The Rich Man and Lazarus — John Murray

The Parable and the Intermediate State

The 16th chapter, beginning at the 19th verse, there was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of salt.

And so on to the end of the chapter, that particular account, a great deal of information in the scripture, having what we call the intermediate state, that is to say, between death and resurrection. In this particular account, the veil is signed, and he gives us some insight beyond of irreversible death, the issue of everlasting bliss.

In connection with this particular account, which our Lord gives, we may not be able to deal adequately with these difficulties, and we certainly need not presume that we should be able to solve all the difficulties of interpretation which arise in connection with this particular passage of scripture.

But there is a great danger that we sometimes allow the difficulties which encompass the interpretation of certain passages of scripture to blind our audition to the perfectly apparent lessons which that particular passage of scripture conveys.

And that is the way in this particular passage There are difficulties simply because we know so little about the intermediate state. These difficulties that attach to the interpretation of this passage should not by any means obscure the perfectly obvious lessons which this passage is intended to convey.

And there are three things particularly in this passage around which I shall try to gather a few of the pertinent thoughts and lessons. And these three subjects are the contrasts which man has. And we have the contrasts, or the contrasts, intimated in this passage.

The Rich Man’s Luxury and Lazarus’s Misery

First of all, the contrast between the luxurious splendor of the rich man and the poverty and physical misery of Lazarus in respect of life in this world. The rich man was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.

This life was for that rich man the dead of luxury. In this life he received his good things. And the destitution of Lazarus is apparent from the fact that he was laid at the rich man's gate, that he was full of sores, that he desired to be fed with the crumbs of marshals which fell from the rich man's table, and that the very dogs came and licked his sores.

Now we are not to suppose that this poor man got none of these discarded portions of food which fell from the rich man's table. We may well suppose that he received some. There seemed to be no purples of his remaining at the gate of the rich man, unless he received some of those marshals that were thrown out from the rich man's table.

Received of those marshals or not, we may well suppose that he did. His poverty is emphasized by the fact that it was on such days that he desired to be fed. It was in that way that he sought to satisfy his hunger.

And you must remember how great must have been the destitution of that poor man, when his ambition for protecting food was just the extent of being fed with the rags which was cast out from the rich man's table.

It was in that way that he sought to satisfy his hunger. And a man must be destituted if he is satisfied with such hunger and with such despised faith. It is difficult to be certain whether the licking of the sores by the dogs is to be regarded as an amelioration of his suffering, or whether it is to be regarded as an intensification of that suffering.

Whether we are to regard it as an act of kindness on the part of the dogs, or as an indication that the man was so helpless that he could not even protect himself from that particular kind of molestation.

But in any case, we are not prevented from recognizing that the action of the dogs emphasizes this poor man's extremity. His sores were exposed. They were not bound up. He was not cared for by others who could alleviate his misery and minister to his needs.

It is all summed up in the recognition of the fact that he was the companion of God. And it may even be that the dogs were at the rich man's gate for the very same purpose as the rich man was there. Namely that they also might eat of the morsels which fell from the rich man's table and which were cast out at his gate.

And if that is so, then this poor man had some competition when he desired to be fed with the morsels which fell from the rich man's table. And since he was apparently very ill and very much weakened, it would be hard for him indeed to compete with the agility of movement which characterizes hungry dogs.

You see how graphic is this description which our Lord gives in order to portray the extreme wretchedness and poverty of this poor man as far as life in this world is concerned. And that is the express purpose of Jesus' portrayal of contrast between the sumptuous life of the rich man and the miserable and wretched physical condition of the poor man.

Death and the Reversal of Earthly Circumstances

That contrast, however, which our Lord so graphically portrays, is only the to another. And that is the contrast of complete reversal. The details which notify that particular contrast. The reversal begins at the point of death.

Not that the event of death itself intimates any contrast. For we read that it came to pass that the poor man died, and the rich man also died. You see there is a very striking similarity, and that similarity is full of meaning.

The poor man died, and also died. And when we are informed that the rich man was buried, and no reference is made to the burial of the poor man, we need not suppose that Lazarus had no burial. That is not to be our assumption.

Oh, it's just possible that he had no burial, but we must not suppose that that was the intention of omitting any reference to his burial. But the absence of reference to the poor man's burial of the rich man, as is graphically stated, may have the very purpose of accenting the despised condition for Lazarus, and the prompt that would have attended the rich man's burial.

There is still, as you might suppose, an intimation of contrast between the unauthenticious way in which the corpse of the poor man was disposed of, and the prompt and the parade that would have attended the burial of the rich man.

As it has been proposed by many, that the burial of the rich man is set in very sharp contrast with what is stated respecting the poor man. Namely, that he was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.

The sequence is in both cases. And it came to pass that the poor man died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And then you read, and the rich man also died, and was buried. And you can visualize the retinue in the case of the rich man.

There was perhaps a great deal of parade in connection with the conveyance of his mortal remains. And you can visualize the ceremony. And then in contrast with that, remember that Lazarus was carried too.

But he was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man's body was carried to the tomb. But Abraham's body was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. But in any case, the intended contrast where, in this particular case, we cannot but note that at the event of death, though not necessarily in the event of death, but at the event of death, the total reversal begins to appear.

And he, the poor man, was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And what corresponds to this in the case of the rich man? And in hell, he lifted up his eyes of being in torment. So the reference in both cases is to the disembodied spirit of the person concerned.

As to his body, Lazarus was no doubt buried or cast away in some particular place away from the proximity to the rich man's home. As to his body, Lazarus was laid away. And as to his body, the rich man was buried.

As to his spirit, the poor man went to Abraham's bosom. And as to his spirit, the rich man went to hell. Now in that fact, that Lazarus was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom, we are reminded of something in the teaching of scripture which is indeed very precious.

It is that the angels are ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them, who are the heirs of salvation, and the ministry of angels does not terminate at death. It would be very easy for us to think that this is simply a figurative expression.

And was carried of the angels into Abraham's bosom. Nothing would be more contrary to the total representation of scripture. If angels are ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them, who are the heirs of salvation, do you think that that ministry is going to terminate at the point of death?

Oh, not at all. We may be perfectly assured that the guardianship which the angels dispense to the people of God in this life does not terminate at the age of death. It does not terminate at the event of death, but ensures safe conduct of the disembodied spirit to its heavenly home.

What love, what tenderness does it bespeak on the part of these angels, who are the emissaries of God? But not only does it bespeak the love and the tenderness and the care on the part of the angels, but the love and the tenderness and the care on the part of God, for they are but the instruments of His love and the instruments of His loving kindness.

Abraham’s Bosom and Fellowship with the Saints

Now, of course, it is quite difficult to determine what exactly is Abraham's bosom. We have very few references to such in the scripture. In fact, I think this is the only explicit reference in the scripture in terms of this particular expression.

But the figure that is used here is used elsewhere by our Lord when He says that they shall come from the east and from the west and from the north and from the south and shall recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

The figure here is really that of reclining in the kingdom of heaven. And when it is said here that that law was in Abraham's bosom, you must not try to visualize that in terms of the way in which a mother hugs her child to her bosom, but something after the analogy of that which happened at the supper.

When John reclined upon the bosom of his Lord as they sat at the last supper. It is just a figurative expression of expressing the intimacy of relationship that there is, that there was, between Lazarus immediately upon the dissolution of this life.

Intimacy with the saints of God who had gone before. What's up between that and the rich man? He was in hell. And because he was there, he was in torture. But not only is it said that Lazarus was in a place that implied bliss, but he is represented as being in the fellowship, in the most intimate, and there is nothing said about the company of the rich man.

But Lazarus, that he was in the bosom of Abraham, that is to say, in the most intimate fellowship in the kingdom of God with Abraham. And therefore with all the faith of God, there is nothing said about the company of the rich man.

He was in hell, and because he was in hell, he was in torment. And behold, what is concentrated upon that particular consideration? Now there is no good reason for regarding the word which is used here to designate the place of his abode other than just what we call hell.

The Torment and Consciousness of the Rich Man

The place of woe, the place associated with torment. And if you read the text very carefully, you'll find that that is the implication. And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment. That is, being in torment is the very necessary result or consequence or concomitant of his being in hell.

And it was unmitigated pain, and pain of the most agonizing character, because the plural is used, being in torment. And the extreme of torment is emphasized by the very request which he addressed to Abraham.

You say, oh, how foolish request. To send Lazarus, that he might dip the tip of his finger in water and place it upon his tongue, because he was tormented in this way? And you say, what a ridiculous request.

What comfort would it be to have the momentary and evanescent consolation of the dip of a cold finger, of the touch of a cold finger upon his tongue? Oh, how evanescent, how momentary. And you say, what, what sense could there be in addressing such a request?

Well, you see how graphic it is. With that respect, how extreme was the torment of this man, when faith and evanescence would be in complete conflict. Is that which was his condition of unalloyed, unmitigated pain and torment in the place of war?

Physical Sensation in the Disembodied State

Well, there are questions which arise in connection with this particular passage. It was of respect their disembodied spirits that they were in the respective abode. It was the disembodied spirit of the rich man that was in hell, and it was the disembodied spirit of the poor man that was in Abraham's bosom.

And then how could there be the physical sensation of which the rich man speaks? Did he have a tongue? How could he have a tongue when it was in his disembodied state that he was then in the place of war?

And how could there be conceived of as having a finger that he might put in water, and which he might place upon the tongue of the tormented rich man? You see how many questions we will naturally raise in connection with this particular account.

Well, what I would say to that is this, that it is not well for us to presume to be wise on such questions. We know so little about the disembodied state. What do we know? That in the disembodied state there is that which corresponds to physical sensation.

The spirit indeed is disembodied. It is separated from the body in which pain and torment will affect that disembodied spirit. We know nothing about it because we have no experience of disembodied spirits.

And it is just an example of the foolish way in which we are so liable to raise objections when it would be well for us to bow in humility and acknowledge our ignorance. Our Lord was speaking not in ignorance but in knowledge.

He was the person who himself had come down from heaven. He was the person who himself had created heaven and earth. And what are we, in the puny temples of our knowledge, to call in question the reality or the veracity or the meaning of that which he has stated on this particular occasion?

We must not allow such details to interfere with the obvious truth being conveyed and portrayed by our Lord, namely the unrelieved anguish of the rich man and his abode in the place of woe. It is a place where he is aware of his own identity, where he is in the experience of unalleviated torment.

That is where the consciousness of intense consciousness, a place of suffering where all anguish is manifold and unalloyed to aggravate it. It is the conflict between the opulence of the rich man in his torment and his abode in the place of woe.

The Great Gulf and the Finality of Judgment

It is a man who is still speaking and he says, and in all these things between us and you there is a great gulf. Those who would pass from us to you may not be able, neither may they pass from hence to us.

It is quite natural for us to raise some questions in connection with that. It is a great gulf is fixed between the two abodes. Do we not ourselves speak to one another at great distances? How can it be in the unseen world?

What two conditions in that particular state are superficial? This question might be raised, from us to you may not be able, neither may they pass from hence to us. Abraham's speaks would seem to indicate that there would be some desire on the part of persons to go from heaven to hell and others to go from hell to heaven.

And you raise the question then, would any people want to go from Abraham's bosom to the place of woe again of the unseen world? But in any case that way may be simply a rhetorical way of expressing the great truth that there is absolutely no commutation after death.

It is noteworthy that Abraham makes a general statement. He does not simply say to the rich man, you may not come hence. And he does not say simply, the law that is may not go hence to Hades or to hell.

That is implied, but Abraham makes a general statement to the event. There is no commutation after death. It is one of the most conclusive evidence that there is no such thing as future probation. We are not able to understand a great many of the details of this passage, but we cannot miss the plain import that there is no passing over from the place of bliss to the place of woe.

The Rich Man’s Request and the Sufficiency of Revelation

There is no passing over from the place of woe to the place of bliss. These are the words of him who has the keys of death and of heaven. Now finally we have the rich man's aunt who said that the rich man in hell was not totally retrovict, because he still had some altruistic senses.

He had still some concern for the welfare of his five brothers. He did not wish them to come into the place of, and so it will be said, oh he wasn't completely retrovict after all. He wasn't completely depraved, and therefore the place of woe that is spoken of here cannot mean the place of total retrovation after total abandonment.

And there must be some indication in this particular place, in this particular incident, that after all this is only a parable, that there was some redeeming feature about that rich man after all. He was still altruistic.

In the passage very carefully you will find that we are not told that the motive of his request, respecting the sending of messengers to his five brothers, was the desire to do his brethren good. What the motivation of that particular request was, we are not able to determine precisely.

But we are not told that it sprang from some illegitimate, some love in his bosom for his five brothers. We simply do not know. But we do know this, that the whole attitude of mind which underlay that particular request was one that was an assault upon the justice, wisdom, and goodness of God.

Because he was in effect dictating the method which was in direct opposition to the way in which God had prescribed for escape from the wages of sin and the attainment of eternal life. In the very plea that one should go from the dead to warn his brethren, there is the insinuation that if he had had some such opportunity, if he had received a message from the beyond, or messengers from the dead, then he wouldn't have come into this place of torment.

There was the insinuation that he had not received sufficient warning, that he had not received sufficient instruction, and that was a direct assault upon the justice and the goodness of God. His repeated insistence that a voice from the dead would be effective in the case of his brothers, the persistent perversity of his thoughts, because he is insinuating that that is the way whereby man can come to repentance, that that is the way whereby man may escape the place of torment.

And therefore he has kept himself in direct contradiction to the wisdom and the grace and the goodness of God. You see that even in the place of woe there was the supplication on the very integrity of God.

When you go back to the beginning, what was the spear point of Satan's temptation? It was a attack upon the integrity of God. God doth know that he shall surely die. And you find that same malignity, that same supplication, in this very attitude of mind on the part of the rich man, in a subtle, apparently plausible and irrefutable way.

He was pleading for it, which was a direct question. He had not received, he was therefore, as it were, laying the blade on his present condition of the very glory of God. And that is the very height, the very essence.

The very truth expressed in Abraham's reply to the rich man's plea is that he is sufficient of the revelation which God has given. They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And again, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Oh, what an eloquent emphasis upon the great truth. The rich man made his request to the wrong person. He made his request at the wrong time. He made his request in the wrong place. And he made his request with all God-destroying, God-contradictory nevertheless.

It is the truth which Abraham speaks. The rich man made his request to the wrong person at the wrong time, from the wrong place, and in the wrong way. And the great truth that God has given us is sufficient.

And we express that in terms of the situation in which we are placed, in this, which corresponds exactly to that which Abraham said. Abraham appeals to the scripture which was in existence at that particular time.

They have Moses and the prophets. That is just as much as to say they have the Old Testament, let them hear it. And our situation is this, that we have scripture in its entirety. And that is the word of God.

It is living and powerful. It is the power of God unto salvation. And that is the word, the way, the path, and the way. It is a complete misconception, it is, of the way which infinite wisdom and grace have availed us to desire or imagine any other way.

It is wickedness and presumption of the people's doubt to demand another word as the basis for our demeanour of repentance and faith. And that is the wickedness which this account on the part of our Lord reveals.

And surely that is the great lesson for our responsibility, for our duty, for our repentance, and for our faith. That is the message which this particular passage, as I said at the beginning, the issues of life and death, the issues of irreversible death, the issues of everlasting bliss and of irrevocable love, which our Lord unveils to us on this particular occasion.

Scripture as the Only Basis for Repentance and Faith

And in connection with that, He is enforcing this great message, that we don't need emissaries from heaven or hell. We have God's own words to inform us and warn us. If we reject God's testimony, emissaries from heaven or from hell will not bring us to repentance and faith and new obedience.

The only basis of faith and repentance is the word of God. And that word we now have, the law unto the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, surely there is no God for them. There is no light of day that will dawn upon those who reject the testimony of the word of God.

It is the blackness of darkness forever that is the only answer to the rejection of the sufficiency and the finality of that scripture, of that revelation, which God has deposited for us in His Holy Word.

No one has ever come back from the dead to tell us what is beyond. And it is very easy for us to resort to them who have familiar spirits and to wizards. It is very easy for us to lapse into the errors and the mystifications of what is called spiritism or spiritualism.

My friends, that whole, whether it be simply or whether there be in it something of the sinister agency of the demonic world, the latter I verily believe, but whether it be simply the ministry of God or whether it be the ministry of the demonic world, that whole tract.

The prophets, let them hear them. If they hear not houses from the prophets, neither would they be persuaded that one rose from the dead. The visitors from heaven or hell would not bring us a message, would not bring us information which would have the validity or the authority or the power of the word of God.

And particularly would it have nothing of the validity or the authority or the power of Him who is the speaker on this occasion, the Lord Himself, who is the word of God incarnate, who is Himself the way, the truth and the life.

The Warning and Consolation of the Intermediate State

My friends, we have unveiled to us in this particular passage something of the great mystery that surrounds the intermediate East state. But we have sufficient unveiled in this particular passage and also in other passages to give us the necessary warning and the necessary consolation.

But we are faced with, in the teaching of our Lord here, the alternative everlasting life, the way of the wages of sin which is everlasting death, which is that place of woe and of torment into which the rich man has.

It is none other than that of obedience to the revealed will of God, is driven by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for recoup, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect in every good work.

My friends, in conclusion, may I say this, let us avoid the subtleties, the subtleties which emanate from the dead and which are the marks. The subtleties which often have a plausible appearance in the finality and the perfection of that revelation which God has given us, that gospel which God has deposited for us, which is the power of God unto salvation.

That is the great lesson. Let us learn it, let us learn it with a persistence of love. If they speak not according to this word, there is no warning for them. O Lord our God, we pray Thee that Thou wouldst bless to us our meditation upon Thy word and cause it to take root downward and spring forth upward, that we may receive it in faith and love, lay it out in our hearts and practice it in our lives.

As we are confronted with the solemnities of life and of death, of time and eternity, O that we may be among those people who are in this life indeed poor and afflicted and oftentimes tormented, but who have the hope of an everlasting inheritance, the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that faith is not only preserved in heaven for them that believe.

And now, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, son of all the praise in Christ forever. Amen.