Part 2
Now, on to the second part of the question, how does Jesus attack on the Pharisees' character help us understand the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus? Right before Jesus starts His story, He had just accused the Pharisees of leading the people down the path of spiritual adultery by indirectly referring to Jeremiah 3:6-9. (These verses quote Deuteronomy 1:1-4 and expand on it in a deeper way.) Now Jesus uses the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus to demonstrate more explicitly to the Pharisees, and everyone else listening, just how the people are being led into spiritual adultery by their leaders. Jesus uses certain symbols in the story to represent the point that He has been trying to drive home through the whole chapter of Luke 16 so far. The Pharisees already understood by Jesus previous statements that the next words coming out of His mouth were referring directly to them. He starts the story out by adding some specific details to a well-known story by Jewish leaders that was passed down as a through oral tradition and written in the Babylonian Talmud. Jesus recites this story, but adds a few details along the way to make it more specifically applicable to his hearers, mainly the Pharisees. By clothing the rich man at the beginning of the story in purple and fine linen, Jesus is referencing the royal responsibilities of the Pharisees' leadership position to represent Himself coming as the real King. However, Jesus does not mention that they have the color blue in their robe, which is the color in the high priest's garment that represents obedience to God. By this omission Jesus is insinuating that although the Pharisees were in the royal leadership position, they were not being faithful to God in how they handled their duties. The man was not only clothed with purple linen, but was also rich from having full access to the Law and the Prophets and the oracles of God (Romans 3:1,2) as a benefit of their position. Part of the Pharisees' responsibility was to feast on these words of God and take them in internally so they could pass them down to the common people. At this point in the story, Jesus is already uncovering not only their hypocrisy, but also rebuking their unfaithfulness in safeguarding the Law and the Prophets. Now Jesus brings the beggar lying at the rich man's gate into the story as a way to reinforce His previous rebuke in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) on their neglect to take care of the people. Jesus names the beggar after a Gentile by the name of Lazarus who in Jewish traditional folklore embodies hospitality to even further apply this story to the typical Pharisaical view of the common people. These people, who were at their gates and within their reach and power of influence, were starving spiritually because they were not even getting the crumbs of bread (Matthew 4:4) from the richness of God's Word which the Pharisees were supposed to be sharing. Jesus makes the scene even more dramatic by covering Lazarus with sores. Not only were the people being starved of bread from the Word of God, but they were being looked down on as low-life who did not deserve the time of day from the Pharisees. Then Jesus makes Lazarus' situation even more deplorable by adding that the dogs came and licked his wounds which were created by the Pharisees' total disregard of the helplessness of his situation. Jesus uses the derogatory term dog to capture the image of Lazarus' desperate condition. (For more information on how dogs were viewed in Biblical times, see Matthew 15:26,27 and Deuteronomy 23:18. They were viewed similar to how we relate to cockroaches and rats today; dirty and disgusting.)
At this point in the story, Jesus adds a whole new ending to the traditional story to drive home even further His lesson on the importance of being hospitable (specifically being willing to share the wealth of God's word) to others, including to those who are not seen as worthy of hospitality in their eyes. After they both die, the rich man approaches Father Abraham and asks for mercy. When Father Abraham responds that his request is not possible, the rich man then pleads for Lazarus to be allowed to visit his father's house to warn his five brothers of the consequences of continuing in their current path of hypocrisy and indifference to the well-being of the common people. Jesus specifically mentions the five brothers to even more directly point His message toward the currently ruling high priest family, which at that time had five brothers serving in the position of high priest. Abraham retorted that honoring his request was not necessary because his brothers already had the warnings from Moses and the Prophets. But the rich man persists and claims that if Lazarus is raised from the dead and personally brings the message of warning to his brothers, then they would repent of their actions. But Abraham is not convinced of the rich man's claim and replies that there is no use to send Lazarus because the brothers have already refused to believe the warnings personally delivered to them by the Man whose death and resurrection was predicted in the writing of Moses and the Prophets. If they would not believe the Man written about by Moses and the Prophets, then what would be the point of sending Lazarus, a lowly beggar to try to convince them of their error?
As we can see from the ending of this story, Jesus is not at all talking about the destination or reward of the dead, but rather the belief in Jesus and the conviction to live a life that demonstrates our belief in His death and resurrection. We can do this by feasting on God's word daily and going a step further to share that good news of salvation whenever and wherever we have the opportunity.
I would go as far as to say this story more resembles an allegory than a parable. An allegory has a much deeper meaning that requires intentional searching for its interpretation. So if it is indeed an allegory, the symbols in the story cannot be taken literally. Jesus uses these symbols to bring out spiritual truths which, if He told them more directly, might have very well caused an unnecessary revolt. This is not the first time that fictitious conversations are held among the dead to prove a specific point (see Isaiah 14:9-11). The Pharisees are familiar with the writings of Isaiah and how he uses figurative language in some of his passages, so for Jesus to tell this story in an allegorical style is not surprising to them.
In addition, since 1 Corinthians 14:33 claims that "God is not the author of confusion but of peace..." we cannot allow our interpretation of this story to contradict in any way other clearly expressed passages such as Ecclesiastes 9:5, which says, "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten."
