Commentary - The Rich Man and Lazarus

I often hear TV Christians teaching that The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is not a parable. Instead, they teach that it is a true story. Their reasoning is that Jesus uses a name in this story, but He doesn't do that in other parables; therefore, this must be an actual account. Apart from being a strange assumption, it is also a weak argument, especially when considering what the scriptures say. In Matthew 13:34, the apostle states: "All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them..." In addition, these Christians fail to mention that the story of the rich man and Lazarus is a repackaging of a story that is already several centuries old at the time of Christ. It comes from Jewish oral traditions dating back to the Babylonian captivity.

Universalists teach that The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus was written during the Babylonian captivity and can be read in the "Gemara Babylonicum." They also teach that the rich man's name is Dives. There are two major problems with this. 1. Before approximately 200 A.D., rabbis did not write down their oral law. In fact, the Babylonian Talmud was not completed until about 500 AD; and 2. The name Dives is of English origin. It simply means "wealthy man" and is suggested by some teachers as the rich man's name at a much later date. The most that can be said is that this parable is loosely based on an oral teaching that dates back to the Babylonian captivity and was later written down. The teaching in the Talmud is about a vain and selfish girl who dies and is carried by the mythological angel, Dumah, to Hades. (Dumah is also the name of the guardian of the 14th gate of hell. In Babylonian mythology, Ishtar passed through Dumah on her journey to the underworld.) In the story of the selfish girl, Hades is divided into two categories. The righteous dwell in bliss and rest, and the wicked suffer doom. For more, see commentary Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Berakhoth. Rabbi Dr. A. Ehrman, p. 424.

The Greeks, who also conquered Israel, believed in a mythological Hades that is similar to the Hades in the parable. In Greek mythology, Hades is divided into two parts. Erebus, the first part, is where the souls of the dead live. The other deeper part is Tartarus, where the Titans are held prisoners. A closer example is found in Good's "Book of Nature." It was believed in most countries that "this Hell, Hadees, or invisible world, is divided into two very distinct and opposite regions by a broad and impassable gulf; one is a seat of happiness, a paradise or elysium, and the other a seat of misery ... there is a supreme magistrate and an impartial tribunal belonging to the infernal shades, before which the ghosts must appear, and by which they are sentenced to the one or the other, according to the deeds done in the body. Egypt is said to have been the inventor of this important and valuable part of the tradition; and undoubtedly it is to be found in the earliest records of Egyptian history."

Such doctrines, in regard to Hades, are not from any Old Testament teaching. If these ideas are not myths, then other cultures knew something God never revealed to Moses. Either these nations announced the fate of mankind centuries before God's Word did, or else these stories are just myths that crept into Jewish thinking through contact with other nations.

Did Jesus endorse these beliefs?

Now to our parable. Since The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is often the hinge on which the door to the afterlife swings, it would be a good idea to take a serious look inside of it.

There are four things to keep in mind as you read this parable. 1) Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees who believed in such an afterlife. 2) The parable has Lazarus going to Abraham's bosom and not to God or Heaven, yet Jesus came to reconcile us to God. In John 14, Jesus tells us He is going to prepare a place for us in the Father's house. He says that if He prepares a place for us, He will come again and receive us to Himself, that where He is, there we may be also. That place is the Father's house. It is not Abraham's bosom; 3) Jesus uses the name Lazarus to make a point -- a very sharp point. Jesus had raised, or at the very least, would raise His friend Lazarus from the dead. That is the reason Jesus uses a name in this parable. Yet, even after the resurrection of Lazarus, the Pharisees still refused to believe Jesus' claims to be the Messiah and conspired to have Him crucified by the Romans; and 4) Jesus does not endorse the Pharisees beliefs in the afterlife with this parable; He is in fact using their own teaching to condemn them. Jesus utilized this story to convey a moral to his audience, just as Aesop used fables in the sixth century B.C. The Pharisees felt the full brunt of Jesus' words and understood that this parable was directed toward them, as were the preceding ones. We know Jesus did not accept the doctrines of the Pharisees from His comments, especially in Mark 7:13 and Luke 12:1, where Jesus says: "[You have made] the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down;" and, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." We learn in the scriptures that the leaven of the Pharisees was their doctrine or their teachings.

At any rate, what was Jesus teaching in The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus? To understand the point being made, we have to look at this in context. Just prior to beginning this parable, Jesus had said, "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon." [Mammon: 1. a demon of avarice. 2. worldly riches]. It is obvious from this passage that Jesus was accusing these Pharisees of serving mammon, and not God. [Something that today's "Pharisees," the so-called Christian teachers on stations like TBN or God TV should consider.]

Luk 16:14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him.

Luk 16:15 And He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

Luk 16:16 "The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.

Luk 16:17 "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.

Luk 16:18 "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Immediately after making these comments Jesus relates the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. How can we connect these seemingly unrelated statements?

Luk 16:19 "There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.

Luk 16:20 "But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate,

Luk 16:21 "desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

Luk 16:22 "So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.

Luk 16:23 "And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Luk 16:24 "Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.'

Luk 16:25 "But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.

Luk 16:26 'And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.'

Luk 16:27 "Then he said, 'I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house,

Luk 16:28 'for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.'

Luk 16:29 "Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.'

Luk 16:30 "And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'

Luk 16:31 "But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'"

Like the parables in the preceding chapters, The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus seems designed to rebut the criticism against Jesus for associating with sinners. In the preceding parables, Jesus speaks of a search for a lost sheep and for a lost coin. He tells about the prodigal son, and how the son is received by his father but rejected by his brother. Jesus draws a parallel between divorce and remarriage and the Pharisees unfaithfulness to God. The Pharisees had committed adultery by adopting other beliefs. Those who believed their false teachings were also committing adultery. God was a husband to the Jewish people, and it was adultery to embrace the fables and beliefs of the surrounding nations.

But, to return to the words of our parable, we see how Jesus has directed this toward the Pharisees. The Pharisees, like the rich man, were clothed in purple and fine linen and ate well every day. We see that, like the Jewish sinners and tax collectors whom Jesus associated with, and came to save, Lazarus is held in contempt by the rich man because of his sinfulness and his poverty. (To the Pharisees, poverty was seen as a punishment for sinfulness.) Jesus is letting them know that true holiness is expressed in how we treat others, especially the least among us. Lazarus is a disgusting figure to the rich man, and Jesus is using Lazarus as a symbol of the sinners whom He associated with. Jesus had previously told the religious leaders in Mat 21:31, "Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you." Here Jesus is telling them the same thing in the form of a parable.

Since this parable is being directed to the Pharisees, those who were the religious leaders in Israel, we see that their unfaithfulness as religious leaders had left the people spiritual adulterers, spiritually wounded, and in spiritual poverty. These unfaithful Pharisees, whom Jesus was speaking to, had failed to provide the religious leadership which was entrusted to them. In fact, as already stated, they had even taken on traditions and beliefs of other nations, thereby committing adultery and teaching others to commit adultery as well. Jesus wanted to show them, in the language of their own oral traditions, that they too were in need of salvation. But their self-righteousness had blinded them to their own sinful condition. The Greek Hades that they preached, which does not come from the Word of God, would have been filled with people from their own ranks if it had existed -- not the sinners whom they condemned but Jesus forgave. These religious leaders had the law and the prophets, yet they ignored them and had even turned from them to their traditions. They had the law and the prophets, which pointed to the Christ, yet they had failed to recognize Jesus as their Messiah. And even if one were to be raised from the dead (which of course is exactly what happened -- specifically Jesus' friend, Lazarus, and Christ Himself), they would not believe. That is the point of the parable. It is not a description of the afterlife.

About the author: Doralynn Kennedy is the owner and operator of the U.S. Work-at-Home Directory. http://www.doralynn.net