The Rich Man and Lazarus

D. A. Carson discusses the parable where a rich man suffers in hades while Lazarus enjoys comfort after death. The sermon explores themes of justice, the afterlife, and the moral responsibilities of wealth. Carson emphasizes the importance of living a life in accordance with God’s teachings, as mere wealth does not secure a favorable afterlife. This interpretation challenges the listeners to reflect on their lives and values.

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The preaching of the Word, of course, comes from the Word itself. If you would, please take a Bible in hand and turn to the gospel of Luke, chapter 16. We’ll be reading verses 19 through 31. Please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.

And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’

And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

This is God’s Word. Be seated.

So how shall we understand this parable, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus? Is Jesus saying there is a simple reversal between one’s status in this life and one’s status in the next life? “Live life well, end in hell; suffer pain, enjoy great gain.” Many have taken it that way. I suppose if you ripped this parable out of its context in this book and out of the whole Bible, you could legitimately understand it in that guise.

Yet the text is set within this book and within the larger Canon, and that immediately prompts us to ask some questions. So much of Scripture stands against a simplistic reversal theology. There is reversal, but nothing quite this simplistic. After all, there are some God-blessed, godly rich people in the Bible. Abraham, for instance. Solomon. Esther. Philemon. Almost certainly Theophilus.

There are many poor people who are poor for no reason of their own, particularly those on whom the Scriptures show compassion because they are oppressed. Yet the Bible is real enough to recognize that some people are poor because they’re lazy or given to endless alcoholism or simply will not work; read Proverbs. In other words, the Bible is sophisticated in its analysis of people and does not simply relate all badness with wealth and all goodness with poverty, or the reverse. It’s more complicated than that.

Moreover, how do you integrate this parable even with the rest of Luke? Luke, like the other Canonical Gospels, is rushing toward the Passion narrative. Jesus is going to die and rise again. Precisely, to save his people. How does that get tied to this parable? How, then, do we integrate simple reversal with the powerful biblical themes that run right through all of Scripture?

In fact, there are some contextual clues in the immediate context that help us to read the parable a little more probingly. First, in the same chapter, verses nine to thirteen, there are two points in particular that are relevant. Chapter 16, verse 9:

“I tell you,” Jesus says, “use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves so that when it is gone you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

That’s the first powerful point in the immediate context: you cannot serve both God and money. The problem with money is that it so easily becomes a master. What we pursue, what we serve, the measure by which we judge others (money, in that case) de-Gods God because it replaces God. It becomes God. It is more important than God. You cannot serve both God and money. That has some bearing on how we understand the parable.

A little earlier in verse 11, still in this paragraph, “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” Was Lazarus trustworthy in handling the wealth that God had given him? Transparently not. So why should he be trusted with true riches? And what are the true riches in Luke’s gospel?

They are, in fact, all that comes from the gospel: forgiveness of sins, new life, eternal life, resurrection, existence. You haven’t been faithful with what God has given you here; why should he give you more over there? That too has a bearing on this parable.

Then, Luke 14 and 15, the second unit in the immediate context which has a bearing on this parable. “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all that Jesus was saying and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, ‘You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.’ ”

They loved money, and when they heard Jesus teaching, they were sneering at him. The expression literally means they lifted up their noses at him. They didn’t even have to say much, just, “Huh, yes. What would you expect? He’s one of these itinerate preachers, you know.” Because their entire assessment of people was bound up with money and power. So they could write him off, treat him condescendingly. They justified themselves. They had the bank balance to prove it.

So it’s quite possible when you’re wealthy, for example, to assess everyone around you by where they stand in the fiscal pecking order and even write off Jesus himself. “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others. But God knows your hearts.” And then Jesus’ devastating conclusion: what people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.

What Jesus presupposes by this remark, of course, is that what people highly value is precisely because we are a fallen and rebellious breed already. He’s not saying there is something intrinsically evil with money or heritage or education. But if suddenly those things become what we highly value such that we judge all others by them, thereby justifying ourselves, they simply become highly detestable to God.

But then there is a third thing to observe from this context. Our parable, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, is in a sequence of three. In the first, at the end of chapter 15, verses 11 to 32, the parable of the prodigal son, a prodigal wastes his father’s possessions. Then in the second, at the beginning of chapter 16, a dishonest servant wastes his master’s possessions. Now in this one, a rich man wastes his own possessions. There is a sequence of thought as to how you treat possessions.

Now we come to our parable itself. The text is divided into two parts: first the narrative itself, the contrast between two different men, and then the dialogue. First, then, the narrative, the contrast between two different men, verses 19 to 23. It’s very carefully structured. First, the rich man, who lives and feasts sumptuously here, who lives in luxury here now. Then Lazarus, by contrast, living poorly, ill, and despised. Then Lazarus on the other side, in Abraham’s bosom, and then the rich man, now in agony, in torment, in hell.

So the rich man, Lazarus, Lazarus, and the rich man. That’s the way the account runs. Look at it in verse 19. The rich man is self-indulgent. Purple cloth was extremely expensive and only the wealthy could buy it. He wears fine linen. The word used refers to undergarments. His underwear! There’s a kind of dry humor here as if Jesus is saying, “If anyone is interested, even his underwear was posh.”

He lived in luxury every day. He ate sumptuously. He feasted every day. If he’s feasting sumptuously every day, he’s got all of his servants working too. They’re not even taking the Sabbath. Every day is one big glorious feast day. He’s self-indulgent. All of his servants are working for him. Even his underwear is posh.

In verses 20 and 21, we’re introduced to Lazarus. Of the two, only this poor man is given a name. It’s as if the other man’s name isn’t really important, just as he, in due course, is written off. Lazarus is given a name. His name is Lazarus and, as so often in Scripture, the name is significant. It literally means the one whom God helps. At this juncture, it doesn’t look like it, but in terms of the whole narrative, eventually Lazarus is vindicated.

The text says, “At the rich man’s gate was laid a beggar man named Lazarus covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.” He’s a beggar. But he’s a beggar who is now so ill, whether emaciated from hunger or from illness, that he can’t even go in the streets and beg. He has to be laid by others at the rich man’s gate, literally.

In those days, of course, there was no social security system, so the only way anyone could help a man so far gone would be by the money secured by the wealthy in the town. That’s why townspeople conveyed this man to the gate of the rich man. That it is a gate is not insignificant. It’s not just his door; it’s his gate. That is, the man lives in a house surrounded by some sort of wall. He’s living in a minor estate. He’s really quite well to do.

And then we’re going to be introduced to dogs in a few moments. In those days, they didn’t have Chihuahuas and other lapdogs that were carefully petted along. Dogs were either wild or they were work dogs. Where you have a gate and a wall, usually these would be guard dogs. Where did they get their food? They get their food from the rich man’s table, from the scraps. We see this in another passage that all of us will know. The account of the Syrophoenician woman who points out to Jesus, “Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the rich man’s table.”

Do you see? This man, Lazarus, is covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Longing to eat at least the dog food. To pick up the scraps. He’s simply ignored by the wealthy man. Most of our translations then have, “Even the dogs came,” or “Moreover, even the dogs came,” but the original is very clear. It says, “But the dogs came.” Do you hear the sequence?

At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus covered with sores, longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table, the food for dogs. But the dogs came and licked his sores. At least the dogs had a modicum of compassion when the rich man had none. Help was so near at hand. Scraps would do. But it was withheld from Lazarus.

Then in verse 22, Lazarus dies. There’s no mention of a funeral. He may have simply been turfed out into a pauper’s grave. What we are told is that he’s carried again. Before, he was carried by townspeople to the gate of the rich man. Now he is carried away once more, to Abraham’s bosom. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.

The expression is literally Abraham’s bosom, and that doesn’t make a lot of sense in English. What it is suggesting is that this beggar is now feasting along with Abraham. In our context where you have a big feast at a restaurant in a closed room, to be on someone’s bosom would be indecent or implausible. But in those days where you ate reclining if it was a feast, leaning on one arm and reaching forward to the common bowl, dipping your bread into the common bowl with your other arm, then people were put side by side.

At the Last Supper, if you recall, Jesus was reclining, and next to him was John, also reclining, reaching in. When John wanted to ask Jesus a question, then he would simply push back and lay his head on Jesus’ bosom and ask him a question. In the ancient world, that was quite acceptable; that degree of intimacy amongst men today would not be highly cherished amongst most of us where we want to preserve our 36 inches.

But the idea here is, now this man Lazarus who is excluded from even the scraps is feasting next to Abraham! The patriarch par excellence, the head of the entire Jewish heritage and lineage! He is feasting next to him with his head on Abraham’s bosom, entirely vindicated in the presence of the cloud of witnesses who have gone on ahead.

The rich man? The rich man also died and was buried. In hades where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. That means the rich man recognized Lazarus. He cannot even claim that he didn’t really know Lazarus was at his gate. You know, in a big estate where you’d have flunkies around to do all the work, he didn’t know it was there. If he had known, he might have done something about it. But no, he recognized Abraham somehow, and Lazarus beside him.

Now we might have expected some second thoughts or repentance or begging for forgiveness. Something, some sign of brokenness or contrition. None. Now we move to the dialogue. It’s in three cycles: the rich man speaks, Abraham responds. The rich man speaks, Abraham responds. The rich man speaks, Abraham responds. All of the dialogue lends toward one point: the blindness of a damned man. Verses 24 to 31.

The first cycle, verse 24. He called to Abraham, “Father Abraham! Have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire!” This is simply astonishing. The rich man doesn’t even speak to Lazarus. He sees him there but treats him as a menial person, an untouchable, not even to be addressed. He doesn’t ask Lazarus for help; he asks Abraham to send Lazarus like some joeboy.

Instead, he places his confidence in the “racial heritage” card. “Father Abraham …,” and ignores Lazarus in exactly the same way he ignored him when he was in pain. Now he wants something to relieve his own pain, but that does not even now give him any compassion for the Lazarus who was in pain at his own door. He demands services from the one whom he himself would not even give dog food. The rich man, even in hell, cannot imagine giving up his self-importance. The only one he’ll address is Father Abraham.

And Abraham’s response? “My son, remember.” And what Abraham reminds the rich man of is exactly the sequence of the narrative. “Son, remember that in your lifetime, you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in agony.” Exactly the same sequence of the narrative itself. Lazarus says nothing. He is quiet. He could’ve lashed out, I suppose, but there’s no record of that. That’s the first cycle.

Then the second, verses 27 to 29. “Then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.” He is still concerned only with his own, his own family. If Lazarus, whom he still does not address, cannot be used as a table waiter to bring him water, then perhaps he can be used as an errand boy to go to his own family.

There is still no hint of contrition. No brokenness or repentance. Merely familial concern for his own. That’s it. And Abraham’s response? Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them, your bothers, listen to them.” In other words, all that God has said on this matter and the threat of punishment and the promise of life and the nature of forgiveness and how to be reconciled to God, has already been said. It is in the authoritative Scripture. They have Moses and the Prophets. Why aren’t they listening to them?

After all, Moses and the Prophets are read in Sabbath every weekend in the synagogue! Of course, this man was busy feasting sumptuously on the Sabbath. Perhaps he never had time to go to synagogue. But in any case, Abraham insists that the authoritative witness, which the brothers ought to believe, is what God himself has declared, what God himself has already revealed in the Bible. They have that.

Then in the third cycle, the rich man tries to correct Abraham’s theology. Verses 30 and 31. “No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent. We need something more than Scripture; we need something more than God’s self-disclosure; we need something more than the Bible. What we need is a miracle. The miracle of someone coming back from the dead. That’ll wake them up and get their attention.

Abraham replies, verse 31, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” And of course, those who know their Bibles remember another Lazarus. The account is found in John 11 where Jesus did raise a man called Lazarus from the dead. Moreover, it was a pretty spectacular resurrection.

It wasn’t one of these cases where the chappie had been dead for 15 or 20 minutes and perhaps you can then chart it up to fibrillation of the heart, and they didn’t have the instruments in those days to pick it up and he wasn’t really quite dead. No, he was dead for four days in mid-Eastern heat, without embalming. So much so that the text explicitly says he stank. Then Jesus raised him from the dead.

Did everyone believe? Well, some did. But some simply went and ratted out Jesus to the local authorities. And the local authorities got together and they didn’t say, “Oh, this really must be of God. This is pretty spectacular. We need to look at this again.” What they said is, “He’s really becoming a first-class nuisance. We’ve got to find a way to get rid of him.”

Of course, in the light of this text, there’s more powerful appeal yet, is there not? They will not be convinced if someone rises from the dead. And Jesus did. That’s where this book is going. With the resurrection appearances in Luke 24. And of course not only in Luke 24 but in the New Testament. Jesus appeared to one and to two, to small groups. He appeared to the two on the road to Emmaus, he appeared to women and men, to some in Galilei and some in Jerusalem. He appeared by lake to seven. He ate fish with them and was handled and touched by up to a total of 500 or so, according to the apostle Paul, over a period of weeks.

What do we read? Already in the first days, some were paying off the soldiers to say, “Don’t say what really happened, just claim that you fell asleep and someone came and stole the body. If this gets you into trouble, we’ll square it with the governor.” Because you see, even if someone rises from the dead, it does not follow that all will believe. We can always find reasons for unbelief. That’s how perverse we are. We can always find reasons to disbelieve.

So let me conclude with some theological and pastoral reflections. How should we respond to a parable like this?

1. The things in which we take so much pride and by which we identify ourselves (wealth, ethnicity, religious privilege, family, education, job, authority) may actually blind us to our need of grace.

It’s not that wealth is unmitigated evil. This is not akin to saying, “You mustn’t commit adultery, or you mustn’t have money.” There are just too many rich people in the Scriptures where God does not say that.

But there are countless things which may be good which we idolize and are for us unmitigated disasters. You cannot accept the formula “all wealth is intrinsically evil,” nor can you accept the formula, “all wealth shows that you have been blessed by God.” The question is.… Who is really Lazarus? Who is really the one whom God helps?

Is it the one who has been helped with some money in this life only but knows nothing of repentance and faith and humility and brokenness and contrition and compassion and truth? Or is it the man who in this life may well be broken and even diseased and starving but who is vindicated on the last day? Huge, potentially corrosive power bound up with money tricks so many of us into patterns of self-identity in which our wellbeing, our self-understanding, how we relate with others, gets tied to our perception of our own wealth and of theirs.

2. Implicitly, what Jesus calls the “greatest two commandments” stand or fall together.

That is actually demonstrated here. Let me remind you of what Jesus says about the two greatest commandments. The first of the two is, “You shall love the Lord your God with heart and soul and mind and strength.” The second is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

But they are not independent. It’s not as if this one stands out all by itself and that one stands all by itself. The second one, “love your neighbor as yourself,” is actually drawn from Leviticus 19, and in Leviticus 19, when that commandment is tied to a string of moral exhortations, there is a repeated formula that comes through again and again and again and again. It’s not there with absolutely every one of them, but it repeats itself again and again in the chapter.

“You’re not to withhold the wages of your workers,” God says. “I am the Lord.” “You’re not to lie against a neighbor. I am the Lord.” “You are to love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” You see, the fundamental reason and the fundamental sanction as to why we should love our neighbors and commit ourselves to these moral exhortations is because God is God. He is the Lord and we are to love the Lord our God with heart and soul and mind and strength.

That’s why that one is the first commandment; it’s the one you always break if you break anything else. The two are tied together. So also here. In the historic arena, it is the second commandment that is being ignored. The rich man is not caring for Lazarus. It is well within his capacity to do so. He’s right there in front of his eyes. The townspeople have brought him to his door. He has enough food even to feed the scraps to dogs and he won’t care for this man. He is not loving his neighbor as himself.

But in the context of this whole parable, the reason becomes clear in the dialogue that follows. He is his own God. He is utterly self-absorbed. He does not love God with heart and soul and mind and strength. Even in hell, there’s no mark of contrition or repentance or anything else. There is still utter self-absorption. The man does not recognize God.

3. We must listen to the witness of Scripture or we are damned.

God has so graciously disclosed himself in great events in redemptive history. He has disclosed himself supremely in the person of his Son. He has guaranteed that all of his self-disclosure in event will also be passed on in word, in Scripture that has come down to us. It can be read and thought through and preached and taught about and proclaimed.

God himself says to this man, “… was of a contrite spirit and who trembles at my word.” So if we ignore God precisely where he has disclosed himself, what help is there for us? You have Moses and the Prophets. Indeed, you have the Gospels, and Paul, and Hebrews, and the Apocalypse. If we will not turn to God’s self-disclosure, what help is there for us?

4. We cannot ever afford to forget that there is a sphere of rejoicing to pursue, a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness, and there is a place of torment to flee.

We cannot ever allow ourselves to think of the bearing of Christianity on our lives only during our three-score years and ten. Yes, the gospel helps us to be better citizens or better parents or whatever, but all of the Bible insists that ultimately, we’re heading for a final judgment, a final vindication, a final condemnation. What is your status in this life is of relatively minor importance compared with what your status will be in the life to come.

There is an appeal to eternity. There is a heaven to be gained. There is a hell to be feared. All of Scripture, when it describes hell, whether in parabolic terms or apocalyptic terms, never pictures hell as a place of contrition where people are having second thoughts sand crying out with broken, repentant hearts to God, asking for forgiveness. Rather, it’s like the rich man here. He wants some relief. He wouldn’t mind if he could do something for his own. There’s not a scrap of a sign of repentance.

Hell will be filled with people who still think they’re number one. Hell will be filled with people who still pursue their own idols. Hell will be filled with people who know nothing of the grace, of contrition, still less of being forgiven or forgiving. Doesn’t Revelation 22 say as much? On the last day, Jesus says, “Let him who is unjust be unjust still.” There is no place for repentance in hell. There is no second chance in hell, and there is no hint of contrition in hell.

Over against that is the sumptuous joy of being with Abraham and all of God’s saints gathered through the ages, the cloud of witnesses vindicated before God, broken perhaps in this life but having been clothed with the Christ who was presented in this gospel, the one who died on the cross for our sins, who bore our sin in his own body on the tree. The one who rose again for our vindication. The one who demands that we look to him in confidence and hope. There is a heaven to be pursued, the home of righteousness a resurrection existence that lasts forever.

So the gospel comes to us again and again in this life and says, “Weigh everything in the light of eternity. For if you do not, the things you most cherish now may simply be the idols that damn you.” And on the other side, there is no second chance. None. Let us pray.

Lord God, for those among us who have been Christians a long time, spare us, we beg of you, from renewed floundering in idolatry. Draw us back again and again to the cross of Christ where there is forgiveness of sin. Fill us afresh with the spirit’s power that we may love your dear Son truly and our neighbors as ourselves.

For those, Lord God, for whom this is still a huge hurdle, where the gospel itself seems strange, O Lord God, open their eyes that they may see the enormity, the ugliness of all idolatry and find that there is relief and forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus. Grant that even now where they sit, they may lift their hearts and minds to your dear Son and cry, ‘I believe. Help my unbelief.” For Jesus’ sake, amen.