To return to the Parable. When we read that Dives in torments lifted up his eyes,' it was, no doubt, for help, or, at least, alleviation. Then he first perceived and recognised the reversed relationship. The text emphatically repeats here: And he,' - literally, this one (ka atos), as if now, for the first time, he realised, but only to misunderstand and misapply it, how easily superabundance might minister relief to extreme need - calling (viz., upon = invoking) said: "Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus."' The invocation of Abraham, as having the power, and of Abraham as Father,' was natural on the part of a Jew. And our Lord does not here express what really was, but only introduces Jews as speaking in accordance with the popular notions. Accordingly, it does not necessarily imply on the part of Dives either glorification of carnal descent (gloriatio carnis, as Bengel has it), nor a latent idea that he might still dispose of Lazarus. A Jew would have appealed to Father Abraham' under such or like circumstances, and many analogous statements might be quoted in proof. But all the more telling is it, that the rich Pharisee should behold in the bosom of Abraham, whose child he specially claimed to be, what, in his sight, had been poor Lazarus, covered with moral sores, and, religiously speaking, thrown down outside his gate - not only not admitted to the fellowship of his religious banquet, but not even to be fed by the crumbs that fell from his table, and to be left to the dogs. And it was the climax of the contrast that he should now have to invoke, and that in vain, his ministry, seeking it at the hands of Abraham. And here we also recall the previous Parable about making, ere it fail, friends by means of the Mamon of unrighteousness, that they may welcome us in the everlasting tabernacles.
It should be remembered that Dives now limits his request to the humblest dimensions, asking only that Lazarus might be sent to dip the tip of his finger in the cooling liquid, and thus give him even the smallest relief. To this Abraham replies, though in a tone of pity: Child,' yet decidedly - showing him, first, the rightness of the present position of things; and, secondly, the impossibility of any alteration, such as he had asked. Dives had, in his lifetime, received his good things; that had been his things, he had chosen them as his part, and used them for self, without communicating of them. And Lazarus had received evil things. Now Lazarus was comforted, and Dives in torment. It was the right order - not that Lazarus was comforted because in this world he had suffered, nor yet that Dives was in torment because in this world he had had riches. But Lazarus received there the comfort which had been refused to him on earth, and the man who had made this world his good, and obtained there his portion, of which he had refused even the crumbs to the most needy, now received the meet reward of his unpitying, unloving, selfish life. But, besides all this, which in itself was right and proper, Dives had asked what was impossible: no intercourse could be held between Paradise and Gehenna, and on this account [4639] a great and impassable chasm existed between the two, so that, even if they would, they could not, pass from heaven to hell, nor yet from hell to those in bliss. And, although doctrinal statements should not be drawn from Parabolic illustrations, we would suggest that, at least so far as this Parable goes, it seems to preclude the hope of a gradual change or transition after a life lost in the service of sin and self.
3. Application of the Parable, [4640] showing how the Law and the Prophets cannot fail, and how we must now press into the Kingdom. It seems a strange misconception on the part of some commentators, that the next request of Dives indicates a commencing change of mind on his part. To begin with, this part of the Parable is only intended to illustrate the need, and the sole means of conversion to God - the appeal to the Law and the Prophets being the more apt that the Pharisees made their boast of them, and the refusal of any special miraculous interposition the more emphatic, that the Pharisees had been asking for a sign from heaven.' Besides, it would require more than ordinary charity to discover a moral change in the desire that his brothers might - not be converted, but not come to that place of torment!