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.