Dives and Lazarus by John Nevins Andrews

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 12, 1874

Dives and Lazarus.

By John Nevins Andrews

(Concluded from No. 21.) *

WE answer these questions precisely as we do those which arise from the testimony of “Moses and the prophets,” to which we are in this parable referred. When Rachel, long dead, is represented as shedding tears and lamenting the murder of her children; when the mighty dead converse with Pharaoh in hades, and he is “comforted” with what he sees in the nether parts of the earth; and when the king of Babylon is mocked by dead kings who rise up from their thrones in hades and taunt him with his overthrow; when we read all this of that place where all is darkness, silence, secrecy, and death—a place within the earth itself, and when we consider that this parable relates to this very place, and cites us to these very testimonies for information on the subject, it becomes evident that one common answer pertains to all these questions.

The dead are personified, and made to speak and act in reference to the facts of their respective cases as though they were alive. Why should not the Spirit of God do this when it has seen fit to personify every kind of inanimate thing? Thus the blood of Abel cried to God. Gen. 4. And thus in Job, the depth and the sea are made to speak, and even destruction and death are represented as saying that they have heard the fame of wisdom with their ears. Job 28: 14–22. The stone by the sanctuary heard all the words of Israel. Josh. 24. The trees held an election and made speeches. Judges 9. The thistle proposes a matrimonial alliance with the cedar. 2 Kings 14; 2 Chron. 25. All the trees sing out at the presence of God. 1 Chron. 16. The stone cries out of the wall, and the beam answers it. Hab. 2. The hire of the laborers, kept back by fraud, cries to God. James 5. Dead Abel yet speaketh. Heb. 11. The souls under the altar, slain for their testimony, and who do not live till the first resurrection, cry to God for vengeance. Rev. 6: 9, 10.

Thus, when Job sets forth the nature of that wisdom which is from above, he introduces four things destitute of life, two of them being the very opposite of life, to speak concerning the place of wisdom:— “The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me.” “DESTRUCTION AND DEATH say, We have heard the fame thereof with OUR EARS.” Job 28: 14, 22.

And, finally, death and hades are both personified—the one riding a pale horse, the other following, and both cutting down mankind. And this personification is still further carried out, when both, as though living enemies, are at last cast into the fire of gehenna. Rev. 6: 8; 20: 14; 1 Cor. 15; Hosea 13: 14.

The apostle Paul has given us the key to all this, when he says of God that he “quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not, as though they were.” Rom. 4: 17. And our Lord, in that remarkable discussion with the Sadducees, in which he proved the resurrection of the dead by the fact that God spoke of dead Abraham as though he were alive, gives us this same key, thus: “For all live unto him.” Luke 20: 38. Abraham, though dead, is spoken of as alive, because in the purpose of God he is to live again.

Lazarus died a beggar. But he rests in hope, an heir to the inheritance promised Abraham. Eternal life and endless felicity are his, and by personification it is said that he is “comforted.” Dives lives in the greatest splendor, and dies an impenitent man. The lake of fire is to be his portion. By personification, he is represented as in it already. This is in accordance with the teaching of Paul, when he says of God that he calleth things that be not as though they were. That is, God speaks of things that exist only in his purpose just as though they had a present existence, because they shall surely exist; even as he called Abraham the father of many nations, when as yet he had no son. Gen. 17; Rom. 4: 16, 17. There is, therefore, the utmost propriety in thus presenting before the living the dead in hades, and giving them opportunity to speak just as they would, had they the powers of thought and utterance.

This is the more clearly seen when we consider that to Lazarus, in the silence of hades, there will not be a moment between his death, at the gate of the rich man, and his resurrection to eternal life; and not a moment to the rich man between the closing of his eyes in death, and his opening them in the resurrection to damnation.

That we have done right in hearing the testimony of “Moses and the prophets” on this subject, we have the authority of the parable itself to show. And we have this further evidence of the truth of this exposition that, without doing violence to a single text, we have a divine harmony on the subject of the dead in hades, in all that is said by Moses and the prophets and by Christ and the apostles. These writers all place hades in the interior of the earth, and make it a place of utter darkness and silence, where there is no knowledge; yet they present several cases of the dead in this very place conversing, lamenting, or being comforted.

But, probably, no one thinks there are literally dead kings sitting on thrones deep in the earth, and holding discourse. The dead are not alive. Hades is not a place of thought, but one of utter forgetfulness and deep sleep.

When persons or things which have no life and no consciousness are represented in the Scriptures as talking, how do we understand such declarations? Not that they do really have feelings, and thoughts, and powers of utterance, but that they are personified, and made to speak and act just as they would under the existing circumstances were they indeed alive and capable of thought and utterance. Things which in the purpose of God are to be, he can speak of as existing, simply because they shall exist.

This parable of the rich man and Lazarus is therefore in harmony with all the testimonies of the Bible relative to the time of recompense. The day of Judgment comes before God inflicts punishment upon wicked men. 2 Pet. 2: 9; 3: 7.

J. N. A.