all the rest, both in ancient and modern times. In this case the
lesson, when metaphorically rendered, possesses a remarkable measure
of beauty, truth, and appropriateness. The rich man is the Jewish
nation, by God's gift rich in position and privilege, but selfishly
keeping all to itself, despising and neglecting others. Lazarus
represents the Gentiles, spiritually poor, naked, hungry, homeless,
within reach of the privileged people, yet by them left destitute.
Both die: the old dispensation runs out, and Jews and Gentiles are
together launched into "the last times." By apostolic messengers,
the poor outcasts are now led unto the blessed privileges of the
Gospel; these stones become children of Abraham; while the Jews, who
enjoyed so good a portion in the former dispensation, are cast out.
In this case, as in that of the Samaritan, it is easy so to turn the
polished instrument in the light, that it shall throw off bright
glimpses of great evangelic facts and doctrines. Perhaps the Lord,
in constructing it, kept this capability in view; but we must take
the parable as in the first instance and mainly a direct moral
lesson, accounting its allegorical capabilities secondary, and to us
uncertain.
The description of the rich man is short, but full. He "was clothed in
purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day." He maintained a
royal state and a prodigal expenditure. This excess of luxury was not
confined to great occasions; it was the habit of every day.
Here, as in other cognate parables, great wisdom is displayed in
bringing the whole force of the rebuke to bear on one point. It is not
intimated that this man made free with other people's money, or that he
had gained his fortune in a dishonest way. All other charges are
removed, that the weight lying all on one point may more effectually
imprint the intended lesson. To have represented him as dishonest or
drunken, would have blunted the weapon's edge. Here is an affluent
citizen, on whose fair fame the breath of scandal can affix no blot. He
had a large portion in this world, and did not seek--did not desire any
other. He spent his wealth in pleasing himself, and did not lay it out
in serving God or helping man. It is not of essential importance whether
such a man miserably hoard his money, or voluptuously spend it in feasts
and fine clothing. Some men take more pleasure in wealth accumulated,
and others more in wealth as the means of obtaining luxuries. These are
two branches from one root; the difference is superficial and
accidental: the essence of the evil is the same in both--a life of
self-pleasing--"without God in the world."
By a transition, purposely made very abrupt, we learn next that a
beggar named Lazarus[95] was laid at this rich man's gate, full of
sores. Whether the position was chosen by the man himself, or by his
friends for him, the motive is obvious--it was expected that where so
much was expended, perhaps also wasted, some crumbs might come the
beggar's way.
[95] The name of the poor man is given, while the rich man is left
nameless. Generally, Christ's kingdom is not of this world, and, in
particular, it does not imitate this world's kingdoms in throwing
the common people into anonymous heaps, and recording the names of
only the great. I saw in an extension of the parish churchyard the
graves of the two hundred men who perished in the pit accident at
Hartley a few years ago. They were grouped in families of two,
three, four, or five, and these family groups were arranged in
extended rows; but all were nameless. Near them slept the dust of
the hereditary owners of the soil under monumental marble, loaded
with statuary and inscriptions. Subjects of Christ's kingdom, "it
shall not be so among you." Nor is the law which obtains in the
heavenly the direct reverse of that which obtains in the earthly
kingdom; it is not the poor, but the "poor in spirit," to whom the
kingdom of heaven belongs. The names that are recorded in the Lamb's
book of life are neither those who have nor those who lack this
world's wealth, but those who are poor in spirit and rich in grace.
"The dogs came and licked his sores;" perhaps the dogs, always plentiful
in eastern cities, that had no master; perhaps the dogs that belonged to
the rich man, and had turned aside to lick the beggar's sores when their
master rode past on the other side, and hid from the sight of misery
within the drapery of his stately mansion. The act attributed to the
dogs accords, as is well known, with their instincts and habits. It is
soothing to the sufferer in the sensations of the moment, and healthful
in its effects. When the beggar's fortunate brother took no notice of
his distress, the dumb brutes did what they could to show their
sympathy. The stroke, though it wears all the simplicity of nature, is
in the parable due to consummate art; the kindness of the brute brings
out in deep relief the inhumanity of man.
"And it came to pass that the beggar died." Towards this point the
narrative hastens. Here on the border is the hinge on which the lesson
turns. The whole parable is constructed and spoken in order to show how
this life bears on eternity; and to make eternity, thus unveiled, bear
reciprocally on the present life. The death of Lazarus happened in the
ordinary course of things: his sufferings came to an end. Not a word of
his dust, whether it was buried, or how. Of design, and with deep
meaning, the body is left unnoticed, and the history of his soul is
continued beyond the boundary of life, as the real and uninterrupted
history of the man: in the same breath and in the same sentence that
intimates his death, we are informed that he was carried by angels into
Abraham's bosom. The dying and the entrance into the rest that remaineth
are expressed in one sentence, the two clauses connected by a copulative
conjunction: the Lord means manifestly to teach us, as he afterwards
taught the repenting malefactor on the cross, that there is no interval
to his people between departing from the body and being with Christ.
Nor did Jesus then reveal the immortality of the soul: the doctrine was
already accepted, and he assumed it in his discourse as a truth known
and acknowledged. Even the resurrection of the body was a commonplace
among the immediate disciples of Jesus during the period of his
ministry: "Thy brother shall rise again," said the Lord to Martha. "I
know that he shall rise again," she replied, "in the resurrection at the
last day:" this was a belief that she previously possessed.
Abraham's bosom, we may assume, was already an expression employed by
the Jews to designate the place of the blessed beyond the grave. It
accords much better with the Lord's purpose and method to suppose that
this phrase and the term paradise, which he afterwards employed to
express the same idea, were adopted by him from the current custom, than
that they were then first introduced.
"The rich man also died and was buried." Here, for once, the rich and
the poor meet together: the beggar died, and the rich man died too. The
same event happened to both, and in both cases the same terms are
employed to record the events; but very remarkable is the difference
introduced immediately after the article of death. What came after death
in the case of Lazarus? He was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom.
What came after death in the case of this rich man? He was buried.
Perhaps as much could not have been said of Lazarus. The rich man was
carried from a sumptuous table to a sumptuous tomb; and the poor man
perhaps had not where to lay his head, when its aching had ceased at
length. It may be that his body did not find a grave. His spirit found
happy rest and holy company; and we can afford therefore to lose sight
of the dissolving dust. First and last the one had excellent earthly
accommodation, and the other had none; but conversely, he who had
neither a house when living nor a tomb when dead, walked with God while
the tabernacle stood, and went to God when it fell; whereas he who made
the earth his portion got nothing for his portion but earth.
It would be a mischievous perversion of the parable to suppose that
because the one was rich he was cast out, and because the other was poor
he was admitted into heaven: the true lesson is in one aspect the
reverse proposition: an ungodly man is in the highest sense poor in
spite of his wealth; and a godly man is in the highest sense rich, in
spite of his poverty.
We enter now, or rather have already entered, the region where the
parable must needs glide, not indeed from the literal into the
metaphorical, but from a foreground where every object is distinctly
seen to a background where the real objects cannot be seen at all, and
where, accordingly, only signals are thrown up to tell what is their
bulk and their bearing. When the line of the instruction goes through
the separating veil and expatiates in the unseen eternity, it must
become dim and indistinct to our vision. The moment that the parable in
its progress goes beyond the sphere of the present life, our effort to
follow it is like the struggle of a living creature out of its element.
Even when the Lord of that unseen world is our instructor, our
conceptions regarding it are necessarily indirect, second hand, and
obscure. In this region the capacity of the scholar is infantile, and,
consequently, the ability of the teacher cannot find scope. While,
therefore, those parts of the parable which lay within our sphere were
direct and literal, the latter portion, lying beyond our sphere, is
necessarily indirect and expressed by signs: consequently, though
sufficiently precise in its larger leading features, it is, in its minor
details, indistinct, inarticulate.
"The beggar died;" this is sufficiently direct and literal: "and was
carried by angels into Abraham's bosom,"--there we are already beyond
our depth. The horizon is dim now, by reason of distance and intervening
clouds. Equally obscure is the other line of information when it has
crossed the boundary of time. The rich man died and was buried; this we
clearly comprehend: but "in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in
torment,"--these are events of the eternal world, shadowed forth in the
language and according to the conceptions of the present. We perceive
the direction in which they lie, and can understand the moral lesson
which they contain, but the things themselves are shrouded from our
intellectual vision in impenetrable darkness. Not perhaps intentionally
in the structure of the parable, but necessarily, on account of the
place where its scene is latterly laid, a veil thicker than that of
allegory is wrapped around it.
In accordance with the use of the word in classic Greek, and of the
corresponding term in the Hebrew Scriptures, we might assume that "hell"
(Hades) only indicates generally the world of spirits, as distinguished
from this life in the body; while the expression "being in torment,"
serves to determine the specific region or condition in that world to
which the rich man was consigned: the term, however, wherever it occurs
in the New Testament, seems to be applied, in point of fact, to the
place of punishment, except in passages that are directly quoted from
the Old Testament. Both were now in the world of spirits; but the beggar
in that world was in Abraham's bosom, and the rich man in torment. Both
spirits near the same time passed from this world by the same narrow
passage; beyond the boundary their paths diverged in opposite
directions. Each went to his own place as certainly and as necessarily
as vapour rises up, and water flows down. The ransomed man entered the
Father's house and joined the company of the holy; the ungodly
gravitated, according to his kind, into the place of woe.
Having lifted up his eyes, "he seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his
bosom, and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me." Deeper
and deeper into the mystery we are led at every step. While the outline
of the landscape is defined sufficiently for the purpose or affording a
landmark to direct our course, all the lesser objects are entirely
concealed by the distance. We must beware lest, in straining to get a
glimpse of the invisible, we should mistake the flitting shadows that
the unnatural effort sets afloat in the humours of our own eyes for the
veritable objects of the spiritual world.
Here I would fain arrest attention on one guiding and dominating
consideration, which may become a thread to lead us safely through the
labyrinth, saving us the trouble of working out difficult speculations,
and averting from us the danger of injuring ourselves by falls in the
dark. The Lord delivered and the evangelist recorded this parable for
the purpose of teaching, warning, directing, not spirits disembodied in
the other world, but men in the body here. "All things are for your
sakes;" the great Teacher determined all his words and acts by a regard
to the benefit of his people. Even when Lazarus died at Bethany, he said
to his followers, "I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the
intent that ye might believe;" his absence led to the resurrection of
Lazarus, and that event, he foresaw, would confirm their faith. So here,
his aim is not to show how much he knows of the separate state, or to
astonish the world by the display of its secrets; it is to give men
while they are in the body those views of the separate state which will
tell most effectually in leading the wicked to repentance, and in
establishing believers in the faith.
Taking the Teacher's aim as the determinating principle in the
interpretation of his discourse, I gather that the dialogue between the
rich man and Abraham does not describe absolutely what is possible and
actually takes place in the world of spirits, as if it were addressed
to an inhabitant of that world, but gives such pictures of it, or signs
regarding it, as are intelligible to an inhabitant of this world, and as
will best bring the realities of the future to bear with beneficial
effect upon the present character of men. By a system of coloured lights
we contrive to warn the conductors of engines on our railways of danger
to be avoided on the one hand, and to intimate the line of safety on the
other. The things regarding which the engineers get instruction are not
within their view. A red or a white light are not like the things in the
distance that are to be dreaded or desired; but a red or a white light
displayed serves the purpose when the things themselves cannot be made
known. There everything is determined with a view to immediate practical
benefit. I think this helps me to grasp the difficult portions of the
parable. The purpose of the Lord was not to display his own knowledge or
gratify our curiosity. He ever acted as the Saviour of the lost; he
never swerved from that aim. It was his meat to do the Father's will,
and to finish his work. In this particular case, accordingly, the object
which he kept in view was not to convey to men in the body the absolute
knowledge of a state, for knowing which their faculties are unfit, but
to convey to them in time such shadows or signals of danger and safety
as the actual state of matters in the unseen world truly suggested, and
in such forms as that living men, from their view-point, and with their
mixed constitution, could comprehend and appreciate.
When this principle is permitted to dominate, the exposition of the
dialogue becomes comparatively both short and easy.
I do not know whether the saved are within view of the lost in a future
state, or whether any communication can pass between them; I only know
that this parabolic picture, constructed as from a view-point within the
present world, is the exhibition best fitted to make the diverse
conditions of the good and the evil beyond the grave effectual to warn
and instruct living men in the body. If any one should curiously inquire
about flame, what is its nature, and how it can hurt a spirit, I can
give no information on the subject, and I can gather none from the
parable. One thing I know, that this representation is a red light hung
out before me, as I am rushing forward on the line of life--hung out to
warn me of danger, and hung out by the hand of him who came to save the
lost. I understand perfectly what the beacon means to me: it is my part
to take the warning which it gives; and, as to the exact state of events
and capabilities in the world to come, I shall learn all when I enter
it. It may be quite true that there is not a flame like that which we
are accustomed to see, and not a body, previous to the resurrection,
that may be burned in it. But he who gave the word is my Friend; and he
is true; I shall trust him. He knows what I understand by a flame; he
knows how I am affected by the thought of the pain which it inflicts.
Knowing all these, he has employed that word in order to apply the
terrors of the Lord for my warning; he has done all things well. The
minute features of the dialogue all serve to give point to the main
conception. The request for a drop of water contributes to bring out the
intensity of the suffering; the answer of Abraham shows that, beyond the
boundary of this life, there is no hope of relief. Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners--it was to this world he came; but no
Saviour goes to that other world to win back the lost who have
permitted the day of grace to run out. Christ is the way unto the
Father; but there is no way of passing from death unto life, if the
passage has not been made in this present world.
Interpreting the rich man's intercession for his brothers on the same
principle, I do not know and cannot learn here, whether those who have
passed through death into the next world unsaved, remember the character
of the relatives whom they left behind on earth, or whether, remembering
their condition, they will or can make intercession in their behalf. All
that I gather certainly on the subject from this parable is, that
although a brother may permit his brother to abide in sin without
instruction or reproof, while all are living here and walking by sight;
yet, if the fate that awaits the impenitent were adequately believed and
realized, he who believed and realized it, could not refrain from effort
to arouse the slumberers, and lead them to repentance. Again, as in
previous parts, I am taught here not what I shall wish when I shall be
in the world of spirits, but what I should do now while I am in the body
and under grace. I should get the message sent to every heedless brother
who is wasting his day of grace, while a messenger of flesh and blood
may be found, and there is a way by which I may reach the objects of my
solicitude.
By aid of the same machinery--the dialogue between the rich man and
Abraham--another lesson is brought from the world of spirits to the land
of living men--the lesson that those who refuse to believe and obey
under the means of grace which God has appointed in the Church, would
not be more pliable if prodigies were shown to them by way of overcoming
their unbelief. The conception, although conveyed by the lips of the
rich man after he had gone to his own place, that a miracle of power
would, if it were exhibited, bring alienated hearts submissively back to
God, springs native here in time. It is the deceit with which many sing
themselves to sleep--they would believe if one rose from the dead. There
are two answers to it:--one is, it would not be effectual although it
were granted; and the other is, even though it were fitted to accomplish
the object, it will not be given.
The conclusion of the whole matter is, delays are dangerous; "Now is the
accepted time, now is the day of salvation."
Some lessons still remain, that invite our attention, and will repay it.
1. For mankind, after this life is done, another world remains,
consisting of two opposite spheres or conditions, one of holiness and
happiness, the other of sin and misery. The Jewish people and their
rulers persistently demanded of Jesus that he would show them a sign
from heaven; and this demand he as steadily refused to gratify. Unlike
all false prophets, the Lord Jesus maintained silence in regard to the
particular characteristics of the unseen world; but one thing in
compassionate love he made known with abundant clearness, that there is
an absolute and permanent separation between good and evil in the world
to come, and that there are distinct places of rewards and punishments.
Some people labour hard to shake from their own minds the belief in a
place and state of retribution. To these I would affectionately suggest
that to disbelieve it will not destroy it. Even in Scotland--the narrow
end of an island nowhere very broad--I have met with persons well
advanced in life, of good common education, and good common sense, who
had never seen the sea. Suppose that these persons should have cause
greatly to dread the sea, and should therefore ardently desire that
there were no such thing in existence. Suppose further, that, in the
common way of the world, the wish should become father to the thought,
and that they at last should firmly believe that there is not a sea.
Would their sentiment change the state of the fact? Sinners, to whom the
name and nature of a place of punishment are disagreeable, have no more
power to annihilate the object of their aversion than the shepherds of
the Cheviots to wipe out the sea by a wish. The sea is near those men
though they have never seen it; and, if they were cast into it, they
would perish, notwithstanding their opinion. Ah! the thing which by
God's appointment is, cannot by our arguments be blotted out of being.
2. There is a way from this present life to the place of future misery,
and also a way to the place of future blessedness. The way from this
world to the place of woe was made by man's sin; the way from this world
to the place of rest was made by the incarnation, death, and
resurrection of Christ. By the one way you can glide easily down; by the
other you may climb toilsomely, but surely up. The one goes with the
corrupt affections; the other against them. But let it be remembered
that the way of life, though hard, is not unhappy; the struggle, when
once fairly begun, is a grand, gladsome thing. Forth from this world
there are only two paths; by one or other of these two all men take
their departure; on one or other of these two paths we all are treading
now. We owe it to Christ that a way into safety has been opened for our
sinful world: "I am the way, ... no man cometh unto the Father but by
me."
3. There is no way over from one of these future states to the other.
The great gulf between them is fixed. This is the main fact of the
parable, and hereon its greatest lesson grows. The great gulf is fixed,
and after death none can change his place. This fact we now know without
further revelation, and if we believe it not on the testimony of Jesus,
neither would we believe it although one should rise from the dead to
declare it. This parable, in some of its minute features, is to our
vision necessarily obscure, because the scene is laid in the life to
come, but its main outline is as clearly visible as any temporal object
could be. It teaches with great perspicuity that when immortal spirits,
at the dissolution of the body, are thrown into the eternal world, it is
no longer possible that their place or their condition should be
changed: those who will not learn from this word of Christ that the
condition of the departed is for ever fixed at death will not learn it
in time to profit by the lesson.
4. Our Lord has thus emphatically taught us that there is no possibility
of passing from one state to another beyond the boundary of this life in
order that he may thereby constrain us to make the needful transition
now. The impassable gulf between the saved and the outcast in eternity
is a dreadful sight; it was the compassionate Jesus who drew aside the
curtain and exposed it to view, and it was his great love that moved him
to make this revelation. There is a line that crosses our path a little
way forward from the spot where we stand to-day--a line that divides our
time from our eternity--invisible to our eyes, but known unto God. We
never know as we advance what step of the journey will carry us over
this line. Christ has told us that if we pass it unsaved we cannot
obtain a change of condition beyond it; and he has revealed to us this
truth in order that we might be induced now to make our calling and
election sure. These terrors of the Lord are displayed in order to
persuade men. There is no impassable gulf now between a sinner and the
Saviour; the way is open, and the perennial invitation resounds from the
Gospel, "Come unto me;" but to those who pass from this life without
having obeyed that call, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, no
more a refuge from judgment.