Is Luke 16:19-31 a parable or an account of events that actually occurred?

In Luke 16, the idea is continued in the parable of the unjust steward spoken to the disciples, in which God was discharging the Jew as an unsatisfactory steward. The Lord enforced the satisfactory use of material things with the everlasting future in view. None can serve two masters : (a) God and (b) material things. Character is evinced by conduct. Our own interests are eternal. The present things of which we are life-holders belong to God. Then followed perhaps the most solemn incident in Scripture, it is not a parable although resembling one. That is indicated by "there was." The nameless rich man was primarily the Jew, but essentially the careless voluptuary of every generation! The beggar, the perfect antithesis of his name, Lazarus (O.T. Eleazar=God helps) in the depths of his misery, probably did not get the crumbs he desired. According to the common-lot, they both died; but death was not the end. Abraham's bosom (the Jewish thought of bliss) was the future portion of the beggar, while Hell (where his previous wealth was valueless) was the portion of the erstwhile plutocrat. In Hell, the smallest mercy was not available and the impassable gulf was fixed. But his selfishness had vanished !He thought of his five brethren. He had no use for God's word or messengers previously, but thought that the resurrected would obtain a hearing. The sequel is shown that the time-seeker pays no attention to the word of the One who rose from the dead!

Some of the most anxious questions of the human mind are answered in the solemn story of the rich man and Lazarus. This story is often spoken of as a parable. Personally, I am not free so to regard it. First, because it is not called a parable; and second, because it was not customary with our Lord to introduce names into His parabolic instruction. It is simpler to regard Luke 16:19-31 as a divine sketch of the course and end of two persons whose careers the eye of the Lord had noted.

But some may be surprised at the omission of the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Sheep and the Goats (Luke 16; Matt. 25). The former I am not free to regard as a parable, while having no controversy with those who do so regard it. Not only is it not called a parable, but names are introduced, a thing without precedent in Our Lord's parables, so far as I remember. I prefer to look at the Rich Man and Lazarus as actual characters, whose history both in this world and beyond is solemnly traced by the Saviour for the moral profit of men everywhere.

A solemn paragraph closes the chapter. Avoid the use of the word "parable" in connection with these verses. The Lord said, "There was a certain rich man." It is history and not a parable. The derision of the Pharisees on account of the Lord's words about the unjust steward must have been based upon their trust in the law and the promise of the law, that temporal blessings and riches were in store for all who keep the law. The story our Lord relates is aimed once more at the sneering, unbelieving, self-righteous Pharisees.

The rich man had great riches. But his riches were not the evidences of divine favor and blessing. Lazarus, the poor man, had no earthly possessions. Was his poverty an evidence of divine displeasure? Then the Lord, the omniscient Lord, draws aside the veil and reveals what is hidden from the sight of man. Both die. Lazarus is carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. He had no means to make friends for himself by using the mammon of unrighteousness, so as to be welcomed in the everlasting habitations. And yet he is there. God had in His infinite grace carried him so high. Lazarus' name means "God is Helper."

I do not think there can rightly be any question regarding the parabolic nature of this scripture. “Abraham’s bosom,” the “great gulf,” the drop of water from the finger of Lazarus, all proclaim it to be one of the parables of our Lord. It is not said to be a parable in Scripture, but neither is “The Good Samaritan” (chap. 10), “The Great Supper” (chap. 14), nor “The Talents” (chap. 19), though these are all parables; that is, they are allegories by means of which moral lessons are conveyed.

There are two parables in Luke 16, and they hang so together that there is no understanding of the second without the apprehension of the teaching of the first. And in contrast with chapter 15, which is spoken to the Scribes and Pharisees, these are spoken to His disciples. Chapter 15 sets forth the grace of God in its blessed activities for the salvation of lost and ruined men. Chapter 16 sets before us the effect of that grace, where it is in any measure apprehended, in the conduct of its subjects, and also the eternal consequences of its reception or rejection by men.

The Rich Man and Lazarus. — But the Pharisees, who were covetous [or rather, lovers of money], derided Him, nor were they backward in openly showing it. For them the Lord had a word, and a lesson by which to enforce His teaching: "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men but God knows your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). In another light then are human actions and motives viewed; and by another than a human standard will they finally be weighed. The judgment of our fellows is one thing; the judgment of God is another. So a work was going on, and is still proceeding; for God will have reality. And some, responding to that, were manifesting their earnestness then, as others do now. For the kingdom of God was being preached, and men were pressing (or, entering violently) into it. The Pharisees had no thought of that. Self, gratification of self, temporal advantage, these objects swayed them. And to one proof of it the Lord referred, and distinctly condemned their practice, viz, that of getting divorces for frivolous reasons, to gratify a whim, or the pleasure of the moment. Many around them were seeking salvation whilst they were indulging their fleshly desires.

Now follows the lesson for the enforcement of the Lord's gracious warnings (16:19-31). It comes to us not called a parable, though presented in the form in which so many had been uttered. There may have been two such men on earth as are here described, and whose history in the other world answers to that set forth in language suited to the day. A rich man is depicted, clothed in fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day. At his gate was laid a poor man, a beggar, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores (vers. 20-21). A pitiable case. Who put him at the rich man's gate is not told us. Some one must have done it for he was laid at the rich man's gate, desiring that which fell from his table. Did he get it? That question is left unsolved. The beggar was called Lazarus, the same word as Eleazar, i.e., God helps. The rich man, whose name in life must have been in many mouths, is nameless. How fitting, all will own, was this. Who cares to know the name of the one who lived to himself? Better bury it in oblivion as regards any record on earth.

This home-thrust was followed by 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 relate very ordinary facts of this life ending in death and burial, and there for us the curtain drops. As we begin verse 23 the Lord lifts the curtain and brings into our view the things which lie beyond.

The Feast prepared for all men, and the Father's welcome to the worst of sinners, precede in this Gospel the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and this I believe is divinely ordered. First a full and eternal salvation offered to all, then the solemn warning to those who are disposed to despise that salvation. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" The rich man's doom is the answer to that question. There is no escape. The warning was given to the proud Pharisees, who hated the Lord because of His care for sinners, and who considered themselves quite good enough for God without forgiveness and grace, and who supposed that such wealth as the rich man wasted on himself was evidence of God's favour. The Sadducees also mingled with the crowds that thronged to listen to the Saviour's words; they had persuaded themselves that there was no life beyond this, and would consequently congratulate the rich man not only on his wealth but on his wisdom in using it for his own pleasure. Their pernicious doctrines and influence were spreading among the people and had to be exposed. The progeny of these two sects is numerous to-day, more numerous perhaps than ever before, hence these warning words are needed now as they were when the Lord spoke them. Truth does not become outworn by time, it is eternal.

It was the Lord's own hand that drew aside the curtain that we might look into eternity; and by His own mouth this most solemn of all parables, if indeed it is a parable, was uttered. Who could tell us the truth as to the future but He? And love was behind the telling of it, for it is the way of true love to warn when its wooings fail. It is not the final doom of the wicked that the Lord here describes, but the sufferings of the intermediate state; that which lies between the death of the body and its resurrection at the judgment of the great white throne. Revelation 20. The souls that share the rich man's place and state in hades are remanded there until that last dread assize.

This is followed up by the rich man and Lazarus — I was going to say by the parable, but the Lord does not so say, though it has this character, as it seems to me. It puts in a most vivid manner the condition of the soul viewed in the light of the future, not yet of Gehenna, but of torment in Hades. The light, therefore, of the future even before the judgment is let fall upon present things to judge them. "There was a rich man and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, making good cheer in splendour every day." According to a Jew's notion a good fortune, as men say, was happiness. The Jews regarded such prosperity as a mark of God's favour. His name was not to the Lord's mind worth recording, the beggar's was. The rich man had all that heart, or, rather, really 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. This was put to the proof and made evident by "a poor man named Lazarus,416 [who] lay at his gateway full of sores, and desiring to be filled with the crumbs which fell from the table of the rich man."416a For him it was little more than desire. The rich man cared not for him, but for himself; the dogs were more considerate, and rendered him better favour than their master. They came and licked his sores. "With the crumbs which fell": so ℵcorr APXΓΔ, etc., nearly all cursives (1, 33, 69), Syrr. Amiat., Memph. Goth. Aeth. Edd. follow ℵpm BL, Sah.: "with what fell."

Such was man, such the Jew in present life, according to his thoughts of earthly good; but when death comes, when that stands revealed which was beyond the grave, the difference at once appears in all its solemnity. Then we have things in their true light. "And it came to pass that the poor man died." And how different! There is not a word of his burial: perhaps, indeed, he was not buried; but he "was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom,"417 the place of especial blessedness according to a Jew, in the unseen world, with the most honourable of God's servants waiting on him.

"The rich man also died, and was buried." Here there might be splendour of retinue and ample show of grief in the eyes of men. But "in Hades418 lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." 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 its full prominence to the resurrection elsewhere; but here it was of consequence to know what would be even now for man's profit here below. In Hades, then, "lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he sees Abraham afar off." We are not judges, save so far as Scripture speaks and we are subject to it, of what is entirely outside our experience. How far those who are lost can have the knowledge of the condition of those who are saved, it is not for us to pronounce on. Scripture is plain as to the distance between them. There is no mingling of the two together. But what would be incredibly distant to man living on the earth may be simply far off to those in the separate state, and the difference between them mutually known. Lazarus, then, according to the Word, was seen in Abraham's bosom by him who was in torment. "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." I lay no stress on the bare fact or statement that man became "a living soul," but on the momentous difference of the way in which man alone, according to the Scripture, became such. What purpose had Jehovah Elohim in breathing into the nostrils the breath of life? To say that the fallen child of Adam derives the immortality of his soul from Christ as distinct from this, or in any way but this, does not to me seem sound doctrine; it rather approaches the crochet of the learned but eccentric H. Dodwell. (B.T.)

Thus we have clear proof that, even before the judgment, the wicked man is in torment.419 Figures no doubt are employed, but these founded on that which would be most intelligible to us. It is through the body that we feel the world. From this the Lord takes figures in order to be understood by those whom He addresses in presenting according to His own wisdom the case of the unseen world. There at least the departed rich man has the sense of the need of mercy. It is well to see that this man does not in any way take the place of an infidel. There is no faith in him assuredly, but still he talks of "Father Abraham"; and though he has never looked to God for mercy, he sees that there at any rate the richest mercy was enjoyed in Abraham's bosom. He asks him, therefore, to send Lazarus that he might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue. What a very small favour this had been once! utterly despicable — a drop of water, and above all, sent by such as Lazarus! it would have been detestable to him on earth. But the truth appears when man has left this life. Do we, then, hear while on the earth what the Lord says?

For the rest, all seem to agree with Mr. Hastings: "Of course the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not reckoned as teaching the doctrine; for all laws of criticism forbid that parables be made use of to teach doctrines."

Unfortunately for those, however, who speak thus, they themselves are forced to admit that, parable or not, it is "founded upon" what Mr. Roberts calls "a theoretic fact," i.e., the belief of the Pharisees. That the object of it, moreover, is really to lift the veil from the other world will be plain if we consider the connection with the rest of the chapter. For the Lord had been speaking in the first part of it of man as an unfaithful steward under sentence of dismissal, but with the goods of his Divine Master yet in his hand. He had thereupon exhorted them: "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." Thereupon the Pharisees, who were covetous, derided Him, and to them He preaches this (parable, if you please) to show how what was highly esteemed among men was abomination in the sight of God. The point is here: "Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things," and now "thou art tormented." No crime is charged but this, his failure as to the unrighteous mammon. He could not serve God and mammon. He had served mammon and not God. And, while the beggar he had neglected was borne from his gate into Abraham's bosom, he was tormented. How this addressed itself to covetous Pharisees is easily seen. And the state described is of a man immediately after death, in torment, before the resurrection and the judgment, with brethren still on earth to be preached to.