Growing up in the church, I always had some Scripture passages that really were not my favorites, but there was no other passage that I feared like Luke 16. I knew when the preachers said, “Open your Bibles to Luke 16” that Hell was about to be preached hot and heavy, and to a little boy, it was scary.

It has been interesting as an adult to see the context of Luke 16 and study it for myself. Although I definitely believe that it supports a literal, eternal place of torment for all who reject Christ, this is not the reason Jesus told the story of Lazarus and the rich man. He actually is telling the story to support His statement in Luke 16:15: “You (the Pharisees) are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.

For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.“

He next tells how the Law and the Prophets had guided the Jews until John the Baptist came, but since John, the Kingdom of Heaven has been preached. Yet, people are still having to be urged or forced into the Kingdom – Why? Because man, specifically the Pharisees, continue to lift up the Law as the way of salvation, rather than Christ.

Jesus next refers as a proof of His statement to the Pharisees understanding and support for divorce. In Matthew 19:3, the Pharisees asked Jesus if it was legal to divorce one’s wife for any cause. Jesus’s answer was that God had not made it that way, and that the union that God had made in marriage should not be “put asunder.” However it was the Pharisees way to justify their infidelity in divorcing their wives and exalting their own way over God’s.

The final evidence that Jesus references is their love of money (see Luke 16:14). In an ungodly way, money has a way of validating people to one another even now in contemporary society. However, Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus in order to show that it was the poor beggar, despised by all, who entered the Kingdom of God and eternal bliss, while the rich man inherited eternal torment. His money on earth would not even buy him a drop of water in hell.

So the point of all of these is that what men approve on earth is generally an abomination to God. God’s way of salvation is grace by faith in Christ not the works of the Law. God’s philosophy of marriage is permanent, faithful love. And lastly, God’s approval of a man has nothing to do with his material wealth, but with his heart health (spiritually speaking). Not how man looks at things, but it is how God looks at them, and this should be the focus of all of God’s children and followers of Christ.

Under this context, Luke 16 takes on a whole new meaning of joy and hope for me, because I cannot keep the law as the Pharisees to enter heaven, but that is not God’s way – I have Jesus! I love my wife and do not want to divorce her for every imperfection, and consequently I am thankful that she does not want to leave me for my exponentially more imperfections – this is God’s way, if not man’s. Lastly, I may not be rich by the world’s standards, but what does that matter? I don’t need riches for the eternal riches in Christ. In Jesus, I have all that I need.