Luke 16:26
And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
The verse belongs to a figurative parable contrasting two classes in the unseen world, using the hearers' ideas about life after death to teach truth without endorsing those ideas, and showing that earthly wealth and standing do not determine worth before God. After death their conditions are reversed, with Lazarus comforted and the rich man in torment for how life turned out for them. The great gulf fixed between them cannot be crossed from either side, so no one can secure salvation after death, for this life is the only time given to prepare for eternity with no second probation. That gulf is fixed in this life by character and disobedience, because Abraham served God in faith and obedience while the rich man ignored God and suffering need, and after death choice has ended and God does not remake those who refused to be changed. There is no sin in being rich, but condemnation rests on spending entrusted means selfishly instead of relieving sufferers like Lazarus at the gate, so the one who hoards treasure for self takes none of it to heaven and proves an unfaithful steward.
Parable Setting and Purpose
The saying belongs to a figurative parable that contrasts two classes as they are judged in the unseen world, and it uses the hearers' ideas about existence after death to teach truth rather than to endorse those ideas. Possessions are lent by God, and misusing them leaves a person worse off than even the poorest person who loves and trusts God. The rich man is not condemned simply for being wealthy, but for spending selfishly what was entrusted to him, and earthly standing and wealth do not determine worth in the unseen world. Wealth itself is not sinful; condemnation rests on using it selfishly while neglecting duty to God and to suffering people, leaving the selfish user condemned and unable to turn back when it is too late.
The parable is a lasting lesson for rich and poor because earthly conditions are reversed after death, with Lazarus comforted and the rich man tormented for how life turned out for them. It shows that the poor who trust in God and patiently endure suffering will be exalted above people of high worldly position who have not surrendered their lives to God. Worldly wealth and honor do not determine worth before God, for Lazarus's faith and moral soundness made him precious to God while the rich man's lack of moral worth left him rejected despite his riches. The gulf is an eternal separation fixed by choices made in this life, between those who depend on God and those who do not, so that those who waste offered grace through self-pleasing cut themselves off from everlasting life with no further probation.
The verse fixes an irreversible separation between the two characters. The rich man, clothed in purple and fine linen and faring sumptuously every day, is honored and ease-loving in human sight but has no true faith and no true moral worth, so his riches do not recommend him to God or secure divine favor, his character is worthless, and he is thrust out from God's presence into misery and woe unutterable. Lazarus, in abject poverty, loathsome to sight and begging crumbs that the rich man despised, has true faith and true moral soundness and worth of great value to God, so God takes this poor despised sufferer and places him in the most exalted position among refined holy angels as an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ. Disciples must therefore not judge or value people by wealth or by honors received from others. What is highly esteemed among men, especially riches gained by oppression, deception, overreaching, fraud, or any dishonest means, is abomination to God, and those like the covetous Pharisees who have riches and worldly honor while corrupt, sinful, and without moral soundness are valueless, despised, rejected, and cast out as disgusting to Him.
No Crossing After Death
A great gulf is fixed between the saved and the lost that cannot be passed from either side, so no one can secure salvation of the soul after death. This life is the only time given to prepare for eternity, during which grace is offered and eternal destiny is decided, and no second probation or further chance is granted afterward. Those who waste offered opportunities in self-pleasing cut themselves off from everlasting life and by their own choice fix an impassable separation between themselves and God. The rich man could receive no help after death because the time for choosing and preparing for judgment had ended, and that separation determined by rejecting grace is final.
Death ends probation and fixes a person's condition forever. The one who lived as if what he had was his own, neglecting the call of God and the suffering poor and failing to gain the riches that keep the account right with God, is summoned by irresistible power he cannot question or resist to quit what he held only as steward. He is reduced to hopeless poverty and nakedness, stripped of purple and fine linen, bringing nothing into the world and taking nothing out. The robe of Christ's righteousness, woven in heaven, can never cover him afterward. This picture is held before priests and rulers, scribes and Pharisees, and all who are rich in this world's goods but not rich toward God, proving that what is highly esteemed among men is abhorrent to God and that to gain the whole world and lose the soul is profitless, with nothing to give in exchange for the soul.
The fixed gulf making passage from one condition to the other impossible underscores that God's blessings are offered to all but receiving them depends on hearing and doing God's will, with refusal bringing its consequence.
Character Fixes the Gulf
The gulf is a gulf of character and disobedience formed during life. Abraham served God in faith and obedience, while the rich man ignored God and the needs of suffering people around him. His claimed descent from Abraham could not bridge that separation or bring salvation, for Abraham would have cared for Lazarus but the rich man refused to do so. In the grave he had no power to choose good or evil, because the choices of life had already formed his character.
The gulf between the righteous and the wicked is fixed by the character a person chose, and after death it cannot be crossed because choice has ended. At death a person can no longer choose good or evil, and at the resurrection comes back with the same appetites, passions, likes and dislikes formed during probation. God does not remake someone who refused the opportunities and means to be changed in life. One who took no delight in God could not be happy among the righteous, so defects must be repented of and overcome through Christ's grace in this life.
The chasm separates the righteous from those who neglected the opportunities and sacred influences given them on earth. It is formed by their own failure to receive Christ's grace and develop a character shaped by God, and nothing can bridge it because they are not fitted to share heaven's pure devotion. People themselves fix this gulf in this life through neglect. Although God works gently and continually in nature and in human hearts to influence for good those for whom Christ died, and learning of Christ means receiving His grace which is His character, those who do not appreciate and use the precious opportunities and sacred influences granted them are not molded after the divine likeness. By that neglect they fix a great gulf between themselves and the highest education and the highest, holiest service.
The rich man's amusements and pleasure-loving company occupied his time and made him forget God and his final account. He had knowledge, talents, and opportunity to understand and practice God's Word, but neglected them.
Wealth Tested by Stewardship
The gulf belongs to a figurative picture that contrasts two classes as weighed in the unseen world, where earthly standing and wealth do not decide a person's worth. There is no sin in being rich when riches have not been gained by injustice, and a rich man is not condemned merely for having riches. Condemnation rests on spending what was entrusted as steward in selfishness while neglecting duty to God and to suffering people, instead of laying it up beside God's throne by doing good. The one who devotes himself to seeking eternal riches is not made poor by death, but the one who hoards treasure for self takes none of it to heaven and proves an unfaithful steward who in this lifetime had his good things yet forgot obligation to God and failed to secure the heavenly treasure, leaving him condemned and unable to turn back when it is too late.
The rich man's opportunity to relieve Lazarus had passed, for his luxurious, selfish life and refusal to share his abundance left him unable to exchange places with Lazarus once he himself suffered. A fixed gulf prevented anyone from crossing between their places after death. A time came when he would have given all he possessed to make that exchange with Lazarus, who had been poor and covered with sores, showing that selfish pleasure and enjoyment are not the sum of happiness.
The account sets Lazarus in unmet need at the gate begging for help against the rich man's indifference, as a warning that those entrusted with wealth and blessings are responsible to help sufferers. In life he refused his duty to share his abundance with Lazarus suffering at his gate and spent his means on himself for self-gratification rather than sharing with the poor. After death he suffered the consequences of luxurious living, learned what suffering meant, and had no knowledge of God, while God is represented as blessing and commending Lazarus rather than the rich man.
His sumptuous living while failing to use entrusted wealth for God's purposes warns that people are accountable stewards who will face a reckoning. Dives enjoyed God's gifts without using them to help others, feeling at liberty to enjoy the good things of this life and making no right use of what God gave to carry out God's purposes. Those who claim to be sons and daughters of God must therefore not live for selfish enjoyment while wretched, fallen, hopeless beings need food and clothing, relief and rescue, and words fitly spoken through human channels of Christ's pitying tenderness.
That same fixed gulf appears 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 yet live luxuriously. They spend on richly furnished houses, personal ornament and gratification of sensual appetites, on tobacco, liquors and other things that destroy brain power, unbalance the mind and debase the soul. In thus selfishly indulging themselves they are unfaithful stewards, turning means given to honor the Creator by blessing the world into self-gratification, dishonor to God and neglect of His heritage, while God and angels mark how they use their means.
Nation Warned by Parable
The rich man stands for the Jewish nation, favored with every temporal and spiritual blessing as depositaries of sacred truth and stewards of grace, called to share those blessings and to care with love and mercy for decayed brethren, strangers and the poor under promise of blessing. Though surrounded with the luxuries of life and exalted privileges, with means that God would have increased to bless and enlighten the whole world, they were ignorant and put Abraham where God should have been, failing to let God's Spirit mold mind and heart. They used the Lord's goods for selfish gratification and gave no helping hand to the temporal or spiritual necessities of suffering humanity, being filled with pride as the chosen and favored people while not serving or worshiping God. They put their dependence on being children of Abraham and trusted in Abraham as if he were God, and left eternity out of their reckoning. By this course they separated far from the Lord's arrangement and perverted their whole life, divorcing themselves from God and preparing themselves for condemnation, so that unfaithfulness brought ruin on the whole nation in a separation the crisis revealed.
The verse was a warning to the Jews of what they would remember and understand when Jerusalem was destroyed. When starvation and suffering of every kind came upon Jerusalem, they remembered Christ's words and understood the parable. They had brought that suffering upon themselves by neglecting to let their God-given light shine forth to the world.
Gulf Image Applied Broadly
The fixed gulf marks the spiritual division between those faithfully serving God and worldly people who reject divine authority. On decisive matters of God, truth and eternity their thoughts, sympathies and feelings are out of harmony, so they cannot unite in purpose or action. This is the separation between those ripening for God and His kingdom and those ripening for destruction.
The same image of a great gulf that cannot be crossed describes deep division between people who have become alienated from one another. It pictures the widening separation between parents and children when children are led away from purity and holiness. Parents may fail to recognize the danger until the distance has become too great to repair.
The fixed gulf also supplies a personal warning, in which one shown standing at the edge of a gulf would make eternal destiny final by crossing it through choosing evil. The woe of Dives for neglecting Lazarus at his gate applies to the white race as Dives and the colored people of the South, full of sores, as Lazarus at its gate. Christian members of the white race rest under heavy responsibility to devote part of their energies to the moral uplifting of this people to higher standards of education and home life, being honest and just and trying to uplift them, with the reward of being uplifted themselves. Woe to Dives if he heeds not, for if the white race seeks supremacy as an end in itself and overrides justice it will lose what it seeks, since he that loves his life shall lose it and he that loses his life shall find it.