The Rich Man and Lazarus: A Scary Introduction

“Just oooone drop!”

My knee-high nephew had deep dark nightmares after being persuaded to pray the sinner’s prayer by means of a most unsettling demonstration. 

I was yet a youngster myself when the horrors of hell compelled me to try to rescue my unwary relative from its fiery grasp. It was that terrifying story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 that gave me the chilling idea.  

This was years before the Partnership for a Drug-Free America launched its iconic egg in the frying pan campaign in 1987. Remember that? How could you forget? “This is your brain” the man says as he holds up an egg. “This is drugs” he adds as the camera zooms in on a red hot pan. Then after he cracks the shell to drop its contents into the searing skillet, he grimly intones, “This is your brain on drugs.” The vivid visual ends with several seconds of sizzle. 

Effective!

Well, my wee nephew’s eyes arched about as oval as eggs while I narrated the piteous pleas of the wealthy dead man who lifted his eyes in Hell. Vincent Price-like I moaned, “Ooooh, if ooonly Lazarus could dip the tip of his finger in water and cooooool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” I had never watched a horror movie in my life, but was dramatically acting this one out. 

My mesmerized target held his breath as I slowly lowered my forefinger in a cup of water. He anxiously shuddered as he watched my hand tremble over the stove top. 

“Just oooone drop!” 

Like a greasy explosion of a basket of fries taking a deep fry dive, that one little drop of water erupted in a scream of steam, and virtually “scared the hell” out of my oldest brother’s youngest son.     

My sister-in-law was none too happy about her boy’s bad dreams, and scolded my mortified mother with the demand that she had best restrain her boy’s extreme zeal. Admittedly that little stunt was over the top, but I was only imitating my elders. 

Already at that young age I had been immersed in indelible images of spine-tingling scenes from the domain of the damned as grim pulpiteers dramatized this hair-raising ghost story and lifted the lid on that infinite inferno called Hell. To my young and tender mind it was no idle curse word, but rather a very real cursed world- not the kind of place a loving uncle would want his knee-high nephew to go. 

Many years later as I was becoming more and more convinced that eternal life is truly the gift of God through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23), and not the intrinsic possession of immortal souls, meaning also that the wicked will not be eternally tortured but will finally and truly perish, I began to enthusiastically share my discovery as if I had found a cure for cancer. My orthodox friends did not share my enthusiasm. 

Though I certainly understood their reluctance to embrace a view they genuinely deemed heresy, I was nonetheless totally unprepared for their all-out resistance to even hope it could be so. It was not an inability to see; it was an unwillingness to look.    

But just as perplexing was that the first and most frequent appeal of my opponents was to this story that offers no evidence of endless. Traditionalists don't claim that it speaks of the last judgment, or deny that it is silent about the duration of final punishment, and they openly admit it is not authoritative on other subjects, such as why the rich man went to hell, or how Lazarus arrived in paradise. 

So, how is it that this alleged window on the intermediate state is the touchstone, cornerstone, and capstone of their endless torment creed?   

I can ask, "Is there anything in this story that says torment is endless?" 

The answer is No, but it doesn't matter.  

I can ask, "Does this speak at all of the last judgment?" 

Again, No.  But again, it does not matter. 

This account is so dominantly ingrained in the Evangelical imagination (like a full screen video on your smartphone) that absorbed creedal assumptions overwhelm what it actually says and clearly means.  

It’s frustrating that I feel it necessary to include six chapters on this one passage, but I have done so not due to its actual relevance, but because of its inordinate influence. It is that powerfully pervasive.  

In the following chapters we will uncover by way of the specific wording of the text what the story of the rich man and Lazarus does not say: It does not speak of a never-dying soul, but of a dead and buried body; it does not speak of unending torment, but of impossible escape; and it does not speak of the ultimate punishment of the wicked after the resurrection, but of the time between death and the final judgment.  

And by way of the context (revealing to whom Christ was speaking – covetous Pharisees; and what prompted His reprimand – their derision of His earlier remarks concerning mammon) we will also discover what the story does say: It says that being a son of Abraham in life does not guarantee the comfort of his presence (Abraham’s bosom) after death; it says that being an advocate of Moses does not mean mammon servers will hear Moses and enter the kingdom of God; and it says that if the living will not listen to the unfailing law and prophets, neither will they respond to someone who rises from the dead. Someone did (Lazarus), and they didn’t (believe). 

This is the message of the text and its context, and I am convinced it is the correct exposition.  

Any other explanation invariably lifts out and reads in the assumed dogma of the immortality of the soul and endless duration of hell’s torment. According to what fits in with its preconceptions, the traditional view inconsistently decides what is literal or figurative, normative or illustrative, and vital or incidental. 

For example, hell is considered indisputably literal, but the rich man’s eyes and tongue are viewed as most likely figurative. Hades (the Greek word translated “hell”) is the literal holding jail of the damned awaiting the prison of the lake of fire, while “Abraham’s bosom” is a figurative description of the paradise side of Hades prior to Christ’s resurrection, or an idyllic Jewish idea of the bliss of heaven. 

The torment is quite literal, the defenders insist, but the fiery flames may or may not be, they waver. 

The audible conversation between the rich man (“Son”) and Abraham (“Father”) across the vast chasm of the impassable great gulf is accepted as perhaps illustrative, while the conscious memory and agony of the rich man is unquestionably normative for all the dead in hell. 

The pesky fact of burial before torment is not vital, but incidental to the story, as is the troublesome detail that the rich man was not censured for his lack of faith, but for his abundance of good things.  

Would any pastor take this text to preach that having good things in this life is the surest route to being tormented in the next, or exhort his flock thereby to become penniless beggars? Would any theologian use this passage to teach that there is a temporary cessation of consciousness between death and burial, or assert that a hole in the ground is the necessary entry door to hell?   Would any evangelist enlist this narrative to urge the lost to walk an aisle so they can go to Abraham’s bosom, or promote the spirituality of a crumb diet and canine saliva salve? They would if they took it as normative on all subjects. 

But no, it certainly does not form the foundation of any pastor's sermon on salvation by grace, any teacher's text on the rewards of poverty, or any theologian’s elucidation of the death of the righteous. It's only doctrinally instructive and authoritative, in their view, when it comes to the nature of Hell. 

You may think I’m being unfairly facetious, but I’m only trying to reinforce the point that the traditional view has a propensity of lifting out of this story whatever fits its doctrinal bias and reading into this story whatever supports its creedal assumptions, without ever testing the consistency of its hermeneutic, or the plausibility of its exegesis. 

The parabolic nature of the story is dismissed outright with the rant that no parable includes a proper name, and the illustrative texture of the dissertation is denied with the assurance that this description is a veritable picture window into the underworld of the afterlife. 

But alas, no one treats its details entirely literal, normative, or vital, but picks it apart like a chicken scratching for feed in a barnyard.  It’s the same way they handle the book of Revelation - they pick and choose when to take this story literally, and their interpretive principle is simply whether or not it confirms or contradicts their dogma.    

We will also admire how the Master Parable-ist painted masterful pictures in humorous metaphors (straining at gnats) and absurd similes (pearls before swine) that were so brilliantly picturesque that they thrive to this day as familiar figures of speech. 

We will make the case that His parables were not newspaper clippings of current events, but satirical allegories and acerbic fables that sharply made their point and precisely hit their target. 

We will perceptively ponder how much of the story can even reasonably be considered literal - such as how was the rich man able to carry on a composed conversation in excruciating pain; how did he know it was Abraham; how could he see in the blackness of darkness; or hear amidst weeping and wailing. 

And we’ll analyze what the rich man’s behavior after death remarkably reveals about his faith and character.  

I conclude this introductory chapter with this plea: carefully examine the exact wording of this text and ask yourself if it really says what you have understood it to mean. Is it speaking of a departed soul or a buried body? Was there an immediate entrance into hell, or an interval of time between death and torment? Is there any thing in the story that reveals the duration of the torment, or is the assumption of the endless agony of an immortal soul been read into it? Does it concern the final judgment or the intermediate state?  

Carefully consider the context: to whom was Christ speaking, and why? Is the story a definitive treatise on life after death, or an illustrative allegory that rebuked the covetousness of mammon servers who flaunted their kinship with Abraham and allegiance to Moses? Do you consistently interpret the passage, or do you subjectively pick apart what’s literal or figurative, normative or illustrative, vital or incidental? And is your interpretation in harmony with the majority of the relevant passages concerning the subject? 

The overwhelming preponderance of the scripture texts relevant to final judgment depict the penal punishment of the wicked as an utter destruction that is everlasting in its result, not its duration; that ends in consumption, and does not continue in torment; and is consistently expressed by unequivocal words such as perish, corruption, and death. Christ’s story of the rich man and Lazarus does not contradict this comprehensive coherency or alter this preponderance. 

Don’t toss your Bible like an egg into your creedal frying pan. The story of the rich man and Lazarus was told to awaken covetous Pharisees, not to terrify knee high nephews.