They Have Moses and the Prophets: A Meditation on Luke 16

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father,

 that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:

For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them,

 lest they also come into this place of torment.

Abraham saith unto him, 

They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

And he said, Nay, father Abraham: 

but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, 

neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

After having been derided by the religious leaders of His day for teaching that one cannot serve both God and money, Jesus put a very fine point on the seriousness of His message for those who would hear Him.  Moving from temporal to eternal consequences, Jesus recounted the story of a rich man and a poor man-- one who ended up comforted in heaven, and the other tormented in the flames of hell.  Lest the Pharisees conclude that all this talk of how we treat our neighbors with the resources God has given us be an innocuous intellectual debate, Jesus gave them a window into the eternal future they were building for themselves through greed, avarice, ambition, and their abuse of the poor through the power of their political and religious offices.

There is much to be learned from Jesus' parable (the separation of the blessed and the damned in the world to come; the eternal finality of one's judgment after death; the inability of those in heaven or hell to move freely across the gulf which divides them; the living cognizance of people after death in both heaven and hell; the horrible torments of hell which anyone in their right mind would want to avoid, and spare others of, as well; the blessed comfort and end to suffering in heaven; and so much more...) but the concluding point He made to wrap up His teaching in this section is paramount:  If they hear not Moses and the prophets with their message to be reconciled to God by His grace through faith in Him and His Word, repenting of evil so that they might love God and their neighbor rightly, and escape the just sentence of eternal hell all men face for the sake of their willful, wanton wickedness, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead.  This truth would be witnessed by those who heard Him, when later He would be crucified, dead, buried, and risen again on Easter Sunday for the salvation of the whole world.  After His resurrection, when He came back from the dead, He commissioned His disciples to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to every person in His Name, sent them to make disciples by teaching His Word and baptizing in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, having sent to them the wonder-working power of the Holy Spirit to work faith in all who would hear and believe His saving Gospel, and having promised never to leave His people until He returned at the end of the world in glory to judge the living and the dead-- what did the Pharisees do?  As the teachers of the Law, the keepers of God's Word given through Moses and the prophets, they rejected the testimony of both them and Jesus by persecuting the Church through lies, treachery, imprisonment, beatings, threatenings, and murders.  Puffed up in their titles, their positions, their offices, their wealth, all their earthly trappings of prestige and self justification, they rejected the Holy Spirit who spoke through Moses and the Prophets, just as they had rejected Jesus and the Holy Spirit speaking through Jesus' Apostles.  Jesus revealed Himself as the eternal and living Word of the Father, showing that the testimony of the Holy Spirit in every true Prophet or Apostle is a testimony of Him, His Law, and His saving Gospel.  Thus all of Holy Scripture, breathed out by God's Spirit through His Prophets and Apostles, testifies to Jesus.  If anyone rejects Moses, he will reject Jesus, too, because Jesus is the fulfillment of the divine Word to which Moses and the Prophets were faithful witnesses.

It is tempting to think that people today would believe if they could see just one more miracle, one more resurrection, one more sign or one more wonder.  The truth, however, is that the heart which refuses to believe the Word of the Lord and resists the power of the Holy Spirit to give it new life from above, will continue to resist every miracle God would perform for His people.  The reason people move away from God in our day is no different than it was in the day of the 1st century Pharisees:  they deny Him because they want to deny Him.  They reject His Word, His Prophets, His Apostles, and His Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, first because they are inclined to do so by their own corrupt fallen nature, and then by an act of their own free will when the Holy Spirit enlivens them to hear and believe His Word.  Like the rich man in the parable, they have the Word of God given to them, they see their suffering neighbor dying at their gates, and they choose instead to serve money-- all their own selfish appetites-- rather than turning to God that they might be healed themselves, and then reflecting God's saving love to their neighbors in need.  The reason people end up in hell is not because God wants them to be there, for He has clearly declared His will that all mankind be saved through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son; rather, the only reason people end up in hell is because they chose to be there by rejecting the only God who could save them.  People end up in hell, because they freely chose the path to hell of their own accord-- they are there by their own fault.

Like so many things people choose in their shortsighted selfishness, the consequences are far worse than they imagine.  Even the rich man in Jesus' parable, unmoved by the suffering of Lazarus before his living eyes, once he entered into his awful fate, desired that his family not be likewise condemned through similar unbelief and unrepentance.  While no one will go to hell apart from their own choice to reject God and receive His judgment, rather than receive the grace of forgiveness in Jesus Christ, no one will desire to remain under that awful judgment forever.  But once our choices are made complete in our earthly death, and God's judgment is cast, our fate is final and eternal.  There will be no more preaching of the Gospel of grace in hell, but only the inescapable declaration of the perfect and holy Law.  Once the Holy Spirit has withdrawn Himself and His Word from any person, that person's fallen nature becomes his only nature, and his only fate can be that which is shared with the devil and his unholy demons, forever twisted together in the flames of perdition.

Jesus comes to you this day, that you might never taste of that awful judgment of God-- that instead you might drink in His grace, mercy, forgiveness, and eternal life through faith in Him and His saving Word.  Jesus did not suffer and die under the weight of all the world's sin so that you would be lost, but rather that you might be found and live in Him forever.  His loving Word and Spirit pursue you, whether you be wrapped up in delight or despair, whether you are rich or poor, the persecuted or the persecutor.  God desires none to come to that place of rejection and torment, for He has spilled the holy blood of His only begotten Son for you, and for every soul that would ever walk this earth.  Hear Him as He appeals to you through all His Prophets and Apostles, His Word working in you by the power of His Holy Spirit to create faith unto repentance and eternal life in His Name.  Flee the distractions and deceptions which would tempt you to a fate worse than death, and instead cling to Jesus whose Gospel will wash you, cleanse you, enliven you, and keep you forever.  Hear the Word of the Lord which comes to save you-- repent, believe, and live.  Amen.