Chinese original: 路16：19－31：「財主和拉撒路」這個比喻的目的是什麼？是描繪「地獄」的情景嗎？
2026 revision note: I first wrote this article in 2016. More recently, reading Wholly Smoke! The Myth of Endless Torment led me to revisit its discussion of the rich man and Lazarus. My basic understanding of the passage has not changed, but some questions I raised ten years ago were left underdeveloped. This revision therefore expands and clarifies the argument. Relevant sources are listed at the end.
Question: What is the point of the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31? Is Jesus describing what happens after death?
To understand the story, perhaps the first question should not be, “Where exactly do people go after death?” but, “Why does Jesus tell this story at this point?”
First, Look at Whom Jesus Is Addressing
Luke 16 is framed by the issue of money. Jesus first says that no servant can serve two masters and concludes, “You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13).
Luke then tells us specifically that the Pharisees were lovers of money and ridiculed Jesus when they heard these things (16:14).
Jesus immediately rebukes them: they justify themselves before others, but God knows their hearts (16:15).
Then, shortly afterward, the story begins: “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day” (16:19).
That context matters.
If we isolate verses 19–31 from verses 13–15, it is easy to read the passage as a lesson on “where people go when they die.” But in the narrative, Jesus has just confronted Pharisees who love money and regard themselves as righteous before God—and then he tells a story about a rich man.
So the story’s first concern is probably not the geography of Hades, but the spiritual problem of the people standing in front of Jesus.
A Poor Man with a Name, and a Rich Man without One
Some argue that this cannot be a parable because Jesus does not normally give names to characters in his parables, whereas the poor man here is called Lazarus.
But the detail can also be turned into another question:
Why is the wealthy and socially important man left unnamed, while the neglected beggar lying at his gate is given a name?
The statement “Jesus does not name characters in his other parables” does not establish a literary rule that any story containing a name must therefore be a historical report. Scripture gives us no such rule.
Moreover, the opening resembles other parables of Jesus: “There was a rich man…” Earlier in the same chapter, the parable of the dishonest manager also begins with “There was a rich man.”
Lazarus having a name is therefore an important literary detail, but it is not enough to turn the story into a historical report about the afterlife.
This Is Hades, Not Gehenna
The story says that the rich man died and was buried, and that in Hades, being in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus at his side (Luke 16:22–23).
The Greek word here is ᾅδης (Hades), not γέεννα (Gehenna), the word Jesus uses elsewhere.
At the same time, the rich man’s five brothers are still alive. He asks Abraham to send Lazarus to warn them so that they will not also come to that place of torment (16:28).
Whatever else the scene may mean, it is not set after the resurrection of the dead and the completion of the final judgment.
If someone wants to use this passage to establish a conscious “intermediate state” after death, the key question is therefore not simply, “Is this hell?” It is a more basic question:
Does Jesus intend the Hades depicted in this story to be taken as a literal description of the intermediate state?
If This Is a Literal Picture of Hades, How Should We Understand the Conversation?
Read the story carefully and several striking images appear.
The rich man is in anguish in the flame, yet he can still see Abraham and Lazarus far away, recognize the ancient patriarch Abraham whom he has never met, carry on a conversation across an uncrossable chasm, hear Abraham’s full response, remember that he has five brothers, formulate requests, and even object after Abraham refuses him: “No, father Abraham…” (16:30).
In other words, a man supposedly suffering intensely in flame is nevertheless able to conduct a coherent and extended conversation across a vast divide.
Other questions follow.
Do all righteous people literally enter “Abraham’s side” after death?
What exactly is “Abraham’s side” supposed to mean? If this is a literal picture of the afterlife applicable to everyone, do all the righteous—including Gentile believers—go to Abraham’s side? Or is “Abraham’s side” itself symbolic imagery shaped for a Jewish audience? The rich man repeatedly addresses him as “father Abraham,” which clearly relates to the religious-identity issue in the story.
If the rich man is engulfed in flame, why is his immediate request merely for one drop of water from the tip of Lazarus’s finger to cool his tongue? Would that drop literally pass through the flame and provide relief? How can people on opposite sides see, recognize, and hear one another clearly, while an uncrossable chasm separates them?
This creates a practical interpretive question: if even “Abraham’s side” need not be taken literally, by what principle do we decide which details of the story are symbolic and which must be treated as literal features of the afterlife?
If we insist that this is an accurate picture of Hades, we still have to explain which details are literal and which are figurative—and what criterion we are using to tell the difference.
But if the story is filled with deliberate exaggeration, reversal, and irony, these features become much easier to understand.
The Story Is Full of Deliberate Reversals
During his life, Lazarus lies at the rich man’s gate longing for scraps from his table. After death, the rich man becomes the one begging for a tiny drop from Lazarus’s finger.
During his life, Lazarus is laid at the rich man’s gate. After death, angels carry him to Abraham.
During their lives, the two men are physically near each other, yet the rich man never crosses his own threshold to help Lazarus. After death, an uncrossable chasm lies between them.
The rich man feasts lavishly while Lazarus suffers. After death, their situations are completely reversed.
Even after death, the rich man still tries to “send” Lazarus: “Send Lazarus…” and “I beg you to send him to my father’s house…”
Lazarus never speaks a single word in the story. The man who ignored him throughout life still seems to regard him as someone who can be sent on errands.
These details suggest that Jesus is telling a story rich in irony and reversal, not calmly giving his disciples a technical explanation of the structure of Hades.
Why Is He Already Being Punished before the Judgment?
This is a question I already raised in the original 2016 article, but did not develop sufficiently at the time.
The New Testament repeatedly points judgment and final recompense toward the future.
Hebrews 9:27 says that people die once, and after that comes judgment.
Acts 17:31 says that God has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness through the man he has appointed.
Paul speaks of “the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5), and of the day when God judges people’s secrets through Christ Jesus (Romans 2:16).
Revelation 20 likewise depicts the dead standing before the throne and being judged according to what they have done, followed by the lake of fire and “the second death” (Revelation 20:11–15).
This raises a serious question:
If Luke 16 is a literal picture of the postmortem intermediate state, after what judgment has the rich man already been sentenced to suffer in the flame?
Defenders of a conscious intermediate state can reasonably reply that this is not the “final punishment” following the last judgment, but a provisional state in which a person already experiences the direction of his final destiny before the judgment itself.
That is logically possible.
But the question remains: where does Scripture clearly teach a distinct stage in which people have not yet undergone the last judgment but are already consciously experiencing bliss or suffering according to their final destiny?
If the primary evidence for that stage is the story of the rich man and Lazarus itself, we need to beware of circular reasoning: assuming first that the story describes the intermediate state, and then using the same story to prove that the intermediate state looks like this.
So this story by itself is not enough to determine what the dead experience while awaiting the final judgment.
The Rich Man’s Great Source of Security: “Father Abraham”
There is another feature of the story that can easily be obscured by debates over the afterlife.
The rich man repeatedly says, “Father Abraham…”
Abraham even addresses him as “child.”
The story does not deny that he is a descendant of Abraham. But that identity does not save him.
This would have been especially pointed for the original audience. Jesus is speaking to religious leaders steeped in Moses, the prophets, and the Abrahamic tradition. They could take confidence in belonging to God’s people, but the rich man’s ability to call Abraham “father” does not substitute for the mercy and obedience that should have marked his life.
And this brings us to the climax of the story.
“They Have Moses and the Prophets; Let Them Hear Them”
The rich man finally becomes concerned for his five brothers and asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house.
Abraham’s answer is that they already have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.
The rich man objects: “No, father Abraham. But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”
Abraham’s final response is that if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.
That is the final line the story leaves with us.
If Jesus’s primary purpose were to teach the structure of Hades, the story ends in a rather unexpected place. It does not end with Hades at all. It returns to Moses, the prophets, repentance, and whether people are willing to listen to what God has already said.
The rich man assumes that the problem is insufficiently dramatic evidence: if someone were raised from the dead, surely his brothers would believe.
Abraham’s answer is that the problem is not that God has failed to give them enough revelation, but that they are unwilling to listen.
Why the Name “Lazarus”?
This makes the only personal name in the story even more intriguing.
We cannot prove that the Lazarus of Luke 16 is meant to be identified with Lazarus of Bethany in John 11, nor can we prove that Jesus was deliberately foreshadowing what would later happen.
But the two passages do form a striking echo when read alongside one another.
The rich man says that if someone goes to his brothers from the dead, they will repent.
The story answers that even if someone rises from the dead, they will not be persuaded.
And in John’s Gospel, a man with the same name—Lazarus—really is raised from the dead.
What happens?
Some believe in Jesus because of it, but the chief priests and Pharisees convene the council and begin plotting how to put Jesus to death (John 11:45–53). Later, the chief priests even decide to kill Lazarus as well, because many people are believing in Jesus on account of him (John 12:9–11).
We cannot demonstrate a direct literary connection between the two figures named Lazarus.
But within the wider Gospel witness, the final line of Luke 16 acquires an unsettling irony:
A man really was raised from the dead, and still not everyone was willing to believe.
So What Is the Rich Man and Lazarus Actually Teaching?
Return to the context of Luke 16 and the direction of the story becomes quite clear.
Jesus has just rebuked Pharisees who love money and justify themselves before others. He then tells of a rich man who feasts sumptuously every day while ignoring a suffering man at his gate.
The rich man has wealth.
He has Abraham as his “father.”
His family has Moses and the prophets.
What he lacks is not religious identity or more spectacular supernatural evidence.
What he lacks is genuine obedience to the revelation God has already given—and the mercy that such obedience should produce.
For that reason, I still do not think the rich man and Lazarus should be used as a map of the afterlife, much less as the sole foundation for a complete doctrine of the intermediate state.
This does not mean that the story says nothing about death and judgment. It gives a severe warning: after death, we cannot simply go back and redo what we refused to face today.
But the point of the story is not to tell us how large Hades is, how far apart the righteous and wicked are, whether the dead can literally see one another, or exactly how a person in flame experiences pain.
The real question is:
When we already have “Moses and the prophets”—when God has already given us his revelation—are we willing to listen?
If a person refuses to listen even to what God has already said, perhaps what he truly lacks is not one more spectacular miracle.
Reference
Wholly Smoke! The Myth of Endless Torment, especially its discussion of the rich man and Lazarus and of punishment before the final judgment.