![]() ![]() “Thus were all the fathers before the birth of Christ carried into Abraham’s bosom that is at death they were established in this saying of God and fell asleep in the same, they were embraced and guarded as in a bosom, and sleep there until the Day of Judgment.” 3 In other writings, Luther struggled to clarify the relationship between death as sleep awaiting the Last Day, and the role of Sheol and the bosom of Abraham in the interim time.īut the parable was probably not originally intended as didactic explanation of the afterlife. In a 1523 sermon on this parable Luther argued that the bosom of Abraham was not a place, but the Word of God. 2 The location of the bosom of Abraham in relationship to heaven, and whether we go there immediately following death, or must wait for the resurrection at the Last Day, were the primary concerns for Luther and his contemporaries - also inspiring Luther’s critique of purgatory. ![]() In Martin Luther’s day, the parable inspired much speculation about where we go after we die. The image of resting in the bosom of Abraham inspired the African American spiritual “Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.” But beautiful as this image is, the primary message of this parable is probably not comfort. Where does Luke intend the audience to see itself in this parable? The image of vindication in Abraham’s bosom is a wonderful one, offering comfort for those in Luke’s audience and those in the world today who are as poor as Lazarus. These contrasts underscore the parable’s function as urgent warning. The exaggerated apocalyptic contrasts are many: the lavish meals of the rich man’s table in life, contrasting with his unquenchable thirst after death the deathly poverty of Lazarus, contrasting with his rest in the bosom of Abraham. The parable portrays a permanent chasm fixed between the rich man and poor Lazarus, with no way to cross over the chasm. Now, in the afterlife, he sees Lazarus - but too late. An apocalypse serves as a wake-up call, pulling back a curtain to open our eyes to something we urgently need to see before it is too late.ĭuring his life the rich man did not even see the poor man who was at his gate each day. With its vivid journey to the afterlife, and its exaggerated imagery of contrast, this parable fits the form of an apocalypse. 1 The rich man’s sumptuous feasting (“making merry,” euphrainomenos) also echoes the “eat, drink, and be merry” boast of the man with bigger barns in Luke 12:19. The entire chapter can be entitled “Rich Men and Lovers of Money,” suggests Alan Culpepper, in order to underscore the thematic unity of the two parables. It follows last week’s parable about a rich man and Mammon. Unique to Luke is the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
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