The Bible Hell by J.W. Hanson, Kenroy Hunter (book suggestions .TXT) 📖

both came pretty much to coincide. The Greek Hadees they found well adapted to express the Hebrew Sheol. This they came to conceive as including different sorts of habitations, for ghosts of different characters." Now as nothing resembling this parable is found in the Old Testament where did the Jews obtain it, if not from the heathen?

The commentator, Macknight, Scotch Presbyterian, says truly: "It must be acknowledged that our Lord's descriptions are not drawn from the writings of the Old Testament, but have a remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have given. They represent the abodes of the blest as lying contiguous to the region of the damned, and separated only by a great impassable gulf in such sort that the ghosts could talk to one another from its opposite banks. If from these resemblances it is thought the parable is formed on the Grecian mythology, it will not at all follow that our Lord approved of what the common people thought or spoke concerning these matters, agreeably to the notions of Greeks. In parables, provided the doctrines inculcated are strictly true, the terms in which they are inculcated may be such as are most familiar to the people, and the images made use of are such as they are best acquainted with."

DOES NOT TEACH ENDLESS TORMENT

But if it were a literal history, nothing could be gained for the terrible doctrine of endless torment. It would oblige us to believe in literal fire after death but there is not a word to show that such fire would never go out. We have heard it claimed that the punishment of the rich man must be endless, because there was gulf (chasm, chasma) fixed so that those who desired to could not cross it. But were this a literal account, it would not follow that the gulf would last always.

For are we not assured that the time is coming when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hiss shall be made low?" Isa. 30: 4. When every valley is exalted what becomes of the great gulf? And then there is exalted, what said of the duration of the sufferings of the rich man. If the account be a history it must not militate against the promise of "The restitution of all things spoken by the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world began." There is not a word intimating that the rich man's torment was never to cease. So the doctrine of endless misery is after all, not in the least taught here. The most that can be claimed is that the consequences of sin extend into the future life, and that is a doctrine that we believe just as strongly as can any one, though we do not believe they will be endless, nor do we believe the doctrine taught in this parable, nor in the Bible use of the word Hell.

But allowing for a moment that this is intended to represent a scene in the spirit world, what a representation we have! Dives is dwelling in a world of fire in the company of lost spirits, hardened by the depravity that must possess the residents of that world, and yet yearning in compassion for those on earth. Not totally depraved, not harboring evil thoughts but benevolent, humane. Instead of being loyal to the wicked world in which he dwells as anyone bad enough to go there should be, he actually tries to prevent migration Thither from earth, while Lazarus is entirely indifferent to everybody but himself. Dives seems to have more mercy and compassion than does Lazarus.

THE TEACHING OF THE PARABLE

But what does the parable teach? That the Jewish nation, and especially the Scribes and Pharisees were about to die as a power, as a church, as a controlling influence in the world; while the common people among them and the Gentiles outside of them were to be exalted in the new order of things. The details of the parable show this: "There was a certain rich man clothed in purple and fine linen." In these first words, by describing their very costume, the Savior fixed the attention of his hearers on the Jewish priesthood. They were emphatically the rich men of that nation. His description of the beggar was equally graphic. He lay at the gate of the rich, only asking to be fed by the crumbs that fell from the table. Thus dependent were the common people, and the Gentiles on the Scribes and Pharisees. We remember how Christ once rebuked them for shutting up the kingdom of heaven against these. They lay at the gate of the Jewish hierarchy. For the Gentiles were literally restricted to the outer court of the temple. Hence in Rev. 11: 12 we read: "But the court, which is without the temple, leave out, and measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles." They could only walk the outer court, or lie at the gate. We remember the anger of the Jews at Paul, for allowing Greeks to enter the temple. This is the significance of the language of the Canaanitish woman, Matt. 15: 27, who desired the Savior to heal her daughter. The Savior, to try her faith, said: It is not meet to cast the children's bread to the dogs." She replied, "Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their Mater's table." The prophet (Isa. 1: 6) represents the common people of Israel as "full of wounds, bruises, and putrifying sores." The brief, graphic descriptions given by the Savior, at once showed his hearers that he was describing those two classes, the Jewish priesthood and nation on the one hand and the common people, Jews and Gentiles, on the other.

The rich man died and was buried. This class died officially, nationally and its power departed. The kingdom of God was taken from them and conferred on others. The beggar died. The Gentiles, publicans and sinners were translated into the kingdom of God's dear son where is neither Jew nor Greek, but where all are one in Christ Jesus. This is the meaning of the expression "Abraham's bosom." They accepted the true faith and so became one with faithful Abraham. Abraham is called the father of the faithful, and the beggar is represented to have gone to Abraham's bosom, to denote the fact which is now history, that the common people and Gentiles would accept Christianity and become Christian nations, enjoying the blessing of the Christian faith.

What is meant by the torment of the rich man? The misery of those proud men, when soon after their land was captured and their city and temple possessed by barbarians, and they scattered like chaff before the wind-a condition in which they have continued from that day to this. All efforts to bless them with Christianity have proved unavailing. At this very moment there is a great gulf fixed so that there is no passing to and fro. And observe, the Jews do not desire the gospel. Nor did the rich man ask to enter Abraham's bosom with Lazarus. He only wished Lazarus to alleviate his sufferings by dipping his finger in water and cooling his tongue. It is so with the Jews today. They do not desire the gospel; they only ask those among whom they sojourn to tolerate them and soften the hardships that accompany their wanderings. The Jewish church and nation is now dead. Once they were exalted to heaven, but now they are thrust down to Hadees, the kingdom of death, and the gulf that yawns between them and the Gentiles shall not be abolished till the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, and "then Israel shall be saved."

Lightfoot says: "The main scope and design of it seems this: to hint the destruction of the unbelieving Jews, who, though they had Moses and the prophets, did not believe them, nay would not believe though one (even Jesus) arose from the dead."

Our quotations are not from Universalists, but from those who accepted the doctrine of eternal punishment, but who were forced to confess that this parable has no reference to that subject. The rich man or the Jews were and are in the same Hell in which David was when he said: "The pains of Hell (Hadees) got hold on me, I found trouble and sorrow," and "thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Hell." Not in endless wo in the future world, but in misery and suffering in this.

HADEES IS TEMPORARY

But is this a final condition? No, wherever we locate it, it must end. Paul asks the Romans, "Have they (the Jews) stumbled that they should fall? God forbid! but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles." "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness is in part happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved. As it is written, There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them when I shall take away their sins." 11: 22, 25, 27.

In brief terms, then we may say that this is a fictitious story or parable describing the fate in this world of the Jewish and Gentile people of our Savior's times, and has not the slightest reference to the world after death, nor to the fate of mankind in that world.

Let the reader observe that the rich man, being in Hadees, was in a place of temporary detention only. Whether this be a literal story or a parable, his confinement is not to be an endless one. This is demonstrated in a two-fold manner:

1. Death and Hadees will deliver up their occupants. Rev. 20: 13.

2. Hadees is to be destroyed. I Cor. 15: 55; Rev. 20: 14.

Therefore Hadees is of temporary duration. The Rich Man was not in a place of endless torment. As Prof. Stuart remarks: "Whatever the state of either the righteous or the wicked may be, whilst in Hadees, that state will certainly cease, and be exchanged for another at the general resurrection." Thus the New Testament usage agrees exactly with the Old Testament. Primarily, literally, Hadees is death, the grave, and figuratively, it is destruction. It is in this world, and is to end. The last time it is referred to (Rev.