Torments of the Rich Man

IN OUR previous issue we discussed the parable of Rich Man and Lazarus down to the first part of Luke 16:22. The Scriptural proof was offered to show that the favored rich man and the beggar Lazarus symbolized two classes: the rich man the highly favored religious clergy among God’s professed people, and the beggar Lazarus the despised, neglected people who realize their spiritual need and who hunger and thirst after truth and righteousness from God. The parable had its first application to the Jews or Israelites to whom Jesus spoke the parable. Among them the “rich man” class included the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and Sadducees, and other religious leaders, who opposed Jesus and sneered at his teachings. Because Jesus and his disciples preached the good news of the Kingdom to the poor and afflicted ones who listened to him with pleasure, this enriched them with the truth of God and with privileges of serving him aright. It meant death to their beggarly, diseased spiritual condition. It relieved them of dependence on the “rich man” class for what religious instruction they got. It brought them into the favor of Jehovah God, who was represented by Abraham, where they could feast to the full at the spiritual “table of Jehovah”. In this way it was that, to quote the parable, “the beggar died and he was carried off by the angels to the bosom position of Abraham.”

1. What befell the rich man at death? What did his death picture?

WHAT now occurs to the “rich man” is the opposite of the favor to the beggar Lazarus. Luke 16:22, 23 tells us: “Also the rich man died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, he existing in torments, and he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in the bosom position with him.” (NW) The “rich man’s” death did not mean the physical death of any members of that class. It pictured their death to the privileged, advantageous position that they had till now enjoyed and in which they had treated the Lazarus class as despised, diseased beggars. So when and how did the “rich man” class die and get buried?

2, 3. (a) When did the “rich man” class die? (b) How did Jesus strip them of their linen and purple and spoil their table?

² It was at the same time that the Lazarus class experienced their change of condition for the better. What worked for the removal of the disadvantageous condition of this poor class worked for the death of the “rich man” class to their special privileges seemingly in God’s favor. This occurred when John the Baptist came preaching repentance because God’s kingdom was near. He turned the people to Jesus as the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world”, the Anointed One, the Christ. John exposed their self-righteousness and called them the “offspring of vipers” and showed them they were in danger of being baptized with fiery destruction in the coming wrath of God on Israel. They needed repentance just as much as the sinful poor people who were condemned by Moses’ law. They need not think they were the promised “seed of Abraham” due to their natural descent from that faithful Hebrew.—Matt. 3:7-12, NW.

³ But Jesus himself was still more deadly to the “rich man” class in their linen and purple clothing and at their sumptuous table. Declaring themselves righteous, they once appeared lofty in the eyes of the Lazarus class, but they were actually disgusting in God’s sight. Jesus exposed them as such to the Lazarus class. (Luke 16:15, NW) Thus he stripped them of their linen of self-righteousness. He disrobed them of their purple claims to royalty in God’s kingdom when he declared that the harlots, sinners and tax collectors of the beggar class went into the Kingdom before them. He climaxed this with the awful judgment: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits.” (Matt. 21:43, NW) He spoiled their religious table for them when he turned from them and committed the Kingdom mysteries and the privilege of Kingdom preaching to the poor of the Lazarus class and said: “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to babes. . . . Come to me, all you who are toiling and loaded down, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and become my disciples, for I am mild-tempered and lowly in heart, and you will find refreshment for your souls. For my yoke is kindly and my load is light.” (Matt. 11:25-30 and Luke 10:21-24, NW) When the “rich man” class willfully rejected him and procured his death, this sealed their death as spiritually privileged ones. Their religious table became a trap and their feast a deadly snare to them.—Rom. 11:7-9.

4. Does the parable describe Lazarus as buried at death and gone to hell? Why?

⁴ We have already noted that the parable avoids saying that Lazarus was buried and went to hell, Hades or Sheol. But it does say of the rich man that he “died and was buried” and found himself “in Hades”. His death was openly certified by that day of Pentecost ten days after Jesus ascended to heaven to appear in God’s presence with the value of his human sacrifice. Then the holy spirit was poured out on the first members of the Lazarus class. The spirit was an evidence of their being accepted with God and of having Christ’s righteousness imputed to them and of becoming heirs of God’s kingdom. The spiritual food concerning his kingdom by Christ did not fall on that day of Pentecost from the “rich man’s” table for the poor people. No; it came through those disciples who had been taken into the “bosom position of Abraham”. There Peter, and not the “rich man” class, began using the “keys of the kingdom of the heavens”. About 3,000 Jews turned to the table of the Greater Abraham and were baptized and got the outpoured spirit. Thus the Lazarus class began to be lifted out of deadness in trespasses and sins and to be seated “together in the heavenly places in union with Christ Jesus”. (Acts 2:1-42; Matt. 16:19; Eph. 2:1-6, NW) So how could the parable describe Lazarus as in Hades, Sheol, hell, or the common grave of mankind? It could not.

5. In what way was the “rich man” class dead and yet living?

⁵ But as for the “rich man” class: By refusing Jesus and stubbornly holding onto the works of the Law to justify themselves to life they proved themselves cursed by the Law. So they died to the privilege of being associated with Jesus Christ as the promised Seed of Abraham. Till their physical death they lived on in the flesh, just like the gadabout woman of whom the apostle wrote: “The one that goes in for sensual gratification is dead though she is living.” (1 Tim. 5:6, NW) The Law to which they held proved to be death to them, condemning them to death as accursed sinners. (Rom. 7:9-11) Living on in the flesh, though they were dead in God’s eyes, they could see what happened with the Lazarus class and could be chagrined by it.a

6. When was the “rich man” class buried back there?

⁶ As far as the Jews are concerned, the “rich man” was buried three and a half years after Pentecost. Why then at the latest? Because then the good news of God’s kingdom was preached to the despised uncircumcised Gentiles for the first time, at the home of the Italian centurion Cornelius. The “rich man” class among the Jews were not the ones to do the preaching. No; they were not the ones proving to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth in harmony with Jehovah’s promise to Abraham. The one preaching to Cornelius was a member of the despised Lazarus class, the apostle Peter equipped with the “keys of the kingdom”. (Acts 10:1 to 11:18) The “rich man” class was without any life-giving message and was inactive in God’s service, and hence was as dead and buried.

7. If hell is the grave, how is it they are pictured as talking there?

⁷ But, you ask, how is it that the rich man is pictured as talking in hell if it is just the common grave of mankind? It is because this is a parable. So dying, being buried and being in hell are used in a symbolic way. This fact shows that it is a parable, because if the “rich man” class were actually in the Bible hell, they could not talk or see a thing. “Let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol” (AS)—“be silent in the grave” (AV)—“be brought down to hell” (Dy). So says Psalm 31:17. (Ps. 30:18, Dy) And at Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 we read: “For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing more, . . . Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly: for neither work, nor reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge shall be in hell [(Dy)—in Sheol (AS)—in the grave (AV)], whither thou art hastening.” If one is in the condition like Sheol, hell, or the grave, he is not active in God’s service nor learning any of the truth. There the “rich man” class find themselves and can see the Lazarus class’ change of condition and can talk and complain. It is as when the psalmist despondently said concerning himself: “My life draweth nigh unto Sheol. I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hath no help, cast off among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more, and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me.”—Ps. 88:3-7, AS.

HOW IN TORMENTS

8. Does not his “existing in torments” there prove there is fire and torment of conscious souls in hell? Why?

⁸ But if Hades, Sheol, or hell is the common grave of mankind, where there is no sensation, knowledge or activity, how is it that the parable says of the rich man in Hades, “he existing in torments”? In the next verse he says it is due to a “blazing fire” Lu 16:24. Does that not show there is fire and torment of conscious human souls in Hades, Sheol, or hell? Not at all. This is a parable, and Sheol or Hades is used to picture the condition of the “rich man” class while still here among us on earth. Hence this class can be pictured as being in Sheol or Hades or hell and at the same time existing in torments from a blazing fire. The rich man could not be pictured as in Gehenna, because then he could not be pictured talking, for Gehenna or the “lake of fire that burneth with brimstone” symbolizes “second death”, utter destruction from which there is no resurrection.—Rev. 19:20, AS; Re 20:14. See footnote.b

ABRAHAM SEEN AFAR OFF

9. What did the rich man see afar off? What did this mean to him?

⁹ The “rich man” class, although living in their religious realm, were dead to God and were as buried in Hades or hell as far as his active service is concerned. For this reason they could be pictured as dead and buried in Hades or the grave and yet be alive and able to look up and see afar off and also to experience torment. What they saw helped to contribute torment to them: “he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in the bosom position with him.” That means the “rich man” class saw they were not getting the blessing as Abraham’s natural seed. They saw the Greater Abraham, Jehovah God, far off from them and his favor going to the Jewish remnant and Gentiles who believed on Jesus and followed him. Far from being the promised seed of Abraham for a blessing to all the families and nations of the earth, they were a curse to them. Said Paul: “They are not pleasing God, but are against the interests of all men, as they try to hinder us from speaking to the nations that these might be saved, with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins.” (1 Thess. 2:15, 16, NW) Both Paul and Barnabas said to them: “It was necessary for the word of God to be spoken first to you. Since you are thrusting it away from you and do not judge yourselves worthy of everlasting life, look! we turn to the nations. In fact, Jehovah has laid commandment upon us in these words, ‘I have appointed you as a light of nations, for you to be a salvation to the most distant part of the earth.’”—Acts 13:46, 47, NW.

10. What did being in the bosom position mean for the Lazarus class? What did not being there mean for the “rich man” class?

¹⁰ So they see the Lazarus class in the bosom position with Abraham, hence at meal or at banquet with Abraham and on the first couch with him, to betoken being in his special love and favor. (John 13:23, 25; Deut. 13:6; 28:54, 56; 2 Sam. 12:3, 8; Mic. 7:5) That means they are in the bosom favor of the Greater Abraham, Jehovah God, and are having fellowship with him. They have been adopted as sons of God to be associated with Jesus Christ, the true Seed of Abraham, and so they are feasting at the “table of Jehovah” on the Kingdom mysteries and truths and on the pure worship and service of God. (1 John 1:3, 7; John 4:34; Jas. 1:27) But the “rich man” class are on the outside of all this favor, afar off. The Lazarus class are like Isaac, Abraham’s son by his beloved wife Sarah, the son who was made Abraham’s heir. As God said: “It is in Isaac that your seed shall be called.” (Rom. 9:7; Gal. 4:28, NW) But the “rich man” class are like Ishmael, Abraham’s son by the slave girl Hagar. God rejected Ishmael as the seed and he was therefore cast off and sent away so as not to threaten Isaac’s life. So, although those in the “rich man” class might be Abraham’s natural descendants, they were cast off from God’s favor. So they persecute the Lazarus class in envy and revenge, as Ishmael did.—Gal. 4:22-30, NW.

11, 12. How were they in torments in Jesus’ day? How in apostolic days?

¹¹ No wonder the “rich man” class are in torments. In Jesus’ day his message tormented them. After he exposed their religious traditions and precepts as contrary to God’s Word and commands, the disciples said: “Do you know that the Pharisees stumbled at hearing what you said?” When he pronounced woes upon them for their religious hypocrisy and self-righteousness, one of them said: “Teacher, in saying these things you also insult us.” This did not quiet Jesus, but he went on further to tell them they had taken away the key of knowledge from the people. Tormented at the report that Jesus was teaching in the temple, they dispatched officers to arrest him, but the officers refused to do so and came back with the tormenting confession: “Never has another man spoken like this.” When he spoke his parable of the vineyard and they saw that the murderers in it meant them, they tried to seize him in their mental anguish, but did not do so, for they feared the people there.—Matt. 15:12-14; Luke 11:45; John 7:32, 45, 46; Matt. 21:45, 46, NW.

¹² Thinking to reduce their torment, they finally had him killed. But their torments were only renewed through the Lazarus class from Pentecost onward. For example, the priests, temple captains and Sadducees were annoyed because Peter and John taught the people in the temple about Jesus and his resurrection. But arrests and imprisonment did not intimidate and silence the apostles. They became bolder and the preaching in Jerusalem was intensified, exasperating the religious heads still more. At Stephen’s testimony before them they felt cut to the heart. Gnashing their teeth and shrieking they rushed on him en masse, threw him outside the city and stoned him to death. Saul of Tarsus, who witnessed this, pushed a rabid persecution of the Lazarus Christians. Being extremely mad against them, he breathed threats and murder against them. But for him it was like the kicking of an ox against the goads and getting deeply pricked. When Saul changed and became the apostle Paul and he and Barnabas preached to great crowds of people, the religious leaders were filled with jealousy and blasphemously contradicted what these said to the people, and then persecuted them for turning with the message to the non-Jews. Repeated are the reports of their uprisings in rage against Paul and his missionary companions. What a torment they were in! How the heat of the flaming message of denunciation and exposure scorched and sizzled them!c

MODERN COUNTERPART

13, 14. Who have acted as the modern counterpart of the rich man?

¹³ The religious officials and leaders of Jewry who made up the “rich man” class of that first century find their modern counterpart in the clergy and religious leaders and supporters of Christendom today. They represent systems that have become entrenched among human society and have great antiquity and age-old traditions. So with their wealth and their influence with the rulers of this world, they have gained for themselves a place of great prominence, respect, influence and control over the people. Outwardly they have appeared very righteous and sacrosanct to men, so that to criticize them seemed sacrilegious, blasphemous and irreligious. They have basked in the favor of the wealthy and the rulers and have wielded mighty political influence. They have appropriated to themselves the Kingdom promises of God’s Word and imagined they were first in the favor of God, the Greater Abraham, and that through them God’s kingdom was to be established over the earth. They have gone in for educational, social and political advantages and have looked down upon the common people as the laity, unlettered, and utterly dependent upon the betitled, educated clergy and their religious systems for Scripture information.

¹⁴ They have given the people little of God’s Word and service and have deceived them with the sectarian traditions and pagan philosophies, leaving them in their spiritual hunger and ulcerous disease. They have taken away the key of knowledge opening the meaning of God’s Word. They have turned the people away from God’s kingdom as humanity’s sole remedy and turned them to the political schemes and policies of worldly rulers and blessed them for engaging in the sanguinary combats of the nations. At this end of the world they have no saving message for the distressed people, but leave them spiritually poor, starving and diseased with only the forlorn hope of a League of Nations or United Nations organization as their best hope for world peace, stability and prosperity.

15. How are they shown to be dead and buried?

¹⁵ Now these religionists are in a spiritually dead state like the “rich man” of the parable. Certainly they are not alive to the fact that the “appointed times of the nations” closed in 1914 (A.D.) and that there God’s kingdom was put in power over the earth with the promised Seed of Abraham, Christ Jesus, in the throne. They despise the remnant of the Lazarus class, Jehovah’s modern witnesses, for preaching such a message. In the face of the sign of the consummation of this system of things and the presence or pa·rou·siʹa of Jesus Christ in Kingdom power, they should have believed the message, at least by the end of World War I in 1918. Yet they did not come to life and activity and take up that Kingdom message and proclaim it to mankind. The remnant of the Lazarus class did so after they recovered from the oppressions of their foes during that world war. They reorganized in 1919 and became alive and increasingly active in preaching “this good news of the Kingdom” to all nations for a witness before the end of this world arrives at Armageddon. But the religious “rich man” class scorned the prophetic meaning of world events. They turned down the message taken up by modern “Lazarus” and sought refuge in a human substitute for the Kingdom, that futile thing called the League of Nations. So they demonstrated no activity for proclaiming and advancing the Kingdom. They showed they were dead and buried toward God; and his judgment, written aforetime in his Word, pronounces them so.

SEEKING THE THEOCRACY

16. When does Luke 13:27-30 reach a climax? Who are the ones that come?

¹⁶ All through the Christian era the prophecy at Luke 13:27-30 has been working toward its climax now. In that prophecy Jesus told of the time when the door would be closed in the face of people once religiously privileged and said: “He will speak and say to you: ‘I do not know where you are from. Get away from me, all you workers of unrighteousness!’ There is where your weeping and the gnashing of your teeth will be, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves thrown outside. Furthermore, people will come from eastern parts and western, and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. And, look! there are those last who will be first, and there are those first who will be last.” (NW) After Jerusalem was destroyed by Rome’s imperial armies A.D. 70, the coming of those from east, west, north and south was mostly of the non-Jews or Gentiles from all nations reached with the good news.

17. What does seeing Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets in God’s kingdom mean?

¹⁷ In our previous Watchtower issue we saw how Abraham, whose name means “Father of a multitude”, pictured Jehovah God, the Father of the promised Seed of Abraham. Abraham’s son Isaac, who was offered in sacrifice, pictured the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who chiefly fulfills the role of the Seed of Abraham for blessing all mankind. Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, pictured the congregation of Christ’s followers, for God adopts them as his spiritual sons and makes them part of the promised seed of Abraham. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel; and they are spiritual Israelites, “the Israel of God.” (Gal. 4:28; 3:26-29; 6:16, NW) The expression “all the prophets” also represents the congregation of spiritual Israel, the members of the “body of Christ”. In the prophecies such ancient prophets were used to foreshadow these spirit-begotten Christians and to forecast their role or course of action. So together, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets picture the Theocratic Government. Our seeing them “in the kingdom of God” means seeing with the eye of understanding that Jehovah, Jesus Christ and his congregation of spirit-begotten followers form the kingdom of God and are the ones in that heavenly kingdom.

18. Hence what does coming and reclining with them in the Kingdom mean?

¹⁸ Hence when people from all directions come and recline at the table in that kingdom, it means that these believers are taken into the class of Kingdom joint heirs and feast on Kingdom truths and privileges at the “table of Jehovah”. So there is no need to wait till Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets are resurrected from the dead in order for us to see this prophecy fulfilled.

No Relief for the Rich, but Comfort for the Poor

1. How are the first now last, and the last now first?

THE clergy and religious leaders of Christendom took it for granted that they, just like the “rich man”, were first in line for the Kingdom and sure of it. Now they find themselves, since A.D. 1919, to be last and out of the Kingdom privileges altogether. On the other hand, those whom they despised as the last ones in any chance for God’s kingdom, the remnant of the beggar Lazarus class, these are now first in the enjoyment of Kingdom privileges at the “table of Jehovah” as His witnesses. The facts prove it so. They are the ones to whom the Kingdom interests are now entrusted. They are conscientiously caring for them by obeying Christ’s command to preach this Kingdom gospel to all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations.

2. How did the Lazarus class experience a change like Job’s and that of the “two witnesses” of Revelation 11?

² They were falsely accused and misrepresented as hypocritical sinners by the religious clergy, just as the bereft, disease-stricken Job was accused by his three self-righteous friends. This remnant of the Lazarus class have now experienced a glorious change of condition, in the same way that Job, nearly dead and seemingly afflicted by God, was healed and given a new lease on life for 140 years, was blessed with twice as much as he had before, was rejoined with his wife and was blessed with seven sons and three lovely daughters the same as before. (Job 42:10-17) Once those of the remnant of the Lazarus class were lying as dead and inactive, like the “two witnesses” of Revelation, chapter 11. Taking advantage of World War I, the “rich man” class intimidated and maneuvered them into deathlike inactivity toward Jehovah’s witness work and they lay like ‘corpses’ on the broad way of the great city of Christendom, modern Sodom! But in 1919 God’s spirit began restoring them to life in his service to be his witnesses and Kingdom ambassadors. So they came into the favor of the Greater Abraham, Jehovah God, and received his invitation, “Come on up here.” They responded to this invitation to come to life in his exalted service in the interest of the kingdom of heaven. So with regard to this, Revelation 11:12 says: “And they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them.”—NW.

3. So where do the “rich man” class see those “two witnesses” to be and themselves in contrast?

³ Yes, their enemies, the “rich man” class in Christendom, beheld them enjoying these royal privileges at the “table of Jehovah”, in the bosom position of Abraham, whereas they themselves were cast out and denied these Kingdom opportunities. They have been left to the darkness, gloom and desperation of this world with its selfish alliance of nations for world peace. There they weep and gnash their teeth at this reversal of conditions against them and in favor of Jehovah’s witnesses. They are as dead and buried in Hades (or hell, the grave) as regards God’s approved service, and yet they are in torment because of seeing how the remnant of the Lazarus class have been taken into this service and are being used in it so mightily world-wide. God has withheld his sorely needed message from them and they suffer from a spiritual “famine . . . of hearing the words of Jehovah” among themselves.—Amos 8:11, AS.

4, 5. How are they as in fiery torment?

⁴ They see themselves far off from the bosom position of the Greater Abraham, Jehovah God. And just as the Jewish clergy and religious leaders were tormented at the message and activities of Jesus and his disciples, so the religious heads and notables of Christendom today are in torment at observing and feeling the activities of Jehovah’s witnesses. Hundreds of thousands they behold responding and attaching themselves to the Lazarus class, just as a large family of ten new children were added to Job after his recovery from God’s seeming disfavor due to Satan’s machinations. Jehovah’s message by his witnesses is like a flaming fire against the “rich man” religionists: “Is not my word like fire? saith Jehovah.” (Jer. 23:29, AS) To them the activities of the Lazarus class in proclaiming the day of Jehovah’s vengeance are like the locust plague foretold at Revelation 9:1-11 and Joel 2:1-11.

⁵ These “locusts” are the army of Jehovah’s witnesses, and as to their effect upon Christendom’s “rich man” class Revelation 9:5-7, 10, 11 says: “It was granted the locusts, not to kill them, but that these should be tormented five months, and the torment upon them was as torment by a scorpion when it strikes a man. And in those days the men will seek death but will by no means find it, and they will desire to die but death keeps fleeing from them. And the likenesses of the locusts resembled horses prepared for battle, . . . Also they have tails and stings like scorpions; and in their tails is their authority to hurt the men five months. They have over them a king, the angel of the abyss. In Hebrew his name is A·badʹdon [Destruction], but in Greek he has the name A·polʹlyon [Destroyer].” (NW) Not surprising that the effort is made throughout Christendom to destroy Jehovah’s witnesses.

PLEA FOR RELIEF TURNED DOWN

6. How do they address Abraham, and why?

⁶ Mark, now, that what the parable next tells of the rich man in Hades and torment has undergone fulfillment in this consummation of the system of things. “So he called and said: ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this blazing fire.’” (Luke 16:24, NW) The Jewish clergy cried out, “Father Abraham!” in a plea for favor as his natural seed. They were his natural descendants and had expected treatment better than this from God because of such natural relationship to that ancient “friend of God”. Oh for relief from God on the basis of this relationship! Likewise today Christendom’s religionists, the modern counterpart, address the Greater Abraham, God, as “Father” and plead with him for mercy in their tormented condition.

7. What does their request to have Lazarus sent to cool their tongue mean?

⁷ If Jesus was not telling a parable but the “blazing fire” was literal, then how absurd for the rich man to ask to have Lazarus dip his finger in water to cool the rich man’s tongue! But how could the Lazarus class bring the “rich man” class any relief now? Well, by a drop of the water of truth that would refresh the religious clergy in their spiritual anguish and torment. How could this be accomplished? Only by having the Lazarus class stop preaching the “day of vengeance of our God” and stop exposing hypocritical religion and pronouncing the fiery judgments of Jehovah against Christendom. So they want the Greater Abraham to have the ones in his bosom favor to compromise. Let them not preach the naked truth, but preach nice things for the religious clergy and give them a better appearance in people’s eyes. That is, do not do as Jehovah commanded the prophet Jeremiah, who pictured his witnesses today: “Whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak. . . . And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, saith Jehovah, to deliver thee.” The “rich man” class speak thus in a manner like that of the Israelite priest Amaziah to the prophet Amos, but they get an unsatisfying, tormenting answer like that which Amos returned to Amaziah.—Jer. 1:7, 19, AS; Amos 7:10-17.

8. How does Abraham address them in reply, and why?

⁸ What, now, does the Greater Abraham reply? The parable goes on to tell: “But Abraham said: ‘Child, remember that you received in full your good things in your lifetime, but Lazarus correspondingly the injurious things. Now, however, he is having comfort here but you are in anguish. And besides all these things, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you people, so that those wanting to go over from here to you people cannot, neither may people cross over from there to us.” (Luke 16:25, 26, NW) Because the Jewish clergy were natural descendants, Abraham could properly address them as “Child!” But this only condemned them, because, though being his natural offspring, they had willfully rejected the divine favor and had come under God’s condemnation. So because of their professions to be God’s children the Greater Abraham addresses the complaining “rich man” religionists as “Child!” in the same way that Joshua addressed the troublemaker Achan when on trial for life. (Josh. 7:19) They are in the position of a child that justly needs punishment. Psalm 82:6, 7 says to them: “I said, Ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. Nevertheless ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.” (AS) The “blazing fire” they now experience is just an advance token of the destruction that awaits them. But God defends and delivers the poor and needy, and rids them out of the hand of the wicked.—Ps. 82:1-4.

9. How did they ‘in their lifetime’ receive the good things?

⁹ “In your lifetime!” Yes, in the rich man’s time before divine judgment came, on natural Israel back there and on Christendom down here since God’s kingdom was set up and Jesus Christ was made the “chief cornerstone” in that royal structure. Before the “rich man” religionists were exposed as dead and buried toward God they had little concern for the people’s real spiritual need. They made a good living from their clerical profession and sought honor and worldly respect and led an easy life. They gave the people very little Bible intelligence and did not go out seeking the lost sheep. They remained silent about their oppressors and oppressions and let them hope for relief and comfort only in heaven. Likewise the “evil slave” class seek only their own heavenly salvation and leave the “other sheep” to shift for themselves until the Millennium. They offer no assistance now to such sheep to escape the world tribulation of Armageddon and to survive into the Millennium. (Matt. 24:48-51) So the “rich man” religionists have taken the good things of this life and have held the good things of the Bible in reserve for themselves. But now those days are gone forever, and they are seriously disturbed, disillusioned and in great anguish.

10, 11. (a) How did the Lazarus class receive the “injurious things”? (b) But now how are they comforted, and who also with them?

¹⁰ In those days when Christendom’s religious set flourished, the Lazarus class received the “injurious things”, and that largely at the hands of the “rich man” religionists. People who gave them a bit of soothing relief were looked down on as dogs that came and licked their ulcers. They were made to appear spiritually diseased and outcasts, under God’s curse, “as having nothing,” like beggars. (2 Cor. 6:8-10, NW) But now since God has reversed matters and showed whom he really favors and has taken to his bosom, they are comforted. Of course, they are still verbally abused and violently persecuted by the “rich man” class; but they are comforted with God’s comfort and refreshed and renewed by the good things from his table. They eat, drink, rejoice, sing for joy of heart, and are blessed, whereas the “rich man” religionists hunger, thirst, feel shame, cry and howl sorrowfully, leave their name for a curse, and face destruction. (Isa. 65:13-16) It is as when Job was healed and comforted, and his family, relatives and friends were restored.

¹¹ The remnant of the Lazarus class are spiritual Jews. Upon their “skirt” we now see “ten men . . . out of all languages of the nations” take hold and go up with them as companions to Jehovah’s theocratic organization. (Zech. 8:20-23) They are like Job’s brothers, sisters and acquaintances who came to comfort him, besides those beautiful children whom he fathered in his old age. (Job 42:11; see also The New World, pages 364, 365) They are the “other sheep” whom Jehovah’s Right Shepherd, Jesus Christ, brings into unity with the Lazarus remnant, making them one flock under one Shepherd. In this way, too, these “other sheep” become intimate companions with the remnant and come into the bosom favor of the Greater Abraham, and they share in the present “good things” and comfort of the remnant. (John 10:16) They are the first ones of the earthly class to receive benefits from the Greater Abraham through his Seed, Jesus Christ and his body of joint heirs.

A GREAT CHASM

12. What does the great chasm represent? What relief does it forbid?

¹² But that “great chasm”! The rich man had not thought of that when pleading to Abraham for relief. The people where he is cannot cross it and force themselves into Abraham’s bosom. Nor can the Lazarus class leave Abraham’s bosom and cross over it to the relief of the “rich man” class. The chasm pictures God’s judgment, which cannot be reversed and which divides the two classes. It forbids any mercy or relief to Christendom. She is abandoned since making her decision following World War I. She then decided against God’s established kingdom and favored the international conspiracy for ruling the earth by human agents in defiance of His rightful sovereignty and in opposition to his King Jesus Christ, whom he put on the throne in 1914 to rule amidst his enemies. To the “rich man” class the King Jesus Christ says: “Serpents, offspring of vipers, how are you to flee from the judgment of Gehenna?” (Matt. 23:33, NW) The Kingdom is here to rule in triumph. Now this world, including Christendom and its religious powers, must be abandoned to destruction. Her “rich man” class are like Esau, who sold his birthright for selfishness and moved to Mount Seir. Afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected, for, “although he earnestly sought a change of mind [in Isaac] with tears, he found no place for it.”—Heb. 12:16, 17, NW; Deut. 2:1-5; Ezek. 35:1-15.

13. What dividing work has gone on, which prevents fraternizing?

¹³ The terms for getting adopted as members of Abraham’s seed according to God’s promise cannot be set aside. The Kingdom class of blessing is now about complete, only a remnant on earth being yet destined for it. The “rich man” has not met those theocratic terms and requirements but has chosen the wisdom of this world. The last ones from his standpoint are now first in their participation in the Kingdom interests, and the reputedly first ones are now last. There can be no fusion of the two classes, no fraternizing! “Come out of her, my people,” calls the divine voice from heaven, “touch not the unclean thing.” The Lazarus remnant have left the Babylonish world and its religious confusion that they might be clean to bear Jehovah’s vessels of worship. God is determined to keep the organization of his people clean now. Only the real thing is kept there; all hypocrites are thrown out. The rich man cannot be brought in contrary to Jehovah’s decree. But now in this short period of God’s patience before the world destruction at Armageddon the “other sheep” class hear the Right Shepherd’s voice sounding the divine call to come out of worldly Babylon. They do so, flee to the upraised Signal of Jehovah’s kingdom, and gain entrance to the one flock under his royal Shepherd. These sheep the Shepherd puts to his right and divides them off from the “goats”. The great unbridgeable chasm of divine judgment allows for no fellowship between faithful persons and those who unbelievingly reject the Kingdom.a “Thy judgments are a great deep.”—Ps. 36:6.

PLEA FOR THE FIVE BROTHERS

14. Who is the father of the “rich man” class? How was this shown?

¹⁴ The “rich man” class have their own ideas about the salvation of the people. “Then he said: ‘In that event I ask you, father, to send him to the house of my father, for I have five brothers, in order that he may give them a thorough witness, that they also should not get into this place of torment.’” (Luke 16:27, 28, NW) He still calls Abraham “father”, but he confesses he has a closer relationship to another father and has five brothers. Who this father is Jesus told this class: “If you are Abraham’s children, do the works of Abraham. . . . If God were your Father, you would love me, for from God I came forth and am here. You are from your father the Devil and you wish to do the desires of your father. That one was a manslayer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, because truth is not in him.” (John 8:39, 42, 44, NW) So the “rich man” class show their real sonship by the resemblance of their works to those of the Devil.

15. Whom do the rich man’s “five brothers” stand for?

¹⁵ The “rich man” and his five brothers total six. This is a number distinguishing the organization of imperfection and sin, the enemy organization. (1 Sam. 17:4, 7; 2 Sam. 21:20; Rev. 13:18) So they are the visible seed of the great Serpent, as Jesus called them. (Gen. 3:15; Matt. 23:33; 3:7) Back there the five brothers stood for all the Jewish brothers of the “rich man” class, all natural Israelites of a like attitude, spirit and fatherhood. They were the seed of Abraham by natural descent but were not the spiritual sons of the Greater Abraham nor the brothers of Christ. At this end of the world they picture all those professed Christians of Christendom who associate with the religious leaders, follow their guidance and act goatishly toward Christ’s remnant of brothers. Their works betray who is their father.—2 Tim. 2:25, 26, NW.

16, 17. (a) What does the rich man admit regarding Lazarus? (b) What does he in reality want Abraham to do with Lazarus for his brothers?

¹⁶ The rich man admits that Lazarus is a witness of Jehovah, saying: “That he may give them a thorough witness.” Is the rich man here approving of the Lazarus class of Jehovah’s witnesses and asking for his five brothers to be helped to become Jehovah’s witnesses too? The facts fulfilling the parable do not indicate this. Actually, the rich man wants the Greater Abraham to send Lazarus away from his bosom to preach to his brothers in such a way and with such a message that it will not show them up to be dead toward God. It should not put them in mental torment. On the contrary, it should give them the false assurance that they are still in divine favor, reposing, like Lazarus, in the bosom of the Greater Abraham with all the promised New World blessings in view.

¹⁷ As in apostolic times, the “rich man” class of today want God to make his witnesses change their unorthodox way of preaching and also change their message. Soft-pedal this message of the “day of vengeance of our God” and let up on ‘overturning the strongly entrenched things’ of error, false religion and worldly friendship. The “rich man” class wants his brothers in his father’s organization to be spared the torment he suffers from the proclamation of the pure Word of God, exposing their hypocrisy and worldliness. So their prayer is really to their true father, Satan the Devil, and is that he will prevail upon the Lazarus class to make them a part of this world, compromising with the “rich man’s” organization. Then they will not torment unfaithful Christians.

18. What did Abraham now reply? What did his reply mean?

¹⁸ “But Abraham said: ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to these.’” (Luke 16:29, NW) This shows that, at the time Jesus spoke his parable, only Jewish persons were meant, for then the Gentile nations did not have the Mosaic Law and the Prophets or the other section of the Hebrew Scriptures headed by the Psalms.b Abraham’s answer showed he did not agree with the rich man’s request concerning Lazarus. Just so, too, the Lazarus class was not to be allowed to take away Moses and the Prophets or to ignore them or to take from them or add to them. The Scriptures which they had already must stand without change or compromise. The “rich man” class and their “five brothers” today have, not only Moses and the Prophets or the Hebrew Scriptures, but also the Greek Scriptures of Christ’s disciples. The “rich man” class had not strictly heeded these Scriptures and conformed his life and teaching to them. Hence he suffered. So if the “five brothers” or other members of the religious part of the Devil’s organization listen to these Scriptures and regulate their lives by them, only then will they not get into the “rich man’s” hopeless, tormented condition.

DEMANDING A SIGN

19. How does the rich man contradict Abraham? What does he really want done?

¹⁹ The rich man thinks he knows better than the Greater Abraham. “Then he said: ‘No, indeed, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent.’” (Luke 16:30, NW) So he contradicts God: Moses and the Prophets are not enough. He admits that his brothers need repentance, but he wants their repentance to be worked out, not by heeding the Scriptures Jehovah’s witnesses preach, but by a sign. He reveals himself to be like a “wicked and adulterous generation” which “keeps on seeking for a sign”. Yes, “the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks look for wisdom.” (Matt. 16:1-4; 12:38, 39, NW; Luke 23:8; John 4:48; 1 Cor. 1:22, NW) He wants his brothers’ repentance to take place by this sign without the Law of Moses and the Prophets, as if a sign were an indispensable addition to them and they were not sufficient in themselves. Give them an awe-inspiring sign, and do not remove the traditions of the religious elders and the precepts of men which overstep God’s commands and make his Word invalid. (Matt. 15:1-9) So this class in Hades insist on their own way of saving mankind, a way that dispenses with being tormented by the Lazarus class.

20. (a) So what does the “rich man” class today want regarding the Lazarus class? (b) What here shows this is a parable?

²⁰ The clerical “rich man” today does not want to part with religious traditions, age-old ceremonies and pagan philosophies, which they have sanctified into their religious systems and teachings. They let the people have the Bible, but they do not recommend to their congregations the pure teaching of Moses and the Prophets and now the rest of the inspired Scriptures written to show the fulfillment of Moses and the Prophets. They do not want Jehovah’s witnesses, the Lazarus class, to recommend the Holy Scriptures to the people, exposing the religious traditions, ceremonies and philosophies. No, but let God, the Greater Abraham, give some supernatural sign that will show whether the Lazarus class are true or false and that will not result in such pain for the rich man’s “five brothers”. Again we see how Jesus must have been speaking a parable. For if this were all literal, then how could the rich man ask dead Abraham to send back Lazarus from the dead, when Abraham himself is dead and is unable to resurrect even his own self, not to speak of another person? It is “God who makes the dead alive”. (Rom. 4:17, NW) But will the Greater Abraham do something miraculous with the Lazarus class of Jehovah’s witnesses so as to have them make a forced impression on the rich man’s “five brothers”?

21. What did Abraham reply, and how did Jesus elsewhere speak in agreement with that?

²¹ “But he said to him: ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’” (Luke 16:31, NW) So a sign according to their specifications will not be given them, just as Jesus elsewhere told them: “A wicked and adulterous generation keeps on seeking for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. . . . look! something more than Jonah is here.” (Matt. 12:39-41, NW) He took a correct measurement of their religious attitude when he said: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.” And he showed he agreed with Abraham’s words, when he said: “You are searching the Scriptures, because you think that by means of them you will have everlasting life; and these are the very ones that bear witness about me. And yet you do not want to come to me that you may have life. . . . Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; there is one that accuses you, Moses, in whom you have put your hope. In fact, if you believed Moses you would believe me, for that one wrote about me. But if you do not believe the writings of that one, how will you believe my sayings?”—John 4:48; 5:39, 40, 45-47, NW.

22. What only can the Lazarus class bring the “rich man’s” five brothers? What is the difficulty with these latter?

²² All that the Lazarus class could bring them would be Moses and the Prophets and the message of the risen one, Jesus Christ. But no adulterated, compromising message! You cannot really believe the message of the Risen One, and now also the message of his established kingdom, without also believing Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms. For the Christian Greek Scriptures are based on the Hebrew Scriptures. Also the ancient Hebrew Scriptures find their fulfillment in the Christian Scriptures and in the facts of today respecting his kingdom. So if you do not want to believe Moses and the Prophets just for the truth of those Scriptures, then you will not be willing to believe because of a man who has been made alive to God’s favor and who reclines in his favor, no longer a spiritual beggar but an active witness of Jehovah. Besides such a spiritual enlivening of the Lazarus class, Jesus Christ actually did rise from the dead and sent his witnesses, first to the Jews and then to the nations. (Acts 10:40-42) Now his followers as witnesses of Jehovah go preaching the risen Christ and his kingdom to the survivors of the “rich man” class, his “five brothers”. Yet this makes no difference with them. Why not? Because they do not choose to believe Moses and the Prophets and the rest of the inspired Scriptures. They do not want to exercise faith; they want to see a sign.

23. So may we expect miraculous backing for our work? What, then, are we under orders to do?

²³ Will God change his method for the sake of these willful unbelievers? Never! The yawning chasm of his uncompromising judgment still remains there between us and them. So apart from our change of condition since 1919, which is like Jonah’s coming out of the huge fish’s belly to live on earth as Jehovah’s witness and preach to the Ninevites, a sufficient sign, the Lazarus class of Jehovah’s witnesses need not expect God to work any astounding miracle upon them or with them so as to hasten the repentance of the rich man’s brothers’ class. We need no support now by a resurrection of faithful witnesses of old. We are not authorized to compromise the divine message for this day of judgment of the nations by holding back from telling all the counsel of God. We are commanded to use Christendom’s own possession of the Scriptures, Moses and the Prophets and the inspired testimony about the risen Christ and his kingdom. Thus equipped, we are to preach fearlessly. Recognizing God’s favor upon us, we no longer look to the goatish religious leaders and go to them as beggars for spiritual favors. We keep ourselves in the Greater Abraham’s bosom of favor and we preach as he commands us.

24. To whom alone, then, may we bring comfort and relief?

²⁴ Let the goats stop their ears and persecute us in their religious anguish and torment. We cannot compromise and predict any relief from God for them. But seeing we have been so greatly comforted by the Greater Abraham, Jehovah God, we are obliged to go forth and “comfort all that mourn” with the comfort with which He has comforted us through Christ. (Isa. 61:1, 2; 2 Cor. 1:3, 4) Let those who have ears to listen, listen and be comforted. In that way many more straying sheep will hear the Right Shepherd’s voice and turn from their beggarly, sin-diseased, downtrodden condition in this world and come into the favor of the Greater Abraham

Canada’s Supreme Court Sides with Jehovah’s Witnesses

● On December 18, 1950, Canada’s Supreme Court reversed itself to rule Jehovah’s witnesses not guilty of sedition by distributing the leaflet Quebec’s Burning Hate for God and Christ and Freedom Is the Shame of All Canada. The case involved Aime Boucher as defendant. Arrested in 1946, his case finally got to the Supreme Court in 1949. The court split, three to two, against the witnesses. Upon application for reargument by the witnesses, the issue came before the full court of nine justices in 1950, and in December a five-to-four decision legally vindicated Jehovah’s witnesses. The case was momentous for Canada, not just because the court reversed itself, but because the historical decision in effect rewrote the concept of sedition previously held in Canadian courts. It brought matters up to date by viewing democratic peoples as the rulers and the officials as servants of the people. The intensely interesting details of this historic case appear in the March 8, 1951, Awake!