Reflective Bible Study

Of all the places in the gospels, and of all the places specifically in Luke’s gospel, I am fascinated and intrigued by the passage we will be focusing in on for this episode. In this passage, Luke gives us an illustration Jesus shares without giving any context. Luke is the only gospel to include this event, making it more difficult to determine the context as well.

This has let many people to conclude different things regarding what this illustration is intended to teach and how literal we should understand the scenario. Some people believe the passage we will be reading proves there is consciousness after death, while others say that Jesus isn’t teaching what literally happens after death but instead He draws out a spiritual truth using a unique frame of reference.

There is also a theory that Jesus took a parable the religious leaders had and flipped the ending.

For those familiar with the Bible, you no doubt have already figured out that we will be discussing Jesus’ illustration of the Rich Man and Lazarus. There are many details in this parable that set it apart from Jesus’ other parables, while one big detail shines through that almost all of Jesus’ parables includes.

Let’s read what happened and discover what we can learn from Jesus’ illustration. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 16, and we will read from the New International Reader’s Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 19, Jesus says:

¹⁹ “Once there was a rich man. He was dressed in purple cloth and fine linen. He lived an easy life every day. ²⁰ A man named Lazarus was placed at his gate. Lazarus was a beggar. His body was covered with sores. ²¹ Even dogs came and licked his sores. All he wanted was to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.

²² “The time came when the beggar died. The angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³ In the place of the dead, the rich man was suffering terribly. He looked up and saw Abraham far away. Lazarus was by his side.²⁴ So the rich man called out, ‘Father Abraham! Have pity on me! Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water. Then he can cool my tongue with it. I am in terrible pain in this fire.’

²⁵ “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember what happened in your lifetime. You received your good things. Lazarus received bad things. Now he is comforted here, and you are in terrible pain. ²⁶ Besides, a wide space has been placed between us and you. So those who want to go from here to you can’t go. And no one can cross over from there to us.’

²⁷ “The rich man answered, ‘Then I beg you, father Abraham. Send Lazarus to my family. ²⁸ I have five brothers. Let Lazarus warn them. Then they will not come to this place of terrible suffering.’

²⁹ “Abraham replied, ‘They have the teachings of Moses and the Prophets. Let your brothers listen to them.’

³⁰ “ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said. ‘But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will turn away from their sins.’

³¹ “Abraham said to him, ‘They do not listen to Moses and the Prophets. So they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

With this last message, the illustration ends. Jesus doesn’t appear to give any context for it.

However, I don’t believe this is true. I believe there is context for this illustration and a clear theme that is worth paying attention to. I also believe this is just as much of an illustration as when Jesus taught on the Good Samaritan. While there isn’t the typical opening or anything tying this teaching to God’s kingdom, that also should be significant, because the only kingdom that matters in eternity’s perspective is God’s kingdom, and God’s kingdom is nowhere connected with this dualistic scenario.

I believe the context for this illustration is lost because most people don’t connect the scenario.

Jesus’ teaching in this passage comes immediately after what we focused on in our last episode. Near the end of that passage, we read in verses 14 and 15 of chapter 16: “The Pharisees loved money. They heard all that Jesus said and made fun of him. Jesus said to them, ‘You try to make yourselves look good in the eyes of other people. But God knows your hearts. What people think is worth a lot is hated by God.’”

The reason this context is lost is because between this illustration and that context are two uniquely different challenges, one about the eternal nature of God’s law while the focus of what is being shared changes, and the other about how divorce is seen in God’s eyes.

Many Bible headings will separate these events as well, prompting us to subtly believe Luke included these teachings without a context. However, Luke did not add headings to his gospel. The headings help us locate events, but they shouldn’t be used to separate events.

Jesus shared this illustration to Pharisees who loved money and who were making fun of Jesus. Jesus’ message to these Pharisees speaks volumes when He tells them “You try to make yourselves look good in the eyes of other people. But God knows your hearts.”

Then a few verses later, in our illustration, we discover a rich man who looked great in the eyes of everyone who misses out on being honored in the next life because of his actions and belief in the current life. This rich man in the parable, while not having an immediate context, clearly represents the Pharisees who were making fun of Jesus.

Some people point to the detail that Lazarus is given a name in this illustration, which is different from all other parables Jesus shared, and conclude that this means Jesus’ teaching is more literal than figurative – ignoring all the other very figurative language. I wonder if Jesus is subtly predicting and foreshadowing the resurrection of an actual man named Lazarus.

The Lazarus that was raised from the dead we know very little about. The only detail we really know is that he was Mary and Martha’s brother. Some people believe these two people of the same name are connected, but I am doubtful. If Jesus went to visit Mary and Martha and they told Him that they had a brother who was a beggar with sores all over His body, I suspect Jesus would have helped them and healed their brother. While this is not hinted at anywhere in the gospels, this action would be very consistent with Jesus’ character.

However, if these two men named Lazarus refer to the same man, then Jesus directly predicts Lazarus’ death, and while Jesus’ illustration in our passage for this episode does not have Lazarus being raised from the dead, it does accurately predict the response the religious leaders have when the real Lazarus is raised.

Jesus’ illustration ends with the message in verse 31, “They do not listen to Moses and the Prophets. So they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

A clear resurrection would not be enough to convince the religious leaders. These Pharisees had twisted their picture of God and their religion far from what God had given through Moses and through His prophets. Lazarus returning to life would not be enough to convince them and Jesus’ return to life only prompts them to bribe the soldiers into lying about what happened. Clearly predicted resurrections are not enough to convince someone stubbornly opposed to God, who ignores the messengers He sends.

However, a big theme is included in this illustration that many of Jesus’ other illustrations also include. This theme says that God loves those who are hurting, and He desires to help them. This theme is clearly present in the Lazarus character of this illustration, who appears to be punished by God but who simply is living a challenging life in a sinful, disease-filled world. God longs to heal this planet, but He is waiting until the time is right so that sin will never reappear in a perfectly recreated eternity!

I will leave you to decide whether this illustration teaches more than this about what happens after death. While it is possible, any truth we gather from this illustration must include the big themes and context we shared here, it must align with God’s character of love, and it must harmonize with the big themes of the entire Bible.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As always, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to accept God and the people He brings into your life without needing to be challenged in a big way.

Always, pray and study the Bible for yourself, and filter what you hear, see, and read through the big themes in the Bible to discover God’s truth for your life. Don’t let anyone dictate what you should believe from the Bible. Instead, take their ideas and test them against the truth revealed in the Bible!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we turn our attention onto Jesus facing the cross, before focusing on the time Jesus spent on the cross, let’s turn our attention back into the Old Testament to how the cross itself was foreshadowed hundreds of years before, and how Jesus Himself frames His life and mission being destined for the cross.

To start this journey in the Old Testament, let’s look back into the book of Numbers, and at an event the people of Israel faced as they were in the wilderness. In Numbers, chapter 21, we discover a fascinating situation. Reading from the New American Standard Bible translation, and starting reading from verse 4, we learn that:

⁴ Then they [referring to the Children of Israel] set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. ⁵ The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.”

⁶ The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. ⁷ So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. ⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” ⁹ And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

In this somewhat obscure Old Testament event, we find a fascinating foreshadowing to the fulfillment of Jesus’ mission. However, I suspect that not many people living in the first century who were also familiar with Israel’s history believed that this event in the book of Numbers meant anything more than simply another example of the people of Israel rebelling against God, God punishing them, they realizing they made a mistake, them asking for forgiveness, and God making a way for them to be forgiven.

However, as I say this right now, this summary is an exact overview of Jesus’ mission to this planet. While humanity was in open rebellion, Jesus stepped into history with the plan of salvation.

Early on in Jesus’ ministry, John’s gospel records a secret meeting Jesus has with one of the leading Pharisees, because this Pharisee wants to know more about Jesus. Tucked within this conversation comes one of the most famous set of verses, as well as a reference to this obscure Old Testament event.

In John’s gospel, chapter 3, we learn about the man named Nicodemus. Starting in verse 1, John tells us:

¹ Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; ² this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

⁴ Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? ¹¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. ¹² If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. ¹⁴ As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; ¹⁵ so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

Let’s stop reading here. While those familiar with this conversation know the verses that come next, all too often, the next thing Jesus says completely overshadows the reference Jesus makes to this Old Testament event.

In this conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus gives Nicodemus a clear prediction of His ultimate death, while also linking the type of death He would face to the Old Testament event that involved people looking at a cross.

I will be the first to say that it seems like a very strange, almost backwards, metaphor for the fiery serpent that Moses crafted to be a symbol of the Messiah. However, one psychological reason for this might be because often times our redemption will come from the place we least likely expect, or from the place we are least likely to look.

While it seems backward to think that looking at a “man-made” serpent crafted onto a standard, a poll, or a cross would be able to save someone from a living serpent that had just bitten them, there is an interesting metaphor in how both the cause of our death, and our redemption from death are from approximately the same place. While Satan is clearly behind much of the bad in our world today, and we can blame Him for the existence of sin, God’s law and justness is the ultimate judge condemning sinners to death.

God’s law has condemned us as worthy of death because we have sinned. We could parallel this to those in ancient Israel grumbling against God and Moses, and God sending, or allowing, snakes into their camp. The snakes invasion of the Israelite camp is God-directed judgment.

However, the solution for the judgment also comes from God. God tells Moses to craft the fiery serpent, and that lifting up this serpent for all to see would allow those who had been bitten to be saved. The serpent Moses made was not special. It may have even been hastily assembled. The real power in this metaphor is that everyone who had enough faith to look upon it was healed.

Looking at something is easy to do, but it also takes a measure of humility. A skeptic might say that the bar for this Old Testament miracle was too low, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there were people within the camp who took an approach similar to Namaan did when hearing instructions from the prophet. At first Namaan thought the instructions were too simple, too insignificant for there to be any positive change from the simple act. Namaan initially was going to discount the instructions without even trying them. However, one of his servants challenged him to test the theory out because it was simple, and Namaan was ultimately healed.

In our own lives, accepting Jesus’ gift of salvation is easy – perhaps even too easy. However, God purposefully set the bar so low that there could be no excuse for someone not being able to reach it. This means that the only people excluded from salvation will be those who chose not to accept Jesus, and those who decided that God’s methods were not for them.

From some of the earliest points surrounding God redeeming Israel from Egypt, we can know and understand that God’s plan of salvation is simple. While humanity was in open rebellion against God, God made a way for them to be saved. While deviating from God’s plan likely will include some level of pain or punishment, God is ready and willing to forgive and restore when we are ready to turn away from our sin and move back towards Him. When we turn and look to Jesus, God made a way for us to be forgiven.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do in one way or another, intentionally seek God first in your life and look towards the cross and to Jesus for hope, healing, and salvation. Trust that God has made the way out of sin possible through Jesus, and believe in Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf to cover the sins in our past.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to grow closer to God and to Jesus. Through prayer and Bible study, discover a God who loves you and a Messiah who dedicated His life to redeem you from sin.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!