Now there was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor. And a beggar named Lazarus lay at his gate, covered with sores and longing to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham from afar, with Lazarus by his side. So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are in agony. And besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that even those who wish cannot cross from here to you, nor can anyone cross from there to us.’ ‘Then I beg you, father,’ he said, ‘send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also end up in this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let your brothers listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire with horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up into heaven in a whirlwind.
This is what the LORD says: "For three transgressions of Israel, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger.
Anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city will be eaten by dogs, and anyone who dies in the field will be eaten by the birds of the air.’ For the LORD has spoken.
Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:48
Significance
In the parable, "the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side" (Luke 16:22) — a picture of the righteous poor escorted at death into blessedness — while the rich man is merely "buried" and lifts his eyes in torment. 2 Kings 2:11 furnishes the canon's most vivid image of a faithful man taken up: Elijah carried to heaven in a whirlwind by "a chariot of fire with horses of fire." The connection is analogical: Elijah's bodily ascent is the Old Testament's paradigm of God receiving His servant out of this life into His presence, and Luke draws on that stock of imagery to depict Lazarus's angelic escort — it is not a citation but a reasoning from a shared picture. The parable's own point is that the reversal of fortunes is fixed and that "Moses and the prophets" are sufficient warning: "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead" (16:31). The telos is Christ, on whom that line lands: it is precisely His resurrection, greater than Elijah's ascent, that answers the rich man's plea and opens the way for every beggar-in-faith to be carried home — so the comfort Lazarus received is secured not by poverty but by the risen Lord who is Himself the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).
Found via
Beale & Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007)
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Analogy
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