The Eyes of the Risen Christ as a “Flame (phlóx) of Fire”: Part III: The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, I: The paradoxes of the false holy spirit of wealth

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Review

In the opening writing, we began our study at the end examining the final three occurrences of “flame (phlóx)” in Revelation. Each use, from the opening vision of the “Son of Man” (1:13a-14, cf. Dan 7:9-14) all the way to the Last Battle (Rev 19:11-21) and Final Judgment (20:11-15), center the fire of God’s holiness in the Person of the Risen Christ Who comes with “eyes like a flame (phlóx) of fire” (Rev 1:14, 2:18, 19:12; cf. Dan 10:6b). His eyes alone can penetrate the heart of man, seeing beyond his projected, pharisaical image of false holiness into his inner being, where a spirit of corruption is operating (Rev 2:19-22). And seeing fully and perfectly, He only is sufficient to judge (Jn 5:22-> Rev 2:23).

This projected image of holiness was the focus of Part II, with the spirit that corrupts the heart of religious-appearing people being the love of self driving the love of money. Jesus had declared at the close of the Parable of the Unjust Steward the simple truth,

You cannot serve God and money (mammon43. Lk 16:13)

In the very next verse in the preface to the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Luke begins by drawing our attention to the Pharisees, who were

lovers of money (philárgyros)…and derided (ekmyktērízō) Jesus (16:14)

The respectable, religious elite, beneath all their religious-sounding words and religious-appearing actions, were at the heart of it all “lovers of money” (philárgyros). And this love of money drove them, when they “heard all” the words of Jesus, to scoff at, mock, deride, disdain (ekmyktērízō) the Lord.

How is it in our churches?

Beneath all our wonderful-sounding religious words, what love is in operation?

This led us to trace this term, philárgyros, through the NT with its next use occurring in Paul’s final letter to Timothy where he warned that

in the last days perilous times will come:

For men will be lovers of themselves (phílautoi), lovers of money (philárgyroi, II Tim 3:1-2a)

There followed an 18-fold pathway that detailed the dissolution of the divine image in us, beginning with the love of self and money. As this false distortion of love takes deeper root in our being, it brings boastful pride that leads us into blasphemy, making us heartless and diabolical, brutal and beastlike, becoming a traitor to all that is good, even to Christ Himself (3:2b-4).

And yet, even with all of these horrors operating in the depths of our person—and this is possibly the most fascinating dimension—we somehow retain the ability to still project

a form of godliness

but which

denies the power thereof (II Tim 3:5).

Amazing!

A totally false and utterly powerless “form of godliness” with absolutely no living connection with Christ, the physician of our souls; no indwelling of the Holy Spirit that brings the life of Jesus to bear in us. Yet completely cut off from vital union with the Godhead, we keep on projecting this external form to everyone around us which is absolutely “powerless” in terms of its ability to heal the inner person…yet. as we well know, still quite powerful to impress other unhealed persons…

From here we returned to Luke 16, where we found that even though we can maintain this powerless—“form of godliness” to every one around us, God, nevertheless, “knows our hearts”:

And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.

For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination (bdélygma) in the sight of God (16:15).

This “abomination” carried us forward into the Final Judgment, foreshadowing the abominable actions of the “Great Harlot” in Revelation, whose actions, we will find in this study on the Parable, mirror those of the Rich Man. That is to say, the projected form of outward holiness can temporarily deceive others (and even we ourselves) as we seem to continually enjoy the material profits in this passing Now Age. The reality, however, is that our dead, external form is fully revealed to Christ Who knows our hearts and Whose eyes of flaming fire will see through it to the realities operating at the depths of our soul.

Introduction

At the beginning of this study, then, we are confronted with none other than Christ Himself Whose eyes penetrate into the depths of our person where there is great, eternal struggle. If guided by the false holy spirit of This Age, we will be driven deeper and deeper into the love of self and love of money which will make us, in the words of Paul, heartless and brutal confirming us into the image of the Adversary (the diábolos). Yet—and we will keep coming back to this—even in the bitter horror of this deepening corruption, we can, nevertheless, maintain the outward image of religious righteousness that will bring us the transient accolades of this world.

In this Parable, where we encounter the first occurrence of flame (phlóx) in the NT, the entire righteous, religious enterprise is turned completely upside down…in so far as it props itself up on the foundation of worldly riches. For riches, at the root of which is revealed the love of self and the love of money, are not, in point of fact the rewards of a diligent life “well-lived” by us that we are to enjoy here and now. Rather, they are pictured as a continual obstacle, a stumbling block, a devastating hindrance to life in the Kingdom, which work to choke the Word in us, making its action in our lives barren and unfruitful. It deceives us as to our true state and that of our brother. It brings us into a deeper and deeper self-delusion, where under the operative control of the deceitfulness of riches we become blinded to the needs of our suffering brother, who is literally sitting and suffering right in front of us. It deceives us as to the true poverty of our spiritual condition which will, nonetheless, soon be revealed. And in so doing, it drives us from the healing offered to us by the Shepherd and Physician of our eternal souls.

Given that this blinding power of wealth present in every era yet especially to us in the Modern West may keep us from penetrating into the heart of the text, we will be guided through this Parable by continued reference to the Church Fathers, from Ambrose to John Chrystostom and Gregory Nazianzen. As we work through it line by line, we will find at each juncture a great paradox:

The silent will be heard;

The naked clothed;

The hungry will have prepared for them in their starvation an eternal feast;

The poor through their poverty will be given enduring riches;

The oppressed through their oppression will receive everlasting justice;

The suffering in their disease, healing;

The outcast in their rejection, an eternal home.

The despised, everlasting consolation.

And all this happening in real time as the refining fires of trial reveal our eternal hope.

But as we must say as well, the opposite will be true; for those arrayed in fine clothing will be endlessly naked, those filled to the full with feasting will be eternally empty and those having access to health, wealth and power in this life will receive everlasting affliction, poverty and utter impotence in the next…

Kyrie eleison!

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus

One nameless, “arrayed in purple and feasting sumptuously”; the other named, lying in hunger and sickness

There has just died a “certain rich man” (tìs ploúsios) who is given no name or we might simply say whose name is “riches” (dives) and a “beggar” whose name is specified as “Lazarus” (which, as has been noted, is the only time in any Parable of Jesus where a name is given to any of its figures). And as to why the one remains nameless while the other is specified, we are directed to the only other place in Holy Scripture where the name “Lazarus” appears. That is to say, to a man who dies…then comes back to life. This will be important as the Parable progresses.

The nameless “rich man”, however, as we well know, is said to have lived his life in all luxury, clothing himself “in purple and fine linen” and “feasting sumptuously every day” (again, remember Rev 17:4 in reference to the description of the “great harlot”), while the poor man was

laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores (Lk 16:20-21).

The quotations of the Fathers here offer key insights with the dimensions of meaning centered on paradox. In the Parable, then, the love of money drives one to mercilessly reject the needs of the poor, yet in the process impoverishing one’s own soul:

Pseudo-Chrysostom, Hom. de Div:

He lay at his gate for this reason, that the rich might not say, I never saw him, no one told me; for he saw him both going out and returning. The poor is full of sores, that so he might set forth in his own body the cruelty of the rich. You see the death of your body lying before the gate, and you pity not.

If you regard not the commands of God, at least have compassion on your own state, and fear lest also you become such as he. But sickness has some comfort if it receives help. How great then was the punishment in that body, in which with such wounds he remembered not the pain of his sores, but only his hunger; for it follows, desiring to be fed with the crumbs, &c. As if he said, What you throw away from your table, afford for alms, make your losses gain.

With the rich operating not only out of merciless dismissal of one’s brother but also prideful voracity and cruel oppression:

Ambrose:

But the insolence and pride of the wealthy is manifested afterwards by the clearest tokens, for it follows, and no one gave to him. For so unmindful are they of the condition of mankind, that as if placed above nature they derive from the wretchedness of the poor an incitement to their own pleasure, they laugh at the destitute, they mock the needy, and rob those whom they ought to pity.

Augustine, Serm. 367:

For the covetousness of the rich is insatiable, it neither fears God nor regards man, spares not a father, keeps not its fealty to a friend, oppresses the widow, attacks the property of a ward.

Gregoy, Ev. Hom. 40:

Moreover the poor man saw the rich as he went forth surrounded by flatterers, while he himself lay in sickness and want, visited by no one. For that no one came to visit him, the dogs witness, who fearlessly licked his sores.

Leading to the further paradox: In the poor man’s transient trial of destitution, he experiences the refining fires which “enhance” the riches of his eternal “reward”; in the rich man’s temporary ascendance, he fleeting wealth becomes the means of his eternal destitution:

Gregory, ubi sup.:

By one thing Almighty God displayed two judgments. He permitted Lazarus to lie before the rich man’s gate, both that the wicked rich man might increase the vengeance of his condemnation, and the poor man by his trials enhance his reward; the one saw daily him on whom he should shew mercy, the other that for which he might be approved.

All this to say, the rich man was not judged for his riches, per se (for Abraham and Job and Daniel…and Joanna the wife of Chuza, the procurator[l] of Herod Antipas and Joseph of Arimathea were all rich…). It was not his riches but his love of self that drove him deeper into the love of money which led him further away from the mercy of God and separating him from the suffering of his brother.

At every moment, as the Church Fathers say, he had an opportunity to give alms out of the bounty of his excess so as to meet the needs of this poor man, And had he but used the “mammon of unrighteousness”, to quote Jesus in the prior Parable, for the good of this suffering person who was literally laid at his feet day by day, how he would have been welcomed by him into an “everlasting home” (Lk 16:9).

Yet this, as we know, was not the case. And it stands for us as a great warning of the power of riches to continually blind us, first to the present needs of our brothers and second to the eternal realities of the true, incorruptible treasures.

The flame (phlóx) of judgment: Eternity with or without a Mediator

The Parable continues with the first appearance of phlóx in the NT:

So it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.

We are not given any reason as to why the poor man is immediately ushered into eternal paradise. No reference is made to his vital faith or his good works, his virtue or his enduring love, etc., etc. All that confronts us is the bitter trial of his daily suffering. And in this suffering and injustice, he remains silent. Yet in this silence, in the words of the Church Fathers, he is eternally approved.

He becomes like the One Who came before him only to be by the religious and worldly powers

despised and rejected by men.

He was

oppressed and afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth…(Is 53:3a, 7a)

The rich man, however, cries out at the first experience of bitterness:

And being in torments in Hell, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Then he cried and said,

“Father Abraham, have mercy on me (eléison me),

And send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue;

And even now, assuming the power structures have not changed, believes that Lazarus is still his servant and must continue to do his bidding

“For”, he protests, “I am tormented in this flame” (phlóx, Lk 16:22-24).

The flame, which torments the rich man, as the Scriptures make clear, represents the fires of eternal judgment that, we will find from its subsequent uses, is centered in the holiness of God. And the holiness of God’s eternal presence, in the words of R. A. Finlayson, cuts two ways:

Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a mediator.

Heaven is eternity in the presence of God, with a mediator.

The rich man, in his love of self and love of money, had rejected the Mediator; for in his life he had trusted only in passing riches to mediate against the experience of suffering, both present and eternal. The poor man, however, in the continuous trials of earthly suffering had trusted in the only One Who could mediate through them eternal riches.

Abraham now answers:

But Abraham said,

“Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted (parakaléō) and you are tormented (16:25).

The one lived for the momentary “good things” of This Now Age (en tō aiṓni), forfeiting the eternal treasures of the Kingdom of God. The other suffered “evil” in this life and in the silent faith of his suffering is granted eternal consolation. The words of the Fathers, therefore, call us to take heed of how we respond to either lot in this life, knowing the eternal realities that are revealed through them.

Chrysostom, Conc. 3. de Lazaro.

He says, You received good things in your life, (as if your due;) as though he said, If you have done any good thing for which a reward might be due, you have received all things in that world, living luxuriously, abounding in riches, enjoying the pleasure of prosperous undertakings;

In the words of Jesus, the rich man already has his reward here and now, which will become for him the means of his eternal judgment; whereas Lazarus experiences, as it were, the fires of eternal judgment now in this life. And yet the horror of these present experiences are for him the very means, not of final judgment, but of eternal reward.

But he [that is, Lazarus], if he committed any evil has received all, afflicted with poverty, hunger, and the depths of wretchedness.

And each of you came here naked; Lazarus indeed of sin, wherefore he receives his consolation; you of righteousness, wherefore you endure your inconsolable punishment; and hence it follows, But now he is comforted, and you are tormented…

His words demonstrate that the nature of true reward is integrally tied to the state of the heart and its operating desire:

It may also be answered, that evil men receive in this life “good things”, because they place their whole joy in transitory happiness, but the righteous may indeed have “good things” here, yet not receive them for reward, because while they seek better things, that is, eternal, in their judgment whatever good things are present seem by no means good.

Gregory, Hom. 40

Whatsoever then ye have well in this world, when ye recollect to have done any thing good, be very fearful about it, lest the prosperity granted you be your recompense for the same good. And when you behold poor men doing any thing blameably, fear not, seeing that perhaps those whom the remains of the slightest iniquity defiles, the fire of honesty cleanses.

That is to say, if we receive “good things” in our lifetime, know that this may be the Lord saying to us regarding our good work the same thing He says to the Pharisees. Again,

“Assuredly, I say to you, you have your reward.”

There will, then, be no future recompense for us; no “treasure in heaven” but only the passing, corruptible “treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” Our experience, therefore, of treasure in this life should work in us to increase not an ever growing pride in our present standing, but in Gregory’s words, a very real fear of coming loss.

Alternatively, when we see the poor man suffering in the woes of present poverty, we should not dismiss and judge him as a failure, but know that his poverty may actually be the means of the Lord working in his present deprivations to cleanse his soul by refining fire so as to prepare him to be filled with eternal consolation in the coming Kingdom.

How hard it is for those who trust in (the temporary consolation [paráklēsis] of the false holy spirit of) riches to enter the eternal kingdom of God!

Knowing the silent suffering of Lazarus and the outspoken luxury of the rich man, we remember Christ’s warning earlier in the Gospel:

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation” (paráklēsis. Lk 6:24).

When we note that this word for “consolation” (paráklēsis) had first been used by Luke to speak of the coming of the “Lord Christ”, Who alone could bring the “consolation of Israel” (Lk 2:25-26), we are then opened up to the eternal dimensions of the tragic choice. Though the riches of everlasting redemption are offered in the Mediator, “those who are rich” give this up for the temporary “consolation” of passing wealth. This temporary consolation, however, becomes for them the means of their eternal “torment” as they, without a Mediator, experience the horror of the inner-working of their sins eternally.

In contrast, the eternal “comfort” that the redeemed receive through the Mediator is nothing less than the “comfort (paráklēsis) of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:31), Who is Himself spoken of in the NT as the Paraclete (Paráklētos [b] in Greek; in Latin, the Advocate (Advocare)—the One Who is “called” (kaleó) to the “side” (pará) of God’s people to “reveal” to them the “Truth” of their redemption in the Messiah and ever advocate to the Father on their behalf (Lk 2:25-26-> John 15:26).

Again,

Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a Mediator (or Advocate).

Heaven is eternity in the presence of God, with a Mediator.

For “those who are rich” and, more to the point. for those who “trust in riches” (Mk 10:24, I Tim 6:17), their wealth becomes, as it were, the Holy Spirit for them. It comes to their side as their Advocate when they are faced with uncertainty, whispering false securities. In present hardships, suffering, calamity, it extends a false hand of salvation. When locked in patterns of sin, it surrounds them, shielding them (temporarily) from its consequences so they can continue to “feast sumptuously” in their (temporary) life in this (temporary) world.

Yet, these riches and the “consolation” that goes along with them do not last.

Will you set your eyes on that which is not?
For riches certainly make themselves wings;
They fly away like an eagle toward heaven (Prov 23:4).

And it the end, therefore, when we “return naked” to the grave as at our birth, we find that

Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,
But righteousness delivers from death (Prov 11:4).

For

He who trusts in his riches will fall,
But the righteous will flourish like foliage (11:28).

In this life, then,

There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing;
And one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches (13:7).

So the rich man who in his riches has nothing.

And yet Lazarus having nothing possesses all things.

From the rich man to the rich young ruler:

The eternal grief of the false holy spirit

When we move in the Gospel to the rich young ruler, we see the same false holy spirit operating in his life. It comforts him in the present through his material wealth and the cultural status attained by it. It stands beside him whispering deceptions, hiding from him the reality of his inner corruption and the impoverishment of his soul. And it shields him from processing the judgment that awaits.

In this delusion, this prelest that makes him think, “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing” being in reality “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked", rejects the Mediator and His Spirit of life. For Him, Christ is only the “aroma of death unto death.” His presence deeply grieves him (perílypos) on the deepest level (Lk 18:23-> Mt 26:38), for it exposes not merely the eternal vanity of his false holy spirit of wealth (—were it only that!), but moreover, it unveils the eternal horror of judgment this false holy spirit mediates in its adherents.

Knowing, sensing, coming to understand how this reality would turn his entire righteously-wealthy-I’m-a-good-person-and-of-course-do-external-good-things little world upside down, he does the only thing he can do to preserve it all. He departs from Jesus “deeply grieved (perílypos) because he was extremely rich” (sphódra ploúsios).

And after this encounter, Christ then declares to us,

 “How hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!

For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man (ploúsios) to enter the kingdom of God” (Mk 10:24-25; Lk 18:24-25; Mt 19:23-24).

That is to say, impossible.

We bring the Parable to its conclusion in the next post.