The Great Gulf
The Great Gulf
'Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may crossfrom there to us'(Luke 16:26)
These words are part of Abraham's reply to the rich man, explaining why Lazarus could not go and cool his tongue with a drop of water and so relieve his anguish.
In view of what has been said about the rich man's failure to make friends by means of his wealth, there may be a problem here. Even if he had used some of his wealth to help Lazarus on earth, and Lazarus had therefore been willing to do something for him in the afterworld, how could Lazarus have crossed the great gulf or chasm that lay between them? But the chasm is not a geographical one, whose width and depth could be measured. When the story is read nowadays in the AV, a wrong impression may be given by the statement that, when the rich man died and was buried, `in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments' (Luke 16:23). As our more recent versions indicate, `hell' means Hades, the undifferentiated abode of the dead. It was not because he was in Hades that the rich man was in pain, but because of his past life. Had he made a friend of Lazarus by helping him in his wretchedness, there would not have been the impassable gulf which prevented Lazarus from coming to help him. The impassable gulf, in fact, was of the rich man's own creating. This may mean more or less what C. S. Lewis expressed by a different metaphor when he suggested that `the doors of hell' (and he meant the abode of the damned, not just the abode of the dead) `are locked on the inside.
The story of the rich man and Lazarus appears to have a literary and oral prehistory, and it is interesting to explore this. But such exploration will not help us much to understand it in the context which Luke has given it (and Luke is the only evangelist to record it).
The rich man, hearing that it is impossible for Lazarus to come and help him, turns his mind to something else. Let Lazarus be sent back to earth to warn the rich man's five brothers to mend their ways, lest they find themselves after death sharing his own sad lot. Perhaps there is the implication here: `If only someone had come back to warn me, I should not have found myself in this plight.' But Abraham replies that they have all the warning they need: `They have Moses and the prophets', that is, the Bible. If the rich man himself had paid heed to what Moses and the prophets say about the blessedness of those who consider the poor - a theme so pervasive that it cannot well be overlooked - it would have been better for him.
But Moses and the prophets are not enough, argued the rich man. Let them have an exceptional sign that will compel their repentance. Abraham's response has special relevance to what was happening in the course of Jesus's ministry. People asked him to validate his claim that the kingdom of God had approached them in his ministry by showing them a sign from heaven - something spectacular that would compel them to acknowledge his authority to speak and act as he did. He refused to grant their request: if his works and words were not self-authenticating, then no external sign, however impressive, could be any more persuasive (see p. 96). Moses and the prophets, pleads the rich man, are not persuasive enough, `but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent'. But Abraham has the last word: `If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead' (Luke 16:31). Or, as James Denney paraphrased it, `If they can be inhuman with the Bible in their hands and Lazarus at their gate, no revelation of the splendours of heaven or the anguish of hell will ever make them anything else.'2
Is it a pure coincidence that another of the evangelists tells of a Lazarus who did come back from the dead? His restoration to life was certainly a very impressive sign, which strengthened the faith of those who already believed in Jesus, or were disposed to believe in him, but according to John it strengthened the determination of those who were convinced that the safety of the nation demanded Jesus's death - indeed, they `planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus' (John 12:10-11).
But by the time Luke wrote his Gospel a greater than Lazarus had risen from the dead. The proclamation that Christ had been raised `in accordance with the scriptures' (1 Cor. 15:4) led many to believe in him, but it did not compel belief; even his resurrection did not convince those who had made up their minds not to believe.