In view of these facts, our friends should be careful lest they expose themselves to the rebuke Christ gave to the Sadducees: “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures;” for this instance, like all others, when properly understood, so far from sustaining their position, becomes an irrefragable evidence of the resurrection of the dead, and a future life, but affirms nothing whatever for consciousness in death.
CHAPTER XIX.
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS ON THE PLACE AND CONDITION OF THE DEAD.
The hoary fable that every man has in his own nature an immaterial, ever-conscious, never-dying principle, vaulting from the gloomy regions of heathen mythology over into the precincts of Christianity, and claiming the positive authority of Christ and his apostles, instead of the uncertain speculations of Socrates and Plato, conceives that it finds a secure intrenchment in Luke 16:19-31, or the record concerning the rich man and Lazarus.
Into this record, as into the strongest of strongholds, it enters with every demonstration of confidence; and from its supposed impregnable walls, it hurls mockery and defiance against all opposing views, as the infatuated subjects of Belshazzar defied the soldiers of Cyrus from the walls of Babylon.
We venture to approach, at least to reconnoiter. We venture further, from the record itself, even to lay siege to it, and dig a trench about it, which, if we mistake not, will soon effectually reduce it, and all the arguments for immortality it is supposed to contain.
The first fact to which we call the attention of the reader is that Christ, as the result of this narrative or parable, or whatever it may be, refers us to Moses and the prophets for light and information respecting the place and condition of the dead. In the record, the rich man is represented as requesting that Lazarus might be sent to his brethren on earth, lest they should come into the same place of torment. How would he prevent them? By carrying back to them information respecting the state that follows this life; by telling how it fared with the covetous rich man who had enjoyed his good things in this life, and inducing them to live such a life here as to avoid the condition into which he had fallen.
And what was Abraham’s answer? “They have Moses and the prophets.... If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” That is to say, Moses and the prophets had given them just as positive information respecting the condition into which man passes from this life, as could be given them by one who should repass the portals of the grave and rise from the dead.
The significance of this declaration should not be overlooked. It throws us right back upon the records of Moses and the prophets for information upon that subject respecting which the incident here related is claimed to be full and sufficient testimony.
We therefore inquire what Moses and the prophets have taught us respecting the place where the scene here depicted is represented to have taken place. What place was this? Answer, Hades; for this is the word from which hell is translated in verse 23. In hell, hades, the rich man lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham and Lazarus afar off, though still within sight and speaking distance. The New Testament was written in Greek, while Moses and the prophets wrote in Hebrew. What is the Hebrew word answering to the Greek hades? Answer, Sheol. These are the equivalent terms in the two languages. All that a Hebrew writer meant by sheol, a Greek writer meant by hades, and vice versa. The question, then, is simply this: What have Moses and the prophets taught us respecting sheol, and the condition of those who enter therein?
Meaning of hades and sheol. These words denote the common receptacle of the dead, both righteous and wicked. The righteous dead are there; for at the resurrection they raise the victorious shout, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave [Gr. hades], where is thy victory?” 1 Cor. 15:55. And the wicked dead are there; for at the resurrection to damnation it is said that death and hell [Gr. hades] deliver them up. Rev. 20:13. That the hades of the New Testament is the sheol of the Old, Ps. 16, and Acts 2:27, bear testimony. Thus Ps. 16:10, says, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [Heb. sheol];” and the New Testament, as above, makes a direct quotation of this passage by saying, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades.”