Human Imperfection, Teboho Kibe [read a book .txt] 📗

do have partnership with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 Cor. 10:21 and 1 John 1:3, 7, NW) How fitting, then, the beggar’s name Lazarus! It means “God is helper”.

We see, then, that, to begin with, the beggar Lazarus pictured the remnant of natural Jews who exercised faith in God, accepting the message of his servant John the Baptist and of his Son Jesus Christ. Remember how Jesus said of the despised chief tax collector Zacchaeus after his conversion: “This day salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:9, 10, NW) John and Jesus were as angels, or messengers, to conduct the Jewish remnant into this position of Abrahamic favor. Mark 1:2 says respecting John: “Here I am, sending forth my messenger [or, angel] before you, to prepare your way.” (NW; margin) Jesus confirmed the application of that prophecy to John, at Matthew 11:10, 11. And referring to Jesus Christ himself, the prophecy at Malachi 3:1 said: “And the Lord whom ye seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the Angel of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts.”—Da; Dy.

But Jesus started off the preaching to the Samaritans, too, and he foretold the extension of the Kingdom gospel to the Samaritans and finally to the Gentiles. (Acts 1:8) So the Lazarus class came to include the believing Samaritans and the believing Gentiles, beginning with the Italian centurion Cornelius. Thus these also were transferred from a poor beggarly state in this world into the bosom of divine favor. So we read: “Now the Scripture, seeing in advance that God would declare people of the nations righteous due to faith, declared the good news beforehand to Abraham, namely: ‘By means of you all the nations will be blessed.’ Consequently, those who adhere to faith are being blessed together with faithful Abraham.”—Gal. 3:8, 9, NW.

In the second year of Jesus’ public ministry a Gentile centurion or army officer, whether Cornelius or not, we do not know, manifested unusual faith in Jesus’ healing power. This was a sample of what faith was to be found among the despised Gentile “dogs”, as the self-righteous Jews called them; and so Jesus predicted a conducting of these poor, sin-diseased, hungry people of the Gentile nations into the “bosom position of Abraham”. In his amazement Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, With no one in Israel have I found so great a faith. But I tell you that many from eastern parts and western will come and recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens; whereas the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the darkness outside.”—Matt. 8:5-12, NW.

This was not saying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of old were then reclining at a table in the kingdom of the heavens; for these three men were not prophets greater than John the Baptist, and Jesus said, “A person that is a lesser one in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than him.” (Matt. 11:11, NW) In Jesus’ words Abraham represents the Greater One in whom all families of the earth will be blessed, Jehovah God the Great Father. Therefore Isaac, Abraham’s only son by his wife Sarah, represents God’s only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, whom God anointed to be King of kings.

Jacob received life from Abraham through Isaac and so was Abraham’s grandson. Likewise, the Christian congregation receives life from God through Jesus Christ. “The Christ also loved the congregation and delivered up himself for it.” “The Christ also is head of the congregation, he being a savior of this body.” (Eph. 5:23, 25, NW) “That one surrendered his soul for us.” (1 John 3:16, NW) At the time when God declares the members of the congregation righteous the perfect human life that Jesus surrendered is counted to them. To that extent Jesus becomes father to them, just as Isaac was father to Jacob, and just as much as Jesus will become the “Everlasting Father” to believing obedient mankind in the new world. (Isa. 9:6) But that human life imputed to his congregation is sacrificed in imitation of Jesus Christ and for the vindication of God’s supremacy and name. So Jehovah God the Greater Abraham begets them by his life-giving spirit. They become his spiritual sons, adopted members of the Seed of Abraham, members of Christ’s body. Hence in this trio of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom the Christian congregation is well pictured by the last one, Jacob, and it is made up of joint heirs with Jesus Christ in the Kingdom. It has a Jewish remnant or nucleus to begin with and the Gentile believers are added later.

In that way Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stand for God’s kingdom arrangement, The Theocracy. Hence when Jesus marveled at the Gentile centurion’s faith and predicted that many people of the non-Jewish nations would come from east and west and recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the heavenly kingdom, he meant that many Gentiles would exercise faith when the Kingdom gospel was preached to all the nations. By reason of their faith in God’s message about his Christ they would be transferred from a pauper condition of alienation from God and spiritual starvation, and would be brought like Lazarus into Abraham’s bosom. That is, they would be received into Jehovah God’s favor and taken to his heart and adopted as his sons and heirs of the Kingdom with Jesus Christ, the Seed of Abraham. They would come into the favor of The Theocracy where the Jewish remnant was, and would feast at the “table of Jehovah” on spiritual riches of Scriptural truth and sacred service as his witnesses. This has been going on during the past nineteen centuries, and has reached a climax in our day.

But other interesting and important parts of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus remain yet to be discussed to complete our understanding of the matter, especially as it pertains to our own day.

In previous paragraphs we discussed the parable of Rich Man and Lazarus down to the first part of Luke 16:22. The Scriptural proof was offered to show that the favored rich man and the beggar Lazarus symbolized two classes: the rich man the highly favored religious clergy among God’s professed people, and the beggar Lazarus the despised, neglected people who realize their spiritual need and who hunger and thirst after truth and righteousness from God. The parable had its first application to the Jews or Israelites to whom Jesus spoke the parable. Among them the “rich man” class included the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and Sadducees, and other religious leaders, who opposed Jesus and sneered at his teachings. Because Jesus and his disciples preached the good news of the Kingdom to the poor and afflicted ones who listened to him with pleasure, this enriched them with the truth of God and with privileges of serving him aright. It meant death to their beggarly, diseased spiritual condition. It relieved them of dependence on the “rich man” class for what religious instruction they got. It brought them into the favor of Jehovah God, who was represented by Abraham, where they could feast to the full at the spiritual “table of Jehovah”. In this way it was that, to quote the parable, “the beggar died and he was carried off by the angels to the bosom position of Abraham.”

What now occurs to the “rich man” is the opposite of the favor to the beggar Lazarus. Luke 16:22, 23 tells us: “Also the rich man died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, he existing in torments, and he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in the bosom position with him.” (NW) The “rich man’s” death did not mean the physical death of any members of that class. It pictured their death to the privileged, advantageous position that they had till now enjoyed and in which they had treated the Lazarus class as despised, diseased beggars. So when and how did the “rich man” class die and get buried?

It was at the same time that the Lazarus class experienced their change of condition for the better. What worked for the removal of the disadvantageous condition of this poor class worked for the death of the “rich man” class to their special privileges seemingly in God’s favor. This occurred when John the Baptist came preaching repentance because God’s kingdom was near. He turned the people to Jesus as the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world”, the Anointed One, the Christ. John exposed their self-righteousness and called them the “offspring of vipers” and showed them they were in danger of being baptized with fiery destruction in the coming wrath of God on Israel. They needed repentance just as much as the sinful poor people who were condemned by Moses’ law. They need not think they were the promised “seed of Abraham” due to their natural descent from that faithful Hebrew.—Matt. 3:7-12, NW.

But Jesus himself was still more deadly to the “rich man” class in their linen and purple clothing and at their sumptuous table. Declaring themselves righteous, they once appeared lofty in the eyes of the Lazarus class, but they were actually disgusting in God’s sight. Jesus exposed them as such to the Lazarus class. (Luke 16:15, NW) Thus he stripped them of their linen of self-righteousness. He disrobed them of their purple claims to royalty in God’s kingdom when he declared that the harlots, sinners and tax collectors of the beggar class went into the Kingdom before them. He climaxed this with the awful judgment: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits.” (Matt. 21:43, NW) He spoiled their religious table for them when he turned from them and committed the Kingdom mysteries and the privilege of Kingdom preaching to the poor of the Lazarus class and said: “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to babes. . . . Come to me, all you who are toiling and loaded down, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and become my disciples, for I am mild-tempered and lowly in heart, and you will find refreshment for your souls. For my yoke is kindly and my load is light.” (Matt. 11:25-30 and Luke 10:21-24, NW) When the “rich man” class willfully rejected him and procured his death, this sealed their death as spiritually privileged ones. Their religious table became a trap and their feast a deadly snare to them.—Rom. 11:7-9.

We have already noted that the parable avoids saying that Lazarus was buried and went to hell, Hades or Sheol. But it does say of the rich man that he “died and was buried” and found himself “in Hades”. His death was openly certified by that day of Pentecost ten days after Jesus ascended to heaven to appear in God’s presence with the value of his human sacrifice. Then the holy spirit was poured out on the first members of the Lazarus class. The spirit was an evidence of their being accepted with God and of having Christ’s righteousness imputed to them and of becoming heirs of God’s kingdom. The spiritual food concerning his kingdom by Christ did not fall on that day of Pentecost from the “rich man’s” table for the poor people. No; it came through those disciples who had been taken into the “bosom position of Abraham”. There Peter, and not the “rich man” class, began using the “keys of the kingdom of the heavens”. About 3,000 Jews turned to the table of the Greater Abraham and were baptized and got the outpoured spirit. Thus the Lazarus