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The Rich Man, Lazarus,
& the Afterlife
in
Luke 16Samuel G. Dawson
Jesus' teaching concerning the Rich Man and Lazarus in Lk. 16.19-31 has always been provocative. It's the main passage resorted to when striving to establish the concept of endless torturous punishment of the wicked after death. This punishment is usually thought to be in hell, though the Greek word for hell, gehenna, is nowhere in the passage.
Much of this story existed before Jesus taught it. Arguments have abounded for centuries on the subject of this passage, and still flourish over whether Jesus' teaching is a parable (which he doesn't call it) or reality.
My particular interest in this essay arose in response to another essay I wrote entitled “Jesus' Teaching on Hell.” It deals with the twelve passages in the Bible actually using the word gehenna, eleven of them on four or five occasions by Jesus to Jewish audiences, and also one by James to a Jewish audience. This essay is available in my book, The Teaching of Jesus: From Sinai to Gehenna, A Faithful Rabbi Urgently Warns Rebellious Israel, or online at www.gospelthemes.com/hell.htm.
In that essay, I affirm that (1) hell is not a translation of the word gehenna, but a substitution, (2) gehenna should never have been translated at all (since it is a proper noun, like Jerusalem or Ephesus), and (3) the popular concept of hell as a place of endless punishment has no scriptural basis whatsoever.
When I first came to my present conclusions on hell, I realized that probably 80 percent of Christians obey the gospel so they won't go to a place they were never threatened with anyway. I think that demands caution in dealing with folks. I've asked a lot of people why they obeyed the gospel. Most said, “to stay out of hell;” others said, because they loved God. Still others said because they wanted to do what was right, a loving response to the love of God, etc.
As a reaction to that material on hell, many readers asked, “What about Luke 16? Where does it fit in?” Most of the questions I receive concern the destiny of the wicked; more particularly with the account of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Concerning Luke 16, let me offer the following comments from my letter to one such questioner:
I have questions about Luke 16 myself. Here's my present understanding of it. (1) It doesn't contain the word gehenna, so it teaches nothing about Gehenna (and this is why I didn't discuss the passage in my original essay, “Jesus' Teaching on Hell”). (2) It doesn't teach anything about the final punishment of the wicked, and your preacher doesn't think so, either. I'm sure he believes it to be an intermediate punishment before the final judgment, doesn't he? So, whether I know what Luke 16 teaches or not, I know it doesn't support the popular concept of hell. (3) I'm pretty sure we use these verses to teach something that is far from the purpose of the entire chapter.The purpose of this present work is to effectively set forth what I believe Jesus taught in this passage.
Notice these facts about the Rich Man and Lazarus:
- This is the main passage in the Bible used to teach conscious suffering after death.
- This is not New Testament teaching. It's a Jewish story from beginning to end. Abraham is made to say, “They have Moses and the prophets,” not “They have Jesus Christ and his apostles.”
- There is no allusion to its “doctrine” exists in the rest of the New Testament.
- No New Testament writer ever alluded to it—Peter, Paul, James, John, etc., never said, ”Remember what Jesus said about the Rich Man and Lazarus.”
- In this story, “they have Moses and the prophets,” yet Moses and the prophets taught none of this!
- These Jews knew the point of the legend was greed, not "the state of the dead."
- This is not Old Testament teaching on the state of the dead.They knew it wasn't about the state of the dead, or they would have challenged Jesus' differing with the Old Testament teaching on the subject.
- No such thing as Abraham's bosom exists in the Old Testament.
- No great gulf fixed exists in the Old Testament, even to keep those in Abraham's bosom out of torments!
- No endless torment exists in the Old Testament.
- No conversations among the dead exist in the Old Testament.
- No knowledge among the dead exists in the Old Testament.
- No consciousness among the dead exists in the Old Testament.
- No praying to Abraham exists in the Old Testament. (Perhaps we shouldn't criticize Roman Catholics for praying to Mary!)
- No Abraham hearing the prayers of the wicked exists in the Old Testament, as we presume the Rich Man to be praying to.
- Nowhere is Lazarus said to be righteous.
- Nowhere is the Rich Man said to be wicked.
- This story is not about their character, but their economic standing.
- Not a word is said about the spiritual condition of either one of them. They may both have been righteous, or wicked. As far as the legend and Jesus' use of it is concerned, it's not about religious status, but riches.
- It's not about the punishment of the wicked, but about the legendary fate of a legendary rich man, and the legendary fate of a legendary poor man.
- Neither the soul or the spirit of either the Rich Man or Lazarus is mentioned.
