25<\/strong>. Son<\/em> ] Rather, Child. Even in the punishment of Hades he is addressed by a word of tenderness (Luk 15:31<\/span>, Luk 19:9<\/span>).<\/p>\n receivedst<\/em> ] Rather, receivedst to the full<\/strong>.<\/p>\n thy good things…evil things<\/em> ] The ‘good things’of Dives were such as he had accounted to be absolutely his own, and to be really good (Mat 6:2<\/span>); the ‘evil things’ of Lazarus were not ‘his,’ but part of God’s merciful discipline to him, Rev 7:14<\/span>. 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.<\/p>\n but novo<\/em> ] Add ‘ here?<\/em> with the best MSS.<\/p>\n thou art tormented<\/em> ] <\/em> ‘Pained,’ as before. The parable is practically an expansion of the beatitudes and woes of Luk 6:22-25<\/span>.<\/p>\n Son – <\/B>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.<\/P> Remember – <\/B>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.<\/P> Thy good things – <\/B>That is, property, splendor, honor.<\/P> Evil things – <\/B>Poverty, contempt, and disease.<\/P> But now … – <\/B>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!<\/P> <\/p>\n We must still remember, that all these things are spoken in a figure. The <\/P> great gulf<\/B> 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 <\/P> Son, <\/B>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. <\/P> That in thy lifetime thou receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things.<\/B> The good things<\/B> 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 mans ill use of the former, and Lazaruss 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<\/B> 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, <\/B>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. <\/P> And besides all this, there is a great gulf fixed, &c.; <\/B>the meaning of which is no more than, <\/P> 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. <\/P> 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 vicars 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 <\/span>, a great gulf established. <\/P> <\/p>\n 25, 26. Son<\/B>stingingacknowledgment of the claimed relationship. <\/P> thou . . . Lazarus,<\/B>&c.As it is a great law of God’s kingdom, that the natureof our present desires shall rule that of our future bliss,<\/I> so bythat law, he whose “good things,” craved and enjoyed, wereall bounded by time, could look for none after his connection withtime had come to an end (Lu 6:24<\/span>).But by this law, he whose “evil things,” all crowded intothe present life, drove him to seek, and find, consolation in a lifebeyond the grave, is by death released from all evil and ushered intounmixed and uninterrupted good (Lu6:21<\/span>). (2) It is impossible.<\/I><\/P><\/p>\n But Abraham said, son<\/strong>,…. He calls him “son”, not in a spiritual sense; he was not one of Abraham’s spiritual seed, that trod in the steps of his faith; but because he was so according to the flesh; and in return to his calling him father: good men have not always good children, nor is any trust to be put in birth and parentage:<\/p>\n remember, that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things<\/strong>; temporal good things; a land flowing with milk and honey; all the outward blessings of life that could be wished for, the Jews had, whilst they were in their own land; and also ecclesiastical good things, as the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, the fathers, and the Messiah according to the flesh, even all external privileges and ordinances, Ro 9:4<\/span>.<\/p>\n And likewise Lazarus evil things<\/strong>; Christ was surrounded with the infirmities of human nature, he assumed; was attended with much outward meanness and poverty; was loaded with calumnies and reproaches; and followed with the wrath, hatred, and persecution of men; and suffered many evil things, as buffetings, scourging, spitting, and cruel mockings, and at last death itself:<\/p>\n but now he is comforted<\/strong>; see Ps 16:9<\/span> compared with Ac 2:25<\/span>. Christ being raised from the dead, and set in human nature at the right hand of God, is comforted with the presence of God, which for a while he was deprived of, when on the cross; and is delighted with the glory that it put upon him as man; and with pleasure sees the travail of his soul continually, his elect and redeemed ones, called and gathered by the grace of God, who are his jewels, his portion, and goodly heritage:<\/p>\n and thou art tormented<\/strong>; as were many of the Jews, his implacable enemies and persecutors in hell, and others in captivity, bondage, and distress.<\/p>\n Receivedst <\/B> (<\/SPAN><\/span>). Second aorist indicative of <\/SPAN><\/span>, old verb to get back what is promised and in full. See also Luke 6:34<\/span>; Luke 18:30<\/span>; Luke 23:41<\/span>.<\/P> Evil things <\/B> ( <\/SPAN><\/span>). Not “his,” but “the evil things” that came upon him.<\/P> Thou art in anguish <\/B> (<\/SPAN><\/span>). Like <\/SPAN><\/span> in Ro 2:17<\/span>. They contracted –<\/SPAN><\/span> without the loss of <\/SPAN><\/span>. Common in the Koine<\/I>. <\/P> <\/p>\n Son [] <\/SPAN><\/span>. Lit., child. <\/P> Receivedst [] <\/SPAN><\/span>. Received back [<\/SPAN><\/span>] as a reward or quittance. Compare ch. Luk 6:34<\/span>; Luk 18:30<\/span>; Luk 23:41<\/span>. <\/P> Gulf [] <\/SPAN><\/span>. From caskw, to yawn. Transcribed into the English chasm. In medical language, of the cavities in a wound or ulcer. <\/P> Is fixed [] <\/SPAN><\/span>. Compare ch. 22 32; and see on 1Pe 5:10<\/span>.<\/P> <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n 1) “But Abraham said, Son,” <\/strong>(eipen de Abraam teknon) “Then Abraham said, child,” in a very calm and kindly manner. There was no mocking of his state; nor was there any remorse concerning him either.<\/p>\n 2) “Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things,” <\/strong>(mnestheti hoti apelabes ta agatha sou en te zoe sou) “Just remember (recall) that you did’ receive your very good things in your life; “Start and keep remembering, your pleasures that you chose, and your opportunities to make your life right with God, while you were royally robed and bountifully fed, Luk 16:19<\/span>; Mat 19:23<\/span>; Luk 6:24<\/span>; Job 21:13<\/span>; Psa 73:14<\/span>.<\/p>\n 3) “And likewise Lazarus evil things:” <\/strong>(kai Lazaros homoios ta kake) “And Lazarus in a similar manner received the bad things,” less ideal, or undesirable things, or less desirable food, shelter, and clothing.<\/p>\n 4) “But now he is comforted,” <\/strong>(nun de hode parakleitai) “Yet, now, here and hereafter forever, he is comforted,” present with the Lord, 2Co 5:8<\/span>, at rest, Rev 14:13<\/span>.<\/p>\n 5) “And thou art tormented.” <\/strong>(su de odunasai) “Yet you are suffering,” being in a state of torments, where the cries of torments of minds and souls have no rest forever and ever, Rev 14:11<\/span>. He was tormented because in unbelief he abused mercy, until it was too late, Pro 1:20-25<\/span>; Pro 29:1<\/span>; Heb 4:7<\/span>. Joh 8:24<\/span>.<\/p>\n 25. Son, remember. The word son appears to be used ironically, as a sharp and piercing reproof to the rich man, who falsely boasted in his lifetime that he was one of the sons of Abraham. It seems as if pain inflicted by a hot iron wounded his mind, when his hypocrisy and false confidence are placed before his eyes. When it is said that he is tormented in hell, because he had received his good things in his lifetime, we must not understand the meaning to be, that eternal destruction awaits all who have enjoyed prosperity in the world. On the contrary, as Augustine has judiciously observed, poor Lazarus was carried into the bosom of rich Abraham, to inform us, that riches do not shut against any man the gate of the kingdom of heaven, but that it is open alike to all who have either made a sober use of riches, or patiently endured the want of them. All that is meant is, that the rich man, who yielded to the allurements of the present life, abandoned himself entirely to earthly enjoyments, and despised God and His kingdom, now suffers the punishment of his own neglect. <\/p>\n Receivedst THY good things. The pronoun thy is emphatic, as if Abraham had said: Thou wast created for an immortal life, and the Law of God raised time on high to the contemplation of the heavenly life; but thou, forgetting so exalted a condition, didst choose to resemble a sow or a dog, and thou therefore receivest a reward which befits brutal pleasures. But now he enjoys comfort When it is said of Lazarus, on the other hand, that he enjoys comfort, because he had suffered many distresses in the world, it would be idle to apply this to all whose condition is wretched; because their afflictions, in many cases, are so far from having been of service to them, that they ought rather to bring upon them severer punishment. But Lazarus is commended for patient endurance of the cross, which always springs from faith and a genuine fear of God; for he who obstinately resists his sufferings, and whose ferocity remains unsubdued, has no claim to be rewarded for patience, by receiving from God comfort in exchange for the cross. <\/p>\n To sum up the whole, they who have patiently endured the burden of the cross laid upon them, and have not been rebellious against the yoke and chastisements of God, but, amidst uninterrupted sufferings, have cherished the hope of a better life, have a rest laid up for them in heaven, when the period of their warfare shall be terminated. On the contrary, wicked despisers of God, who are wholly engrossed in the pleasures of the flesh, and who by a sort of mental intoxication, drown every feeling of piety, will experience, immediately after death, such torments as will efface their empty enjoyments. It must also be recollected, that this comfort, which the sons of God enjoy, lies in this, that they perceive a crown of glory prepared for them, and rest in the joyful expectation of it; as, on the other hand, the wicked are tormented by the apprehension of the future judgment, which they see coming upon them. <\/p>\n (25) But Abraham said, Son, . . .<\/strong>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<\/span>) and the Wedding Garment (see Note on Mat. 22:12<\/span>), 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<\/span>.) 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<\/span>), which our Lord addressed to the man sick of the palsy (Mat. 9:2<\/span>), or to His own disciples (Joh. 13:33<\/span>).<\/p>\n Remember.<\/strong>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<\/em> of the self-indulgent, and subject to the action of a conscience no longer narcotised into slumberthis 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.<\/p>\n Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.<\/strong>The verb, like they have<\/em> their reward, in Mat. 6:2<\/span>, 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<\/em> good things. They were all that he cared forall, 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<\/em> him, a discipline and a probation through which, turning them to their right use, he passed to his true good.<\/p>\n Now he is comforted.<\/strong>Some of the better MSS. give, now he is comforted here. 25<\/strong>. <\/strong> In thy lifetime receivedst thy good<\/em> He was of the number who receive their portion in this life <\/em> instead of that good part which shall never be taken from them. <\/em> He had preferred the world and its rewards, and had obtained them; but he had lost the world to come. <\/p>\n He is comforted<\/em> To be consoled, <\/em> to be refreshed <\/em> with repose, <\/em> are terms of mild bliss with which the Jews characterized the lesser happiness of the intermediate state as compared with heaven.<\/p>\n ‘But Abraham said, “Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in the same way evil things, but now here he is comforted, and you are in anguish.” ’<\/p>\n ‘Son.’ Abraham recognises his kinship. He is a son of Abraham, but it does him no good (compare Luk 3:8<\/span>). The Pharisees also laid great stress on being sons of Abraham (Joh 8:33<\/span>; Joh 8:39<\/span>). The reply of Abraham to the rich man is the reply of Jesus to the taunts of the Pharisees (Luk 16:14<\/span>). If in your life time you receive good things, and do not use them to the glory of God, in the afterlife you will receive bad things. Riches are a heavy responsibility which few can bear and survive, for they corrupt the soul.<\/p>\n The reply is not saying that all who suffer in this life will have joy in the next life, and that all who have joy in this life will have sorrow in the next. That is to look at it superficially. The reply is particular to their situations. The one is the rich man who enjoyed his luxuries with thought or care for no one but his own family, who misused his riches and ignored God’s Instruction given in the Law of Moses. Who basically ignored God. He knew what the Instruction of God taught him, but the pleasure of sin and the delight in riches overrode it. His comforts anaesthetised him. He had thus rejected compassion and had chosen to enjoy ‘good things’. he had no doubt had compassion on those that he loved. But he had not looked outside his own circle. Thus the good things that he had enjoyed now witnessed against him, and cried out about his disobedience. The other is the man whose name was recorded in Heaven, who was the one whom God helped. In his life he had suffered lack, but because his heart was right towards God he had no lack in the next life. And the principle is that the joys or sorrows that they experienced in this life no longer matter, except to testify for or against what they were, for the next life sets all to rights for good or bad. (For was we discover at the end the condemnation of the rich man lay in the fact that he had ignored the Instruction of God).<\/p>\n Luk 16:25<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>Son, remember that thou, <\/em><\/strong>&c.<\/strong> Is it not worthy of observation, that Abraham will not revile even a damned soul?shall then living men revile one another?He tells the rich man, that in his life-time he received his good things,<\/em> &c. Now, fully to understand this, we should consider that our Saviour’s principal view in this discourse evidently was, to warn men of the danger of that worldly-mindedness, <\/em>neglect of religion, and intenseness upon pleasure and profit, which is not so much any one vice, as it is the foundation of all vices. It is that which makes men regardless of futurity, and not to have God in their thoughts. It is that deceitfulness of riches, ambition, and voluptuousness, and that care of things temporal, which stifle all notions of religion, choke the word, and render it unfruitful. It is that temper which exposes a man to every temptation, and makes him ready to sacrifice theinterests of truth, holiness, and virtue, whenever they come in competition with the good things of this life, on which his heart is entirely set. But see this matter fully set forth in the Inferences at the end of the notes on chap. 12: <\/p>\n Luk 16:25<\/span> . ] an address of sympathizing patriarchal love.<\/p>\n The emphasis<\/em> of the refusal lies on , which is hence placed first: that thou hast received<\/em> thy good things; there is nothing more in arrear for thee as thy due acquittance<\/em> (see on Luk 18:30<\/span> ), hence to thy lot cannot fall the refreshing craved. Compare the , Luk 6:26<\/span> . If the rich man had not used his treasures for splendour and pleasure, but charitably for others (Luk 16:9<\/span> ), 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.<\/p>\n ] i.e. the sum of thy happiness<\/em> .<\/p>\n ] i.e.<\/em> .<\/p>\n ] i.e. the sum of the evil<\/em> , corresponding by way of contrast to the . Observe that is not added.<\/p>\n . . .] but now<\/em> , 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<\/em> a poor man and unfortunate, but as a pious<\/em> 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<\/span> ff. He was one of those to whom applied the . . ., Luk 6:21<\/span> . Only this is not to be concluded from the silence<\/em> of Lazarus before the rich man’s door and in the bosom of Abraham (Lange: “a princely proud, silent beggar a humble blessed child of God without self-exaltation in the bosom of glory”), for the chief person, and therefore the speaker<\/em> , is the rich man<\/em> .<\/p>\n ] see on Mat 5:4<\/span> ; 2Th 2:16<\/span> . The notion that the earthly happiness of the rich man had been the recompense for his , and the misery of Lazarus the punishment for his (Euthymius Zigabenus, Theophylact; comp. Rabbins in Wetstein), is an incongruous reflection.<\/p>\n DISCOURSE: 1549 Luk 16:25<\/span>. 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n THE more strongly the discourses of a minister bear upon the prevailing vices of the day, the more will they, whose besetting sin is pointed out and reprobated, pour contempt upon the preacher and his word. Our blessed Lord had spoken the parable of the unjust steward, in order to shew, that every one should consider himself as responsible to God for the use he makes of that which is entrusted to him. The Pharisees, who were covetous, immediately derided him [Note: ver. 14.]. Our Lord, however, was not to be deterred by their derision; on the contrary, he addressed to them a personal and severe reproof, and added another parable, that should enforce, with tenfold energy, his preceding admonitions. He represented a rich man, after a short enjoyment of his carnal pleasures, doomed to eternal misery in hell; and a poor man, after a transient scene of sufferings on earth, exalted to a state of everlasting felicity in heaven.<\/p>\n In opening this parable we shall present to your view,<\/p>\n I.<\/p>\n Their different conditions in this world<\/p>\n The Rich Man enjoyed all that could gratify an earthly mind The Poor Man was as destitute as a human being could be Who would have thought that these two men were of the same species, or that, if they were, a just and merciful God should put such a difference between them?] II.<\/p>\n Their still more different conditions in the invisible world<\/p>\n The Rich Man was reduced to a state of deserved misery Now let us contrast the two; and we shall confess that Lazarus with all his penury was, on the whole, an object of envy; while the Rich Man with all his indulgences was, on the whole, an object of the deepest commiseration.]<\/p>\n Let us learn from hence, How vain are riches without grace!<\/p>\n [What could the Rich Mans wealth procure him in this life? Nothing but food and raiment: nor were his delicacies more sweet to him, than to the cottager his homely meal. His riches could not ward off for a moment the stroke of death: much less could they profit him in the day of wrath. They served only to witness against him, and to prey upon his flesh like fire [Note: Jam 5:1-5<\/span>.]. Let not any then envy the great and gay; but rather seek to be rich in grace, and happy in the enjoyment of their God.]<\/p>\n 2.<\/p>\n What consolation will religion afford under the severest trials!<\/p>\n [Though Lazarus appeared so destitute, he doubtless had his comforts as well as his sorrows. He would console himself with such reflections as these: I have no earthly treasures; but I have treasures laid up for me in heaven: I am diseased in body; but my soul flourishes in health and vigour: I am scantily supported with refuse crumbs; but I have meat to eat which the world knows not of: I am without a mortal friend to minister unto me; but God is my friend, and angels are my ministering servants: I have nothing that I can call my own in this life; but I have all the glory of heaven in the life to come. Yes, thousands of such considerations would raise his drooping spirits, and often render him happier than all the gratifications of sense could possibly have made him. And all who possess real religion in their hearts shall find it as conducive to their happiness in this life, as it is to their eternal felicity.]<\/p>\n 3.<\/p>\n How earnestly we should improve our time in preparation for eternity!<\/p>\n [Whether we be in prosperity or in affliction, we are hastening to the grave: the whole of this life is but as a dream: death will soon terminate our present joys or sorrows: and our condition in the future world will depend entirely on the manner in which we have lived in this state of probation. God has drawn aside for a moment the veil of the invisible world; and shewn us what we shall all be in a little time: yes; all of us shall be banquetting in heaven, or agonizing with inexpressible, unintermitted anguish in hell; and in whichever state we be, all transition from it will be prevented by an impassable gulf. Let us endeavour to realize these awful truths. Let us believe what the Scriptures have told us respecting the issue of a worldly life. Let us pity those who, like the five brethren, are hastening in the delusive paths of ease and pleasure to the place of torment. And let us live now, as we shall wish we had lived, when our state shall be for ever fixed.]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Ver. 25. Son, remember, &c.<\/strong> ] Son he calls him, with respect either ad procreationem carnis, aut ad aetatem, <\/em> 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.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That thou in thy lifetime<\/strong> ] 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<\/span>Jas 5:5<\/span> ; “Ye have lived in pleasure upon earth;” which is a purgatory, not a paradise.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Receivedst thy good things<\/strong> ] Wicked men then have not only a civil title, but a right before God to earthly things. It is their portion, Psa 17:14<\/span> . And what Ananias had was his own, Act 5:4<\/span> , 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.). <\/p>\n 25.<\/strong> ] 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<\/em> .)<\/p>\n <\/strong> <\/strong> ] 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.<\/p>\n <\/strong> not sufficiently expressed by ‘ receivedst<\/em> ,’ E. V.: it is analogous to <\/strong> , Mat 6:2<\/span> ; Mat 6:5<\/span> ; Mat 6:16<\/span> , and expresses the receipt in full<\/em> , the exhaustion of all claim on.<\/p>\n Those that were good things to thee<\/em> , . <\/strong> ,<\/strong> came to an end<\/em> in thy lifetime: there are no more of them.<\/p>\n What a weighty, precious word is this <\/strong> :<\/strong> 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<\/em> ’ would have found in this verse at least a specious defence for their view: though even then <\/strong> . would have implied the same, in fair interpretation.<\/p>\n <\/strong> not for to him they were not so<\/em> .<\/p>\n <\/strong> .<\/strong> ] See ch. Luk 6:24<\/span> .<\/p>\n Luk 16:25<\/span> . : answering to , introducing in a kindly paternal tone a speech holding out no hope, all the less that it is so softly and quietly spoken. , : you got your<\/em> good things what you desired, and thought you had a right to Lazarus got the<\/em> 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 after ). , 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.<\/p>\n Luke<\/p>\n DIVES AND LAZARUS<\/p>\n MEMORY IN ANOTHER WORLD<\/p>\n Luk 16:25 <\/strong> .<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n This parable, seeing that it is<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n ‘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<\/em> , they will remember very differently from the way in which they remember here<\/em> . 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.<\/p>\n I. First, in another state, memory will be so widened as to take in the whole life.<\/p>\n <\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/em> , 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/p>\n ‘does on him still attend,<\/p>\n To reach whenever he for ought does send.’<\/p>\n <\/em> 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.’<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/em> 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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/em> 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,<\/p>\nFuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
<\/em><\/p>\nFuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS<\/strong><\/p>\n
[High titles, stately mansions, superb clothing, pompous equipage, numerous attendants, sumptuous entertainments, courtly friends, and flattering sycophants, were his distinguished portion, his daily enjoyment These were the things in which he took delight; nor had his vain earthly heart a thought or wish beyond them [Note: Thy good things.], Doubtless he was to many in his day an object of admiration and envy. And many amongst ourselves are ready to say, Give me but such a portion as his, and I desire no more.]<\/p>\n
[He wanted even the most common necessaries of life. In addition to this, he was full of sores from head to foot; without medical aid to cure them, or even a friendly hand to bind them up; so that the very dogs came and licked them. Unable to walk, he was carried, and, as if no man cared what became of him, was cast [Note: .] at the Rich Mans gate, to gather a scanty and precarious subsistence from the crumbs which fell from his table. Thus destitute of food, of health, of friends, a very outcast from society, he protracted a wretched existence, till death relieved him of his sorrows.<\/p>\n
But our minds will be reconciled to this seeming inequality of state, if we survey,<\/p>\n
[We read not of any enormous crimes that he committed; and therefore we cannot justly impute any to him. His elegant clothing and costly fare were not in themselves sinful, provided they were such as were suited to his station in life. That which constituted his guilt in the sight of God was, that his heart was set upon them; that he sought his happiness in them rather than in God; and that he lived solely for himself, to the neglect of those, whose necessities he should have delighted to relieve. And behold, what fearful punishment this iniquity brought upon him! His career of sin was soon terminated; and nothing of all his happiness remained to him but the guilt which he had contracted by it. He was buried indeed in a sumptuous manner; but what pleasure could he receive from funeral processions, sepulchral monuments, or flattering inscriptions? Alas! his body was insensible of the honours paid to it, and his soul was enduring unutterable anguish in the flames of hell. He prayed indeed, but his prayer was now too late. Had he called upon God when he was on earth, he might have obtained all the glory of heaven: but now he was refused, though he asked no more than a momentary mitigation of his pain. He begged that a messenger might be sent to warn and to convince his five surviving brethren, who were walking securely in his delusive steps: but neither could this be granted him; nor indeed would it have been of any use to those who disregarded the testimony of the sacred records. Instead of finding any relief, he was upbraided with his having sought an earthly portion, while he neglected those things which were to endure for ever; the remembrance of which folly could not but greatly aggravate his misery. Ah! how altered now his state, from honour to ignominy, from pleasure to pain, from affluence to extremest want!]
The Poor Man, on the contrary, was raised to a state of unspeakable felicity
[As death put a speedy period to the enjoyments of the one, so it soon also terminated the sorrows of the other. Nothing is spoken of the burial of the Poor Man; he was carried unnoticed, unregretted, to the silent grave; or rather, his fellow-creatures probably rejoiced that they were rid of a public nuisance. Not but that he was honoured in his death; for though disregarded by men, he was attended by angels, who gladly received his departing spirit, and bore it on their wings to the regions of light and glory. Let our eyes now follow him to his blest abode: behold, he, who once had scarcely enough to satisfy the cravings of nature, is now sitting next to Abraham himself at the heavenly banquet [Note: At feasts they lay on couches; so that one seemed, as it were, to be in the bosom of the person next to him. In this view, the circumstance of his being in Abrahams bosom is well worthy of notice.]; while the man who had fared sumptuously every day on earth, has not so much as a drop of water to cool his tongue! Nothing now remains to him of all his former sorrows, except indeed their sanctifying influence upon his soul. Now he has the good things which he sought on earth, the things in which alone he found delight. The enjoyment of the Divine presence was then his only consolation; and now it is his abiding, his ever-blessed portion.<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\nFuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n