writings of the early and later prophets; and linked with these were the Psalms or collection of Bible books headed by the Psalms. All together, these comprised the Hebrew Scriptures, and it was from these that Jesus continually quoted to prove he was the Messiah or Christ, the promised Seed of Abraham. “And commencing at Moses and all the Prophets he interpreted to them things pertaining to himself in all the Scriptures.” He said: “All the things written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms about me must be fulfilled.”—Luke 24:27, 44, NW.

13. Over whom, then, did they have the advantage? How was this testified to?

¹³ Consequently, with this God-given treasure the circumcised Israelites had an advantage over all the Gentile nations. Paul asks: “What, then, is the superiority of the Jew, or what is the benefit of the circumcision? A great deal in every way. First of all, because they were entrusted with the sacred pronouncements of God.” (Rom. 3:1, 2, NW) Standing before the Jewish Sanʹhe·drin presided over by the high priest, the Christian martyr Stephen said to them: “This is the Moses that . . . came to be among the congregation in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our forefathers, and he received living sacred pronouncements to give you.” (Acts 7:37, 38, NW) The apostle Paul spoke of them as “my brothers, my relatives according to the flesh, who, as such, are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the sacred service and the promises; to whom the forefathers belong and from whom Christ sprang according to the flesh”. (Rom. 9:3-5, NW) Jehovah God indeed set an exclusive feast before his chosen people, and hence the psalmist said: “He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his ordinances, they have not known them. Praise ye Jehovah.”—Ps. 147:19, 20, AS.

14. Who especially in Israel feasted? Were they in Abraham’s bosom?

¹⁴ This privilege of feasting was specially true of the religious leaders in Israel, the “rich man” class back there. They had the “key of knowledge” therefore, and it was their privilege to teach the common people. But though they feasted at the rich man’s table, reclining in magnificence and assuming to be Abraham’s promised seed, yet they did not recline in the “bosom of Abraham” and obtain his chief favor. Jesus disclosed the reason when he said to his religious opposers: “Woe to you who are versed in the Law, because you took away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not go in, and those going in you hindered!” (Luke 11:52, NW) Certainly the “rich man” represents a selfish lot of religionists both back there and today. Though furnished with such a sumptuous table of spiritual food, they let very little drop from it or be thrown away from it for the poor people to enjoy.

THE POOR BEGGAR LAZARUS

15. Who was laid at the rich man’s gate, and why?

¹⁵ Jesus now shifts our view from inside the rich man’s palace to outside his gate, with the words: “But a certain beggar named Lazarus used to be put at his gate, full of ulcers and desiring to be filled with the things dropping from the table of the rich man. Yes, too, the dogs would come and lick his ulcers.” (Luke 16:20, 21, NW) The beggar Lazarus had a right to be at the rich man’s gate, for God’s law specifically taught the well-to-do to be openhanded toward the poor. If the “rich man” class had conducted themselves unselfishly according to God’s law, with love for their neighbor as for themselves, there would have been no poor in the land. But now that there actually were poor in the land because of the self-seeking world organization, the rich man was under orders by the Law and also under warning by the Prophets to consider the poor and to give some relief to them.—Deut. 15:4, 7, 9, 11; Ps. 41:1, 2.

16. Does Lazarus name a literal person? What does the name indicate?

¹⁶ Just as the selfish rich man represented a class of persons, so the beggar or poor man represented a class back in Jesus’ day as well as now. By discerning the class in Jesus’ day we can identify the class that is the modern counterpart now. From 1881 till the end of 1939 it was taught that the rich man represented the Jewish nation as a whole and that the beggar pictured the Gentiles or all the nations aside from Israel.a But Jesus gives the beggar the name Lazarus, which was a Jewish name indicating him to be a Jew, not a Gentile. It is a Greek form of the name “Eleazar”, which means “God is helper”. The facts show that this “beggar” class began with Jews, but it was enlarged to include Gentiles, so that today it is mostly Gentile. Lazarus was of the same Jewish community with the rich man. There was no wall of partition between them because of race or natural extraction. The difference between them was because of the superiority and privileges which the religious clergy had selfishly assumed to themselves.

17. Whom does Lazarus picture, and why as a beggar?

¹⁷ The beggar Lazarus therefore pictures the poor people, of the Jews then and of Christendom now. The religious clergy and leaders deny them proper spiritual nourishment and privileges and attention, to which they have a right according to God’s will and commands. In Jesus’ day the “rich man” class included the Pharisees, and these treated the common people with supreme contempt. History tells us they called them ‵am ha-arets or people of the earth as being beneath their feet and notice. Worthy of a resurrection to eternal life? Not such people! Men who became disciples of the Jewish rabbis or teachers were thought to be in a much better position for this. When they paid the rabbis well, they bought the favorable opinion of such teachers. How fittingly Luke’s account says that the Pharisees were listening in on Jesus’ parable and that they were money-lovers and sneered at Jesus of Nazareth, from which obscure town it was thought no good thing could come! They “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and . . . considered the rest as nothing”.—John 1:46; Luke 18:9-11, NW.

18, 19. Why was he pictured as full of ulcers, a companion of dogs?

¹⁸ By such religious leaders, clothed in their linen of self-righteousness, the poor unlearned people were looked down on as spiritually diseased, just like Lazarus covered with ulcers. They viewed the poor just as Job’s three self-righteous friends viewed him when the Devil, Satan, had stricken him with boils from head to foot in order to make it appear that God’s hand was against Job. Contemptuously the chief priests and Pharisees said concerning the people who believed in Jesus: “This crowd that does not know the law are accursed people.”—Job 2:1-13; John 7:49, NW.

¹⁹ So they classed such people as under God’s curse and fit to associate intimately only with dogs, which could eat the flesh of animals torn by beasts in the field and to which no holy things were to be cast. Let them prowl around the city like hungry scavenger dogs at nightfall, howling if they find nothing to eat. The uncircumcised Gentiles were classed as dogs, and let these lick the ulcers of the poor and give them some soothing relief. (Ex. 22:31; Matt. 7:6; 15:26, 27; Ps. 59:6, 14, 15; Mark 7:27, 28) Being spiritually neglected by the lofty leaders who held them in disdain, they would naturally become ulcerous and sick spiritually. It was to such neglected and diseased ones that Jesus came to minister God’s healing Word. When the Pharisees complained to his disciples, “Why is it that your teacher eats with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus said: “Persons in health do not need a physician, but the ailing do. Go, then, and learn what this means, ‘I want mercy, and not sacrifice.’ Accordingly, I came to call, not righteous people, but sinners.”—Matt. 9:11-13, NW; Mark 2:16, 17.

20. Who put the beggar at the rich man’s gate, and why there?

²⁰ The beggar Lazarus was put at the rich man’s gate, for he wanted to be filled with the things that dropped from the rich man’s table. Whatever was thrown away from that sumptuous table would never be missed by the rich man. It could be turned over to the beggar without a fanfare of trumpets to call public notice to his charitableness to the poor. Some of the community put Lazarus at his gate. Like Lazarus, they thought the religious clergy to be the ones from whom alone spiritual nourishment could come from God, and so they directed the Lazarus class of poor unlearned people to look to the religious leaders and teachers for all spiritual supplies.

21. With what did the Lazarus class want to be fed, but what did they get?

²¹ The Lazarus class hunger and thirst for righteousness, conscious of their spiritual need and desiring spiritual food to put them in a healthy state of heart and mind and to strengthen them to serve God aright. They want more than the empty, futile philosophies of men; but this is what the “rich man” class gives them. It gives them the precepts of men and the traditions of religious elders which overstep God’s commands and make his Word of no force. Seeking ease for themselves, they bind and put heavy burdens upon the shoulders of mankind. Not wanting themselves to go into the kingdom of heaven through Jesus Christ, they try to prevent the Lazarus class from going in. Consequently only morsels of real spiritual food have they let drop for the health and strength of the Lazarus class. Only a little comfort have these received from God’s Word and arrangements, while the self-righteous “rich man” class apply all the main blessings to themselves. (Col. 2:8; Matt. 15:1-9; 23:4, 13, NW) Small wonder that Jesus publicly castigated the religious “rich man” class and called them “hypocrites, fools, blind guides, serpents, offspring of vipers”! How noble that he took up the cause of the poor and uplifted and comforted them!

Those who are determined to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and many senseless and hurtful desires which plunge men into destruction and ruin. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things, and by reaching out for this love some have been led astray from the faith and have stabbed themselves all over with many pains.—1 Tim. 6:9, 10, NW.

Beggar and Rich Man Experience a Change

1. In his sermon what changes did Jesus indicate for poor and rich?

IN HIS sermon on the mount Jesus said: “Happy are those who are conscious of their spiritual need, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them. Happy are those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, since they will be filled.” In contrast with these words pronouncing such kind of persons happy he said: “But woe to you rich persons, because you are having your consolation in full. Woe to you who are filled up now, because you will go hungry. Woe, you who are laughing now, because you will mourn and weep.” (Matt. 5:3, 6 and Luke 6:24, 25, NW) Jesus illustrated these changes for poor and rich in his parable of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man. He pictured the changes as coming by death.

2. At death what happened to Lazarus and the rich man? What did Lazarus’ new position indicate?

² Jesus said: “Now in course of time the beggar died and he was carried off by the angels to the bosom position of Abraham. 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.” (Luke 16:22, 23, NW) The New World Translation, in its footnote, says of this “bosom position” that one occupying this position is “as when reclining in front of another on the same couch at a meal”. It denotes a position of favor with Abraham. Death ended the beggar condition for Lazarus and put him in a favored place. The question now is, When did he die, and in what sense? There are facts to give answer.

3, 4. When and as a result of what did the Lazarus class die?

³ The Lazarus class died when the Kingdom news began to be told to the poor ones whom the religious clergy despised and neglected. They were sinners needing repentance, the harlots, the publicans, the circumcised Samaritans, and finally the uncircumcised Gentiles; and these accepted the news and became followers of the Messiah, Christ the King. This began in the days of John the Baptist, for he came preaching in the wilderness: “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near. I, on the one hand, baptize you with water because of your repentance; but the one coming after me is stronger than I am, whose sandals I am not fit to take off. That one will baptize you people with holy spirit and with fire.” (Matt. 3:1, 2, 11, NW) About six months after John began Jesus was baptized by him and was anointed with God’s spirit to be the Christ. After forty days of temptation in the wilderness he came back to John and began gathering his disciples. Particularly after John’s arrest in the following year Jesus retired to Galilee and began preaching like him: “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.” En route to Galilee he even preached to the despised Samaritans.—Matt. 4:17, NW; John 4:1-42.

⁴ While in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth he read to the congregation his preaching commission from the prophet Isaiah: “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach a release to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away with a release, to preach Jehovah’s acceptable year.” With that he added: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.” (Luke 4:16-21, NW) Some time later John the Baptist in prison sent to him for some verification that he was really the One that was to come. Jesus told John’s messengers: “Go your way and report to John what you are hearing and seeing: The blind are seeing again, and the lame are walking about, the lepers are being cleansed and the deaf are hearing, and the dead are being raised up, and the poor are having the good news declared to them.” (Matt. 11:2-5, NW) Ah, yes, the Lazarus class were having the good news preached to them, and that led to their death as a beggar class, spiritually diseased and hungry. No longer were they going to the “rich man’s” gate for food, but were flocking to Jesus the Messiah. Those conscious of their spiritual need and hungering and thirsting for what was right were being filled and comforted.

5. So to what were the Lazarus class now pressing forward? And ahead of whom were they entering in, and why?

⁵ After John’s messengers left Jesus said: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of the heavens is the goal toward which men press, and those pressing forward are seizing it. For all, the Prophets and the Law, prophesied until John.” (Matt. 11:12, 13, NW) Jesus said something very similar just before he gave his parable of Lazarus and the rich man. After exposing the self-righteousness of the money-loving Pharisees who were listening in, Jesus said: “The Law and the Prophets were until John. From then on the kingdom of God is being declared as good news, and every kind of person is pressing forward toward it.” (Luke 16:16, NW) Or, to quote Moffatt’s translation: “And anyone presses in.” Every kind of person, or, anyone? Yes; the lowly Lazarus class, which once begged from the “rich man”, was pressing forward toward the kingdom and seizing it. In view of this fact Jesus finally told the chief priests and the religious elders: “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the harlots are going ahead of you into the kingdom of God. For John came to you in the path of righteousness, but you did not believe him. However, the tax collectors and the harlots believed him, and you, although you saw this, did not feel regret afterwards so as to believe him.” (Matt. 21:23, 31, 32, NW) So the Lazarus class died to those religious leaders and were conducted to the right source for food, comfort and relief.

DEAD TOWARD THE LAW, BUT NOT BURIED

6, 7. So what divine provision was now due to be minutely fulfilled? By whom and how?

⁶ Now God’s kingdom was being preached and anyone or every kind of person was pressing toward it to enter it, especially after the apostle Peter was authorized to use the “keys of the kingdom”. Even the Lazarus class was pressing toward it. So it was time for the law of Moses to be fulfilled down to the last particle of a letter. Hence Jesus went on to say: “Indeed, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one particle of a letter of the Law to go unfulfilled. Everyone [Anyone, Mo] that divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he that marries a woman divorced from a husband commits adultery.” (Luke 16:17, 18, NW) As a son of a Jewess, Jesus came to be under the law of Moses. But he as a perfect Jew did not come to destroy that Law from God; he came to fulfill it. He had to prove himself to be the Seed of Abraham which was first foretold in Moses’ writings. As such Seed he must be sacrificed on God’s altar, in the same way that Abraham’s beloved son Isaac was offered on the altar at God’s command, this resulting in God’s oath-bound promise, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”—Gen. 22:1-18.

⁷ As prescribed in Moses’ law, Jesus must fulfill it by being offered up as the real passover lamb, “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” Yes, he must be offered in sacrifice like those animals slain at Mount Sinai, whose blood Moses as mediator sprinkled on the book of the Law and the people in order to validate the Law covenant between God and Israel. But Jesus’ blood validates a new covenant between God and spiritual Israel, by which God really forgives sins beyond remembrance. To fulfill the many prophetic pictures in the Law, Jesus also had to be offered like the bullock and Jehovah’s goat on the day of atonement, the blood of which sacrifices was taken by the high priest into the Most Holy and sprinkled before the divine mercy seat. Only Jesus had to rise from the dead and ascend as High Priest into heaven itself and appear in God’s most holy presence to offer there the blood or value of his sacrificed human life for believers on earth. By these means his followers on earth could gain true righteousness from God. In fulfilling these and other features of the Mosaic law Jesus fulfilled the purpose of it. So it was taken out of the way and was nailed to the torture stake on which he died.—Ex. 12:1-13; John 1:29; Ex. 24:3-8; Lev. 16:1-19; Heb. 9:11-28; 13:10-13; Rom. 10:4; Col. 2:14.

8. What did Jesus there say regarding divorce, and why so?

⁸ Because the Law of Moses was then being fulfilled and removed from his believers, Jesus declared that the divorce provision in the Law whereby a man could have more than one living wife did not apply after this to his followers. (Deut. 24:1-4) The Law covenant through Moses was passing out and the new covenant through the Greater Mediator, Jesus Christ, was superseding it. Under it if a Christian got a divorce from a marriage mate on any grounds other than sexual unfaithfulness, then if either of these remarried that one would be guilty of adultery. The Christian standard of marriage under the new covenant would be that established by God in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The man had but one living wife given him for the purpose of raising children to fill the earth and subdue it to a paradise state. (Matt. 19:3-9; Gen. 1:28; 2:21-24) God provided no divorce for the perfect pair. Likewise a married Christian must be the mate of only one living partner and should be faithful to that one. This statement of Jesus on the marriage situation must have irritated the Pharisees who followed Talmudic teachings on marriage and who were listening in.

9. How did Paul say the Lazarus class were discharged from the Mosaic law, and for what purpose?

⁹ Showing how the Jewish members of the Lazarus class had died to their former beggarly condition under the Law covenant, the apostle Paul addresses some of them: “Can it be that you do not know, brothers, (for I am speaking to those who know law,) that the Law is master over a man as long as he lives? For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is alive; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law of her husband. So, then, while her husband is living, she would be styled an adulteress if she became another man’s. But if her husband dies, she is free from his law, so that she is not an adulteress if she becomes another man’s. So, my brothers, you also were made dead to the Law through the body of the Christ, that you might become another’s, the one’s who was raised up from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in accord with the flesh, the sinful passions that were excited by the Law were at work in our members that we should bring forth fruit to death. But now we have been discharged from the Law, because we have died to that by which we were being held fast, that we might be slaves in a new sense by the spirit, and not in the old sense by the written code.”—Rom. 7:1-6, NW.

10. So upon whom were the Lazarus class no longer dependent for food? Why?

¹⁰ Thus the Lazarus class had died to the Mosaic law and was no longer subject to the “rich man” class or dependent upon that Jewish clergy class for anything. They had “died together with Christ toward the elementary things of the world” which the “rich man” class taught. Their life was now “hidden with the Christ in union with God”. They no longer begged from the “rich man”. No, they followed Jesus’ command, “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” and avoided them.—Col. 2:20; 3:3 and Luke 12:1, NW.

11. Where does Jesus’ story locate Lazarus after death? Why does this prove it a parable?

¹¹ But did you notice one interesting point? What? That, though Lazarus died, the parable does not say the beggar was buried and put in Hades, as was the case with the rich man. In place of being buried and going to Hades, the beggar was “carried off by the angels to the bosom position of Abraham”. Thus the Lazarus class is not pictured as a dead class, “dead in your trespasses and sins,” but as very much alive, “alive toward God.” (Eph. 2:1; Gal. 2:19, NW) All these features about Jesus’ story here prove that it does not tell of a literal Jewish “rich man” and of a literal beggar in Israel named Lazarus. Why should a literal Jew named Lazarus be carried at his death to Abraham’s bosom just because he was a beggar covered with ulcers and licked by dogs? Furthermore, the literal Abraham had been buried eighteen centuries before this and his bosom had moldered in the grave, in the cave of Machpelah, near Hebron. He was not reclining at a feast and able to entertain Lazarus. (Gen. 25:8-10) Abraham’s son Isaac was buried with him at his death. (Gen. 35:27-29) Abraham’s grandson, surnamed Israel, was also buried with him at death. (Gen. 49:29 to 50:13) When speaking of his death, Jacob said: “I will go down to Sheol [into hell, Dy] to my son mourning.” (Gen. 37:35; 42:38, AS) Since Jacob was gathered to his people at death and was buried with his fathers, and thus went to Sheol or hell, Abraham must also be in Sheol or hell, that is, in the common grave of mankind, or Hades.

12. Where do religionists say Abraham then was? What questions does this raise about transportation to hell?

¹² The religious clergy of Christendom teach that Abraham is in the hell taught in their creeds. That hell is in two parts, in the center of the earth: one part is called paradise or limbo, where the souls of those faithful ones went who died before Christ’s sacrifice; the other part is called Gehenna, with literal flames of torment, where the rich man is. Hence to be in Abraham’s bosom means to be in an underground paradise. If that is true and if that is where a literal beggar named Lazarus went at death, how is it that angels carried him there? Do angels carry dead beggars to the center of the earth to Abraham’s bosom? Who, then, carried the rich man to the flames of torment—demons? The Scriptures say Jesus went to hell, but got out again by God’s resurrection power. (Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27, 31, 32) The Revelation or Apocalypse tells us: “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” (Rev. 20:14) So Jesus got out of hell in time, so as not to land with it into the