What does it mean to have a vested interest in a particular interpretation of the Scriptures? It means simply this: that certain people hold to a specific doctrine so strongly that they cannot look objectively at what the Bible actually teaches on a subject. Many so strongly believe that sinners are saved by “faith only” that they must reject all of the passages that teach that salvation comes through faith—but not faith only. The same thing is true with various ones regarding the rich man and Lazarus.
Those who do not believe that souls are punished with everlasting destruction (2 Thess. 1:7-9) cannot have the rich man and Lazarus be anything but a parable because those suffering in the Hadean realm for 2,000 or more years is almost as hard to explain as eternal torment itself. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists likewise reject the plain meaning of Luke 16:19-31 because it conflicts with their views of the afterlife. Of course, those who advocate the soul-sleeping doctrine cannot have the rich man awake and even speaking to Abraham!
Because of these vested interests, then, many insist that the passage is a parable. The problem is that in a parable certain objects or people stand for something else. In the parable of the sower, for example, the seed is the Word of God (Luke 8:11), and each of the kind of soils represents different kinds of hearts that individuals have. Jesus explains that even the thorns that choke the Word represent the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. As Dungan writes in his well-known book on Hermeneutics, “…hence a placing beside or together, a comparing comparison, a story by which something real in life is used as a means of presenting a moral thought” (227). The problem with trying to turn the straightforward account of the rich man and Lazarus into a parable is that, not only did Jesus offer no explanation of what each man represented, no man has ever produced a coherent one.
Various Explanations
Borrowing a poor explanation from Buford (see Sept. 5, 2010), “The point of the parable was that even though Jesus would rise from the dead many would deny it.” How someone could read Jesus rising from the dead and many denying that fact into this text defies rational thought. As poor as this attempt to explain the parable is, others are no better.
The Seventh-Day Adventists put forth a simple view in the book, Answers to Objections, written by Francis D. Nichol and published in 1952: Christ drove home the one primary lesson, that the reward awaiting the covetous rich, who have naught but crumbs for the poor, was the very opposite of what the Jews believed” (358). No doubt this is a principle that is taught, but does it require all of the details that are provided to teach this doctrine?
If the account of these two men were a parable, then it could conclude as the one did involving the rich farmer, whose soul was required that night. Is there any doubt that the farmer was selfish and lacked compassion? Everything was about him—not God or his fellow man. Without any reference to the Hadean realm in Luke 2:15-20, Jesus effectively showed that such an individual is lost. If the rich man and Lazarus were a parable, the point could have been similarly made.
But Jesus added an entire section about what happens after death, and He used the Hadean realm to do so. This is the part that the vested interest people have a problem with because those details do not represent something else; they are exactly as they are described. We are provided a glimpse into what happens at death. These are the facts of the matter; they do not represent something else. Yet people contort the Scriptures trying to explain them away.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses provide a strange view of the passage. They do not believe that Jesus’ body was raised from the dead. Consider their teaching.
In this illustration the rich man stood for the class of religious leaders who rejected and later killed Jesus. Lazarus pictured the common people who accepted God’s Son. The Bible shows that death can be used as a symbol, representing a great change in one’s life or course of action. (Compare Romans 6:2, 11-13; 7:4-6.) A death, or change from former conditions, happened when Jesus fed the Lazarus class spiritually. And they thus came into the favor of the greater Abraham, Jehovah God. At the same time, the false religious leaders “died” with respect to having God’s favor. Being cast off, they suffered torments when Christ’s followers after Pentecost forcefully exposed their evil works. (Acts 7:51-57) So this illustration does not teach that some dead persons are tormented in a literal fiery hell (The Truth That Leads to Eternal life 43).
Anyone who knows the Scriptures, after reading that goobledegook, is saying, “What???” Only Jehovah’s Witnesses could insist that the 144,000 in Revelation is a literal number rather than symbolic and at the same time advocate that what is obvious literal death is merely a symbol. Their explanation is not even worthy of being called amateurish.
In the first place, nothing in the text suggests that the rich man and Lazarus represent two classes of people. If they did, however, it would be the rich versus the poor, as in James 5:1-6. The rich man is in no way like the religious leaders of the Jews. He was not opposed to Jesus or anyone else. He just enjoyed all of the physical blessings he had been given and was indifferent to the suffering of his fellow human being. Nothing suggests that Lazarus represented the common people that believed Jesus to be the Son of God. Jesus does not insert Himself into this illustration anywhere. It is not about Him.
Although death is used in more ways than one, it is never used the way the JWs define it. The Bible defines physical death as occurring when the spirit departs from the body. The second death refers to the reality of the spirit being separated from God eternally. John recorded that death and Hades (all who remained in this realm) were cast into the lake of fire along with those who had been judged, which is the second death. Anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:13-15).
Figurative usages of the word death include dying to sin (Rom. 6:37) and being dead in sin (1 Tim. 5:6). It does not signify merely a change in one’s life. The verses in Romans 6 that were cited deal with being dead to sin (2, 11-13). The verses in Romans 7:4-6 are discussing being dead to the Law of Moses when we become Christians. They cited no examples of death merely being a change in someone’s life.
Jesus was not talking about a rich man-Pharisaical class versus a Lazarus-common people class, and not a thing in the text indicates that the rich man class was dying with respect to God’s favor. A seven-year-old with his hand in the cookie jar could make up a story that would sound more convincing. Whoever wrote this explanation had evidently forgotten that Jesus exposed the Pharisees Himself; it did not fall on His disciples to do so after His resurrection. At the very outset of His ministry, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus advised the people not to be like the hypocrites with respect to giving, fasting, and prayer (Matt. 6:1-18). Furthermore, He exposed them completely in Matthew 23.
If the rich man was not in torment in the flames, why did he ask for water to cool his tongue? Why is there a great gulf between the two groups, which cannot be bridged? How could any of the Pharisees ever have been converted if no one could travel back and forth? If the rich man group could not approach Lazarus, how can we account for the persecution of the saints? Trying to find an explanation for Luke 16:19-31 other than what it obviously means just created more difficulties. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in eternal torment, and this was the best explanation they could come up with to try to get around it!
Counter Arguments
It so happens that a brother read my chapter for the 2000 Lectureship book on The Parables of Jesus, dealing with the non-parable of the rich man and Lazarus. He made several comments on a copy of the manuscript, which will now be dealt with. He shall be referred to as Dan (not his real name).
Dan claims that there is nothing in the text that indicates that it is an actual event. Is there anything that indicates it is not? It is told as though it is. The burden of proof must be upon the one who denies what is obvious to others and to provide a compelling reason for thinking otherwise. Causal assertions are no substitute for evidence. Then Dan slides into even more dangerous territory.
The body goes back to the dust of the earth. We will not receive a new body till Christ comes back (1 Cor. 15:51-59). The only way this could be an actual event is if they received a spiritual body at death. True or False!
Dan has overlooked an important point concerning the nature of human beings. As James explains, we have a body and a spirit. When the spirit leaves the physical body, it dies (James 2:26). Solomon understood this principle 1,000 years earlier when he wrote: “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7). The body and the spirit reside in two different locations upon death, as 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 also teaches. Paul writes about those who have fallen asleep—already died. Jesus will bring them back with Him. That is, He will bring the spirits of the saints with Him.
However, their bodies will rise up out of the dust of the ground. The fleshly body always remains on earth. Only the spiritual part of man lives in a spiritual place—the Hadean realm. Paul is not writing in 1 Corinthians 15 with respect to Jesus descending from heaven with the spirits of the saints, as he does in 1 Thessalonians 4. Some in Corinth had been teaching that there is no resurrection at all. Therefore, Paul’s emphasis is on the physical body being raised up. Those who are alive and those who are raised from the grave (to be reunited with their spirits) shall all be changed in order to enter into Heaven.
Peter presented this same dichotomy with the spirit and the body as he spoke from prophecy about Jesus. First of all David knew the difference between his own soul (or spirit) and his body. He wrote that his flesh would rest in hope and that his soul would not be left in Hades (Acts 2:26-27). The body (the outward man) is the physical part of each human being; the spirit or soul is the inward man. David knew, as is obvious to all, that the body decays and returns to the dust. But he also knew what Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to accept—that the spirit abides in the Hadean realm—just as Jesus taught concerning the rich man and Lazarus.
David also prophesied that the physical body of Jesus (God’s Holy One) would not see corruption (v. 27). Jesus’ soul went to the Hadean realm while His body was in the grave, since His human existence was like ours. Peter affirms “that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption (v. 31). Dan does not seem to have grasped this concept, but, perhaps, upon further reflection, he may see it. The answer to his question is false. Man does not receive a spiritual body at death. His already-existing spirit is sent to the Hadean realm.
Soul Sleeping
Dan also advocates the soul sleeping doctrine associated with the same cults already discussed. Citing Hebrews 9:27, he erroneously draws the conclusion that after death, “judgment is next—not reward—not punishment. Man’s next consciousness is judgment. This harmonizes with the Scriptures.” No, this is an example of misunderstanding one verse and ignoring all the others that relate to the subject. Consider Hebrews 9:27-28:
And as it is appointed for man to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many….”
The writer is comparing things that happen only once. Jesus died for the sins of mankind once. He does not need to keep being offered. Similarly, men die once, and after this comes the judgment. The writ-er, however, did not say that the judgment comes immediately after death, nor did he say that those who have died are not conscious. He lists two events in the proper sequence but indicates nothing further. Likewise, if we said that after the resurrection of Jesus came the Day of Pentecost, we would not be implying that nothing happened during that intervening time period. Particularly, we would not be denying the Lord’s ascension which occurred in between. To conclude that souls are asleep during this time period is to assume what the text does not say.
It also denies much more than the events of the rich man and Lazarus. If all souls are unconscious from the time of their death until the time of the resurrection, then Jesus was unconscious from the time of His death until He was raised up on Pentecost. This is a variation of the same argument Paul used in 1 Corinthians 15. Does anyone really want to affirm that the Lord was unconscious during that time?
Furthermore, Jesus illustrated the consciousness of the dead to the Sadducees, who like their modern counterparts, did not believe it. The whole point of citing Exodus 3:6 was that Jesus was saying that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still alive—not unconscious—but alive. “I am their God,” He said. Is God the God of the dormant? No, He is the God of the living, Jesus taught (Matt. 22:32).
Sometimes, in an effort to prove unconsciousness after death, some will resort to Ecclesiastes 9:5, which reads: “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.” This text is not a thesis that explores theologically what happens after death. It is simply comparing the living to the dead—and a pessimistic one at that. Notice the living know one thing in particular—that they will die. Probably, this verse will not be included in the Positive Thoughts for each day of the year calendar.
However, knowing that death will come is one more thing than the dead know about what is occurring on the earth, for they have already departed from it. So, they know nothing. While on this earth, the living had goals, work to do, rewards, but in the Hadean world, their labors are over. They no longer have a share in anything that is done under the sun (v. 6). Solomon is not trying to convince anyone that souls sleep after death. In 12:7 he says that the spirit returns to God who gave it.
If all souls sleep until the Day of Judgment, then there is no way that Moses and Elijah could have appeared and talked to Jesus (Matt. 17:1-5). Yet they did. And how can we explain the souls under the altar, crying out, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Rev. 6:10)? They were given a white robe and told they should rest—not snooze (v. 11).
The rich man and Lazarus do not represent Jew and Gentile or any other fanciful explanation. They are two men who do not represent more than the obvious—the callous, compassionless, self-absorbed—and the spiritual strong but earthly poor. It is not materialistic wealth that saves but spiritual riches (Luke 12:21). At death, souls enter Hades; they are alive—not unconscious. Our goal is clear—to join those with Abraham.