Luke 16

A rich man and beggar Lazarus

19 "Now there was a certain rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. 20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores, who had been placed at his gate, 21 just wanting to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table—why even the dogs would come and lick his sores!*In fact the dogs were doing him a favor, since canine saliva is good for sores. 22 In due time the beggar died and was carried away to Abraham’s bosom by the angels.

"The rich man also died and was buried.*Note the contrast. Of course the beggar’s body had been buried, but the person was taken to Paradise. Here we have an explicit statement of angelic activity, which, however, is absent from the rich man. 23 And in Hades he looked up and saw Abraham at a distance, and Lazarus very close to him. And being in torment, 24 he called out, saying, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; because I am tormented by this flame!’ 25 But Abraham said: ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus had bad things; but now he*The best line of transmission (30% of the Greek manuscripts here) has the emphatic pronoun ‘he’, rather than ‘here’. is being comforted, and you tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can anyone from there cross over to us.’*Several things in this account invite comment. Hades (Greek), or Sheol (Hebrew), is the ‘halfway house’ where departed spirits await the final judgment, but the results of that judgment are already known, since the saved are already separated from the lost. There is a chasm separating the two sides that cannot be crossed, but evidently one side can see and hear the other (the ‘dead’ are conscious and have feeling). People in prison who are waiting for their trial are already suffering. Strangely, the rich man still thinks he is more important than the beggar, since he wants the beggar to serve him—he still holds to the values that condemned him. 27 Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 because I have five brothers, so that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’*I find it interesting that he was concerned for his brothers; we can’t say, "Better late than never", since it made no difference. 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 So he said to him, ‘Oh no, father Abraham—if someone from the dead should go to them, they will repent!’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone should rise from the dead.’ "*Abraham states a disquieting reality: people who reject God’s written revelation are self-condemned. Note also that Abraham did not say it would be impossible to send Lazarus, only that it would do no good. But it is clear that the lost cannot return, or the rich man could have gone himself.