The Rich Man and Lazarus – Does Luke 16 Really Prove an Eternal Hell?
ANGEL THOUGHTS · HEAVEN & HELL – A BIBLICAL RE-EXAMINATION
The Rich Man and Lazarus – Does Luke 16 Really Prove an Eternal Hell?
By Michaya Angel · 9 May 2024 · approx. 15 min read
A story about more than it first appears.
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What is this article about?
- context instead of isolated verses
- parable or literal description of the afterlife?
- what Hades and “Abraham’s bosom” mean
- why Luke 16 does not prove an endless hell for me
Flames, torment, and an uncrossable chasm: at first glance, few of Jesus’ stories seem to speak more clearly about heaven and hell.
But is that really what this story is saying?
There are Bible passages that can make you stop for a moment when you read them.
For me, the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 is one of them.
A poor man dies and finds himself with Abraham. A rich man also dies and suffers in flames.
Between them lies an uncrossable chasm. Read without context, the story can seem quite clear:
Some are saved. Others suffer after death.
For a long time, I also saw this passage as one of the strongest arguments for hell.
And that is exactly why, at some point, I wanted to look more closely:
Is Jesus really describing life after death here — or is he telling a story with a very different message?
The more I studied the context, the more one question became important to me:
What was Jesus actually trying to say to the people listening to him at the time?
What Is the Story About?
Jesus tells the story of two men whose lives could hardly have been more different.
One is rich, wears expensive clothing, and lives in abundance.
At his gate lies Lazarus. He is poor, sick, and hopes for whatever falls from the rich man’s table.
Then both of them die. Lazarus is taken to Abraham’s bosom.
The rich man, however, finds himself in torment and begs for a drop of water.
Abraham reminds him of how different their lives had been before.
A great chasm now lies between the two.
Then he called out: Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering in this flame.
“Now there was a certain rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and lived splendidly in celebration every day. And there was a certain poor man named Lazarus, who lay at his gate covered with sores and longed to be satisfied with what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the stray dogs came and licked his sores.
Then it happened that the poor man died and was carried away by messengers — into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And while he was in the unseen, in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus in his bosom.
“Now there was a certain rich man, and he dressed in purple and cambric, daily making merry splendidly. Now there was a certain poor man named Lazarus, who had been cast at his portal, having sores, and yearning to be satisfied from the scraps which are falling from the rich man’s table. But even the curs, coming, licked his sores.
Now the poor man came to die and he is carried away by the messengers into Abraham’s bosom. Now the rich man also died, and was entombed. And in the unseen, lifting up his eyes, existing in torments, he is seeing Abraham from afar, and Lazarus in his bosom.
And he, shouting, said, ‘Father Abraham, be merciful to me, and send Lazarus, that he should be dipping the tip of his finger in water and cooling my tongue, for I am pained in this flame.’
Now Abraham said, ‘Child, be reminded that you got your good things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things. Yet now here he is being consoled, yet you are in pain. And in all these things, between us and you a great chasm has been established, so that those wanting to cross from hence to you may not be able, nor yet may they be ferrying from thence to us.’”
Luke 16:19–26, Concordant Literal New Testament (CLNT)
At first glance, this sounds like a description of the afterlife.
But this is exactly where it is worth looking beyond these few verses.
The story raises important questions. But its primary purpose is to make us think —
not to provide a detailed scenario of the afterlife.
A Story Never Stands in Isolation
One of the biggest mistakes we can make when reading difficult Bible passages, in my view, is this:
We begin with the individual verse — instead of the context.
The story of Lazarus does not simply stand on its own. Luke 15 already begins a longer sequence of stories. Jesus first speaks to people who stood on the social and religious margins: tax collectors and “sinners”. At the same time, Pharisees and teachers of the law are listening — and they criticise Jesus for welcoming exactly these people.
Then several well-known stories follow:
the lost sheep,
the lost coin,
the lost son,
the dishonest manager,
and finally the rich man and Lazarus.
These stories are connected thematically.
The first three are about people or things that are lost and then found again.
In the final two stories, the focus shifts more strongly towards those who had been entrusted with responsibility, knowledge, and religious authority.
For me, that changes the way I read the story of Lazarus quite significantly.
Who Is Jesus Actually Speaking To?
Luke 16 explicitly tells us that the Pharisees are listening to Jesus.
Shortly before the story of Lazarus begins, Jesus says to them, in essence:
You justify yourselves before people — but God knows your hearts.
See Luke 16:15.
That is an important detail. Because suddenly, the question is no longer only:
What happens after death?
But also:
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What does religious self-righteousness do to people?
What happens when someone sees themselves as being on the right side — while overlooking the suffering person right in front of them?
Perhaps this story tells us less about where people are after death — and more about whom we fail to see while they are still alive.
Parable or Report About the Afterlife?
The story begins with a phrase that is familiar from other parables of Jesus:
“There was a rich man …”
We find similar openings elsewhere:
“A man had two sons …”
“A man gave a great banquet …”
“There was a rich man who had a manager …”
A parable works differently from a factual report. When Jesus tells of a shepherd searching for a lost sheep, we do not have to prove that this particular shepherd actually existed in history.
The shepherd carries the message.
The lost sheep carries the message.
The finding carries the message.
The image serves the message.
A Parable Does Not Have to Be Literal in Every Detail
The Bible itself uses highly dramatic imagery. In the Old Testament, for example, there is a story in which trees speak to one another and look for a king. No one reads that passage as a botanical report.
Its imagery is meant to say something about people, power, and leadership.
I would ask the same question about Lazarus:
What is this story meant to reveal?
Not first:
What does the realm of the dead look like geographically?
1
The Image
Flames, thirst, a chasm, Abraham’s bosom
2
The Question
Does every detail have to be understood literally?
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The Message
Whom does God see? Who takes responsibility? Who is overlooked?
The image serves the message — not every detail
has to be a map of the afterlife.
A Parable Explains Something — It Does Not Document Everything
If we read every detail of the story of Lazarus as a literal description of the afterlife, strange questions immediately arise.
Can the saved and the condemned speak to one another?
Can they see each other?
Can a drop of water ease the torment of a supernatural flame?
Does a person’s eternal fate depend on whether they were rich or poor during their lifetime?
The story itself does not name wrong belief as the reason for the rich man’s fate.
And it does not say of Lazarus:
He had the right profession of faith — therefore he was saved.
That should at least make us cautious.
The Issue Is Not Simply: Rich Versus Poor
The message is not:
Rich people go to hell and poor people go to heaven.
That would hardly do justice to the broader biblical witness. The point goes deeper. It is about attitude, responsibility,
and whether we truly see the person right outside our own door.
What Is Not Meant
✕ Rich = automatically evil
✕ Poor = automatically righteous
✕ Wealth itself is the problem
What Is Meant
✓ Attitude of the heart
✓ failure to show mercy or offer help
✓ responsibility towards one’s neighbour
✓ a warning parable
What matters more is the contrast. The rich man lives in abundance, while Lazarus lies right outside his door.
The suffering is therefore directly in front of him. The rich man does not have to save the world — he only has to look.
But that is exactly what he fails to do. Suddenly, the story becomes uncomfortably relevant.
Perhaps it is less about:
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“Where will I go after I die?”
and much more about:
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“Whom am I overlooking today, right outside my own door?”
The Roles Are Reversed
The rich man apparently sees himself as a son of Abraham. He even addresses Abraham as father.
But in the story, his religious belonging does not protect him from judgement.
Lazarus, on the other hand — the socially weak, the sick, the overlooked — suddenly finds himself with Abraham.
The roles are reversed. The people who thought they were secure suddenly find themselves outside,
while the one no one paid attention to is seen.
In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Jesus is speaking especially to the Pharisees and teachers of the law:
people with religious knowledge and social standing,
and therefore with a particular responsibility towards others.
For me, that comes much closer to the heart of Jesus’ message than a map of heaven and hell.
Religious Certainty Is No Guarantee
Jesus criticises religious leaders very clearly in several places. Not because they knew the Scriptures.
But because there was a deep contradiction between what they taught and how they treated people.
They could defend religious rules while placing heavy burdens on others.
They could appear righteous while neglecting justice and mercy.
They could be respected and still fail to see the suffering around them.
Against that background, the rich man takes on a different meaning for me.
He is not simply “the evil unbeliever”.
Rather, he represents someone who feels secure — even while another person is suffering right in front of him.
And Jesus shatters that sense of security.
But There Are Flames and Torment
That is true, and that is why I do not want to simply explain these images away.
The story deliberately uses dramatic imagery:
Flames.
Pain.
Thirst.
A chasm.
That is precisely why these images stay with us. But powerful imagery is not proof that every detail has to be understood literally.
For me, the crucial question is:
Why does Jesus use these images?
If the story is meant to shake people who feel religiously and socially secure, then these images do exactly that.
The reversal is radical.
The man who had everything during his lifetime is now begging for something as small as a single drop of water.
And What About the Word “Hell”?
Here again, it is worth looking at the translation. In Luke 16:23, the Greek word is Hades.
English Bible translations handle this differently. Some use “hell”, while others keep “Hades” or use expressions such as “the realm of the dead”.
That matters, because the English word “hell” immediately brings very specific images to mind:
eternal fire, demons, endless torment, final separation from God.
But all of those ideas are not automatically contained in the Greek word Hades.
A translated word can create more images in our minds than the original term itself actually contains.
Abraham’s Bosom – A Familiar World of Imagery?
“Abraham’s bosom” comes from a Jewish world of ideas. In this context, an ancient text about Hades is also interesting — a text that was traditionally attributed to Flavius Josephus, the Jewish-Hellenistic historian, but is now generally regarded as non-Josephan and often associated with Hippolytus of Rome.
It contains an idea that strikingly resembles the imagery used in Luke 16:
The righteous are in a place without hardship, heat, or cold, where they wait for the life to come.
This place is explicitly called “Abraham’s bosom.”
“There is no place of toil for them, no burning heat, no piercing cold … This place we call Abraham’s bosom.”
From an ancient treatise on Hades, traditionally attributed to Josephus.From an ancient treatise on Hades, traditionally attributed to Josephus but now generally associated with Hippolytus of Rome.From an ancient treatise on Hades, traditionally attributed to Josephus.
Why Is This Comparison Interesting?
Not because this extra-biblical text proves what the afterlife actually looks like. Quite the opposite.
What it shows is that ideas such as Abraham’s bosom, Hades, separation, and different regions of the realm of the dead were already part of the religious thought-world of that time.
That opens up another possibility:
Jesus may be drawing on imagery that was already familiar to his listeners.
And then he does something crucial:
He reverses the expected roles. The man society overlooked is the one who finds himself with Abraham.
The privileged man suddenly finds himself on the outside and is forced to recognise what he had failed to see.
What About the Great Chasm?
The “great chasm” is also often read as proof that, after death, any change becomes impossible forever. But here too, I would be cautious.
Within the story, the chasm first serves a clear purpose:
The reversal of circumstances cannot simply be undone.
The rich man can no longer act as though nothing had happened. His choices have consequences.
That is serious.
But for me, that still does not automatically amount to a complete doctrine of what God will do with a person for all eternity. A parable does not have to answer every theological question we later bring to the text.
Consequence is not the same as finality.
What Is Jesus Really Saying?
For me, this is where the real strength of the parable lies.
Jesus takes images his listeners could understand — and uses them to shake their sense of security.
Religious status is not what decides.
Social standing is not what decides.
Not even the closeness to Abraham or to God that someone claims for themselves.
Instead, the story asks a much more uncomfortable question:
What did you do with the person who was lying right outside your door?
Und vielleicht ist genau deshalb Lazarus der Einzige in der Geschichte, der einen Namen bekommt.
Er ist nicht einfach „der Arme“.
He is seen.
Jesus uses a familiar world of imagery — but he reverses the roles. The one who was overlooked is seen,
and those who thought themselves secure are confronted with their responsibility.
And Does the Story Prove an Eternal Hell?
For me, it does not. It speaks of judgement. It speaks of consequences. And it uses images of pain and reversal.
✕ But It Does Not Say
“People are tormented forever in hell because they believed the wrong thing.”
Faith or unbelief are not even mentioned in the story, nor are they presented as the explicit criterion.
If we read the story strictly literally, then the rich man’s decisive problem would be his privileged life and the way he treated Lazarus — not a particular profession of faith.
What I Take Away from the Story
Perhaps the most uncomfortable question in this parable is not:
“Where will I end up after I die?”
Perhaps it is:
“Who is lying outside my door today?”
Whom am I overlooking?
Where do I reassure myself with my faith, my morality, or what I believe to be the right theology — while someone else is suffering?
Where do I assume that God must naturally be on my side?
The story of Lazarus can easily be turned into a message of fear.
But perhaps its warning is directed precisely at people who use religion and morality as a source of security,
instead of allowing them to produce mercy.
“I find that far more uncomfortable.
And at the same time, far more human.”
My Conclusion
The story of the rich man and Lazarus is not an easy text.
It speaks of judgement.
Of reversal.
Of responsibility.
And of the fact that the way we treat other people is not meaningless.
But I do not see it as compelling proof that Jesus is describing an endless hell here.
The immediate context of Luke 15 and 16 plays too important a role for that.
The story is too clearly directed at people who justify themselves while overlooking others. And it contains too many typical elements of figurative storytelling for me to build a literal doctrine of the afterlife out of every detail.
Perhaps Jesus is less concerned here with explaining what the afterlife looks like — and far more with showing how dangerous faith can become when it no longer sees the person right outside its own door.
Faith is not revealed by how certain we feel — but by whether we still see
the person right outside our door.
