Luke 16:19-31 The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'
25 "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
27 "He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
29 "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
30 " 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
31 "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "
This parable confronts us with a challenge: will we listen to the Good News brought by someone who rose from the dead? Will we listen to the Good News revealed by God through Jesus? Or will we listen to mere human voices and end up worshiping the creature rather than the creator?
Natural Theology
There are two primary ways of thinking about God: natural theology and revealed theology. Natural theology claims that since God created the world, we can know something of God by using the human mind to observe and reason about created things. There are only two basic problems with this effort: (1) the human mind is sinful and (2) Nature is fallen into death and decay. Although it is possible to learn about God from nature, natural theology has always has led to idolatry and sin. Paul lays this out step-by-step in his description of the pagan world in Romans Chapter 1.
Natural theology: 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Idolatry: 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.
Sin: 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. … 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
Note what we often ignore—Paul is saying that sexual immorality and other sin is a consequence of idolatry—turning away from the True God to worship created things. There seems to be an inherent weakness of the human heart: when people look for God in created things they inevitably confuse those created things with God and begin to worship and serve them.
Natural theology often boils down to what seems natural is what is good. In today's parable, the rich man probably assumed that he was rich because he was righteous and Lazarus was poor because he was a sinner. This is a pervasive idea in human life, often referred to as the “Law of Karma.”
Revealed Theology
Revealed theology comes from God through prophets and apostles, not from application of human reason to nature. The Word of God has full authority over those who receive the revelation. The Word is created by God and delivered through his chosen human agents. The Word must be understood, interpreted, and applied by human beings. The Word demands complete commitment. For each person there can be only one revelation.
For the Jews, this revelation was what we call the Old Testament. The rich man was living under the Old Testament revelation that the rich are to care for the poor.
Deuteronomy 15:10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward those of your people who are poor and needy in your land.
The rich man ignored that revelation from Moses and the prophets and reaped the consequences. This revelation was sufficient. This revelation was all that he and his brothers needed to live in obedience to God. That was why it was pointless to send Lazarus back from the dead.
For us Christians, our revelation is Jesus. “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.” (Theological Declaration of Barmen) This revelation tells us that Lazarus is our brother and that to love God and follow the commands of Christ, we must lift up our neighbor when he is in need. If we fail to do this, the failure is even greater than that of the rich man, for he only had the revelation of the law, while we have Jesus and the Spirit he gave us. We are convinced of this revelation because “someone rose from the dead.”
The Sin of Mixing Natural and Revealed Theology
Because of our sinful pride and vanity, human beings are always tempted to add our own “two cents” to the Word of God. We attempt to combine the results of applying human reason to created things (natural theology) with the Word (revealed theology). This goes beyond using reason to interpret and apply the Word. Instead, it uses reason to add new ideas, concepts, and beliefs to the Word. In the 18th and 19th centuries, new and fashionable ideas from science, philosophy, and literature were added to Christianity. This has continued to this day, now under the fashionable labels of “modernism,” “progressive Christianity,” “process theology,” and “postmodernism.”
This sin of Protestant modernism created a crisis in Nazi Germany, where the “German Christians” regarded the doctrines of National Socialism as expressing God's will through nature and claimed that Adolf Hitler was God's gift to the German Nation. In response, the German Evangelical Church met at Barmen on May 29, 1934 and adopted the “Theological Declaration of Barmen.” This declaration is widely accepted as one of the most important historic confessions of the Protestant church.
The Church is compelled to confess its faith in response to a threat to its integrity and purity. A confession is a statement in which the Church strives to apply faithfully the Word of God to a current crisis. Each point of the Declaration is a convincing interpretation of the Word of God as recorded in the New Testament.
This declaration not only rejected the attempt of the Third Reich to make the church serve the State, but it rejected all other attempts to subvert the authority of Christ over the church by importing foreign beliefs, including those of natural theology, into the Body of Christ.
We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation.
We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords—areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.
We reject the false doctrine, as though the church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.
Now, as then, there is a temptation to add human political, economic, and social theories to the Word of God. We may be tempted to interpret the parable of the rich man and Lazarus as an example of inequality due to a failed economic and social system. This leads to the temptation of campaigning to eliminate inequality by economic and social reforms through the power of the State rather than through Christians acting in the Name of Christ in his ministry and mission. Because the power of the State allows it to impose its will on all citizens, this becomes a tempting short cut. This leads to the false belief that State action can bring about the Kingdom of God. There are many dangers to relying on the State to carry out the will of God. Because of this, the Barmen statement committed the Evangelical Churches to complete separation of Church and State.
Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the church also exists, the State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. [It fulfills this task] by means of the threat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability.
We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the church’s vocation as well.
We reject the false doctrine, as though the church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State.
The Church Belongs To Christ and Only To Christ
No matter what the conditions in the world, or what developments have occurred in human knowledge or in prevailing belief, the Church must always belong to Christ. The Barmen Declaration states this quite eloquently.
The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and Sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.
We reject the false doctrine, as though the church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.
The church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and Sacrament.
We reject the false doctrine, as though the church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.
Do Not Add or Take Away a Single Word
This Word of God, this Jesus, is all we need and all we have. If we think that because we can do anything apart from Christ, that our institutions and traditions have any value apart from Christ, or that the Church can bring about the Kingdom of God through guiding the State apart from Christ, we are to be pitied much more than poor Lazarus lying on the doorstep is.
Revelation 3:17 You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
The Church must use human reason and knowledge to understand, interpret, and apply God’s revelation, not replace that revelation with human-made idols. If we think that because we are full of science, technology, and spiritual wisdom we can add or take away a letter from the Living Word of God, we are to be pitied more than the rich man tormented in the fires of Hades is.
Revelation 22:18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If any one of you adds anything to them, God will add to you the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if any one of you takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from you your share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.
Luke 16:17It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.
God has sent one who “rose from the dead” to give us the Good News. Are we willing to listen?
Amen.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Dan
Bible quotations are from Today's New International Version (TNIV) © Copyright 2001, 2005 by Biblica
The Theological Declaration of Barmen can be found in the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church, USA at http://oga.pcusa.org/publications/boc.pdf
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