Luke 16
BBCLuke 16:1
V. Parable of the Unjust Steward (16:1-13) 16:1, 2 The Lord Jesus now turns from the Pharisees and scribes to His disciples with a lesson on stewardship. This paragraph is admittedly one of the most difficult in Luke. The reason for the difficulty is that the story of the unjust steward seems to commend dishonesty. We shall see that this is not the case, however, as we proceed. The rich man in this story pictures God Himself. A steward is one who is entrusted with the management of another person’s property. As far as this story is concerned, any disciple of the Lord is also a steward. This particular steward was accused of embezzling his employer’s funds. He was called to account, and notified that he was being dismissed. 16:3-6 The steward did some fast thinking. He realized that he must provide for his future. Yet he was too old to engage in hard physical labor, and he was too proud to beg (though not too proud to steal). How then could he provide for his social security? He hit upon a scheme by which he could win friends who would show kindness to him when he was in need. The scheme was this: He went to one of his employer’s customers and asked how much he owed. When the customer said a hundred measures of oil, the steward told him to pay for fifty and the account would be considered closed. 16:7 Another customer owed a hundred measures of wheat. The steward told him to pay for eighty, and he would mark the invoice Paid.16:8 The shocking part of the story occurs when the master commended the unjust steward for acting shrewdly. Why would anyone approve of such dishonesty? What the steward did was unjust. The following verses show that the steward was not at all commended for his crookedness, but rather for his foresight. He had acted prudently.
He looked to the future, and made provision for it. He sacrificed present gain for future reward. In applying this to our own lives, we must be very clear on this point, however; the future of the child of God is not on this earth but in heaven. Just as the steward took steps to insure that he would have friends during his retirement here below, so the Christian should use his Master’s goods in such a way as to insure a welcoming party when he gets to heaven. The Lord said, The sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. This means that ungodly, unregenerate men show more wisdom in providing for their future in this world than true believers show in laying up treasures in heaven. 16:9 We should make friends for ourselves by means of unrighteous mammon. That is, we should use money and other material things in such a way as to win souls for Christ and thus form friendships that will endure throughout eternity. Pierson stated it clearly: Money can be used to buy Bibles, books, tracts and thus, indirectly, the souls of men. Thus what was material and temporal becomes immortal, becomes non-material, spiritual and eternal. Here is a man who has 100. He may spend it all on a banquet or an evening party, in which case the next day there is nothing to show for it. On the other hand, he invests in Bibles at 1.00 each. It buys a hundred copies of the Word of God. These he judiciously sows as seed of the kingdom, and that seed springs up into a harvest, not of Bibles but of souls. Out of the unrighteous, he has made immortal friends, who when he fails, receive him into everlasting habitations. This then is the teaching of our Lord. By the wise investment of material possessions, we can have part in the eternal blessing of men and women. We can make sure that when we arrive at the gates of heaven, there will be a welcoming committee of those who were saved through our sacrificial giving and prayers. These people will thank us saying, It was you who invited me here.Darby comments: Man generally is God’s steward; and in another sense and in another way Israel was God’s steward, put into God’s vineyard, and entrusted with law, promises, covenants, worship. But in all, Israel was found to have wasted His goods. Man looked at as a steward has been found to be entirely unfaithful. Now, what is to be done? God appears, and in the sovereignty of His grace turns that which man has abused on the earth into a means of heavenly fruit. The things of this world being in the hands of man, he is not to be using them for the present enjoyment of this world, which is altogether apart from God, but with a view to the future.
We are not to seek to possess the things now, but by the right use of these things to make a provision for other times. It is better to turn all into a friend for another day than to have money now. Man here is gone to destruction. Therefore now, man is a steward out of place. 16:10 If we are faithful in our stewardship of what is least (money), then we will be faithful in handling what is much (spiritual treasures). On the other hand, a man who is unrighteous in using the money which God has entrusted to him is unrighteous when bigger considerations are at stake. The relative unimportance of money is emphasized by the expression what is least.16:11 Anyone who is not honest in using unrighteous mammon for the Lord can scarcely expect Him to entrust true riches to him. Money is called unrighteous mammon. It is not basically evil in itself. But there probably wouldn’t be any need for money if sin had not come into the world.
And money is unrighteous because it is characteristically used for purposes other than the glory of God. It is contrasted here with true riches. The value of money is uncertain and temporary; the value of spiritual realities is fixed and eternal. 16:12 Verse 12 distinguishes between what is another’s and what is your own. All that we have, our money, our time, our talentsbelong to the Lord, and we are to use them for Him. That which is our own refers to rewards which we reap in this life and in the life to come as a result of our faithful service for Christ. If we have not been faithful in what is His, how can He give us what is our own? 16:13 It is utterly impossible to live for things and for God at the same time. If we are mastered by money, we cannot really be serving the Lord. In order to accumulate wealth, we must devote our finest efforts to the task. In the very act of doing this we rob God of what is rightfully His. It is a matter of divided loyalty. Motives are mixed. Decisions are not impartial. Where our treasure is, there our heart is also. In the effort to gain wealth, we are serving mammon. It is quite impossible to serve God at the same time. Mammon cries out for all that we have and areour evenings, our weekends, the time we should be giving to the Lord.
Luke 16:14
W. The Greedy Pharisees (16:14-18) 16:14 The Pharisees were not only proud and hypocritical; they were greedy as well. They thought that godliness was a way of gain. They chose religion as one would choose a lucrative profession. Their service was not geared to glorify God and help their neighbors, but rather to enrich themselves. As they heard the Lord Jesus teach that they should forego wealth in this world and lay up their treasures in heaven, they derided Him. To them, money was more real than the promises of God. Nothing would hinder them from hoarding wealth. 16:15 Outwardly the Pharisees appeared to be pious and spiritual. They reckoned themselves to be righteous in the sight of men. But beneath this deceptive exterior, God saw the greed of their hearts. He was not deceived by their pretension. The type of life which they displayed, and which others approved (Psa_49:18), was an abomination in the sight of God. They esteemed themselves successful because they combined a religious profession with financial affluence. But as far as God was concerned, they were spiritual adulterers. They professed love for Jehovah, but actually mammon was their god. 16:16 The continuity of verses 16-18 is very difficult to understand. On first reading, they seem to be quite unrelated to what has gone before, and to what follows. However, we feel they can be best understood by remembering that the subject of chapter 16 is the covetousness and unfaithfulness of the Pharisees. The very ones who prided themselves on the careful observance of the law are exposed as avaricious hypocrites. The spirit of the law is in sharp contrast to the spirit of the Pharisees. The law and the prophets were until John. With these words, the Lord described the legal dispensation which began with Moses and ended with John the Baptist. But now a new dispensation was being inaugurated. From the time of John, the gospel of the kingdom of God was being preached. The Baptist went forth announcing the arrival of Israel’s rightful King. He told the people that if they would repent, the Lord Jesus would reign over them. As a result of his preaching and the later preaching of the Lord Himself and of the disciples, there was an eager response on the part of many. Everyone is pressing into it means that those who did respond to the message literally stormed into the kingdom. The tax collectors and sinners, for instance, had to jump over the roadblocks set up by the Pharisees. Others had to deal violently with the love of money in their own hearts. Prejudice had to be overcome. 16:17, 18 But the new dispensation did not mean that basic moral truths were being discarded. It would be easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail. A tittle of the law could be compared to the crossing of a t or the dotting of an i. The Pharisees thought they were in the kingdom of God, but the Lord was saying in effect, You cannot disregard the great moral laws of God and still claim a place in the kingdom. Perhaps they would ask, What great moral precept are we disregarding? The Lord then pointed them to the law of marriage as a law that would never pass away. Any man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery also. This is exactly what the Pharisees were doing spiritually. The Jewish people had been brought into a covenant position with God. But these Pharisees were now turning their backs on God in a mad quest for material wealth. And perhaps the verse suggests that they were guilty of literal adultery as well as spiritual.
Luke 16:19
X. The Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19-31) 16:19-21 The Lord concludes His discourse on stewardship of material things by this account of two lives, two deaths, and two hereafters. It should be noted that this is not spoken of as a parable. We mention this because some critics seem to explain away the solemn implications of the story by waving it off as a parable. At the outset, it should be made clear that the unnamed rich man was not condemned to Hades because of his wealth. The basis of salvation is faith in the Lord, and men are condemned for refusing to believe on Him. But this particular rich man showed that he did not have true saving faith by his careless disregard of the beggar who was laid at his gate. If he had had the love of God in him, he could not have lived in luxury, comfort, and ease when a fellow man was outside his front door, begging for a few crumbs of bread. He would have entered violently into the kingdom by abandoning his love of money. It is likewise true that Lazarus was not saved because he was poor. He had trusted the Lord for the salvation of his soul. Now notice the portrait of the rich man, sometimes called Dives (Latin for rich). He wore only the most expensive, custom-made clothing, and his table was filled with the choicest gourmet foods. He lived for self, catering to bodily pleasures and appetites. He had no genuine love for God, and no care for his fellow man. Lazarus presents a striking contrast. He was a wretched beggar, dropped off every day in front of the rich man’s house, full of sores, emaciated with hunger, and plagued by unclean dogs that came and licked his sores. 16:22 When the beggar died, he was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. Many question whether angels actually participate in conveying the souls of believers to heaven. We see no reason, however, for doubting the plain force of the words. Angels minister to believers in this life, and there seems no reason why they should not do so at the time of death. Abraham’s bosom is a symbolic expression to denote the place of bliss. To any Jew, the thought of enjoying fellowship with Abraham would suggest inexpressible bliss. We take it that Abraham’s bosom is the same as heaven. When the rich man died, his body was buriedthe body that he had catered to, and for which he had spent so much. 16:23, 24 But that was not all. His soul, or conscious self, went to Hades. Hades is the Greek for the OT word Sheol, the state of departed spirits. In the OT period, it was spoken of as the abode of both saved and unsaved. Here it is spoken of as the abode of the unsaved, because we read that the rich man was in torments. It must have come as a shock to the disciples when Jesus said that this rich Jew went to Hades. They had always been taught from the OT that riches were a sign of God’s blessing and favor. An Israelite who obeyed the Lord was promised material prosperity. How then could a wealthy Jew go to Hades? The Lord Jesus had just announced that a new order of things began with the preaching of John. Henceforth, riches are not a sign of blessing. They are a test of a man’s faithfulness in stewardship. To whom much is given, of him will much be required. Verse 23 disproves the idea of soul sleep, the theory that the soul is not conscious between death and resurrection. It proves that there is conscious existence beyond the grave. In fact, we are struck by the extent of knowledge which the rich man had. He … saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. He was even able to communicate with Abraham. Calling him Father Abraham, he begged for mercy, pleading that Lazarus might bring a drop of water and cool his tongue. There is, of course, a question as to how a disembodied soul can experience thirst and anguish from flame. We can only conclude that the language is figurative, but that does not mean that the suffering was not real. 16:25 Abraham addressed him as son, suggesting that he was a descendant physically, though obviously not spiritually. The patriarch reminded him of his lifetime of luxury, ease, and indulgence. He also rehearsed the poverty and suffering of Lazarus. Now, beyond the grave, the tables were turned. The inequalities of earth were reversed. 16:26 We learn here that the choices of this life determine our eternal destiny, and once death has taken place, that destiny is fixed. There is no passage from the abode of the saved to that of the damned, or vice versa. 16:27-31 In death, the rich man suddenly became evangelistic. He wanted someone to go to his five brothers and warn them against coming to that place of torment. Abraham’s reply was that these five brothers, being Jews, had the OT Scriptures, and these should be sufficient to warn them. The rich man contradicted Abraham, stating that if one should go to them from the dead, they would surely repent. However, Abraham had the last word. He stated that failure to listen to the Word of God is final. If people will not heed the Bible, they would not believe if a person rose from the dead. This is conclusively proved in the case of the Lord Jesus Himself. He arose from the dead, and men still do not believe. From the NT, we know that when a believer dies, his body goes to the grave, but his soul goes to be with Christ in heaven (2Co_5:8; Phi_1:23). When an unbeliever dies, his body likewise goes to the grave, but his soul goes to Hades. For him, Hades is a place of suffering and remorse. At the time of the Rapture, the bodies of believers will be raised from the grave and reunited with their spirits and souls (1Th_4:13-18). They will then dwell with Christ eternally. At the Judgment of the Great White Throne, the bodies, spirits, and souls of unbelievers will be reunited (Rev_20:12-13). They will then be cast into the lake of fire, a place of eternal punishment. And so chapter 16 closes with a most solemn warning to the Pharisees, and to all who would live for money. They do so at the peril of their souls. It is better to beg bread on earth than to beg water in Hades.