of easing symptoms. So marry meaning to stay faithful, and check Scripture, not the courts, before remarrying.
Now there was a rich man and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, making good cheer in splendour every day.
The Lord opens with a portrait, not an argument. Here is a man whose clothing, table and daily routine were the picture of a life going well. The question the Lord presses on His listeners is whether any of that tells you where a person stands with God.
The men listening had just sneered at Christ's teaching about money. They had a reason for reading wealth the way they did.
But that cuts deep. The Pharisees are among His audience, and these zealous defenders of the law are money-lovers at the same time. So they mock Him — had not the law promised every good thing in this life to the man who kept it? From there it was an easy step. Some had never felt how hopeless man's condition is on that basis. Such a man could treat the fruit of his own greed as the sign that God accepted him.
Commentators differ on how to read this account. Some hold that the Lord is telling us what happened:
Avoid using the word "parable" for these verses. The Lord said, "There was a rich man." It is history, not a parable.
Others call it a parable. One of them writes, "I admit freely that it is a parable" — and still holds that the picture was meant to show us something true about life after death.
The purple and the linen are not decoration. Each carries a meaning, and together they press home what the Lord had just said about the things people prize.
What people value highly is often detestable in God's sight. The account of Lazarus and the rich man drives that home. The rich man was clothed in purple, that is, he lived like a king. He also wore fine linen, which stands for putting on at least an outward show of moral righteousness, as the Pharisees did. He ate the finest food every day. Such luxury in Israel was thought to be a sign of God's approval — but how far this is from the truth!
Nothing here suggests a scandalous life. The portrait is of respectability, and that is what makes it cut.
The Saviour pictures a man at ease and living in luxury in a world of misery. He has no faith in a world of sin. He is decent in his morals and religious on the outside. But he lives for himself, and in practice he is an unbeliever. Who did not know that man in Israel? Who is not familiar with him in Christendom?
Many readers assume the Lord condemns the man for cruelty to the beggar at his gate. The record is more careful than that, about both men.
No evil is recorded of the rich man beyond this, that he enjoyed himself to the full. Even neglect of Lazarus is not urged against him. Perhaps Lazarus did get the leftover pieces. That he remained a beggar is true — but is a rich man expected to feed and care for every beggar at his doorstep? We do not read of anything to the credit of this Lazarus either. Providence seems to have decided against him, and the law to have condemned him — for where are the good things the law promised to those who keep it?
The beggar has a name in this story. The rich man does not.
Lazarus is probably named to mark the interest the Lord took in him. Poor and utterly despised, he was known by name before God. The rich man, well known and waited on, was known only by his character. He was rich — and what was that before God? He lived in luxury, and that showed a heart alienated from Him.
- Sneer — The story answers men who loved money and read their prosperity as proof that God approved of them.
- Signal — Purple stood for royalty and fine linen for an outward show of goodness. Both were surface, and people read that surface as God's approval.
- Self — He is not painted as wicked. He is decent, religious and comfortable, and his whole life bends toward pleasing himself.
- Silence — No crime is listed against him. Enjoying himself to the full is the whole record, and that is what makes the story so searching.
- Seen — God knew the beggar by name, while the famous man goes unnamed. Being rich counted for nothing before God.
And [there was] a poor man, by name Lazarus, [who] was laid at his gateway full of sores,
Jesus sets two men side by side: one rich and unnamed, the other poor, covered with sores, and named. The verse raises the question the whole story answers — does the outward state of a life tell you anything true about how God sees it?
One commentator points out that the Lord never calls this account a parable, even though it is shaped like one. He also notes a detail that reads like reporting: someone else must have carried the beggar to the gate.
It comes to us without being called a parable, though it is told in the form in which so many parables were spoken. There may really have been two such men on earth as the ones described here. Their history in the other world matches what is set out in language suited to that day... We are not told who put him at the rich man's gate. Someone must have done it, for he was laid there, wanting what fell from the table. Did he get it? That question is left unanswered.
Commentators differ on whether Lazarus ever received the crumbs. One holds that his desire was ignored. Another says he may well have got the leftover pieces, since the account never charges the rich man with neglect.
A gate stands between the two men. One writer notes what the sight of Lazarus should have stirred, and who treated him better than the man of wealth did.
The poor man, Lazarus, was laid at the rich man's gate, full of sores. His condition ought to have awakened sympathy and concern... The dogs had more sympathy for him than did the man of wealth.
Only one of the two men is named, and it is the beggar. One writer explains what that name means and why it was kept.
The beggar's name was Lazarus; the rich man's name is not recorded. Lazarus means "God is my helper." It is far better to know God than to have all the world's wealth poured into your lap... The beggar's name has been kept for us with care, because every child of faith is precious in the sight of the Lord, however low his position here. The name of the fool who wasted his life is better wiped out, however high his standing.
Nothing good is recorded about Lazarus either — no works, no virtue, only sores and hunger. One writer finds the key to his story in the meaning of his name, not in anything the man did.
We do not read of anything to the credit of this Lazarus. Providence appears to have decided against him, and the law to have condemned him. For where are the good things the law promised to those who keep it?... His name, Lazarus, Eleazar, "the Mighty One the Helper," gives us the only key to the explanation here. Despite everything else against him, God the Mighty One has lifted him out of the degradation he was in, into the place where we now find him. He acted apart from law, and so in grace.
The rich man is never accused of cruelty, fraud, or crime. What he did was nothing at all — and one commentator links this to the same principle Jesus applies elsewhere in judgment.
Nothing is said of the positive guilt of the rich man in Luke 16, though he lived in ease and luxury. But he ignored the poor man Lazarus, who was laid at his gate only desiring crumbs from his table.
A common misreading is to treat the sores as merit and the wealth as guilt. One writer blocks both conclusions at once, while still allowing that hardship did real work in Lazarus.
It was not the affliction and sores of Lazarus that made him righteous, any more than the riches of the rich man made him unrighteous. God has finished with earthly things. So no earthly circumstance is a mark of God's present favour, or of the opposite. No doubt, though, God's dealings with Lazarus were the means of bringing down his pride and breaking his will, and so preparing him for the place He was going to take him to.
- Laid — Lazarus did not walk to the gate; someone carried him there. He is the picture of a man with nothing to bring.
- Named — the beggar is named and the rich man is not. Heaven keeps a different record than earth, and a wasted life is better left off it.
- Helped — "Lazarus" means God helps. That name, not his suffering, is the key to where he ends up: God acting in grace, apart from law.
- Ignored — no crime is charged against the rich man. The need lay at his gate and he did nothing. That was the sin.
- Reversed — sores did not make Lazarus righteous, and wealth did not condemn the other man. Outward circumstances are no measure of God's favour.
and desiring to be filled with the crumbs which fell from the table of the rich man; but the dogs also coming licked his sores.
Luke 16:21 keeps its focus on the beggar, not the banquet. A man lies at a gate, hungry for scraps, with only street dogs for company. If wealth showed God's favour, what does this scene mean?
Lazarus does not arrive at the rich man's gate under his own power. The verse says he was laid at the gate, so someone carried him there. One writer notes what the account never tells us.
A pitiable case. Who put him at the rich man's gate is not told us. Someone must have done it, for he was laid at the rich man's gate, desiring what fell from his table. Did he get it? That question is left unsolved.
What were these crumbs? One writer passes on a note about how people ate at such a table:
Napkins were not used for the hands. The guests wiped their hands on bits of bread and then threw the pieces under the table.
Commentators differ over whether Lazarus ever received them. One reads the silence as refusal:
His condition ought to have awakened sympathy and concern. But even his wish for only the crumbs from the rich man's table was plainly ignored. The dogs had more sympathy for him than did the man of wealth. (Is there not a hint here that Gentile "dogs" had more heart than did the self-righteous Pharisees?)
Another writer is slower to blame him. He points out how little the story charges the rich man with:
No evil is recorded of the rich man beyond this, that he enjoyed himself to the full. Even neglect of Lazarus is not urged against him. Perhaps Lazarus may have got the broken pieces. That he remained a beggar is true: but is it supposed that a rich man is to feed and care for every beggar at his door-step?
Whatever became of the crumbs, the verse records only a wish. The kindness that follows comes from animals, not from the household.
The rich man had all that the heart, or rather the flesh, could desire, and he gratified it. But it was all selfish enjoyment: God was not in it, nor was there even care for man. All centred in self. Lazarus proved it — a poor man who lay at his gateway full of sores, longing to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. For him it was little more than desire. The rich man cared nothing for him, only for himself. The dogs were more thoughtful, and showed him more kindness than their master did. They came and licked his sores.
Later in the chapter the picture flips. One writer catches the reversal in a single detail:
The dogs' tongues had licked the beggar's sores on earth. Their master longed for his own tongue to lick the drop of water the beggar could carry on the tip of his finger. He was refused. The great gulf was fixed.
The scene at the gate looks like God's verdict on two men. It is not.
Note that the affliction, sores, and so on of Lazarus did not make him righteous, any more than the riches of the rich man made him unrighteous. God has finished with earthly things. So no earthly circumstances are a mark of God's present favour, or the reverse.
If the beggar's misery did not earn his place, something else must explain it. The answer is in his name.
According to the law a beggar had everything against him. Yet he gets a place that the best Jew in the world might envy him for. What has caused this? Not law, we may be sure. Nor was there any need to make up for that pitiable life on earth by the state that follows. His name, Lazarus, Eleazar, "the Mighty One the Helper," gives us the only key here. Everything else was against him. But God the Mighty One, acting apart from law and so in grace, has lifted him out of that degradation to the place where we now find him.
- Laid — Someone carried Lazarus to that gate. The account never says who. It never says whether he got the scraps either.
- Longing — What he wanted was the bread guests wiped their hands on and dropped under the table. His portion in the verse is desire, not food.
- Licked — Only the dogs were kind to him, doing what the household never did. Later the man who ignored him begged in vain for a wet fingertip.
- Levelled — Sores prove nothing, and riches prove nothing. Earthly circumstances are no measure of God's favour either way.
- Lifted — His name points to the Mighty One as Helper. That alone explains his end: not law, not suffering repaid, but grace reaching a man everything else had written off.
And it came to pass that the poor man died, and that he was carried away by the angels into the bosom of Abraham. And the rich man also died and was buried.
Two men die in the same story, and the moment they die everything about them is reversed. Jesus tells us what happened to the beggar's soul. Then He tells us what happened to the rich man's body. That difference carries the weight of the whole story.
One writer asks why the verse mentions the rich man's burial and says nothing of the beggar's:
Is there a life beyond the grave? Often and anxiously people argue the question. The Son of God answers it for us here. The beggar died. He did not cease to exist, and he did not sleep for centuries. At once the angels carried him into Abraham's bosom... 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, no doubt with all the pomp that suited so wealthy a person. Right after that we read that "in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes."
One man gets a burial and no name. The other gets a name and no burial.
What a reversal at death! "The rich man died and was buried." The poor man, Lazarus, died also. The rich man's name is not told us: it was not worth remembering. Whether Lazarus had a burial or not does not matter. As to his spirit and soul, the angels carried him into Abraham's bosom. This tells us that his faith had been in the living God, for he is "blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith" (Galatians 3:9)... The rich man may have had a beautiful, imposing funeral. It made no difference to his torment after death.
The beggar does not travel alone. One writer links his escort to a promise in Hebrews:
Angels are ministering spirits. If one of our loved ones is called home, the angels serve as pallbearers. They carry that soul and spirit right into the presence of God (Luke 16:22). They are "ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation" (Hebrews 1:14).
Another writer notes who waited on the beggar at the end:
There is not a word of his burial. Perhaps he was not buried at all. But he "was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom." For a Jew that was the place of special blessedness in the unseen world, and the most honourable of God's servants waited on him.
The ESV reads "Abraham's side," where older translations say "Abraham's bosom." The phrase needed no footnote for the people listening.
The Jews believed that their forefather Abraham was in the highest place of happiness. Their writings show that "to be with Abraham" and to be in his bosom were terms they used for the highest security and happiness. So our Lord used a phrase His hearers knew well. It needed no explanation. It stands in contrast to hell, or Hades, and was therefore a figure of heaven.
The picture behind the phrase is a meal, with guests at the table:
For the Jew, Abraham had the highest and most blessed place in the other world. To be in his bosom was to be in the next best place to him — like the beloved disciple in Jesus' bosom at the table.
This is a real state after death, but it is not the end for either man. One writer shows how a believer's hope is described now:
Since the day of Luke 16 Christ has died and risen again, and has gone up as Man into God's glory. So the blessedness of believers who have died is now described in wholly different terms. It is "to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better," and to be "away from the body and at home with the Lord" (Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:8). Neither the rich man nor Lazarus had yet reached eternal circumstances. The rich man was in Hades, not yet in the lake of fire, and neither he nor Lazarus had yet risen from the dead.
- Carried, not ended. Angels carried the beggar away at once — not wiped out, not asleep for centuries. Death moved him; it did not erase him.
- Carried, not buried. The rich man got a splendid funeral; the story follows Lazarus only as far as his soul. The Lord separates body from soul in the telling.
- Carried by angels. God's most honoured servants escorted the beggar — the ministering spirits who serve those who are to inherit salvation.
- Carried to the best seat. "Abraham's bosom" was the highest place a Jewish listener could picture. It is the seat next to Abraham at the table, in full security and happiness.
- Carried, but not yet home. This is a real state after death, not the final one. Since Christ died and rose, Scripture describes the believer's hope in different words: to depart and be with Him.
And in hades lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
The Lord has been speaking about money, and then He tells of a rich man and a beggar who both die. Verse 23 reports what happened to one of them after the funeral, and it raises the questions people most want settled: is he conscious, where is he, and can anything still change?
Up to the burial, the account stays inside ordinary human experience.
After that direct blow came the tremendous parable of verses 19-31, if indeed it is a parable. The Lord uses a few figurative expressions such as "Abraham's bosom," but He relates it all as fact. Verses 19-22 tell the very ordinary facts of a life that ends in death and burial. There the curtain drops for us. As we begin verse 23 the Lord lifts the curtain and brings into our view the things which lie beyond.
Why would He tell us such a thing?
Who could tell us the truth about the future but He? And love was behind the telling of it, for it is the way of true love to warn when its appeals fail.
Older English Bibles print "hell" here. The Greek word is hades, and the writers keep it separate from gehenna, the lake of fire.
Hades is not Gehenna. Gehenna is the lake of fire, where God sends the lost after the judgment of the Great White Throne. Hades is the word God uses for the in-between state, when the soul has no body.
The story itself shows his situation is not yet final:
The rich man is not in hell in body and soul. The resurrection has not taken place, as all admit. The day of judgment has not come, and he has brothers on earth who may still be reached and saved. Hades and gehenna are not the same.
So where is hades? One writer answers that the question itself is the wrong one:
Death demands the body; hades claims the soul... We should drop our English word "hell" and put "hades," meaning the unseen, in its place. People have tried to fix the location of hades. It is impossible to do so. It is a state rather than a place. It refers to the condition of all the dead, good and bad, after death and before the resurrection. For believers, hades is to be with Christ; for unbelievers, hades is to be in torment.
The timing matters. The man suffers while his body lies in a grave and his brothers are still alive.
So we have clear proof that, even before the judgment, the wicked man is in torment. The Lord uses figures, no doubt, but figures built on what we can most easily understand. It is through the body that we feel the world.
This also rules out any idea of unconsciousness after death:
But torment is consciousness. Lifting up his eyes is consciousness. It does not matter whether you take the language literally or symbolically — it conveys the sense of full consciousness.
Nothing scandalous is said about him. That is what makes him so unsettling.
This was not a wicked man in the eyes of the Jews. He was no drunkard, thief or robber, or anything of that kind. He was a man highly respected, and a man marked by self-indulgence. We do not hear of any swearing or scoffing... he still called Abraham his father even while he was in torment... In other words, people might think him highly respectable, but there was no faith, no repentance, no looking to God.
The two men change places, and what the rich man now sees deepens his pain.
The angels carried the godly soul to the bosom of God's friend. The rich man left the empty, passing show of this world and opened his eyes in the flame of Hades. The sight of the blessed far off made it worse — yes, the sight of the very man who on earth stirred only his disgust.
The Lord tells the story to change how people use what they have now.
Our Lord draws back the veil and says, "Now look into the everlasting habitations."... Here is a rich man using everything for himself now, and you see the result. So do not use the world for your own enjoyment now. Use it with another world in view... It shows how the other world contradicts the whole of the present.
- Curtain — Verses 19–22 report an ordinary life and burial. At verse 23 the Lord draws back the curtain and shows what lies beyond, and love is what moved Him to warn.
- Word — "Hell" here translates hades, the unseen state between death and resurrection. It is not gehenna, the lake of fire that comes after the final judgment.
- State — Hades holds all the dead, good and bad. For believers it means being with Christ; for unbelievers, torment. The word alone settles nothing until you know whom the person belonged to.
- Now — He suffers while his body is in the grave and his brothers still live. The soul does not sleep; torment and sight are already real.
- Warning — He was respectable, not scandalous, only self-indulgent and without faith. That is why the story aims at how you use this world before the curtain drops on you.
And he crying out said, Father Abraham, have compassion on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering in this flame.
A man who had everything now begs for a drop of water. He begs it from the man he once ignored. His cry raises hard questions. What happens to a person the moment after death? Is the suffering literal? Can anything still be done about it?
The man cries out from where he is now. One writer explains what that scene shows, and what it does not.
This is not a picture of the final state of judgment, but of a certain condition after death. This is of great importance. Luke gives us both, confirming what is seen in the Old Testament and even adding to it. He gives full prominence to the resurrection elsewhere; but here it was important to know what would be true even now, for man's profit here below.
Readers ask whether the man already had a body, since he speaks of his tongue.
The figures, no doubt, are taken, as they must be, from the body. So we find the desire to have the tongue cooled. Men who like to speculate use this to prove that he had a real body at that time. Nothing of the sort. The Spirit of God speaks to be understood. To be understood by men, He must stoop to use language suited to our understanding. He cannot make us understand a state we have never experienced. He can only do it by figures taken from the state we live in now.
Figurative language does not soften the fact. The same writer states it plainly: "even before the judgment, the wicked man is in torment."
He begs help from the one man he never helped. A commentator leaves the irony as a question.
The rich man pleaded for mercy, but too late! He asked only that Lazarus might be sent to dip his finger in water and cool his tongue, for the heat of the judgment he had to bear was tormenting. Did he remember that he had shown no mercy to Lazarus in his lifetime?
What he asks for is almost nothing — and that is the point.
What a very small favour this would once have been! Utterly despicable — a drop of water, and above all, sent by someone like Lazarus! It would have been detestable to him on earth. But the truth appears when a man has left this life. Do we, then, hear while we are on the earth what the Lord says?
He calls on Abraham. Notice what he never asks for.
He left this life unwillingly. There does not appear to have been any gap before he entered conscious torment in the next. "I am in anguish in this flame," is the cry of a soul that had indulged its slightest whim in his former life. The cravings remained, but he received nothing, however small, to satisfy them. This man, no longer rich, makes no appeal to God for mercy. He had lived without Him, and died without Him, and must remain without Him and without hope for ever. He does not pray for release, for he knows that would be useless too.
Two ideas that comfort people today never come up in this conversation.
Let us tread softly here — human words may well be few. The sufferer was experiencing a sense of pain ("I am in anguish," v. 24); of loss ("he saw Abraham far off," v. 23); and of fear ("I have five brothers," v. 28). Memory also was active (v. 25). He had no expectation of any change of condition. Listen to the conversation between father Abraham and the lost one. Neither side hints that the lost will one day cease to exist. Neither suggests that everyone will be restored in the end.
The Lord told this story to people who could still act on it. What the rich man begged for in vain, God offers freely to the living.
Do you ask, "Is my guilt so great that it cannot be pardoned?" Not now! Now there is no blessing God does not offer you freely; now, but not then. Then only one thing is left for you. Through an endless eternity you will mourn your own terrible folly in rejecting the offer of God's salvation.
- Now, not then. The verse turns on timing. The mercy he begs for after death was within reach every day he ignored Lazarus.
- Now the state is fixed. This is Hades — the condition after death, before resurrection and judgment. The suffering there is already conscious and real.
- Now the words still reach you. The tongue, the finger, the water are figures drawn from the body, because God speaks in language we can grasp.
- Now mercy is still within reach. He begs a drop of water from the man he never pitied. The one who showed no mercy now pleads for it.
- Now is the only offer. Neither speaker hints at a second chance, a later restoration, or an end to existence. Today's refusal is what carries over.
But Abraham said, Child, recollect that *thou* hast fully received thy good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted here, and *thou* art in suffering.
Abraham's reply to the rich man is short, and it names no crime. He only recalls what each man had while alive, and says what each has now. So why does a life full of "good things" end in anguish, and a life of "bad things" end in comfort?
Abraham does not disown him; he answers him as his own. But that answer overturns what the man's life on earth seemed to prove. (An older translation reads "fully received" where the ESV reads "received.")
"Child," he says — for he does not deny the family tie — "remember that you have fully received your good things in your lifetime, and Lazarus likewise bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in suffering." The man who was of Satan had good things on earth. The man who was born of God received bad things here. The earth as it is gives no measure of the judgments of God. When Jesus comes and the kingdom is set up, it will be different.
Readers look in this story for the sin that earned such an end, and find none named.
The contrasts in this story are huge: earth, Hades; luxury, torment; begging, bliss. The question naturally arises: what was the sin of the rich man that brought him to such a dreadful end? Was he one of the worst men on earth? The story says nothing of the kind about him. It charges him with no blasphemy, no adultery, no other obvious sin. Then what ruined his prospects for eternity? Simply this: he lived entirely for the present, with never a thought of God or of his own soul.
The possessive is the sting: what he held as his own came back as evidence against him.
The rich man in the solemn picture at the end of the chapter had made his Lord's "good things" his own in another way, and in eternity they were not friends but enemies and accusers. "Child," says Abraham to him, "remember that you in your lifetime received your good things." That was all, but what a solemn memory it was! Once again the purple and fine linen and the rich food came before the eyes they had once pleased — and now they horrified them.
So the verse also has a practical use for anyone who still owns anything.
Here is a rich man using everything for himself now, and you see the result. So do not use the world for your present enjoyment. Use it with another world in view… If we do not use this world's things in grace, we cannot keep them anyway. And so, He says, you have the privilege of turning them into friends for the future. It shows how the other world contradicts the whole of the present. God's blessing on a Jew was marked by owning such things, but the Lord shows the other world to tell him how all these things are changed.
The single word Abraham chooses tells us that the man's mind still works, and works backwards.
"Child, remember!" Yes, memory will go down there with you. You must leave your money behind, and your pleasures, and everything you have prized and valued on earth. But you will carry two things down with you — your sins and your memory! You may try to smother your convictions now, to cover up your sins now, to silence the voice of conscience. It is quite possible you will succeed.
Read with the next verse, this answer sets out a lost soul's past, present and future.
"Child, remember." Here memory is thrown back on the past. And what a past! Memory will be dreadfully active in hell. "But now you are in anguish." Here the lost soul has to look at the present. And what a present!… But is there no end, no faint hope that it will stop? None at all. "There is a great gulf fixed." Here is the future… If hell fire is not everlasting, what force would the word "fixed" have?
The word "now" places both men in a settled condition already, before any resurrection.
There is not only the existence of the soul apart from the body after death; there is also blessedness and misery at once. They do not depend on the resurrection… In Luke 16, the soul feels blessedness and misery as soon as its link with the body is broken. The images, of course, are drawn from the body, as they have to be… The Spirit of God speaks to be understood, and so He stoops to use language we can grasp.
- Received. His whole account is that he had his good things while he lived. He lived only for the present, and the story names no other sin.
- Remembered. "Remember" shows that memory goes with the soul. What once pleased his eyes now accuses him.
- Reversed. Life on earth is no measure of God's judgment. The beggar has comfort, and the rich man has anguish.
- Immediate. The soul feels comfort or suffering as soon as it leaves the body, not only at the resurrection.
- Fixed. The next verse shuts the door for good. So use this world's things with the next world in view — you cannot keep them anyway.
And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm is fixed, so that those who desire to pass hence to you cannot, nor do they who [desire to cross] from there pass over unto us.
Abraham's last word to the rich man is not a refusal of one small favour. It is the closing of a door. Whatever either man might wish, no one crosses. The verse raises the hardest question the story asks — when is a person's destiny settled, and by what?
The words describe the dead before the resurrection. Neither side can reach the other:
The gap between the good and the evil in that state between death and resurrection is beyond measure, and it is fixed. There is no passing from one to the other. Scripture completely rules out any idea of mercy in that state after death. It is only the dream of people who want to hold on to evil as long as they can, or at least to enjoy themselves in this world, and who therefore ignore God's warnings... "Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed," says Abraham — between the departed righteous and those who die in their sins the separation is complete.
Nothing leaves the rich man's case open for review. That also takes the ground from under a familiar religious practice:
Abraham gave the rich man a solemn reminder of his own past and of Lazarus's past. He adds to this that at death a great gulf has been fixed between the saved and the lost. So no one can cross over from one side to the other. All the prayers for the dead that man's "religion" can devise are useless. At death there is no doubt as to a man's final destiny: it has been decided.
Jesus Himself draws this picture, and one writer presses what that means for anyone who argues with it:
The rich man died and is in Hades, the place of the dead — not in hell; the lake of fire opens after the judgment. He is in torment, and he hears that there is no relief and no hope. An impassable gulf is fixed, which separates the lost and the saved forever. Not a ray of hope is given by the Lord, that there is the slightest possibility after death for another chance. Death fixes forever the eternal condition of every human being. Whoever meddles with this solemn truth... rejects the testimony of the Son of God and charges Him with not having spoken the truth.
The gospel offers people a change of state now. That is what makes the fixed gulf so sharp:
These solemn words remind one of Revelation 22:11: "Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy." Great transformations take place here below; through faith in the gospel men are continually passing "from death to life" (John 5:24); but when the border-line is passed, every man's condition is fixed for evermore.
The same writer lists the alternatives people offer the rich man today — universal salvation, purgatorial fires, extinction of the lost, prayers said in church — and observes that "none of these modern lies were known either to Abraham or to the lost soul to whom he was speaking."
The chasm, like Abraham's bosom, is a picture. Writers weigh how much such pictures can carry, and where this scene stands before the resurrection:
The language here is figurative, of course, just as Abraham's bosom is figurative on the other side... The final judgment has not yet come. The once rich man still has, as we soon see, brothers on earth who can be warned to escape that place of torment. So resurrection has not come any more than judgment has. Yet the wrath of God is already felt in suffering, and terms like these are the fittest way to convey it to us.
Jesus tells the story to people still on this side of death. One writer turns the verse from a warning into an invitation:
Be sure of this: for you, my readers, no great gulf is fixed between God and you. Christ is still speaking from heaven as a Saviour, so that you may believe... Your guilty conscience may well dread an impassable gulf; but there is a perfect way, a safe bridge fixed between God and you; and Christ is that way. Oh, take it now.
- Fixed. The chasm is not merely wide; it is fixed. No one crosses it in either direction, and no mercy reaches across it.
- Now. While life lasts, people keep passing from death to life. Once the line is crossed, every condition stays as it is.
- Decided. Death settles a person's destiny, long before the final judgment. So prayers for the dead have nothing to work on.
- Spoken. These are the words of Jesus Himself; to deny them is to say the Son of God did not tell the truth.
- Bridged. For anyone still alive, no gulf stands between them and God. Christ is the safe bridge, and the invitation stands now.
And he said, I beseech thee then, father, that thou wouldest send him to the house of my father,
The rich man's first prayer was for himself, and Abraham refused it. Now he turns to the family he left behind and asks Abraham to send Lazarus to warn them — but can the dead help the living, or do the living already have what they need?
Everything he says here comes from someone who had spent his life ignoring the subject. One writer weighs what this sudden concern is really worth.
We have, most fittingly winding up the tale, the earnest pleading of the man who never once in his life thought seriously about eternal things. Listen now to his anxiety for his brothers. There was no real love for souls, but a certain anxious desire for his brothers. At the very least we learn how real a thing his anguish was.
He pleads for the household he came from, and one writer suggests his own past has something to do with it.
It is a remarkable thing that he should then plead for his five brothers. It may be that he was responsible for the way they were living. He had set them the example and encouraged them in self-indulgent lives, and he wanted them warned. It seems as though his torment would grow five times over if his own influence and example brought them where he was.
What he wants for his brothers is something dramatic — a visitor from the unseen world.
The rich man became quite evangelistic in hell. He wanted his brothers to have a supernatural visitation to stop them reaching that awful place.
Yet look at what is missing from his words. He asks that his brothers might repent; he never asks it for himself.
Luke 16 pictures the rich man in hell wanting someone to warn his brothers. He says, "if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent." But he never says anything like "I will repent." The lost realise that the day for their repentance is gone for ever.
He has now asked for a drop of water and for a messenger. Abraham grants neither, and one writer marks where prayer stops.
The rich man asked only two things and both were denied him. He begged for a drop of water for himself, and he also pleaded for a special mission to his living brothers. Neither request could be granted. Once a person passes that borderline, praying time is over for ever.
Notice also who is asking whom.
The Jewish teaching of purgatory lies behind the Kaddish, a prayer said for a departed father. In Luke it is the dead man who is doing the asking.
He assumes a messenger from the dead would do what nothing else could. Abraham's reply points to Moses and the prophets, writings the brothers already had. One writer applies that answer to anyone who hopes for a message from the dead.
Suppose people will not hear the word of God. Suppose they will not believe its clear and solemn statements about themselves, their present condition and their future destiny. Then a thousand departed souls could come back and tell them what they saw and heard and felt in heaven above or in hell beneath, and it would still not persuade them. It might cause huge excitement and a great sensation. It would give people plenty to talk about and fill the newspapers far and wide. But there it would end.
That answer was later put to the test in real events.
But the Lord's comment is decisive. They had Moses and the prophets; if they would not hear them, neither would they hear if one rose from the dead. How completely that was about to be proved by His own rising from the dead — not to mention another Lazarus, raised as a witness to His glory as the Son of God! Those who did not believe Moses rejected Christ's resurrection, just as they planned to put Lazarus to death too.
- Too real. His pleading shows how genuine the torment is, even though love for souls is not what produces it.
- Too late. He wants his brothers warned so they never reach where he is, but the time to care was his lifetime.
- Too silent. He hopes his brothers will repent; he never says "I will repent." That day is gone for ever.
- Too far. A drop of water, then a messenger for his family: once a person crosses the line of death, praying time is over.
- In time. The brothers still had Moses and the prophets. A visitor from the dead would stir excitement, not faith; the word of God, heard now, is what they need.
for I have five brothers, so that he may earnestly testify to them, that they also may not come to this place of torment.
The rich man's second prayer is not for himself but for the five brothers he left behind. It raises two hard questions. What is concern for souls worth when it comes too late? And what would save the people he loves?
He had lived at his gate beside a starving man and done nothing. Now, past all hope of change for himself, his mind turns to his family — and one commentator weighs that concern carefully.
Hear now his anxiety for his brothers. There was no real love for souls, but a certain anxious desire for his brothers. At least we learn how real his anguish was.
Another writer asks why he pleads for these five in particular.
Perhaps he was responsible for the way they were living. He had set them the example and encouraged them in self-indulgent lives, and he wants them warned. It seems his torment would be five times greater if his influence and example brought them where he is.
Listen to what he asks for. Then notice what he never asks for.
In Luke 16 the rich man in hell wants his brothers warned. He says, "If someone went to them from the dead, they will repent." But he never says anything like "I will repent." The lost in hell realise that the day for their repentance is gone forever.
He begs that his brothers be kept from the place where he now is. One writer explains what that place is.
The word Jesus used for "hell" here is hades; not the lake of fire, but the unseen world of the departed. He therefore shows us that even that is for the unsaved a place of torment. Four times over He states that hades is a place of torment.
His few words show what he felt. They also show what neither speaker in the conversation ever hints at.
The sufferer felt pain ("I am tormented," v. 24), loss (he sees Abraham, v. 23), and fear ("I have five brothers," v. 28). His memory was working too (v. 25). He expected no change in his condition. Listen to the conversation between father Abraham and the lost one. Neither side hints that the lost are finally wiped out. Neither suggests that everyone will be restored in the end.
He assumes an ordinary warning will not be enough. It has to be a visitor from the dead — something startling enough to break through.
The rich man became quite evangelistic in hell. He desired his brethren to have a supernatural visitation to stop them reaching that awful place. The Lord shows us that even such an event, if it were possible, would not stop people whom the Word of God does not stop.
Would such a sight have worked? Events soon put the idea to the test.
His only thought was that if something startling could happen, such as Lazarus coming from the unseen world, his brothers would repent. How sad the human heart is! A little later the Lord Jesus did raise from the dead a man with the same name. Those around Him were only angrier with Him (John 12:10-11). They did not repent.
Abraham's answer sends them to Scripture — and that answer settles far more than this one family's case.
Some people will not hear the word of God. They will not believe its clear and solemn statements about themselves, their present condition and their future destiny. A thousand departed souls could come back and tell them what they saw and heard and felt in heaven above or in hell beneath, and even that would not persuade them. It would have no saving or lasting effect on them. It might cause great excitement and a great stir. It might give people plenty to talk about and fill the newspapers far and wide. But there it would end.
- Too late. His concern for souls is real. But it wakes in the one place where he can do nothing with it. The day for repentance, his own included, is gone.
- Too personal. Commentators differ on his motive. One sees anxiety without real love for souls. Another suspects he shaped his brothers' self-indulgent lives and dreads their arrival.
- Too real. "This place of torment" is hades, not yet the lake of fire. Even there the marks are pain, loss, fear and memory. Nobody hints at escape, and nobody hints that the lost simply cease to exist.
- Too weak a plan. He wants a ghost. The Lord answers that a miracle will not stop those whom God's Word does not stop.
- Already enough. The five brothers were not short of evidence. They already had the word of God — and the warning he begged for is the one you are holding now.
But Abraham says to him, They have Moses and the prophets let them hear them.
A man in torment asks for a miracle: send someone back from the dead to warn his five brothers. Abraham refuses. He points to what the brothers already have. Is God's written word enough to turn a person, or do people need something more spectacular?
Abraham names two men, but he means their books.
There is one thing more that we learn from this solemn story — that our only resource is the Scriptures. The rich man begged that Lazarus be sent to his living brothers. Abraham answered, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them." This means, of course, the sacred writings. These writings expose human guilt in all its sinfulness. They also declare the love of God, shown in the gift of His only-begotten Son. The gospel sets out forgiveness and justification, full and free, and offers them to everyone who will believe in the Son. … God's Word alone, obeyed in faith, can produce repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21).
Abraham sends them to writings that came long before the New Testament.
But the answer of Abraham brings out another grand truth from the Lord's mind — the all-importance of the Word of God, and this too even in its lower forms. The New Testament undoubtedly has fuller and perfect light; but the Old is no less inspired.
These are the Lord's own words about who wrote those books, and about their authority.
In chapter 16, the Lord again confirms, with full authority, that the writings of Moses and the prophets are genuine. He says, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them… If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead." (verses 29-31.) Could the Lord speak like this about writings that God had not given?
The brothers had Scripture, and God held them to it. Readers today stand in the same place.
The five brothers were shut up to the Scriptures. "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them." We are in the same position today. We have no light beyond God's revelation. Satan is determined to destroy the confidence that people around us have in it.
Notice one excuse the rich man never makes.
What does Abraham say to the rich man, in Luke 16? "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them." Why does the rich man not reply, "They cannot understand them"? He dare not.
The rich man treats Scripture as too weak, and a wonder as more persuasive.
The answer to this is most solemn and decisive. No miracle, however great, will persuade one to repent if he has chosen to ignore the clear Word of God. The Old Testament bears abundant testimony to warn men of the folly of pursuing a self-centred, independent course. To ignore this is a bold insult to their Creator. If the moral power of the Word of God accomplishes no moral result in them, then physical miracles also will produce no moral result.
History then tested the claim, since a real resurrection followed.
Verse 31. "If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets," and so on. Here this solemn truth comes out: even the resurrection of Christ will not convince them. If they refuse to hear God's word as they have it, they will not hear the testimony of God, even though one rose from the dead. And we know they did not.
Suppose the dead really could come back and speak — would it change anyone?
Some people will not hear the word of God. They will not believe its clear and solemn statements about themselves, about their present condition, about their future destiny. Nothing else will persuade them, not even a thousand departed souls coming back to tell them what they saw and heard and felt in heaven above or in hell beneath… The heart that will not bow to Scripture will not be convinced by anything; and as to the true believer, he has in Scripture all he can possibly want.
- Have. "Moses and the Prophets" means the Old Testament writings. They expose guilt and declare God's love in giving His Son.
- Hear. The brothers had only those Scriptures, and the rich man never dared say they were too hard to understand.
- Honour. The Lord's own words treat these books as God-given. The Old Testament is no less inspired than the New, though the New carries fuller light.
- Enough. No miracle persuades a person who has chosen to ignore God's clear word. Where the word does no moral work, wonders will not either.
- Proved. One did rise from the dead — and those who would not hear the Scriptures were still not persuaded.
But he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one from the dead should go to them, they will repent.
Abraham has just told the rich man in torment that his five brothers already have Moses and the prophets — the Scriptures God gave them. The rich man refuses: a visitor from the dead, he argues, would make them repent where Scripture had not.
Notice what he asks for, and what he never asks for. His concern runs entirely toward other people:
Luke 16 pictures the rich man in hell wanting his brothers warned. He says, "If someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent." But he never says anything like "I will repent." The lost in hell realise that their day for repentance is gone for ever.
Notice when he first began to care about eternal things:
The tale ends fittingly with the earnest pleading of a man who had never once in his life thought seriously about eternal things. Listen now to his anxiety for his brothers. There was no real love for souls, but a certain anxious desire for his brothers. At least we learn how real his anguish was.
His objection is not that the Scriptures are unreliable. He simply judges them too tame to work:
"But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'" Yes — hear them. Hear the very writings that unbelievers tell us are not inspired by God at all. They call them documents forced on us by frauds pretending to inspiration. The rich man certainly knew better; in fact the devil himself knows better. There is no thought here of questioning whether "Moses and the Prophets" are genuine.
What he wants instead is something spectacular — and that wish is turned down flat:
The rich man thought that something sensational would appeal to his brothers' consciences. Abraham rejected this.
Why would a visitor from the dead fail? Fear is not the same as conviction of sin:
Miraculous displays appeal to the senses, but they do not reach the conscience. They may terrify, as they did the jailer at Philippi. But by themselves they do not produce conviction of sin, and they do not lead the soul to God. Their effect is only surface-level and short-lived. "Neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead" is certainly true. The greatest miracle cannot convince in that way. If it could, the blessed Lord would have been universally accepted.
The choice to ignore Scripture settles the outcome in advance:
No miracle, however great, will persuade someone to repent if he has chosen to ignore the clear Word of God. If the moral power of the Word of God produces no moral result in them, physical miracles will produce none either.
His theory faced two tests and failed both. Not long afterwards another man named Lazarus came back from the grave:
Not long afterwards a Lazarus did come from the dead at the call of Jesus. Many of the rich man's brothers came to see him after Jesus raised him. But far from repenting, the leaders at least — yes, the chief priests — plotted together to put Lazarus to death as well. They plotted against the One too, whose resurrection power only stirred up their deadly hatred instead of persuading them to hear Moses and the prophets.
Abraham's answer treats Scripture as enough. Then came the test that settles the argument:
The written word — the law and the prophets — was enough. The revelation for the day is all that is needed, and no more will be given. But could one really rise from the dead? People might once have asked that. No one can ask it now. One did rise from the dead. They heard about Him from trustworthy messengers who had seen Him, yet they did not repent.
This closes the door on every hunt for messages from the dead:
Suppose people will not hear the word of God. Suppose they will not believe its clear and solemn statements about themselves, their present condition and their future destiny. Then nothing would persuade them — not even a thousand departed souls coming back to tell them what they saw and heard and felt in heaven above or in hell beneath. It would produce no saving or lasting effect on them. It might cause great excitement and a great stir. It might give plenty of material for talk and fill the newspapers far and wide. But that is where it would end. The heart that will not bow to Scripture will not be convinced by anything.
- Hearing is the issue. The brothers do not lack evidence. They lack the will to hear what God has already said.
- Hearing too late. The man pleads for his brothers' repentance and never once asks for his own — the lost know that time has closed.
- Hearing refused. He never denies that the Scriptures are genuine. He just wants a miracle instead — and Abraham refuses.
- Hearing versus seeing. Miracles strike the senses and can terrify, but they do not reach the conscience, so their effect is brief.
- Hearing tested. Jesus raised another Lazarus, and He Himself rose. The leaders hardened instead of repenting, and the verse's answer proved true.
And he said to him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, not even if one rise from among [the] dead will they be persuaded.
In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, a man in torment begs for a dead man to be sent back to warn his five brothers. The Lord's closing answer raises a question people still ask: would a visitor from the grave finally break unbelief?
The answer turns on what a sign can and cannot do:
Miraculous demonstrations appeal to the senses, but do not reach the conscience. They may terrify, as with the jailer at Philippi. But by themselves they do not produce conviction of sin. They do not lead the soul to God. Their effect is only surface-level and short-lived. "Neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead" is certainly true. The greatest miracle cannot persuade in that way. If it could, everyone would have accepted the blessed Lord.
(Older translations read "persuaded"; the ESV has "convinced".) Another writer weighs the two kinds of power side by side:
No miracle, however great, will persuade someone to repent if he has chosen to ignore the clear Word of God... If the moral power of the Word of God produces no moral result in them, physical miracles will produce none either.
The refusal is not a shortage of information. One writer pushes the Lord's words to their limit:
Some will not hear the word of God. They will not believe its clear and solemn statements about themselves, their present condition and their future destiny. Then neither will they be persuaded if a thousand departed souls came back and told them what they saw and heard and felt in heaven above or in hell beneath. It would have no saving or lasting effect on them. It might cause great excitement and a great stir. It might fill the newspapers far and wide and give people plenty to talk about. But there it would end. The heart that will not bow to Scripture will not be convinced by anything.
"Moses and the Prophets" is the Old Testament — the writings the five brothers already had. Commentators read the Lord's answer as His own endorsement of them:
Nothing could be clearer or higher. Nothing confirms more fully the supreme authority and divine integrity of "Moses and the Prophets." Here the blessed Lord Himself sets His seal to the two great divisions of Old Testament Scripture. So we may commit our souls with full confidence to the authority of these holy writings.
So what did those five brothers have?
The five brothers had nothing but the Scriptures. "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them." We are in the same position today. We have no light beyond the revelation of God. Satan is determined to destroy people's confidence in it. The rich man thought something sensational would reach his brothers' consciences. Abraham rejected that.
The Lord's words were not a theory. Two events tested them, and both confirmed Him.
The testimony of God in His word, Old Testament or New, is the ground of faith. Some do not listen in faith to Moses and the prophets. Even a Lazarus sent back from the grave would not convince them. In fact the Lord Jesus raised another Lazarus not long after. But this did not convince the Jews. It only stirred up the murderous nature of the chief priests and the Pharisees (John 11:47-53).
Then came the greater case, His own rising:
"If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead" (16:31). Is that possible? People might once have asked that question. They cannot ask it any longer. One did rise from the dead. They heard of Him from trustworthy messengers who had seen Him, yet they did not repent.
One writer sums up the rich man's condition in four facts:
He was conscious, he had no hope of salvation, he could not communicate with his brothers himself, and heaven refused to allow one of the blessed to do it.
The same writer names the root of unbelief, and then the only way anyone is saved:
The natural mind is hostile to God, and it rises up most proudly of all against His grace in Christ. Yet only by grace is anyone saved, through faith. So faith comes by hearing the word of truth — now in its fullest form, what the apostle calls the gospel of our salvation.
- Hearing — the whole verse hangs on whether people will hear. Refusing what God has already said is the sin; lack of evidence is not the problem.
- Enough — the five brothers already had all they needed. So do we; commentators see the Lord Himself stamping His approval on those Scriptures.
- Persuasion — miracles touch the senses and fade. Faith comes by hearing the word of God, which reaches the conscience and leads to repentance.
- Proof — the Lord raised a Lazarus, and Christ Himself rose. Neither converted the unwilling; one only hardened them into plotting murder.
- Now — the Lord tells this story for the living, not the dead. Heaven sends no messenger back, so today is the day to hear what God has already said.