A parable of Jesus

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

How we treat the poor at our gate now echoes into eternity, and no wonder will persuade a heart that will not listen to God's word.

Where and to whom Jesus told it

Jesus tells this parable to the Pharisees, whom Luke has just described as lovers of money, who derided him for his teaching that we cannot serve God and mammon. It is the culmination of a stretch of teaching about wealth, stewardship, and the heart, and it draws back the curtain on the eternal consequences of how a life is lived in relation to God and to the poor at one's own gate.

The contrast is drawn in the sharpest colours. The rich man is clothed in purple and fine linen and fares sumptuously every day; Lazarus, the only character in any parable given a name, lies at his gate full of sores, longing for the crumbs, with only the dogs to attend him. The two men could not be nearer in space, the beggar at the very gate, nor further apart in circumstance.

The parable

There was a certain rich man, Jesus says, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day; and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, laid at his gate full of sores. Both die. The beggar is carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man is buried, and in hell, in torment, he lifts up his eyes and sees Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. He begs that Lazarus might dip his finger in water to cool his tongue, but Abraham reminds him that in his lifetime he received his good things and Lazarus evil things, and now a great gulf is fixed that none can cross.

Then the rich man begs that Lazarus be sent to warn his five brothers, lest they too come to that place of torment. Abraham answers, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And when the rich man insists that if one went to them from the dead they would repent, Abraham replies with the parable's piercing last word: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. The rich man's sin was never named as fraud; it was the daily, comfortable neglect of the suffering man at his own gate.

What it means, and how it has been misread and rightly read

This parable has been mined for detailed geography of the afterlife, but its purpose is not to satisfy curiosity about the next world; it is to change how we live in this one. Nor is it a simple claim that wealth damns and poverty saves; Abraham himself, cradling Lazarus, was a rich man, and the issue is not the possession of wealth but a heart that could step over a dying man every day and feel nothing.

Read rightly, it exposes the quiet, respectable sin of not seeing, of a comfort so insulated that the Lazarus at the gate becomes invisible. And its closing lines confront the assumption that we would believe if only God gave us more spectacular signs. Abraham insists the remedy is already given: Moses and the prophets, the word of God we already possess. Hearts that will not heed the Scriptures will not be persuaded even by a resurrection, a line that hangs heavy over a Gospel whose Lord would soon rise from the dead.

The heart of God and the kingdom

This parable reveals a God who sees the beggar at the gate whom everyone else steps over, who knows him by name when the rich and famous go unnamed, and who will finally set right the terrible inequities that comfortable people learn not to notice. The reversal is not arbitrary cruelty but justice long deferred, the God who hears the cry of the poor answering it at last.

It reveals, too, the sufficiency and the seriousness of his word. God has spoken clearly enough in Moses and the prophets, and now in his Son, to leave no one with the excuse that they were not warned. The great gulf fixed after death, and the warning that not even a resurrection will convince a heart set against Scripture, together declare that how we respond to God's word now, while there is still time, is a matter of eternal weight.

What it asks of us

This parable warns us against the quiet sin of not seeing the Lazarus at our own gate, and against a comfort so complete that it deadens us to the need pressing right beside us. It asks who lies at our gate, unseen, and whether our daily sumptuousness, of whatever kind, has made us blind to them. Mercy to the poor is not an optional extra of the faith but a mark of whether we have truly heard God at all.

It also presses on us the sufficiency of God's word. We do not need extraordinary signs to know how we should live; we need only the will to hear and obey the Scriptures we already have. The parable urges us to heed Moses, the prophets, and above all the risen Christ now, while the gulf is not yet fixed, and to let that hearing show itself in the way we treat the least at our door.

How it points to Christ

Jesus is the one who did rise from the dead, and the parable's solemn warning has proved true, for many still would not believe even the risen Lord. Yet he came precisely for the Lazarus at every gate, and became poor himself, with nowhere to lay his head, to make the poor rich in God. He calls us to hear Moses, the prophets, and his own word now, and to show the mercy that marks those who are truly his, before the day when the gulf is fixed and the time for compassion is past.

Frequently asked questions

What does the parable of the rich man and Lazarus mean?

A rich man ignores a beggar at his gate, and after death their conditions are reversed. It warns against the blindness of wealth and calls us to listen to God's word now, ending, 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead' (Luke 16:19-31).

Why is Lazarus the only named person in a parable?

Jesus names the poor beggar, whom the world overlooked, while the rich man remains anonymous. The naming quietly reverses the world's valuation: the forgotten poor man is known and remembered by God.

Is this parable a literal map of the afterlife?

Christians differ on how literally to read its details of Abraham's bosom, torment, and the great gulf. Its purpose is not to chart the next world but to awaken this one, to mercy toward the poor and to hearing God's word.