The Rich
Man and Lazarus
To prepare the Sanhedrists, those “servants of Mammon
(wealth)”, and “lovers of money”[1]
who had rejected Him,[2] He
described a certain rich man who had both wealth and position, a condition that
the Sanhedrists would have attributed to the blessing of God. The Rabbis taught that wealth was a sign of
the favour of God (‘whoever the Lord loves He makes rich’). In contrast with the ease and comfort of the
rich man, Jesus described the desperate position and condition of a beggar
named Lazarus, who must have been daily visible to the wealthy Jew. Lazarus’ hopes were not great, just that he might have
some crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. In course of time, both men died and went to
Hades/Sheol.
This place of the dead had two
main compartments, the first part, sometimes called ‘Abraham’s bosom’, was
reserved for those that died with a true faith in God. This part, in many ways,
mirrored heaven. Since animal sacrifice only covered sin, but did not
remove it, those that died in faith before the death of the Messiah on the
cross, would not go to hell but could not get into heaven, hence the place
called Abraham’s bosom. The second part
of Hades/Sheol was a place for those who had either rebelled against God or
failed to respond to the light He offered.
There are three subdivisions of the second part of
Hades/Sheol. They are subdivisions of
‘hell’. The first subdivision is the ‘abyss’; the second subdivision is ‘Tartarus’;
the third subdivision is ‘Gehenna’.
(1) The abyss or bottomless pit is a temporary place of confinement
for fallen angels (God will imprison Satan there for a thousand years).[3] The demons in the Gadarene Legion “begged Him
that He would not command them to go out into the abyss”. [4]
(2) Tartarus is a more permanent
place of confinement for fallen angels.
“God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell
(Tartarus) and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment”. [5] (From
here, they go directly to the lake of fire).
(3) Gehenna is the place of
torment for the wicked. Jesus speaks of it as the destiny of those who rejected
Him as Messiah. “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation
of hell (Gehenna)?" [6]
Since they are three
subdivisions of Hell, they obviously have many things in common.
Lazarus, whose name means ‘God helps’, went to Abraham’s
bosom, whereas, contrary to all the teaching of the Pharisees, the rich man went
to Hell. The Pharisees taught that all
Jews would go to Abraham’s bosom, (“all Israelites have a share in the world to
come”)[7]
but the Messiah related to them the experience of a Jew (he addresses Abraham
as ‘Father’, and Abraham responds with ‘Son’), who is in Hell.
The narrative clearly implied deity because Jesus
had knowledge of a conversation between two actual Jews in Hades, after
death. He described the torment of the
Jewish rich man and the comfort of the beggar named Lazarus. As with Jonah they can speak, remember and
pray. The rich man asked Abraham to send
Lazarus to him with some water to relieve his torment, but Abraham tells him of
the gulf between them that is impassable.
Unable to obtain any measure of respite, he asked that Lazarus might be
despatched from Hades on a mission to his brothers, to persuade them to
repent. The wealthy Jew was asking that
his family might be given the sign of the prophet Jonah! “I beg you, father, that you send him to my
father’s house— for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so
that they will not also come to this place of torment”.[8] The tormented Jew was unwittingly asking for
a Jonah to go to his brothers as Jonah had been sent from Sheol to Nineveh
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