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Reading the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke's gospel it becomes clear why a great chasm was fixed in order that those who would pass from heaven to hell may not be able, nor may any pass from hell to heaven. Because the rich man showed no sign of repentance even though he was in torment, he still looked upon Lazarus with the same contempt "send Lazarus....." neither would he show any repentance for it is appointed for man once to die and after that the judgement. It is hard for fleshly minds to grasp which is why we are told to lean not to our own understanding. The rich man had the scriptures as we do and if we do not believe the scripture we will never believe even if someone were to rise from the dead to tell them.
Even of the rich man in Hades (Lk.16:19-31) it is not stated how long his torments would last while there. Or denied that they could end while still there. Nor is it denied he could be saved while still in Hades. The rich man's Saviour is in Hades:
"If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; If I make my bed in the nether-world (Sheol = Hades), behold, Thou art there." (Psalm 139:8)
The rich man is called "son" (literally, "child") :
Lk.16:25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things
"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. Luke 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 (Luke 15:31), which our Lord addressed to the man sick of the palsy (Matthew 9:2), or to His own disciples (John 13:33)." Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
The rich man in Hades is receiving the Word of Truth from Abraham. If not to lead those there to repentance & salvation, why would anyone in Hades be receiving such truths.
When it is implied that the rich man is where he is due to his lack of compassion for his fellow man, in particular Lazarus, he responds positively by turning his attention from himself to his brethren still alive & requests that they be warned about Hades. Is the rich man turning from his selfishness & showing concern for others?
The story speaks of a great gulf fixed stopping the transfer of persons from one place to the other place. It does not say this gulf will remain in place forever. Only that at that moment in time it was so. Possibly the chasm barrier refers to the unrepentant state of those in Hades, & that once they repent the barrier stopping any individual from leaving is removed. Nor does the passage deny the possibility of salvation to the rich man in Hades while he remains there.
" “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” "
" "So even if we made the mistake of trying to extract from the details of this parable a position on the issue of whether there will be further chances, there still wouldn’t be much cause for taking this passage as supporting the doctrine of no further chances with any force at all. For as long as the [one] who believes in further chances sensibly allows for the possibility that, while punishment is occurring, those suffering from it can’t just end it any time they want, she can make perfectly good sense of the words this parable puts into the mouth of Father Abraham. After all, if a road has been covered with deep enough snow drifts, we’ll tell someone who must drive on that stretch of road to get to where we are, “You cannot cross over from there to us.” We’ll say this quite properly and truthfully, even if we know full well that the road will be cleared in a few days, or that, in a great enough emergency, a helicopter could be used to get across to us even today, if, say, we’re at a hospital. [But doesn’t that show that there is a sense, then, in which they can cross over to us? Yes, there’s a perfectly good sense in which they can, and a perfectly good sense in which they cannot. For enlightening and accessible explanations of the meaning of “can” and related words, I recommend Angelica Kratzer’s “What ‘Must’ and ‘Can’ Must and Can Mean” (Linguistics and Philosophy 1 (1977): pp. 337-355) and example 6 (“Relative Modality”) of David Lewis’s “Scorekeeping in a Language Game” (Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1979): pp. 339-359.]"
The duration, nature, intensity & purpose of the torments the rich man was suffering are not revealed in this story. His torments there could have lasted less than 5 minutes.
In Rev.20:11-15 those in Hades get out of Hades, so Hades (Lk.16:19-31) is not a place of unending torments. Assuming the parable's story is even to be taken literally.
Tom Talbott, PHD, said:
"As for the unbridgeable chasm of which Jesus spoke in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, not one word in this parable, even if taken as literal history, as some do take it, implies that the chasm between Hades and Abraham’s bosom will remain unbridgeable forever. Do not Christians believe that the cross has already guaranteed the ultimate destruction of sin and death, where the “last enemy to be destroyed,” as we have already noted, “is death” itself? When 1 Peter 3:19 depicts Jesus as preaching to the spirits in prison (or those who were disobedient in the days of Noah) and 1 Peter 4:6 also depicts him as preaching the gospel to the dead, do these texts not illustrate perfectly the view of Elhanan Winchester,13 who wrote: “I believe, that Jesus Christ was not only able to pass, but that he actually did pass that gulph, which was impassable to all men but not to him”?14 Even if one should take the details of this parable more literally than one should, in other words, one can still view the Cross as the means whereby Jesus Christ has bridged this hitherto unbridgeable gulf. By flinging himself into the chasm between the dead and the living and by building a bridge over it, Jesus thus brought his message of repentance and forgiveness to all people, including those in Hades, which is the abode of the dead."
We might also want to consider these passages in the same book of Luke's gospel:
Fear not, said the angel who announced it, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. Luke 2:10.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Luke 2:14.
Luke 3:5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
Luke 3:6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Luke 6:35
Luke 15:3 And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 4What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
Luke 15:8 Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?
Lk17:4 Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to say, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Lazarus and the Rich man are the same person, now somebody may disagree with this conclusion, but they will just be found wrong. Lazarus is the name of the priesthood, and the entire chapter of Luke 16 is talking about a marriage of flesh and spirit.
Jesus wasn't some mad man just blurting out crazy things off the top of his head, Jesus is speaking by the spirit of a marriage made of your body and what you choose to marry.
Luke 16.....''Whosever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery.,,, and whosever marrieth her that is put away from her husbandcommitteth adultery.........THERE WAS A CERTAIN RICH MAN..............Jesus is saying the same thing over and over pertaining to a marriage of flesh and spirit where you have married the word of God and what happens after that......
Luke 16
He that is faithful in that which is least IS FAITHFUL ALSO IN MUCH".........AND HE THAT IS UNJUST IN THE LEAST IS UNJUST ALSO IN MUCH.............
If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, WHO WILL COMMIT TO YOUR TRUST THE TRUE RICHES?
AND IF THEREFORE YE HAVE NOT BEEN FAITHFUL IN THAT WHICH IS ANOTHER MAN'S, WHO SHALL GIVE YOU THAT WHICH IS YOUR OWN?
You have been given this first life to choose God or money to do as you wish, but when you have broken with the priesthood you are supposed to be in, why on Earth would God give you another chance? God has a resurrection body with your name on it, and it belongs to you, it is full of power and immortality, but will you prove your worth? Why would God give you such power if you have used this life unfaithful? Why would God give a petty self absorbed prideful nut a body full of power when we see what you do with this body you have been put in charge of?..........When you have chosen to be a king with this worthless life in a body of death, why would God give you the immortal body that you have been working on?
All of Luke 16 is showing YOU WHAT YOU ARE, AND IT IS SHOWING YOU WHAG MARRIAGE YOU ARE IN, JESUS DOESN'T JUST LOSE HIS MIND TO BLURT OUT A LAW OF MARRIAGE, HE SPEAKS OF MARRIAGE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING..
SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS, i am on a tablet, but yeah, Jesus is continuing a story, a speech that is saying the same thing over and over telling us what we are in a marriage....
The law and the prophets were until John, since that time the kingdom of God has been preached and every man presseth into it, and it is easier for heaven and Earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail....................''Whosever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another committeth adultery.....................THEN JESUS GOES INTO EXPLAINING HOW A MAN PUTTETH AWAY HIS WIFE FOR ANOTHER, BY TELLING US AND SHOWING US THE RICH MAN, AND LAZARUS THE PRIESTHOOD.
The rich man chose another wife when he put off the law and the prophets to whom he was married to.......The priesthood became ill, and Gentiles were licking on the wounds of a sick priesthood because it had chosen mammon instead of the priesthood of God.
Your comment is based on a false assumption: ie. the existence of hell as a conscious torment of an immortal human spirit.
The human spirit is not immortal.
Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal;
- Genesis 6:3a
Only God is immortal.
“who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light”
- 1 Tim 6:16
Your reference to hell is a misnomer in that the Hebrew concept of the afterlife, which was well known and accepted by Jesus as well as His audience, is SHEOL.
Sheol is often misrepresented by Christians as hades or hell or the place across the river Styx from which no human returns. These are all pagan myths adopted from Plato by the early church.
Sheol is simply the bedroom of the dead.
In sheol or gehenna as it is also called, the dead are said to sleep. They do not suffer. They are not punished. Good wicked or indifferent they just park there.....they sleep. That's it and that's all. It's a simple unadorned Hebrew doctrine that makes no pretensions like those of the Christian doctrine of Purgatory or everlasting punishment.
The story of Lazarus and the rich man is a parable or allusion. Jesus made use of this teaching method many times and this was no exception. In fact, He used the name of a friend to enhance the tale. In sheol, the dead know nothing.
King David bemoaned the fact he wouldn't be able to praise the Lord in Sheol.
In 1 Samuel 28 King Saul asks a medium to call up the spirit of Samuel from Sheol. If the parable Jesus told about the afterlife was a tale about Platonic hell, then it wouldn't be possible for Samuel to be disturbed from his sleep. In fact, scripture says Samuel even complained about being disturbed.
There is no evidence nor even a hint of the Christian hell in ANY part of the Tanakh - Old Covenant.
Therefore we may assume Jesus was speaking a parable about a very deep division between rich and poor.
There is no hell - meaning an everlasting torment of a conscious human spirit after death. The human spirit is mortal and dies after Final Judgment (Her 9:27).
Only God is immortal and the everlasting life He grants is to those who have made peace with Him. The rest suffer permanent destruction called the Second Death (Rev 21:8)
Every scripture about hell is the outer court of darkness that the outer court of Gentiles is there to show us what hell is, and within that court is an alter of burnt offerings once you have stepped through the first veil, through the gate that leads you into the broad way where Gentiles are now standing with their salvation, but big woo, they have their salvation, but they are standing there in the court of darkness looking at a huge sign that reads,'' NO GENTILES PAST THIS POINT.
Hebrews 8 tells us for sure that the temple on Earth is there to show us the Temple in heaven both having 3 sections.
Jesus said that whoever keeps the laws of Moses and then teaches others to keep the laws of Moses will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and so we know who the greatest in the kingdom is, and we know who the least in the kingdom is, we know what the outer court of darkness is and exactly why it is called the outer court of darkness and how people are sent there because of their disrespect of God's commandments.
The works of every man will be tested by the fire, and if you and your works survive the flames, then you are given a reward, but if you watch your works burn, and you yourself burned, YOU ARE STILL SAVED BUT ONLY AS ONE WHO GOES THROUGH A FIRE.
Christians ARE ALWAYS SPEAKING OF THE GREAT DIVISION NOT KNOWING WHAT THEY ARE SPEAKING OF....
ALWAYS SPEAKING OF ROSH HASHANAH AND YOM KIPPUR NOT KNOWING WHAT THEY ARE SPEAKING ABOUT BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW THE RELIGION OF CHRIST.
WHAT GREAT DIVISION?'' Says the christian.''
Forever speaking about a sacrifice being cut in half where God walks between the halves and they still don't know whatnthey are talking about...
Luke 16:19-31 contains the account of a very rich man who lived a life of extreme luxury. Laid outside the gate of this rich man’s house, however, was an extremely poor man named Lazarus who simply hoped “to eat what fell from the rich man’s table” (v. 21). The rich man was completely indifferent to the plight of Lazarus, showing him no love, sympathy, or compassion whatsoever. Eventually, they both died. Lazarus went to heaven, and the rich man went to hell. Appealing to “Father Abraham” in heaven, the rich man requested that Lazarus be sent to cool his tongue with a drop of water to lessen his “agony in this fire.” The rich man also asked Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to warn his brothers to repent so that they would never join him in hell. Both requests were denied. Abraham told the rich man that if his brothers did not believe in Scripture, neither would they believe a messenger, even if he came straight from heaven.
First of all, Jesus teaches here that heaven and hell are both real, literal places. Sadly, many preachers shy away from uncomfortable topics such as hell. Some even teach “universalism” – the belief that everyone goes to heaven. Yet Christ spoke about hell a great deal, as did Paul, Peter, John, Jude, and the writer of Hebrews. The Bible is clear that every person who has ever lived will spend eternity in either heaven or hell. Like the rich man in the story, multitudes today are complacent in their conviction that all is well with their soul, and many will hear our Savior tell them otherwise when they die (Matthew 7:23).
This story also illustrates that once we cross the eternal horizon, that’s it. There are no more chances. The transition to our eternal state takes place the moment we die (2 Corinthians 5:8; Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23). When believers die, they are immediately in the conscious fellowship and joys of heaven. When unbelievers die, they are just as immediately in the conscious pain, suffering, and torment of hell. Notice the rich man didn’t ask for his brothers to pray for his release from some purgatorial middle ground, thereby expediting his journey to heaven. He knew he was in hell, and he knew why. That’s why his requests were merely to be comforted and to have a warning sent to his brothers. He knew there was no escape. He was eternally separated from God, and Abraham made it clear to him that there was no hope of ever mitigating his pain, suffering, or sorrow. Those in hell will perfectly recollect missed opportunities and their rejection of the gospel.
The Bible says our earthly lives are a “mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Our earthly sojourn is exceedingly brief. Perhaps the greatest lesson to learn from this story, then, is that when death comes knocking on our door there is only one thing that matters: our relationship with Jesus Christ. “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36). Eternal life is only found in Christ. “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12). The truth is, if we wish to live apart from God during our time on earth, He will grant us our wish for eternity as well. As one pastor aptly said, “If you board the train of unbelief, you will have to take it all the way to its destination.”
Again, the rich man IS Lazarus, Lazarus IS the rich man, and he has come to the great division which divides soul and spirit. He chose riches instead of being a priest, Lazarus IS THE NAME OF THE PRIESTHOOD. The name Lazarus was not chosen by mistake, it is chosen to show the priesthood that a man would not feed, instead he chose a different wife, a different life.
The parable ( illustration ) of the rich man and Lazarus is a story and Not a real happening.
The real happening is found at John 11:11-14 about Jesus' dead friend being in a sleep-like state while dead.
Again, the rich man IS Lazarus, Lazarus IS the rich man,..............
How can the rich man be Lazarus when at Luke 16:14 Jesus is addressing the covetous, money-loving Pharisees________
At verse 15 Jesus goes on to say to 'them' ( Pharisees ) Not to Lazarus.
As death ends a marriage, the 'law and the prophets' ( marriage ) of verse 16 ended with Jesus - Romans 10:4.
The description found at Luke 16:19 does Not fit the description of Lazarus, but fits the ' rich man ' Pharisees - verse 14.
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