A Rich Man,

a Poor Man,
and a Trip
to Hell
by Kevin Morgan
author of Sabbath Rest

Published by
Honor Him Ministries
July 17, 2005

E-mail: honorhimmin@cs.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luke 16:19 There was a certain rich man, which was

clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously
every day: 20 And there was a certain beggar named
Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 And
desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the
rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his
sores. 22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and
was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the
rich man also died, and was buried; 23 And in hell he lift
up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar
off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 And he cried and said,
Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus,
that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my
tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 25 But Abraham
said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst
thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but
now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 he storyteller starts His story in the customary,
expected way. His audience listens with ap-
proval and delight as He rehearses the cross-
cultural familiar tale.
“There once were two men,” he begins. “One was a rich man, who
lived a life of luxury and ease. The other was a beggar by the name of
Lazarus who suffered with terrible sores from his head to his feet. His
only comfort were the dogs who came to lick his sores. Every day the
beggar waited unnoticed outside the rich man’s house, hoping for a few
crumbs that might fall from the rich man’s fine table! In the course of
time, the poor man dies and so does the rich man. ...”
The storyteller pauses, but His listeners know what is coming next.
“The beggar is carried by angels to ‘Abraham’s bosom,’ while the rich
man finds that he has been taken on a trip to hell!”
His listeners smile approvingly. The rich man’s just deserts were just
the ironic twist they had been expecting. This story always has an ironic
twist! However, this time the story will have a surprise that the storytell-
ers listeners have not been expecting. The storyteller goes on.
“Though in a very different place, with a very different reward, the
rich man sees the beggar off in the distance, no longer suffering, while he
himself enures the sweltering torment of hell.
“‘Father Abraham,’ he cries, ‘have mercy on me and send Lazarus
with some cool water on his finger to give me some relief!’”
How convenient that he recognize the beggar now!
“Abraham responds, ‘Considering what you each have had throughout
life, it is only fair that you now endure torment, while he finally receives
the comfort he never had. Besides, there is a great expanse between the
two of you that cannot be breached.’
2 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

“Slumping in recognition that he cannot escape his terrible fate, the

rich man says, ‘Father Abraham, couldn’t you at least send Lazarus to my
five brothers to keep them from having to come to this horrible place?’
“Abraham responds, ‘They have the Scriptures; let them listen to them,
if they will.’
“‘But, Father Abraham,’ says the rich man, ‘they will listen if Lazarus
comes back from the dead to warn them.’
“‘No,’ says Abraham, ‘if they haven’t paid attention to the Scriptures,
even a person coming back from the grave won’t turn them around.’”

“That’s a strange way to finish the story!” whispers one in the crowd to
his neighbor.

Ah, but Jesus— the master storyteller— knows just what He was doing.
He has finished the familiar tale just as He intended, leaving His audience to
ponder Abraham’s curious parting words of admonition.
His listeners on that day aren’t the only ones who have been left to
ponder the story. We too may have a question or two about what Jesus
said on that day. What did the story mean? Did He intend that the story
be taken as an eye-witness account of heaven and hell? as a validation of
an immediate reward at death or of an intermediate state of consciousness
between the grave and judgment? Examining the parable we shall soon see.
 1.
A Parable is a Parable
ow should we interpret the parable, which we usually call
the Rich Man and Lazarus (or sometimes “Dives and
Lazarus”)? We should begin by noting that the story does
not stand alone. It is part of a series of stories that Jesus
used to speak to the Pharisees, whose overriding motiva-
tion in life was “unrighteous mammon,” not ministry to the lost. We should
also note that a significant portion of their theology was derived from
Alexandrian Greek philosophy rather than Old Testament scripture.
“The story of Dives and Lazarus was the last in a series of moving
stories, addressed primarily to the Pharisees, as recorded by Luke.
The fact that Jesus talked with outcasts and sinners drew sharp
censure from the Pharisees, who murmured, ‘This man receiveth
sinners, and eateth with them’(Luke 15:2). These narratives were
the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, then of the
unjust steward, and finally that of the lost opportunity.
“The same underlying lesson runs through them all — ‘more joy
in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine
righteous persons who need no repentance’ (v. 7, R.S.V.). There
is obvious satire in Christ’s reference to the ‘righteous’ persons.
As with the lost coin and the lost son, there is heavenly rejoicing
over the recovery of the lost— but resentment by the Pharisees.
More than a hundred times the expression ‘kingdom of God,’ or
‘kingdom of heaven,’ appears in the Gospels, often stressing joy
and rejoicing over the reclaiming of the sinner. But the Pharisees,
with their stultifying rules and repressive regulations and traditions
and smug racial arrogance, found no place for rejoicing over the
recovery of the lost.
4 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

“In the parable of the unjust steward Christ emphasized the

necessity of building friendships for the future, drawing a lesson
even from this man’s questionable shrewdness concerning his
earthly future. How much more important to prepare for the life to
come. But these important lessons were all spurned by the
Pharisees, and they ‘derided’ Christ (Luke 16:14). Their perverse
attitude and actions drew a stern rebuke. They were seeking to
‘justify’themselves before men, but their attitudes were an ‘abomi-
nation in the sight of God’(Luke 16:15).” LeRoy Froom, Condition-
alist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1, pp. 245, 246.

Like the stories of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11) and the Unjust
Steward (16:1), the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19)
begins without identifying itself as a parable, though all are parables.
A parable is meant to illustrate one major point.

The fact that Jesus drew a lesson in the story of the Unjust Steward
from the steward’s questionable shrewdness without recommending such
behavior goes to show that His parables were not meant to “walk on all
fours.” He told the story to illustrate one major point— now is the time to
prepare for the life to come!
In a similar way, when Jesus told the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus,
He had one major point to make. He did not intend for us to take every point of
the story and turn it into a doctrine. Jesus did not use the story because it was
“an eye-witness account of heaven and hell,” but because it was a well-known
story that would catch the attention of His hearers. Once He had them
listening, He hit them with a surprise ending— a “sucker punch,” if you
will— and declared that they should not wait for miraculous signs to believe,
but should believe the testimony of the Word of God.
By the way, this was also a method that the prophet Nathan used with
King David. He told the king a story about a rich man who took a poor
man’s only lamb to feed his guests. Caught up in the pathos of the story,
David never anticipated Nathan’s “sucker punch”— “Thou art the man!”
 A Parable is a Parable 5

Figurative language shows that the parable is not a literal account.

The expression “Abraham’s bosom” is clearly a figurative expression

since the redeemed could not literally fit into the bosom of Abraham—
even if we limit the number to the faithful from the Old Testament era.
“In Kid[dushin] 72b, Adda bar Ahaba, a rabbi of the third century,
is said to be ‘sitting in the bosom of Abraham,’which means that he
has entered paradise. With this should be compared the statement
of R[abbi] Levi (Gen. R. xlviii.): ‘In the world to come Abraham sits
at the gate of Gehenna, permitting none to enter who bears the
seal of the covenant’. . .
“It is plain that Abraham is here viewed as the warden of paradise,
like Michael in Jewish and St. Peter in Christian folk-lore. ...” The
Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, Co., 1905),
Isidore Singer, editor, vol. 1, p. 93.
Likewise, that a person in hell could see and talk to another person in
the place of delights beyond the “great gulf fixed” must also be seen as
figurative, otherwise, the rich man in hell would either have supernatural
vision or paradise and torment would be visible one from the other.
(Would that really be paradise?) Above all, if the rich man were truly
burning in the “torments” of hadês, would he have only asked for a dip of
water and not a bucket-full — or even a fire hydrant— to quench his thirst?
It is very hard to imagine someone being literally roasted with fire but
still carrying on such a sensible and calm conversation as is portrayed in
the parable.
Jesus’ version of the parable draws on an Egyptian/Jewish
folktale, but with significant differences.

“An ancient Egyptian folk-tale, modified and popularized in Jewish

circles, strikingly resembles the parable but lacks its emphasis on repen-
tance through obedience to Moses and the prophets.” Craig L. Blomberg,
Interpreting the Parables (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990),
pp. 203, 204.
6 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

“Years ago H. Gressmann (“Vom reichen Mann”) drew attention to

an Egyptian folktale, copied in Demotic on the back of a Greek
document dated in the seventh year of emperor Claudius (A .D . 47),
telling about the retribution in the afterlife for conditions in this: a
reincarnated Egyptian Si-Osiris, born miraculously to Satme
Khamuas, takes his father on a tour of Am ente, the realm of the
dead, to show him what happened to a rich man who had died, was
honorably lamented, shrouded in fine linen, and sumptuously
buried, and to a poor man who had also died, but who was carried
out unmourned on a straw mat to a common necropolis of
Memphis. The rich man was seen in torment with the axle of the
hinge of the hall’s door fixed in his right eye socket; but in another
hall Osiris, ruler of Am ente, sat enthroned and near him was the
poor man, robed in the rich man’s fine linen. Si-Osiris’words to his
father: ‘May it be done to you in Am ente as it is done in Am ente to
this pauper and not as it is done to this rich man in Am ente.’
“Gressmann thought that Alexandrian Jews had brought the Egyp-
tian folktale to Palestine, where it developed as the story of a poor
Torah scholar and a rich toll-collector named Bar Ma‘yan.”Joseph A.
Fitzmyer, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company,
Inc., 1985), vol. 28A, pp. 1126-1127.
“The more well-known Jewish form of this folk-tale narrates the story
of the rich tax collector Ben Majan [or Bar Ma‘yan], who died and was
given a well-attended, ostentatious funeral. About the same time, a
poor scholar found himself in Paradise, by flowing streams, while Bar
Majan found himself near the bank of a stream unable to reach the
water.”Craig L. Blomberg, pp. 203, 204.
The differences between the traditional tale and Jesus’ version of it are
significant. Not only does Jesus emphasize different things, but He gives
the beggar the name of his friend Lazarus, whom He was about to raise
from the dead. Was this because He was relating the experience of his
friend? No, the Lazarus that was His friend wasn’t a beggar, but lived with
his sisters. The Lazarus of the parable never comes back from the dead. It
would seem then that Jesus had a different purpose in telling the story.
 2.
What Jesus Taught about Death
and Hell
nterestingly enough, in speaking of the rich man’s dialogue
with Abraham from hell, Jesus does not use the Greek word
for hell that He consistently used to describe the fires of the
judgment (see Matthew 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:33;
Mark 9:43, 45, 47; and Luke 12:5). Instead of gehenna, a
name that comes from the valley of Hinnom in Judea where garbage was
incinerated, Jesus uses another name for hell— hadês, a hint to His audience
that this parable is not a direct comment on final judgment.
“It is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes
judgment.” Hebrews 9:27.
Though judgment does indeed sequentially follow death, according to
Jesus, the fire of judgment does not come immediately at death, but at the
end of the world.
“So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth,
and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into
the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Matthew 13:49, 50 [this is future tense].
Jesus connects the meting out of reward with His return to earth.
“Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every
man according as his work shall be.” Revelation 22:12.
Since the judgment meted out at the death of the beggar and the rich man
does not coincide with Jesus’ other teaching on the reward of the righteous
and the wicked, the story must not be an actual description of the judgment
which follows death. But does it validate belief in a state of consciousness
following death? What does Jesus teach about this subject elsewhere?
8 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

How did Jesus describe death when He

spoke about it more directly?

On the way to resurrect His friend, Lazarus, Jesus told His disciples:
“Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of
sleep. . . Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.” John
11:11, 14.
Jesus describes death as a sleep— a sleep out of which He will awaken on
the day of the resurrection those who die believing in Him. Then and only then
does consciousness begin again. Why else would He call it sleep?
“Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are
in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that
have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have
done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5:28, 29.
“Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and
I will raise him up at the last day.”John 6:54.
“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:”John 11:25.

When Jesus addressed the repentant thief

on the cross, wasn’t He describing the
man’s immediate promotion into glory?
“And he said unto Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when thou
comest into thy kingdom.’And Jesus said unto him, ‘Verily I say
unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.’” Luke
23:42, 43 KJV.
 What Jesus Taught About Death and Hell 9

Several points of Scripture establish that Jesus was not describing

immediate passage into glory.
Point 1. The thief did not die when Jesus died (and probably not even that
day). His legs were broken to hasten his death (John 19:32).
Point 2. The word “today” emphasizes the surety of the promise and
not the time of the fulfillment of the promise.
The actual Greek of Luke 23:43, with a literal translation, reads:
Amên (truly) soi (to you) legô (I say) sêmeron (today) met emou (with
me) esê (you will be) en tô paradeisô (in the paradise).

Since there were no commas in the original text, the placement of the
comma is not a matter of inspiration, but a matter of what makes the most
grammatical sense. We note that the adverb “today” (sêmeron) can either
modify what comes before it or what comes after it.
“This adverb, sêmeron (“today,” or better, “on this day”), occurs in
the Septuagint Old Testament and the Greek New Testament 259
times. It is used as an adjective 24 times, and without a verb to
qualify, 14 times. Of the remaining 221 times, it precedes the verb
it qualifies 51 times but follows it 170 times.” Froom, vol. 1, p. 281.
Using the emphasis of the Greek original order and placing the comma
after the word “today,” we see that Jesus was emphasizing the surety of
the promise and not the time of its fulfillment:
“Truly to you I say today, with me you will be in paradise!”
Parallel uses of sêmeron in the Old and New Testaments
This is not the only time that a Bible speaker has used “today” to
emphasize the truth of his statement. In two other passages we find a
similar use of the word sêmeron. One is in the Greek translation of the
Old Testament (the Septuagint) and the other is in Luke’s companion
volume to his gospel— the book of Acts. (Most readers have probably not
10 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

noticed their similarity because most translations have rendered sêmeron

as “this day.”) Notice the passages:
“And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and
say unto him, I profess THIS DAY [sêmeron] unto the LORD thy God,
that I am come unto the country which the LORD sware unto our
fathers for to give us.”Deuteronomy 26:3.
“Wherefore I take you to record THIS DAY [sêmeron], that I am
pure from the blood of all men.” Acts 20:26. (Here, the NIV has it
right: “Therefore, I declare to you TODAY that I am innocent of the
blood of all men.”)
In both passages, the speakers are emphasizing the truthfulness of their
statements— just as Jesus was emphasizing the certainty of His promise
by adding the expression “today.” (Similarly, in our time, we often make
a point more dramatic by adding the words, “I’m telling you right now
....”). Paul obviously did not mean that he was only innocent of their
blood on that particular day (never mind what he did last week or what he
might do next week). As with Jesus on the cross, Luke has Paul using
sêmeron to emphasize the certainty of his statement and not to verify
when that statement was to be fulfilled.
Point 3. Jesus did not go to “paradise” that day, for He plainly told
Mary that He had not ascended to His Father (John 20:17).
It is hardly thinkable that anyone would describe any other place but
the house of the Father as “paradise.” But strangely enough, that is what
some have done. They have concluded that Jesus went to a different
“paradise” at death than the Father’s house. (Did you notice that Luke
said “the paradise”? That’s pretty specific.) They do this by combining (a)
the description of the rich man in hadês of Luke 16 with (b) Jesus’
promise to the thief of “paradise” of Luke 23 with (c) the “hell” of Acts
2:27 where Jesus’ soul was not to be left (see p. 13) with (d) the supposed
preaching of Jesus to “spirits in prison” of 1 Peter 3:19 (see p. 12).
 What Jesus Taught About Death and Hell 11

However, this league of verses falls apart when we realize that the rich
man and Jesus were both in hadês, the Greek Old Testament’s equivalent
of sheol, (see Psalm 16:10), which is “the land of gloom and deep
shadow” (Job 10:21). But Paul speaks of “paradise” as being a glorious
place (2 Corinthians 12:4) not a gloomy one. Besides this, Revelation 2:7
tells us that the “tree of life” is in “paradise” and Revelation 22:2, 3
describes the “tree of life” as being in the same place as the throne of the
Father and Son (which would be where the Father dwells— His house).
Since the Bible tells us Jesus went to hadês at death and people believe
His promise meant that Jesus went to “paradise” at death, then “paradise”
would be hadês and hadês would have the “tree of life.” Perhaps, by an
extension of this line of logic, someone could conclude that this is how
people can suffer in hell without perishing, by just going to the tree of life
for a “refill” whenever they feel death coming on. Heaven help us!
Actually, Revelation describes “paradise” as continuing on while “death”
and hadês are destroyed in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14; 21:1).
All this confusion is based on the faulty assumption that Jesus went to
“paradise” on the day of His promise. But, according to Jesus’ own
testimony, He did not go to paradise that day, even though He really
meant what He said to the thief on the cross!
Point 4. When it least looked like He would be able to keep it, Jesus
made a promise to the repentent sinner hanging beside Him.

“Christ did not promise that the thief should be with Him in
paradise that day. He Himself did not go that day to paradise. He
slept in the tomb, and on the morning of the resurrection He said, ‘I
am not yet ascended to My Father.’John 20:17. But on the day of
the crucifixion, the day of apparent defeat and darkness, the prom-
ise was given. ‘To-day,’while dying upon the cross as a malefactor,
Christ assures the poor sinner, ‘Thou shalt be with Me in paradise.’”
Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 751.
12 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

Did Jesus’spirit preach to “spirits in

prison” when He died?

“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the
unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the
flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and
preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were
disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the
days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that
is, eight souls were saved by water.” 1 Peter 3:18-20.
Peter says that Jesus was “quickened by the Spirit: by which also he
went and preached.” How did He preach? It was by the Holy Spirit (for
He had commended His own spirit to God). When did the Spirit preach?
“... when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while
the ark was a preparing.”
“... Did He preach the gospel to them and thus give them a chance
to be saved even after they had already died? ... the verb translated
‘preached’... is not the Greek euangelizomai (‘to preach or tell the
good news’), which would certainly have meant that after His
crucifixion Christ really did preach a salvation message to lost souls
in Hades; but rather it is ekêryxen, from kêrysso (‘proclaim a
message,’from a king, or potentate). All that v. 19 actually says is
that Christ made a proclamation ... the only audience mentioned is
the generation of Noah ... This verse means, then, that Christ
through the Holy Spirit solemnly warned Noah’s contemporaries by
the mouth of Noah himself (described in 2 Peter 2:5 as ‘a preacher
[or “herald”] of righteousness.’Note that ‘preacher’ in this verse is
kêryka, the same root as the kêryxen referred to above in connec-
tion with 1 Peter 3:19).” Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible
Difficulties, pp. 423, emphasis supplied.
 What Jesus Taught About Death and Hell 13

Where did Jesus’ body, soul, and spirit go

when He died?

“... As to Christ’s condition in death, Christ’s body was put into the
grave, or sepulcher (hadês, or gravedom — Ps 16:10, Acts 2:31), while He
commended His “spirit” to God (Luke 23:46; cf. Psa 31:5). According to
the apostle Peter, who had talked with Jesus after the resurrection (John
21:7-22) and who was the preacher at Pentecost (Acts 2:14), Jesus’ soul
(Greek psuchê equivalent here to Hebrew nephesh, [meaning] Jesus
Himself) was in the grave from death until the resurrection. Quoting
David (Psa 16:10), Peter said of Christ:
“‘Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell (hadês, “the grave”], neither wilt
thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.’ ‘He would raise up Christ
to sit on his throne’ (Acts 2:27, 30).” Froom, vol. 1, p. 374, 375.
What is the natural sense of Peter’s statement? It is simply that Jesus
was not left in hadês or the grave, which was neither a place of suffering
or of bliss, where His body would have begun to break down if His Father
had not called Him forth to life and bodily resurrection.
Because the Greek word hadês is borrowed from paganism, there is a
mistaken notion that hadês, in the New Testament, and sheol, in the Old,
represent a dwelling place for dispossessed souls.
“Hadês among the Greeks originally signified the deity of the
underworld. Later on it became the name of the realm of the dead
itself. In the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament, the
word occurs sixty-one times as the translation of the Hebrew word
sheol (which generally means the realm of the dead). In the New
Testament hadês occurs eleven times (Matt. xi. 23, xvi. 18; Luke x.
15, xvi. 23; Acts ii. 27, 31; I Cor. xv. 55; Rev. i. 18, vi. 8, xx. 13, 14). ...”
Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Grand
Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1952), p. 429.
14 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

Though the term hadês does carry certain connotations from its hellenis-
tic roots, when used in the Bible as an equivalent for sheol, it does not
signify a dwelling place for wandering souls. It simply means the place of
the grave. The human “soul” cannot wander at all, for it is not an entity that
exists apart from the union of the “body” and the “breath of life” (Heb.
“spirit”) as we see in the account of the creation of the first human being.
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul.” Genesis 2:7.
Death then is the reversal of life, not life in a different form.
“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it.”Ecclesiastes 12:7.
Many assume that this means that a conscious spirit goes back to God.
But this would contradict Jesus’ own statement, for, though He com-
mended His spirit to the Father when He died, He plainly told Mary after
His resurrection that He had not ascended to the Father (John 20:17).
When man’s body goes to the earth and His spirit returns to God, the
“soul” ceases to function. It does not exist somewhere else. It is not stored
up in some subterranean cavern. “Soul” is a description of a person’s
identity— his conscious self. That is why Scripture employs it to depict a
person in dialogue with himself. (“And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou
has much good ...” Luke 12:19.) When a person dies, the person is held
captive by death and the grave. But Jesus overcame these captors, and,
when He returns in glory, those who die trusting in Him will experience
the outworking of His victory by the resurrection of the whole person
from death and the grave— spirit, soul, and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
Paul punctuates his hope in the resurrection at Jesus’ return with words of
victory over death, drawn from Hosea 13:14:
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
1 Corinthians 15:55.
 What Jesus Taught About Death and Hell 15

Doesn’t Paul’s expression, “Absent from

the body and ... present with the Lord,”
teach that the saints go straight into
Jesus’ presence at death?

“Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we

are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we
walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing
rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the
Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:6-8.
Although Paul makes it clear in Second Corinthians that being present
with the Lord is the next event he expects to experience after this bodily
existence, the one thing that Paul does not make clear in this passage is
the time at which this event will take place. And why doesn’t he? He
doesn’t need to. He already laid out the time element clearly— just months
before— in his first epistle to the Corinthians. (He also laid out the time
element in the first epistle that he ever wrote— 1 Thessalonians).
“Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this
corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have
put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is
written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”1 Corinthians 15:51-54.
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in
Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air:
and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”1 Thessalonians 4:16,17.
16 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

Though Christians often speak of being “immediately in Christ’s

presence” at death, this is only true in a certain sense. They are not
“immediately in Christ’s presence” in point of time, but “immediately”
with regard to their consciousness. Because a person does not sense the
passage of time when he or she is “asleep in Christ” (1 Corinthians
15:18), the transition into Christ’s presence does seem to be immediate.
If Christians who have died could be transported directly into Christ’s
presence, Scripture reveals that they would be unaware of the fact.
“For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave [Heb.
sheol] who shall give thee thanks?” Psalm 6:5.
“Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithful-
ness in destruction?” Psalm 88:11.
“The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into
silence.” Psalm 115:17.
“So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more,
they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou
wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret,
until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time,
and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of
my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call,
and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine
hands.” Job 14:12-15.

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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.
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 What Jesus Taught About Death and Hell 17

The “great gulf fixed” is the result of the choices of one’s life.
“The rich man claimed to be a son of Abraham, but he was
separated from Abraham by an impassable gulf— a character
wrongly developed. Abraham served God, following His word in
faith and obedience. But the rich man was unmindful of God and of
the needs of suffering humanity. The great gulf fixed between him
and Abraham was the gulf of disobedience. There are many today
who are following the same course.” Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object
Lessons, pp. 269, 270.
Besides His own teaching on death and hell, Jesus reminds His
audience by Abraham’s final words that there is another court of appeals
in coming to a proper understanding of this subject.
“They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.”
What do Moses and the prophets (i.e., the Old Testament Scriptures)
have to say about the subject of death and hell? We’ll consider that next.
18 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

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27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou

wouldest send him to my father’s house: 28 For I have five
brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come
into this place of torment. 29 Abraham saith unto him, They
have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
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 3.
What “Moses and
the Prophets” Taught about
Death and Hell
esides being a clue to our finding testimony regarding the
One who is the way to eternal life (John 5:39), Jesus’
reference to “Moses and the prophets” in the parable is
also a clue to the proper interpretation of the parable
itself.
It has been frequently noted that, by the time of Jesus’ sojourn on
Earth, the Jews had imbibed Greek thinking on the intermediate state of
man in death. (See Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the
Messiah, Appendix XIX.) Where did the Greeks get such an idea?
The first book of Moses tells us that, when God said that eating the
fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil would bring death, the
serpent taught the first “doctrine of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1)— “Ye shall
not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). That falsehood was taught throughout the
various religions of antiquity— from the Egyptian “realm of the dead” to
Plato’s “immortality of the soul.”
It is significant that, in relating this parable, Jesus began with what
was commonly believed and ended with an appeal to Moses and the
prophets (that is, the Old Testament Scriptures). Do the Old Testament
Scriptures promote the idea of conscious life beyond the grave? No, they
warn against the very attempt of communicating with the dead.
“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have
familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should
not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?” Isaiah
8:19. (Notice also God’s warning in Deuteronomy 18:10-12.)
20 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

Why do they warn against communicating with the dead? It is because

the dead have nothing to say.
“For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any
thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them
is forgotten. ... there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor
wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10.
“His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day
his thoughts perish.” Psalm 146:4.
If somebody “dials up the dead” and gets an answer, it won’t be
because the dead person is talking, but because somebody else— a
representative of the one who told Eve, “Ye shall not surely die”— has
gotten “on the line.”
Moreover, the Old Testament Scriptures do not speak of an immediate
reward at death. Rather, they uphold the same blessed hope for the
believer as does the New Testament— bodily resurrection on the last day.
“If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time
will I wait, till my change come.” Job 14:14.
“Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they
arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the
dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.”? Isaiah 26:19.
“God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; for he shall
receive me.” Psalm 49:15 (cf. Daniel 12:2).
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30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went

unto them from the dead, they will repent. 31 And he said
unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
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 4.
Jesus’Last Word on the Parable
braham’s final response is the “punch line” of the entire
parable, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from
the dead.” Oh, how true these words were! Even the
resurrection of Lazarus did not help convince the Jewish
religious leaders, who claimed to believe and live by “Moses and the
prophets” of who Jesus was. Had they not been blinded by national pride
and offended by Jesus’ disregard for their cherished traditions, they would
have allowed the Scriptures to lead them to the One who is the Way, the
Truth, and the Life.
“Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have
eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me.” John
5:39, ASV.
Having rejected the testimony of the Scriptures, it was not hard for the
Jewish leaders to go one step further and plot to silence the testimony of
the one who provided one of the greatest evidences of Jesus’ power to
save and to give life. They plotted to kill the very one Jesus had named in
the parable— Lazarus!
“But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to
death; Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away,
and believed on Jesus.”John 12:10, 11.
Let us pray that we never reject truth because of tradition or the
pressures of our culture, or because of our own personal preference. Even
as you have read this booklet, won’t you open your heart to God in prayer
and tell Him that you believe what Jesus has said to you through His Word
and that you want to hold onto the truths that He has revealed to you?
22 A Rich Man, A Poor Man, and a Trip to Hell

Summary of conclusions:

• Jesus did not tell the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus to teach
about judgment in the afterlife but to remind the Pharisees, who had
great confidence in their affluence as a sign of approval with God,
that it is the decisions one makes with regard to the revealed Word
of God during one’s lifetime that determines one’s fate.
• After catching the attention of His audience with a well-known
folktale of the first century, Jesus directed His listeners not to wait
for the miraculous to make a change in their lives, but to shape their
lives (and their doctrines, we might add) according to the testimony
of the Scriptures.
• Jesus, Paul, and the Old Testament Scriptures all testify that death is
a sleep and that the reward for how one has lived is given not at
death but at the end of the world.