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She told the group, “God is love. He is also omnipotent. To
send any of his children to eternal hell, when he could have done otherwise, is
eternal cruelty...Jesus is the ultimate love. The idea that he will condemn
anyone goes against everything he taught.”
Does it? Jesus taught a parable about a rich man who refused
to give the poor and sickly Lazarus even the crumbs from his table. Even the
dogs treated him better. They at least licked his open sores.
Both died. Lazarus was escorted to a place of comfort, beside Abraham. The rich man found himself in a place of torment - Hades - where he cried out:
“Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.” (Luke 16:24)
He cried for mercy. However, he didn’t ask to be forgiven or to be reconciled to God so that he too would live in a place of joy. He didn’t even pray to God. God seemed to have no place in his thinking. Instead, he was primarily interested in just a little bit of comfort.
This is reminiscent of the reaction of those who will be excluded from the Kingdom:
“In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.” (Luke 13:28)
According to Jesus, their suffering wouldn’t be the product of God’s proactive moves to torture them, but their eternal loss of privilege and the blessings of the Kingdom. But how and why did they lose this Kingdom?
The Luke 16 passage helps us to understand this. It seems
that their loss is a matter of choice—self-condemnation. The condemned will get
the very thing that they have chosen - a comfortable dwelling place in the
darkness away from the scrutiny of the Light
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”(John 3:18-20)
How are they already condemned? According to Jesus, they are self-condemned by their refusal to come into the Light to confess their sins. The rich man also seems to have been unwilling to examine himself and confess. Even in Hades, he seems unwilling to surrender his inflated superior status. In two instances, he requested that Abraham send the lowly Lazarus to do his bidding, as if Lazarus would be eternally beneath him. Therefore, Abraham chided him about his obvious guilt so that he might confess and find mercy:
“But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.’” (Luke 16:25)
It wasn’t that suffering had entitled Lazarus or that the rich man’s comfort and riches had dis-entitled him. After all, Abraham had also been a wealthy man, but he trusted in the Lord and came into His Light.
Instead, confession and repentance weren’t his thing. Perhaps, the invitation might pertain more to his brothers, who might have had something to confess:
“And he said, 'Then I beg you, father, to send him [Lazarus] to my father's house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.' But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'" (Luke 16:27-31)
The rich man recognized that his brothers needed to repent. In
Jesus’ parable, Abraham answered that a lack of evidence wasn’t the problem.
They already had the self-authenticating Hebrew Scriptures. Instead, the problem
was an aversion to the Light and a love of the darkness. Their love of the
darkness also would condemn them.
We cannot blame the Savior for our condemnation. We chose it
for ourselves. Jesus had cried over His people:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37)
The self-condemned are unwilling to abide in the Light of truth. The darkness of self-deceit is more comforting, even in a place of torment, than the scrutiny of the Savior. Scripture testifies that the fault is not God’s but ours.
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