Luke 16:25

Luke

DIVES AND LAZARUS

MEMORY IN ANOTHER WORLD

Luk 16:25.

It is a very striking thought that Christ, if He be what we suppose Him to be, knew all about the unseen present which we call the future, and yet was all but silent in reference to it. Seldom is it on His lips at all. Of arguments drawn from another world He has very few. Sometimes He speaks about it, but rather by allusion than in anything like an explicit revelation. This parable out of which my text is taken, is perhaps the most definite and continuous of His words about the invisible world; and yet all the while it lay there before Him; and standing on the very verge of it, with it spread out clear before His gaze, He reads off but a word or two of what He sees, and then shuts it in in darkness, and says to us, in the spirit of a part of this parable, ‘You have Moses and the prophets-hear them: if these are not enough, it will not be enough for you if all the glories of heaven and all the ghastliness of hell are flashed and flamed before you.’ We, too, if we are to ‘prophesy according to the proportion of faith,’ must not leave out altogether references to a future life in its two departments, and such motives as may be based upon them; only, I think, we ought always to keep them in the same relative amount to the whole of our teaching in which Christ kept them.

This parable, seeing that it is a parable, of course cannot be trusted as if it were a piece of simple dogmatic revelation, to give us information, facts, so as to construct out of it a theory of the other world. We are always in the double danger in parables, of taking that for drapery which was meant to be essence, and taking that for essence which was meant to be drapery. And so I do not profess to read from this narrative any very definite and clear knowledge of the future; but I think that in the two words which I have ventured to take as a text, we get the basis of very impressive thoughts with regard to the functions of memory in another world.

‘Son, remember!’ It is the voice, the first voice, the perpetual voice, which meets every man when he steps across the threshold of earth into the presence chamber of eternity. All the future is so built upon and interwoven with the past, that for the saved and for the lost alike this word might almost be taken as the motto of their whole situation, as the explanation of their whole condition. Memory in another world is indispensable to the gladness of the glad, and strikes the deepest note in the sadness of the lost. There can be no need to dwell at any length on the simple introductory thought, that there must be memory in a future state. Unless there were remembrance, there could be no sense of individuality. A man cannot have any conviction that he is himself, but by constant, though often unconscious, operation of this subtle act of remembrance. There can be no sense of personal identity except in proportion as there is clearness of recollection. Then again, if that future state be a state of retribution, there must be memory. Otherwise, there might be joy, and there might be sorrow, but the why and the wherefore of either would be entirely struck out of a man’s consciousness, and the one could not be felt as reward, nor the other as punishment. If, then, we are to rise from the grave the same men that we are laid in it, and if the future life has this for its characteristic, that it is a state either of recompense and reward, or of retribution and suffering, then, for both, the clearness and constant action, of memory are certainly needed. But it is not to the simple fact of its existence that I desire to direct your attention now. I wish, rather, to suggest to you one or two modifications under which it must apparently work in another world. When men remember there, they will remember very differently from the way in which they remember here. Let us look at these changes-constituting it, on the one hand, an instrument of torture; and, on the other, a foundation of all our gladness.

I. First, in another state, memory will be so widened as to take in the whole life.

We believe that what a man is in this life, he is more in another, that tendencies here become results yonder, that his sin, that his falsehood, that his whole moral nature, be it good or bad, becomes there what it is only striving to be here. We believe that in this present life our capacities of all sorts are hedged in, thwarted, damped down, diluted, by the necessity which there is for their working through this material body of ours. We believe that death is the heightening of a man’s stature-if he be bad, the intensifying of his badness; if he be good, the strengthening of his goodness. We believe that the contents of the intellectual nature, the capacities of that nature also, are all increased by the fact of having done with earth and having left the body behind. It is, I think, the teaching of common-sense, and it is the teaching of the Bible. True, that for some, that growth will only be a growth into greater power of feeling greater sorrow. Such an one grows up into a Hercules; but it is only that the Nessus shirt may wrap round him more tightly, and may gnaw him with a fiercer agony. But whether saved or lost-he that dies is greater than when yet living; and all his powers are intensified and strengthened by that awful experience of death and by what it brings with it.

Memory partakes in the common quickening. There are not wanting analogies and experiences in our present life to let us see that, in fact, when we talk about forgetting we ought to mean nothing more than the temporary cessation of conscious remembrance. Everything which you do leaves its effect with you for ever, just as long-forgotten meals are in your blood and bones to-day. Every act that a man performs is there. It has printed itself upon his soul, it has become a part of himself: and though, like a newly painted picture, after a little while the colours sink in, why is that? Only because they have entered into the very fibre of the canvas, and have left the surface because they are incorporated with the substance, and they want but a touch of varnish to flash out again! We forget nothing, in the sense of not being able, some time or another, to recall it; we forget much in the sense of ceasing for a time to have it in our thoughts.

For we know, in our own case, how strangely there come swimming up before us, out of the depths of the dim waters of oblivion-as one has seen some bright shell drawn from the sunless sea-caves, and gleaming white and shapeless far down before we had it on the surface-past thoughts, we know not whence or how. Some one of the million of hooks, with which all our life is furnished, has laid hold of some subtle suggestion which has been enough to bring them up into consciousness. We said we had forgotten them. What does it mean? Only that they had sunk into the deep, beneath our consciousness, and lay there to be brought up when needful. There is nothing more strange than the way in which some period of my life, that I supposed to be an entire blank-if I will think about it for a little while, begins to glimmer into form. As the developing solution brings out the image on the photographic plate, so the mind has the strange power, by fixing the attention, as we say {a short word which means a long, mysterious thing} upon that past that is half-remembered and half-forgotten, of bringing it into clear consciousness and perfect recollection. And, there are instances, too, of a still more striking kind, familiar to some of us how in what people call morbid states, men remember their childhood, which they had forgotten for long years. You may remember that old story of the dying woman beginning to speak in a tongue unknown to all that stood around her bed. When a child she had learned some northern language, in a far-off land. Long before she had learned to shape any definite remembrances of the place, she had been taken away, and not having used, had forgotten the speech. But at last there rushed up again all the old memories, and the tongue of the dumb was loosed, and she spake! People would say, ‘the action of disease.’ It may be, but that explains nothing. Perhaps in such states the spirit is working in a manner less limited by the body than in health, and so showing some slight prelude of its powers when it has shuffled off this mortal coil. But be that as it may, these morbid phenomena, and the other more familiar facts already referred to, unite to show us that the sphere of recollection is much wider than that occupied at any given moment by memory. Recollection is the servant of Memory, as our great poet tells us in his wise allegory, and

‘does on him still attend,

To reach whenever he for ought does send.’

We cannot lay aside anything that we have ever done or been so utterly but that that servant can find it and bring it to his lord. We forget nothing so completely but that we shall be able to recall it. Of that awful power we may say, without irreverence, ‘Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.’

The fragmentary remembrances which we have now, lift themselves above the ocean of forgetfulness like islands in some Archipelago, the summits of sister hills, though separated by the estranging sea that covers their converging sides and the valleys where their roots unite. The solid land is there, though hidden. Drain off the sea, and there will be no more isolated peaks, but continuous land. In this life we have but the island memories heaving themselves into sight, but in the next the Lord shall ‘cause the sea to go back by the breath of His mouth,’ and the channels of the great deep of a human heart’s experiences and actions shall be laid bare. ‘There shall be no more sea’; but the solid land of a whole life will appear when God says, ‘Son, remember!’ So much, then, for my first consideration-namely, that memory in a future state will comprehend the whole of life. Another thing is, that memory in a future state will probably be so rapid as to embrace all the past life at once. We do not know, we have no conception of, the extent to which our thinking, and feeling, and remembrance, are made tardy by the slow vehicle of this bodily organisation in which the soul rides. But we have in our own lives instances enough to make us feel that there lie in us dormant, mysterious powers by which the rapidity of all our operations of thought and feeling will be enhanced marvellously, like the difference between a broad-wheeled waggon and an express train! At some turning point of your life, when some great joy flashed, or some great shadow darkened upon you all at once; when some crisis that wanted an instantaneous decision appeared-why, what regions of thought, purpose, plan, resolution; what wilderness of desolate sorrow, and what paradises of blooming gladness, your soul has gone through in a moment. Well, then, take another illustration: A sleeper, feeling a light finger laid upon his shoulder, does not know what it is; in an instant he awakes and says, ‘Is it you?’ but between that touch and that word there may be a whole life run through, a whole series of long events dreamt and felt. As on the little retina of an eye there can be painted on a scale inconceivably minute, every tree and mountain-top in the whole wide panorama-so, in an instant, one may run through almost a whole lifetime of mental acts. Then, again, you remember that illustration, often used on this subject, about the experience of those who have been brought face to face with sudden death, and escaped it. The drowning man, when he comes to himself, tells us, that in the interval betwixt the instant when he felt he was going and the passing away of consciousness, all his life stood before him; as if some flash in a dark midnight had lighted up a whole mountain country-there it all was! Ah, brethren! we know nothing yet about the rapidity with which we may gather before us a whole series of events; so that although we have to pass from one to another, the succession may be so swift, as to produce in our own minds the effect of all being co-existent and simultaneous. As the child flashing about him a bit of burning stick, may seem to make a circle of flame, because the flame-point moves so quickly-so memory, though it does go from point to point, and dwells for some inconceivably minute instant on each part of the remembrance, may yet be gifted with such lightning speed, with such rapidity and awful quickness of glance, as that to the man himself the effect shall be that his whole life is spread out there before him in one instant, and that he, Godlike, sees the end and the beginning side by side. Yes; from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the roots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out which way the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of hill yonder: but when we get to the summit peak, and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once. The memory shall be perfect-perfect in the range of its grasp, and perfect in the rapidity with which it brings up all its objects before us at every instant.

Once more: it seems as if, in another world, memory would not only contain the whole life, and the whole life simultaneously; but would perpetually attend or haunt us. A constant remembrance! It does not lie in our power even in this world, to decide very much whether we shall remember or forget. It does not come within a man’s will to forget or to remember. He cannot say, ‘I will remember’; for if he could, he would have remembered already. He cannot say, ‘I will forget’; for the very effort fixes his attention on the obnoxious thing. All that we can do, when we seek to remember, is to wander back to somewhere about that point in our life where the shy thing lurks, and hope to catch some sight of it in the leafy coverts: and all we can do, when we want to forget, is to try and fill our mind with other subjects, and in the distractions of them to lose the oppressive and burdensome thoughts. But we know that that is but a partial remedy, that we cannot succeed in doing it. There are presences that will not be put by. There are memories that will start up before us, whether we are willing or not. Like the leprosy in the Israelite’s house, the foul spot works its way out through all the plaster and the paint; and the house is foul because it is there. Oh, my friend! you are a happy and a singular man if there is nothing in your life that you have tried to bury, and the obstinate thing will not be buried, but meets you again when you come away from its fancied grave. I remember an old castle where they tell us of a foul murder committed in a vaulted chamber with a narrow window, by torchlight one night; and there, they say, there are the streaks and stains of blood on the black oak floor; and they have planed, and scrubbed, and planed again, and thought they were gone-but there they always are, and continually up comes the dull reddish-black stain, as if oozing itself out through the boards to witness to the bloody crime again! The superstitious fable is a type of the way in which a foul thing, a sinful and bitter memory-gets ingrained into a man’s heart. He tries to banish it, and gets rid of it for a while. He goes back again, and the spots are there, and will be there for ever; and the only way to get rid of them is to destroy the soul in which they are.

Memory is not all within the power of the will on earth: and probably, memory in another world is still more involuntary and still more constant. Why? Because I read in the Bible that there is work in another world for God’s servants to do; but I do not read that there is work for anybody else but God’s servants to do. The work of an unforgiven sinner is done when he dies, and that not only because he is going into the state of retribution, but because no rebel’s work is going to be suffered in that world. The time for that is past. And so, if you will look, all the teachings of the Bible about the future state of those who are not in blessedness, give us this idea-a monotonous continuance of idleness, shutting them up to their own contemplations, the memories of the past and the agonies of the future. There are no distractions for such a man in another world. He has thought, he has conscience, he has remembrance. He has a sense of pain, of sin, of wrong, of loss. He has one ‘passive fixed endurance, all eternal and the same’; but I do not read that his pain is anodyned and his sorrow soothed by any activity that his hand finds to do. And, in a most tragic sense, we may say, ‘there is neither work, nor labour, nor device,’ in that dark world where the fruits of sin are reaped in monotonous suffering and ever-present pain. A memory, brethren, that will have its own way-what a field for sorrow and lamentation that is, when God says at last, ‘Now go-go apart; take thy life with thee; read it over; see what thou hast done with it!’ One old Roman tyrant had a punishment in which he bound the dead body of the murdered to the living body of the murderer, and left them there scaffolded. And when that voice comes, ‘Son, remember!’ to the living soul of the godless, unbelieving, impenitent man, there is bound to him the murdered past, the dead past, his own life; and, in Milton’s awful and profound words,

‘Which way I fly is hell-myself am hell!’

There is only one other modification of this awful faculty that I would remind you of; and that is, that in a future life memory will be associated with a perfectly accurate knowledge of the consequences and a perfectly sensitive conscience as to the criminality of the past. You will have cause and consequence put down before you, meeting each other at last. There will be no room then to say, ‘I wonder how such and such a thing will work out,’ ‘I wonder how such a thing can have come upon me’; but every one will have his whole life to look back upon, and will see the childish sin that was the parent of the full-grown vice, and the everlasting sorrow that came out of that little and apparently transitory root. The conscience, which here becomes hardened by contact with sin, and enfeebled because unheeded, will then be restored to its early sensitiveness and power, as if the labourer’s horny palm were to be endowed again with the softness of the infant’s little hand. If you will take and think about that, brother, there is enough-without any more talk, without any more ghastly, sensual external figures-there is enough to make the boldest tremble; a memory embracing all the past, a memory rapidly grasping and constantly bringing its burden, a judgment which admits of no mistakes, and a conscience which has done with palliations and excuses!

It is not difficult to see how that is an instrument of torture. It is more difficult to see how such a memory can be a source of gladness; and yet it can. The old Greeks were pressed with that difficulty: they said to themselves, If a man remembers, there can be no Elysium for him. And so they put the river of forgetfulness, the waters of Lethe, betwixt life and the happy plains. Ah, we do not want any river of oblivion betwixt us and everlasting blessedness. Calvary is on this side, and that is enough! Certainly it is one of the most blessed things about ‘the faith that is in Christ Jesus,’ that it makes a man remember his own sinfulness with penitence, not with pain-that it makes the memory of past transgressions full of solemn joy, because the memory of past transgressions but brings to mind the depth and rushing fullness of that river of love which has swept them all away as far as the east is from the west. Oh, brother, brother! you cannot forget your sins; but it lies within your own decision whether the remembrance shall be thankfulness and blessedness, or whether it shall be pain and loss for ever. Like some black rock that heaves itself above the surface of a sunlit sea, and the wave runs dashing over it, and the spray, as it falls down its sides, is all rainbowed and lightened, and there comes beauty into the mighty grimness of the black thing;-so a man’s transgressions rear themselves up, and God’s great love, coming sweeping itself against them and over them, makes out of the sin an occasion for the flashing more brightly of the beauty of His mercy, and turns the life of the pardoned penitent into a life of which even the sin is not pain to remember. So, then, lay your hand upon Christ Jesus. Put your heart into His keeping. Go to Him with your transgressions, He will forget them, and make it possible for you to remember them in such a way that the memory will become to you the very foundation of all your joy, and will make heaven’s anthem deeper and more harmonious when you say, ‘Now unto Him that hath washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God, unto Him be glory for ever and ever!’ And, on the other hand, if not, then, ‘Son, remember!’ will be the word that begins the future retribution, and shuts you up with a wasted past, with a gnawing conscience, and an upbraiding heart: to say,

‘I backward cast my ee

On prospects drear!

And forward, though I canna see,

I guess and fear!’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 16:25. Τέκνον, ‘Son’) The correlative is introduced from the relative, Father Abraham. The proper name is not here added. For Abraham did not know him as his son any longer. Joshua also called the wretched Achan Son [after his guilt] in ch. Luk 7:19.—μνήσθητι, remember) The dead retain the recollection of former events: see Luk 16:27.—ἀπέλαβες) hast carried off according to thy desire [hast received as the portion which thou didst desire]. The rich man had not thought so during life. The price is large both of prosperity and adversity respectively:[177] for the sowing time is in this life.—τὰ ἀγαθὰ thy good things) חלקם, Psa 17:14.—ἐν τῇ ζωῇ σου. So the LXX., ἐν τῇ ζωῇ αὐτῶν in the same passage.—τὰ κακὰ, evil things) There is not added here his [as thy was added in the case of the good things of the rich man].—νῦν δὲ, but now) An argument based on the principle of fair compensation, to explain why each should be so treated as he is.—ΠΑΡΑΚΛΕῖΤΑΙ, he is comforted) in respect to his former miseries: 2Th 2:16. He has no leisure [non vacat, no time or opportunity] now for departing [to cool thy tongue].—ὀδυνᾶσαι, thou art tormented) in pure and unmixed pain.

[177] i.e. The former, when bought at the expense of eternal misery, is dearly purchased: the latter, when endured in faith for the sake of the better portion, is a good purchase.—E. and T.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_16:25. Τέκνον] an address of sympathizing patriarchal love.

The emphasis of the refusal lies on ἀπέλαβες, which is hence placed first: that thou hast received thy good things; there is nothing more in arrear for thee as thy due acquittance (see on Luk_18:30), hence to thy lot cannot fall the refreshing craved. Compare the ἀπέχειν τὴν παράκλησιν, Luk_6:26. If the rich man had not used his treasures for splendour and pleasure, but charitably for others (Luk_16:9), he would, when that splendour and pleasure had passed away from him, have still retained as arrears in his favour the happiness which he had dispensed with.

τὰ ἀγαθά σου] i.e. the sum of thy happiness.

ὁμοίως] i.e. ἀπέλαβεν ἐν τῇ ζωῇ αὐτοῦ.

τὰ κακά] i.e. the sum of the evil, corresponding by way of contrast to the τὰ ἀγαθά σου. Observe that αὐτοῦ is not added.

νῦν δὲ κ.τ.λ.] but now, the reversed condition! He has the happiness left in arrear for him; thou, the sufferings left in arrear for thee! That Lazarus is not to be conceived of as simply a poor man and unfortunate, but as a pious man, who, without special deserving, is a suffering victim, is plain by virtue of the contrast from the unconverted state of the rich man, which brought him into Gehenna, Luk_16:28 ff. He was one of those to whom applied the μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ κ.τ.λ., Luk_6:21. Only this is not to be concluded from the silence of Lazarus before the rich mans door and in the bosom of Abraham (Lange: a princely proud, silent beggara humble blessed child of God without self-exaltation in the bosom of glory), for the chief person, and therefore the speaker, is the rich man.

παρακαλεῖται] see on Mat_5:4; 2Th_2:16. The notion that the earthly happiness of the rich man had been the recompense for his τινα ἀρετήν, and the misery of Lazarus the punishment for his τινα κακίαν (Euthymius Zigabenus, Theophylact; comp. Rabbins in Wetstein), is an incongruous reflection.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 16:25 . τέκνον : answering to Πάτερ , introducing in a kindly paternal tone a speech holding out no hope, all the less that it is so softly and quietly spoken. τὰ ἀγαθά σου , τὰ κακά : you got your good things what you desired, and thought you had a right to Lazarus got the ills, not what he desired or deserved, but the ills to be met with on earth, of which he had a very full share (no αὐτοῦ after κακά ). νῦν δὲ , but now, the now of time and of logic: the reversal of lot in the state after death a hard fact, and equitable. The ultimate ground of the reversal, character, is not referred to; it is a mere question of fairness or poetic justice.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Son--stinging acknowledgment of the claimed relationship.

thou . . . Lazarus, &c.--As it is a great law of God's kingdom, that the nature of our present desires shall rule that of our future bliss, so by that law, he whose "good things," craved and enjoyed, were all bounded by time, could look for none after his connection with time had come to an end (Luk 6:24). But by this law, he whose "evil things," all crowded into the present life, drove him to seek, and find, consolation in a life beyond the grave, is by death released from all evil and ushered into unmixed and uninterrupted good (Luk 6:21). (2) It is impossible.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(25) But Abraham said, Son, . . .—There is surely something suggestive that the Patriarch is represented as not disowning the relationship. If we find a meaning in the “friend” of the parables of the Labourers in the Vineyard (see Note on Mat_20:13) and the Wedding Garment (see Note on Mat_22:12), we ought not to ignore the thought that seems to be implied here. Here, too, was one who, even in Hades, was recognised as being, now more truly than he had been in his life, a “child” or “son of Abraham.” (Comp. Luk_19:9.) The word used is the same, in its tone of pity and tenderness, as that which the father used to the elder son in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luk_15:31), which our Lord addressed to the man sick of the palsy (Mat_9:2), or to His own disciples (Joh_13:33).

Remember.—The word has a terrible force in its bearing upon the question of the future life. Memory intensified, reproducing the past visions, pleasures, and base joys, the mala mentis gaudia of the self-indulgent, and subject to the action of a conscience no longer narcotised into slumber—this makes the sharpest pang of the deserved anguish. In Christian eschatology the river of death is no water of Lethe, bringing with it the forgetfulness of past evil.

Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.—The verb, like “they have their reward,” in Mat_6:2, implies that this was all he was to have. There is an emphasis, too, in the presence of the pronoun in the one clause, and its absence in the other. The rich man had made the pleasures of sense “his good things.” They were all that he cared for—all, therefore, that he was to have. He had identified himself with them. The “evil things” of Lazarus, on the other hand, had not been chosen by him; they were external to him, a discipline and a probation through which, turning them to their right use, he passed to his true good.

Now he is comforted.—Some of the better MSS. give, “now he is comforted here.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. Son] Rather, Child. Even in the punishment of Hades he is addressed by a word of tenderness (Luk_15:31, Luk_19:9).

receivedst] Rather, receivedst to the full.

thy good things...evil things] The ‘good things’of Dives were such as he had accounted to be absolutely his own, and to be really good (Mat_6:2); the ‘evil things’ of Lazarus were not ‘his,’ but part of God’s merciful discipline to him, Rev_7:14. The parable gives no ground for the interpretation that the temporal felicity of Dives was a reward for any good things he had done, or the misery of Lazarus a punishment for his temporal sins.

but novo] Add ‘here? with the best MSS.

thou art tormented] ‘Pained,’ as before. The parable is practically an expansion of the beatitudes and woes of Luk_6:22-25.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And besides all this,.... The different circumstances of each, both past and present, which should be observed and considered:

between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; as this may regard the state of the Pharisees after death, it intends not the natural distance between heaven and hell; though there may be an allusion to the notions of the Jews concerning that, who on those words in Ecc 7:14. "God hath set the one over against the other", say (f),

"this is hell and paradise, what space is there between them? an hand's breadth; R. Jochanan says a wall, but the Rabbans say, they are both of them even, so that they may look out of one into another.''

Which passage is cited a little differently (g), thus;

"wherefore did the holy blessed God create hell and paradise? that they might be one against another; what space is there between them? R. Jochanan says, a wall, and R. Acha says an hand's breadth: but the Rabbans say, two fingers.''

And elsewhere it (h) is said,

"know that hell and paradise are near to one another, and one house separates between them; and paradise is on the north east side---and hell on the north west.''

Mahomet seems to have borrowed this notion from them, who says (i),

"between the blessed and the damned, there shall be a vail; and men shall stand on "Al Araf", (the name of the wall or partition, that shall separate paradise from hell,) who shall know every one of them by their mouths.''

But not this natural space, be it what it will, but the immutable decree of God is intended here, which has unalterably fixed the state of the damned, and of the blessed:

so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from thence; not that those in heaven can desire to go to those in hell; though those in hell, may wish to be in heaven; but the sense is, that by this irrevocable decree of God, the saints in heaven are eternally happy, and the wicked in hell eternally miserable: and this also agrees with the notions of the Jews (k), who represent it impossible: for a man, after he has descended into hell, to come up from thence any more: but as this may regard the Jews state of captivity and affliction, since the destruction of their city and temple, upon, and for their rejection of the Messiah; it may denote the impossibility of Christ's coming again upon the same errand he came on before, to be a Saviour of sinners, and a sacrifice for sin; and of the Jews believing in him, so long as they lie under the spirit of slumber, and are given up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart.

(f) Midrash Kohelet, fol 76. 1. (g) Nishmat Chayim Orat. 1. sect. 12. fol. 31. 1. (h) Raziel, fol. 15. 1. (i) Koran, c. 7. p. 120. (k) Caphtor, fol. 70. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

Ver. 25. Son, remember, &c.] Son he calls him, with respect either ad procreationem carnis, aut ad aetatem, saith Piscator. But as it was but cold comfort to Dives in flames that Abraham called him son, so those that have no more to shroud themselves under than a general profession, shall find that an empty title yields but an empty comfort at last.

That thou in thy lifetime] Gregory the Great could never read these words without horror: lest himself, having such honours here, should be shut out of heaven. Jas 5:5; "Ye have lived in pleasure upon earth;" which is a purgatory, not a paradise.

Receivedst thy good things] Wicked men then have not only a civil title, but a right before God to earthly things. It is their portion, Psa 17:14. And what Ananias had was his own, Act 5:4, while he had it. God gave Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar for his pains at Tyre. It is hard to say they are usurpers. They shall not (saith one) be called to an account at the last day for possessing what they had, but for abusing that possession. As when the king gives a traitor his life, he gives him food and drink that may maintain his life. So here God deals, not as that cruel d’Alva did, who starved some prisoners after he had given them quarter, saying, Though I promised you your lives, I promised not to find you food. (Grimst. Hist. of the Netherl.).

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Son - This is a representation designed to correspond with the word “father.” He was a descendant of Abraham a Jew - and Abraham is represented as calling this thing to his remembrance. It would not lessen his sorrows to remember that he was a “son” of Abraham, and that he ought to have lived worthy of that relation to him.

Remember - This is a cutting word in this place. One of the chief torments of hell will be the “remembrance” of what was enjoyed and of what was done in this world. Nor will it be any mitigation of the suffering to spend an “eternity” where there will be nothing else to do, day or night, but to “remember” what “was” done, and what “might have been,” if the life had been right.

Thy good things - That is, property, splendor, honor.

Evil things - Poverty, contempt, and disease.

But now ... - How changed the scene! How different the condition! And how much “better” was the portion of Lazarus, after all, than that of the rich man! It is probable that Lazarus had the most “real” happiness in the land of the living, for riches without the love of God can never confer happiness like the favor of God, even in poverty. But the comforts of the rich man are now gone forever, and the joys of Lazarus have just commenced. “One” is to be comforted, and “the other” to be tormented, to all eternity. How much better, therefore, is poverty, with the friendship of God, than riches, with all that the world can bestow! And how foolish to seek our chief pleasures only in this life!

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

It appears from Philo, (de Execrat. p. 9, 37 b.) that the Jews not only acknowledged the existence of souls, and their state of happiness or misery after this life, but also that the souls of the saints and patriarchs interceded with God for their descendants, and obtained from them the succour they stood in need of. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

We must still remember, that all these things are spoken in a figure. The

great gulf here mentioned, to be fixed between heaven and hell, is too wide for persons on opposite sides of it to be heard communicating their minds each to other. All that our Saviour designs to let us know is, that the circumstances of damned souls are such, that, if it were possible, they would beg the help and assistance of the meanest saints, whom they have in this life most scorned, despised, or abused; but as they will have no such opportunities as to crave any thing at their hands, so if they had, they could not receive the least relief from them; their state is determined, they are fixed for eternity, and there can be no change of their condition for the better. Abraham is here brought in calling this man

Son, either as lineally descended from him, or being a member of that church of which he was the father. It will add to the torments of the damned, to hear and consider the former means and advantages they have been under for salvation, if they have descended from godly parents, or have been members of the church of Christ.

That in thy lifetime thou receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things. The good things which the rich man received were no more the cause of his damnation, than the evil things which Lazarus met with were the cause of his salvation; but the rich man’s ill use of the former, and Lazarus’s good improvement of the latter, through the grace of God bestowed on him. Though it be not ordinary with God to give the same persons the upper and the nether springs, yet he sometimes doth it, of which Abraham, and Lot, and Job, and David, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph of Arimathea, are some instances. But the term thy signifies the error of this rich man; he looked upon the good things of this life as his portion, those were the things which be set his heart upon, and let his heart run out to the neglecting the good things of another life. Lazarus received evil things, God gave him a mean, afflicted portion in this life; but he was found patient, and glorifying of God by a quiet and believing submission to his will under them; now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. So then it seemeth that departed souls do not sleep, as some have dreamed; if they did, they could neither have been capable of comfort or torment.

And besides all this, there is a great gulf fixed, &c.; the meaning of which is no more than,

1. That the state of souls upon their separation from the bodies of men and women is determined and fixed. As the tree falls, so it lieth.

2. That there is no commerce, or intercourse, between glorified and damned souls. The papists passage from purgatory to heaven is a new found way, or rather a new fancied one. If purgatory be (as they pretend) a place where souls are tormented, it may be wondered how they should pass over this gulf: it seemeth Abraham did not know the way, St. Peter knew as little; this is one of his pretended vicar’s new discoveries, but it is no wisdom in any souls to trust to this passage, of which Abraham knew as little as he did of our prayers passing to them, or to God for them, for there is χασμα μεγα εστηριγμενον, a great gulf established.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. In thy lifetime receivedst thy good—He was of the number who receive their portion in this life instead of that good part which shall never be taken from them. He had preferred the world and its rewards, and had obtained them; but he had lost the world to come.

He is comforted—To be consoled, to be refreshed with repose, are terms of mild bliss with which the Jews characterized the lesser happiness of the intermediate state as compared with heaven.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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. Abraham here simply bids the tortured man to call to his memory the circumstances of the life he had lived on earth, telling him that in these circumstances he would find the reason for his present woeful state. It was no startling record of vice and crime, or even of folly, that the father of the faithful calls attention to. He quietly recalls to the rich man"s memory that on earth he had lived a life of princely splendour and luxury, and that Lazarus, sick and utterly destitute, lay at his palace gate, and was allowed to lie there unpitied and unhelped. And because of the studied moderation of its language, and the everyday character of its hero Dives for he, the rich man, not Lazarus, is the real hero, the central character of the great parable-lesson the lesson of the parable goes home necessarily to many more hearts than it would have done had the hero been a monster of wickedness, a cold calculating or else a plausible villain, a man who shrank not from sacrificing the lives and happiness of his fellow-men if their lives or happiness stood in his way. Dives was merely a commonplace wealthy man of the world, with self-centred alms, and the sin for which he was condemned to outer darkness was only that everyday sin of neglecting out of the mammon of unrighteousness in other words, out of his money to make for himself friends who should receive him into the eternal tents.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But Abraham said, Son - According to the flesh. Is it not worthy of observation, that Abraham will not revile even a damned soul? and shall living men revile one another? Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things - Thou didst choose and accept of worldly things as thy good, thy happiness. And can any be at a loss to know why he was in torments? This damnable idolatry, had there been nothing more, was enough to sink him to the nethermost hell.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Observe, 1. The title given to the rich man by father Abraham, Son. He does not revile him, though a very bad man: if we revile the good, we are unjust, they deserve it not; if we revile the bad, we are unwise, we shall get nothing by it: a wise man knows not what it is to give bad language.

Observe, 2. The admonition given, Remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things: thy good things in which thou placed all thy happiness; thy good things which thou looked upon thyself as the proprietor, and not as the dispenser of; now remember what thou had and what thou abused.

Learn hence,

1. That the outward blessings which are afforded to wicked men on earth, will be sadly remembered in hell: Son, remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things.

2. That no man ought to measure his happiness hereafter by his temporal felicity here: we may receive our good things here, and yet be tormented hereafter.

3. That no man ought to be excessively troubled if he meets with hardship here, because those for whom God designs good things hereafter, may have their evil things here: Son, thou hadst thy good things, and also Lazarus evil things.

4. The word (remember) implies that human souls, in their state of separation, do exercise memory, thought, and reflection on the past occurences and actions of their lives; and, consequently, that they do not sleep or fall into a state of insensibility and inactivity at death until the resurrection.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. Son. Abraham recognizes the fleshly tie. His answer is fatherly, affectionate. Remember. Analogy gives us every reason to suppose that in the disembodied state the whole life on earth will lie before the soul in all its thoughts, words, and deeds, like the map of the past journey before a traveler.—Alford. Thy good things. He was of the number who receive their portion in this life, instead of that good part which shall never be taken from them. He had preferred the world and its rewards, and had obtained them. But he had lost the world to come. Thy is emphatic. Earthly possessions and enjoyments were his choice. Now here he is comforted. The saved leave all sorrows behind when they leave the earth; the lost leave all their joys behind.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Child

The rich man was one of Abraham's descendants.

good things

"fine things" or "pleasant things"

in like manner evil things

"in like manner received evil things" or "in like manner received things that caused him to suffer"

in like manner

This refers the fact that they both received something while they lived on earth. It is not saying that what they received was the same. AT: "while he was living received"

he is comforted here

"he is comfortable here" or "he is happy here"

in agony

"suffering"

Besides all this

"In addition to this reason"

a great chasm has been put in place

This can be stated in active form. AT: "God has placed a huge ravine between you and us" (See: Active or Passive)

a great chasm

"a steep, deep and wide valley" or "a big separation" or "a huge ravine"

those who want to cross over ... cannot

"those people who want to cross over the chasm ... cannot" or "if anyone wants to cross over ... he cannot"

translationWords

Abraham

children

evil

comfort

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

25. ὧδε. The ὅδε of the Rec[293] is a correction or a clerical error.

[293] Rec. The Textus Receptus.

25. τέκνον. ‘Child.’ Even in the punishment of Hades he is addressed by a word of tenderness (Luk 15:31, Luk 19:9).

ἀπέλαβες. ‘Receivedst to the full.’ Comp. ἀπέχειν, Luk 6:24.

τὰ ἀγαθά σου. The “good things” of Dives were such as he had accounted to be absolutely his own, and to be really good (Mat 6:2); the “evil things” of Lazarus were not ‘his,’ but part of God’s merciful discipline to him, Rev 7:14. The parable gives no ground for the interpretation that the temporal felicity of Dives was a reward for any good things he had done, or the misery of Lazarus a punishment for his temporal sins.

νῦν δὲ ὧδε. ‘But now, here.’

ὀδυνᾶσαι. ‘Thou art pained,’ as before. The parable is practically an expansion of the beatitudes and woes of Luk 6:22-25.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25.] The answer is solemn, calm, and fatherly;—there is no mocking, as is found in the Koran under the same circumstances; no grief, as is sometimes represented affecting the blessed spirits for the lot of the lost. (Klopstock, cited by Stier, iii. 319, edn. 2: Wehmuth der Himmlischen die verlorenen Seelen begleitet.)

μνήσθητι …] Analogy gives us every reason to suppose, that in the disembodied state the whole life on earth will lie before the soul in all its thoughts, words, and deeds, like a map of the past journey before a traveller.

ἀπέλαβες—not sufficiently expressed by ‘receivedst,’ E. V.:—it is analogous to ἀπέχουσιν, Mat 6:2, Mat 6:5, Mat 6:16,—and expresses the receipt in full, the exhaustion of all claim on.

Those that were good things to thee, τὰ ἀγ. σου, came to an end in thy lifetime: there are no more of them.

What a weighty, precious word is this σου: were it not for it, De Wette and the like, who maintain that the only meaning of the parable is, ‘Woe to the rich, but blessed are the poor’—would have found in this verse at least a specious defence for their view:—though even then τὰ ἀγ. would have implied the same, in fair interpretation.

τὰ κακά—not αὐτοῦ—for to him they were not so.

παρακαλ.] See ch. 6:24.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. Τέκνον. He does not resent the appeal to relationship: the refusal is as gentle as it is decided. The rich man cannot fail to see the reasonableness of what he experiences.

ἀπέλαβες. “Thou didst receive in full.” This seems to be the meaning of the ἀπο-. Nothing was stored up for the future: Comp. ἀπέχειν, 6:24; Mat 6:2, Mat 6:5, Mat 6:16. Note the μνήσθητι. It is only in the mythological Hades that there is a river of Lethe, drowning the memory of the past. See second small print, p. 425.

τὰ ἀγαθά σου. Herein also was fatal error. He had no idea of any other good things, and he kept these to himself.

καὶ Λάζαρος ὁμοίως τὰ κακά. There is no αὐτοῦ. His evil things were not his own, but he accepted them as from God, while the rich man took his good things as possessions for which he had no account to render. Comp. vv. 11, 12.

νῦν δὲ ὧδε. Contrast of time and place: “But now here.” The ὁ δὲ of TR. has scarcely any authority. The same corruption is found 1Co 4:2. Comp. οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ᾅδου ζητῆσαι τρυφήν (Ecclus. 14:16). There is, however, no hint that during their lives Dives had been sufficiently rewarded for any good that he had done, and Lazarus sufficiently punished for any evil that he had done. And there is also no justification of the doctrine that to each man is allotted so much pleasure and so much pain; and that those who have their full allowance of pleasure in this world cannot have any in the world to come. Abraham’s reply must be considered in close relation to the rich man’s request. Dives had not asked to be freed from his punishment. He accepted that as just. He had asked for a slight alleviation, and in a way which involved an interruption of the bliss of Lazarus. Abraham replies that to interfere with the lot of either is both unreasonable and impossible. Dives had unbroken luxury, and Lazarus unbroken suffering, in the other world. There can be no break in the pangs of Dives, or in the bliss of Lazarus, now. Apoc. Baruch, lxxv. 9.

ὀδυνᾶσαι. An intermediate form between ὀδυνάεσαι and ὀδυνᾷ. Such things belong to the popular Greek of the time. Comp. καυχᾶσαι (Rom 2:17; 1Co 4:7), κατακαυχᾶσαι (Rom 11:18), and see on φάγεσαι and πίεσαι (Luk 17:8). See Expos. Times, viii. p. 239.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Son [τεκνον] . Lit., child.

Receivedst [απελαβες] . Received back [απο] as a reward or quittance. Compare ch. Luk 6:34; Luk 18:30; Luk 23:41.

Gulf [χασμα] . From caskw, to yawn. Transcribed into the English chasm. In medical language, of the cavities in a wound or ulcer.

Is fixed [εστηρικται] . Compare ch. 22 32; and see on 1Pe 5:10.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.