Luke 16:22, commentary and pictures

Both men die, and that death is the turning point where the suffering beggar is borne by angels into intimate fellowship with Abraham while the rich man is buried.
The story is a parable that meets its hearers on their own ground, using their prevailing idea of consciousness between death and resurrection and the familiar Jewish figure of Abraham's bosom for heaven to teach truth, not to define the literal state of the dead.
Their places are reversed because God's valuation is opposite to man's, exalting the poor man who trusted God and patiently endured suffering while casting down the honored rich man who enjoyed good things without surrender to God.
The rich man is not condemned for merely possessing wealth, but for selfish stewardship that spent entrusted means on self-pleasing luxury and neglected the sufferer at his gate, and death ends that stewardship as an irresistible summons that leaves him with nothing to take out of the world.
What is fixed in life is fixed at death, for character formed in partnership with good or evil cannot be changed in the grave, and true kinship with Abraham rests not on descent or rank but on faith, obedience, and moral harmony with him.

Parable Setting and Language

Luke 16:22 belongs to a parable in which Christ meets His hearers on their own ground, building the story on their prevailing preconceived opinion of a conscious state of existence between death and the resurrection in order to hold up a mirror in which they could see themselves in their true relation to God and to inculcate important truths. That belief about departed spirits is the vehicle for the lesson, not the point being taught. The contrast of the two deaths teaches that possessions do not determine worth before God, for all a man has belongs to him only as lent by the Lord, and misuse of those entrusted gifts will place the rich below the poorest and most afflicted man who loves God and trusts in Him. The scene also shows that death ends the time in which a person may choose and prepare for judgment, with no further probation or help to be obtained afterward.

Abraham's bosom is a Jewish symbol for heaven, set in contrast to the rich man's death and burial. Christ spoke in familiar terms His hearers on earth could understand, using language suited to people on earth. The parable setting does not itself establish the literal state of the dead person. Earthly wealth and comfort cannot relieve suffering or secure the future life, and the rich man's neglect revealed a character formed by disobedience that left a gulf between them.

Lazarus is in great need, without friends, home, money, or food, while the rich man has every want supplied. In a time when there were no hospitals, the sick and needy were brought to those entrusted with wealth so they could receive help and sympathy. The rich man let Lazarus remain in suffering day after day despite being able to relieve him.

Meaning of the Two Deaths

Both die, and that double death is the turning point of the story: the beggar dies and is carried by angels into Abraham's bosom, and the rich man also dies and is buried. Living for self and covetousness cut a person off from life, and here that cutting off is shown in the contrast of their ends. After death their conditions are reversed, Lazarus being comforted while the rich man is tormented, in contrast to the different good and evil things they received during life, making the story a lasting lesson for both rich and poor.

Lazarus is a suffering poor man who believes in Christ, and his patience in suffering witnesses for Christ and shows that his faith has been tested and is real. His death and burial bring no human mourning, with no one to mourn him, yet at death he is represented as being carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. His faithful, patient endurance will be rewarded when Christ calls the dead from their graves and raises them at the resurrection, when Lazarus and all others whose faith is real will receive their reward.

Though regarded by people as inferior, the beggar is welcomed into close friendship and intimate fellowship with Abraham. Spiritual kinship, not family descent or natural descent or social rank and standing, determines who is truly counted as Abraham's child. Those who obey God and share Abraham's faith, who are in moral and spiritual harmony with him, are his true descendants.

Reversal and Divine Valuation

The parable sets the rich who do not depend on God against the poor who trust in God and patiently endure suffering, and teaches that their positions will one day be reversed. Those who are poor yet trust God will be exalted above those who hold high worldly positions but have not surrendered their lives to God. At the turning point both die, Lazarus the God-fearing beggar carried by angels into Abraham's bosom while the rich man is buried, and afterward Lazarus who suffered is comforted while the rich man who enjoyed good things is tormented. The contrast of the good and evil things received in this life with comfort and torment after death makes the story a lasting lesson for both rich and poor.

No one is valued for possessions, riches, or the honors others give, for all that anyone has belongs to him only as lent by the Lord. Misuse of those entrusted gifts will place the misuser below the poorest and most afflicted person who loves God and trusts in Him. God's estimate is opposite to man's, and men are not to be judged by riches or by honors received from others. Lazarus, though in abject poverty, despised and loathsome to human sight, had true faith and true moral worth which God saw and valued greatly.

At death God takes this poor despised sufferer and places him by angels in the most exalted position. That placing means he was counted valuable to God for his moral soundness and qualified as an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ to be introduced into the society of refined, holy angels. The honored, ease-loving rich man, whose wealth and human honor gave him no moral worth and no favor with God, is thrust out from God's presence into misery and woe unutterable. Wealth and worldly honor do not make a person valuable to God, while faith and moral worth are received into an exalted place.

Being rich is no sin if riches are not gained by injustice, and a rich man is not condemned simply for having riches. Earthly wealth and poverty do not determine a person's standing before God. Condemnation rests on spending the means entrusted to him in selfishness and neglecting the suffering person before him. The poor man who has faith in Christ as personal Saviour, even in a humble place in the world, has a claim to a home in heaven.

Using money to do good lays it up beside the throne of God and devotes life to seeking eternal riches. Putting resources into God's work to bring people to Christ gives them lasting value in heaven, so death cannot make such a giver poor. Hoarding treasure for self, living as if all possessed were one's own, means none of it can be taken to heaven and proves unfaithful stewardship. Such a course is having good things during this lifetime while forgetting obligation to God and failing to secure heavenly treasure.

Poverty is not itself a sin, and if people bring it on themselves through recklessness they can still be pardoned when they repent. Those in a humble place who have faith are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance. The story reveals God as the foundation of faith, goodness, and mercy, who offers blessings in this life and immortal life. Receiving those blessings is bound up with hearing and doing His will.

Stewardship Ends at Death

Both men die, and the beggar is carried by angels into Abraham's bosom, while living for self and covetousness cuts a person off from life. As a steward of God's gifts the rich man was responsible to use his means and abilities, with his knowledge, talents and opportunity, to help the beggar at his gate, to uplift others and to carry out God's purposes. He enjoyed great blessings but was unfaithful, spending on himself what should have been shared with the poor, using all selfishly for self-pleasing, self-gratification and intemperate, luxurious living, and forgetting his accountability to God. That refusal and course led to the loss of his soul, and warns of final accountability for how what was entrusted is used. Lazarus represents God's believing, suffering ones, whom God blesses and commends.

Selfish pleasure, enjoyment and luxury do not bring true happiness and are not the sum of happiness. The rich man failed in his duty to help Lazarus from his abundance, then suffered and longed for Lazarus's help, calling on him for relief. In sickness he came to know suffering and recalled his heartless treatment of Lazarus, but he had no knowledge of God. He who had been clothed in luxury would eventually have given all he possessed to exchange places with Lazarus, who had been poor and covered with sores, for his former wealth could not spare him suffering.

Death is an irresistible summons from God that ends a man's stewardship and probation. The rich man had lived as if all he possessed were his own, neglecting the call of God and the claims of the suffering poor, without the true riches that keep his account right with God and without the robe of Christ's righteousness woven in heaven. When the call he cannot neglect comes, he is commanded by a power he cannot question or resist to quit premises he only stewarded, bringing nothing into the world and taking nothing out. He is reduced from richest purple and finest linen to naked, hopeless poverty.

Christ lifted the curtain on this unseen reversal before priests and rulers, scribes and Pharisees as a warning to all who are rich in this world's goods and are not rich toward God. What is highly esteemed among men is abhorrent in the sight of God, and to gain the whole world and lose the soul is profitless loss.

Destiny Fixed and Final Warning

Eternal destiny is decided in this life while grace is offered to every soul and probation remains open, for those who waste their opportunities in self-pleasing cut themselves off from everlasting life. At death that destiny is fixed, with no further probation granted and no help to be obtained afterward, so by their own choice the self-pleasing fix an impassable gulf between themselves and God. The reversal of the beggar and the rich man at their deaths illustrates this fixing of destiny, showing that the poor who trust God and patiently endure suffering will be exalted above those in high worldly positions who have not surrendered their lives to God. Possessions do not determine worth before God, for all possessions are only lent by the Lord, and misuse of them can leave the rich lower than the poorest afflicted person who loves and trusts God, while death ends the time in which a person may choose and prepare for judgment.

A person dies with the character formed during lifetime in partnership with either good or satanic agencies, and goes down to the grave with that character when suddenly snatched away by death. In the grave there is no power to choose anything good or evil, for in the day a man dies his thoughts perish. When God awakens the dead they rise with the appetites and passions they cherished in life, so the great gulf between the unrighteous and the righteous, formed by a life spent refusing God, cannot be bridged after death.

The deaths portray the closing scenes of earth's history. The rich man claimed to be a son of Abraham but was separated from him by disobedience, being unmindful of God and of suffering humanity and putting Abraham where God should have been. Many unconverted church members today follow the same course, professing to long after God while longing for worldly pleasure and display and refusing to war against the lust of the flesh.

The rich man represents the Jewish nation, favored with every temporal and spiritual blessing as depositaries of sacred truth and stewards of God's grace, called to impart those blessings to decayed brethren, the stranger within their gates, and the poor, with promise of blessing according to deeds of love and mercy. If they had valued their privileges and let God's Spirit mold mind and heart they would have shown true spiritual discernment, and the means they had God would have increased until enough to bless and enlighten the whole world. Instead in pride they regarded themselves as the chosen and favored people while not serving or worshiping God, depending on being children of Abraham and trusting in Abraham as if he were God, divorced from God and from His arrangement. They used the Lord's goods for selfish gratification and refused to cooperate with God, putting forth no helping hand to relieve temporal or spiritual necessities, leaving eternity out of their reckoning until their whole life was perverted, and their unfaithfulness brought ruin upon the whole nation and prepares them to hear the sentence of condemnation.

The parable is Christ's warning that the Jews would remember and understand at the destruction of Jerusalem. When calamity came upon Jerusalem, when starvation and suffering of every kind came upon the people, they remembered these words and understood the parable. They had brought their suffering upon themselves by neglect to let their God-given light shine forth to the world.

Call to Help the Needy

The parable sets the rich and the poor side by side to show the rich man's responsibility to share with those in need. In the contrast of their deaths Lazarus the suffering beggar is blessed by God, while the wealthy man who had means and blessings but neglected the poor faces the result of his unfaithfulness. Lazarus stands for God's believing, suffering ones whom God blesses and commends, and the rich man's neglect shows how God deals with those who spend on self-gratification what they should have shared with the poor. His example warns against enjoying life's good things while neglecting those in need, and against feeling at liberty to enjoy them for oneself while making no right use of God-given means to carry out God's purposes.

Those who claim to be sons and daughters of God must not live in selfish enjoyment while wretched, fallen, hopeless beings need to be lifted from ruin. They must not look on without power to counteract the evil, but be human channels through whom Christ's pitying tenderness communicates food and clothing and words fitly spoken.

The same sharp contrast is still seen in large cities between multitudes destitute of food, clothing and shelter fit for a human being and men of wealth who have more than heart could wish and live luxuriously. The rich spend upon richly furnished houses, upon personal ornament, and upon gratification of sensual appetites such as tobacco and liquors that destroy power of the brain, unbalance the mind, and debase the soul. Means given to honor the Creator by blessing the world are turned to selfish indulgence, to the dishonor of God, and to neglect of His heritage. Those who do this are unfaithful stewards marked by God and angels as all heaven looks down.

Lazarus full of sores lying at the gate of Dives means the colored people of the South lying in need at the door of the white race, with Dives meaning the white race and white Christians. A heavy responsibility rests on the white race to bend a portion of its energies to the moral uplifting of the Negro race to higher standards of education and home life. Woe to Dives if he does not heed Lazarus. If the white race seeks supremacy as an end in itself and overrides justice it will lose what it seeks, while being honest and just to uplift this people will uplift those who do it.