Faith in the Christ is truly what the Old Testament witness is about. Moses suffered reproach because he believed in the Christ. Before the Christ appeared on the scene young Timothy was wise for salvation as he believed in the Christ. So now the consistency of God remains: A person is saved only by faith in Christ, and that faith is only brought to pass by hearing the Word of Christ.
Romans Moses heard. Timothy heard. You listen to him intently, because your friends' sisters have great respect for him, but you can't grasp what he means. Finally, he commands that the grave be opened. The sisters protest, but the man is adamant. He prays loudly, looking up to heaven, then after several seconds, your dead friend walks out of his grave—alive! If you're not familiar with the raising of Lazarus, you'll find this episode described in great detail in the 11th Chapter of the Gospel of John , but what isn't recorded seems equally as baffling.
Nowhere in Scripture do we learn what Lazarus saw after he died. If you knew him, wouldn't you have asked him? Wouldn't you want to know what happens after your heart beats for the last time? Wouldn't you pester your friend until he told you everything he saw? Lazarus is mentioned again in John "So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him. Perhaps Jesus commanded him to be silent about it.
The fact remained, however, that he had been dead and now was alive again. Lazarus' very presence—walking, talking, laughing, eating and drinking, embracing his family—was a cold slap in the face to the chief priests and elders.
How could they credibly deny that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah when he had raised a man from the dead? They had to do something. They couldn't dismiss this event as a magician's trick The man had been dead and in his tomb four days. Everyone in the tiny village of Bethany had seen this miracle with their own eyes and the whole countryside was buzzing about it.
Did the chief priests follow through with their plans to kill Lazarus? The Bible doesn't tell us what happened to him after Jesus' crucifixion. He's never mentioned again. Surprisingly, we don't find many hard facts about heaven in the Bible. Many of Jesus' teachings about it are in metaphors or parables. We do find a description of the heavenly city in the book of Revelation , yet there isn't much detail on what the saved will be doing there, besides praising God.
Considering that heaven is the goal of every Christian and many non-Christians as well, this lack of information seems like a serious omission. In this view of the afterlife, Hades, the abode of the dead, was "thought to be divided into two compartments" and "conversations could be held between persons" in the abode of the righteous and those in the abode of the unrighteous.
These elements show up in Christ's allegory. It is important to see this parable of Jesus as a continuation of His conflict with the Pharisees over riches. Christ has said, 'You cannot serve God and Money' Luke Luke No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
When the Pharisees sneered, Jesus responded, 'What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight' Luke Luke And he said to them, You are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knows your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.
And so Christ told a story intended to underline the importance of what He had just said Surely he was beneath the notice of the homeowner, who never gave a thought to the starving man just outside, though all Lazarus yearned for was just a crumb from the over laden tables.
There is no question which state people would highly value, and which they would find detestable. And suddenly their situations are reversed! Lazarus is by 'Abraham's side,' a phrase which pictures him reclining in the place of honor at a banquet that symbolizes eternal blessedness. But the rich man finds himself in torment, separated from the place of blessing by a 'great chasm' Luke Luke And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from there.
Even though he begs for just one drop of water, Abraham sadly shakes his head. No relief is possible—or appropriate!
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