Luke 16:22 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 16:22

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But the account moves on, and we read ‘it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.’ Now that is very poetic language. Of course it isn't literal, but what it means is he went to heaven. It's the Saviour's way of putting it. The death of the rich man is described in quite different terms. ‘The rich man died, and was buried.’ That means he had a funeral. The beggar did not have a funeral; he was too poor. He was put in a pauper's grave outside the city; there was no funeral. But the rich man, we can imagine, would have had a pretty splendid funeral. He would have had professional mourners, and speeches. They would all be speaking eloquently of his greatness and his goodness and his kindness and all the rest of it, when not a word of it was true. And his coffin. We could think of the most splendid gilded coffin. But for all the externals and the splendour and the fuss at a splendid funeral, he went straight to hell. He went straight to the place of lost souls. The key to this parable is that there is a third person, Abraham. In this parable, when somebody loves the Lord and knows him, he is pictured as being in the bosom of Abraham. You don't read that anywhere else in the Scripture. Abraham, to all the audience to which the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking, was the father of the faithful. He was the friend of God. Abraham was the great example of the Bible. He believed God, and because he just simply believed God, God received him and blessed him, and God walked with him. Abraham didn't earn God's favour. Abraham didn't do some wonderful thing so that God said he was pleased with him and he would reward him. No, the way Abraham found favour with God, and became a converted man, was that he simply believed him. He believed everything God said. When God said, ‘Abraham, you are to repent of your sin’, he believed it: he was sorry for his sin and turned from it. When God said, ‘Abraham, this is how you are to live’, he believed him. When God said, ‘Abraham, you are going to have quite a hard life on this earth, but live it in accordance with the rules I give you. Do what I tell you, and I will give you an eternal reward’, he believed God and he forsook the luxurious city of Ur and went to the land God showed him. So the fact that he was seated in a prominent place in heaven in this parable to receive Lazarus, means that Lazarus is going to the father of the faithful. It is telling us something about Lazarus. He may appear outwardly to have been crippled and poor, but he trusted God. He had made his peace with God. He believed the word of God. He believed that there was a hereafter, and that God would bless him and be near to him, even while he sat begging. He was a true child of God who believed him.

Application

Both men had something in common, which is a sobering thought. Both had to experience the ultimate tragedy of life; both had to die. Neither of them could put off the day. Neither of them could stop it or do anything about it. No matter how clever we may be or however simple we may be, however rich, however poor, we are all subject to the same issues of life and death. We have all got to grow old, and we have all got to leave this life and stand before God. The tremendous funeral of the rich man by comparison with the pauper's death and burial of the poor man – that didn’t make any difference.

Life passes a lot more quickly than we care to realize. Don't forget those statistics that they keep reminding us of: over 170,000 die every day, which is roughly 2 every second. James Montgomery wrote these haunting lines: The arrow that shall lay me low, Was shot from Death's unerring bow, The moment of my breath; And every footstep I proceed, It tracks me with increasing speed; I turn, – it meets me, – Death has given such impulse to that dart, It points for ever at my heart. The moment is already planned and determined. God has already limited the bounds of our habitation. Life is short, death is sure, and eternity is long, and it doesn't matter whether you are as rich as this rich man, or as poor as Lazarus, it comes to every one of us.

Remember also, we have no guarantee of heaven. That may just come as a surprise to some – the extraordinary things we seem to pick up along life's journey! We constantly meet with people who have the impression that Christianity teaches that everybody is going to heaven. There are many people under that impression. It is not clear where they get it from, but they certainly don't get it from Christianity. it is most definitely not the teaching of the Bible that everyone is going to heaven. It has never been any part of orthodox traditional historic Christianity that everyone is going to heaven: the very opposite. And here we have it taught by the Lord Jesus Christ himself that there is no guarantee of heaven for anyone.

Questions

Does the Lord Jesus look after his people? Oh, they may know suffering on earth, but if they know him, if they have turned to him, if they have found him, he will certainly look after them. The time came when Lazarus was transported out of this world, and he is given this escort by the very angels into heaven, into Abraham's bosom. One who has gone so low is drawn up so high and given an exalted place and comforted in the heavenly glories. He finds himself in the place where there is no more pain, where all tears are wiped away. He comes to the place where he sees his Saviour, who he has trusted and loved, and he is set free from sin forever.

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Luke 16:22 Commentary and Bible Study