Luke 16

     16:1-14.  Mammon (worldly riches) is called unrighteous (9) because it deceives us, and always fails to deliver lasting value.  V.10 is certainly a true revealer of character, and a just basis for judgment.  Don’t make the man who steals grapes in the grocery store a bank trustee.  And don’t expect God to trust us with eternal riches if we have not been faithful to him in the use of the temporal riches of this world (11).  A faithful steward will be given true riches of his own (12).  (Cf.1Chr.29:14, “For all things come from Thee, and from Thy hand we have given Thee.”  And, Ro. 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things.”  See also Luke 12:31-32.

     16:14-18.  John came preaching the gospel, but the gospel of faith and repentance does not annul the demands of righteousness proclaimed in the Law and the Prophets.  You can’t force your way past them into the kingdom of God (16-17).  The Pharisees, as they knew Jesus was telling them (14), were trying to do just that.  They and their lawyers loaded up other men with heavy loads, but found all kinds of ways to avoid any heavy lifting themselves (cf. Luke 11:46).  Of course they would be the last to admit that they were annulling the law, but Jesus earned their wrath by exposing their hypocrisy. Properly understood, the law is so stringent that no one can escape its condemnation. You cannot take the kingdom by force with carnal weapons, or with your own righteousness. It is gained only by pleading for mercy, and trusting in the grace and power of God to open the gate.

     16:19-31.  (Cf. Ps.73).  Lazarus is one of those meaningful names, meaning “God surround, i.e. to protect, or aid”.  The rich man is unnamed.  God did not “know” him.  He could have fed Lazarus for nothing with what he wasted.  The dogs showed more mercy than he (21).

     Both men died.  The dead are not homeless or unconscious (cf. Php.1:23).  Hades (O.T. Sheol) is the Greek term for the place of the dead.  It is divided into Paradise (Abraham’s bosom), and Tartarus, the lower regions of torment.  Abraham’s bosom indicates the place near to his heart, the honored place at a feast (cf. John 1:18; 13:23).

     God’s word, if believed, is better than a sign (29).  The rich man lacked the will to obey, not knowledge.  A man named Lazarus did come back from the dead (John 12:10), and it only made the privileged more determined to kill Jesus.  They did not repent even when Jesus himself rose from the dead, but only sought to suppress the truth (Mt.28:11-15).