What Has Religion Done For Mankind?

CHAPTER XIX

The Poor Transferred to Abraham's Bosom

STANDING trial for his earthly life before Rome's governor for Judea, Jesus summed up his life's purpose on earth by saying to Pontius Pilate: "My kingdom is no part of this world. If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be delivered up to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from this source. . . . For this purpose I have been born and for this purpose I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone that is on the side of the truth listens to my voice." —John 18:36, 37, NW.

² The conspiracy among the religious Pharisees and Sadducees had turned Jesus over to the Roman authorities for execution on a torture stake. The Sadducees were high in the priesthood and also had members in the Supreme Sanhedrin at Jerusalem which had condemned Jesus to death. They rejected tradition and insisted on the letter of what scriptures they accepted. They denied fate and said God was not interested in the doings of men and that it rested with us to be good or bad. They did not believe in angels or spirits. They taught that the human soul dies with the body and

denied the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees believed in the human traditions handed down by the religious fathers and placed these on a level with God's written Law and prophecies, if not above them. They believed in the predestination of men, or fate. They were fond of showy hypocritical formalities and were filled with a sense of their own self-righteousness by observing man-made commands. Influenced by Babylonish Greek philosophy, they believed in the immortality of the human soul and that under the earth there are rewards or punishments for the soul. Only good souls would be sent back to the earth's top again, such souls to enter into other human bodies, but the bad souls suffer everlasting punishment. In this belief they resemble the Greek philosopher Pythagoras on the transmigration of the soul. Both these Jewish religious sects had the common people under their power and control. —Josephus' Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 1, ¶¶ 3,4; Wars, Book 2, chapter 8, ¶ 14.

³ So the Jewish religious leaders considered themselves clothed with righteousness as with fine white linen. They believed themselves in line for God's kingdom and applied to themselves the purple promises. Being, besides, the natural descendants of Abraham, they felt themselves to be the Abrahamic seed which God promised for blessing all families and nations. So they feasted on their educational privileges in connection with the religious system of Israel. They looked down upon the common people as mere earthlings, "people of the earth," accursed, fit to associate only with dogs and not deserving of a resurrection. They

ground the people down with heavy religious burdens and exploited them for self-profit. The nation had once been freed from exile and captivity in ancient Babylon, but now these apostate religious leaders had brought the Jews into a new religious bondage. So the apostle Paul who was once a Pharisee himself could compare the religious organization with the Egyptian servant girl Hagar and say: "She corresponds with the Jerusalem today, for she is in slavery with her children." (Galatians 4:25, NW) So, even though in their native land, the Jewish people, especially the faithful remnant among them, needed to be made free. Jesus pictured that they would be made free from their oppressors, in a parable he gave in the hearing of the self-righteous, money-loving Pharisees. He said:

⁴ "A certain man was rich, and he used to clothe himself with purple and linen, enjoying himself from day to day with magnificence. But a certain beggar named Lazarus used to be put at his gate, full of ulcers and desiring to be filled with the things dropping from the table of the rich man. Yes, too, the dogs would come and lick his ulcers. Now in course of time the beggar died and he was carried off by the angels to the bosom position of Abraham.

⁵ "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. So he called and said: 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this blazing fire.' But Abraham said: 'Child, remember that you received in full your good things in your lifetime, but Lazarus correspondingly the injurious things. Now, however, he is having comfort here but you are in anguish. And besides all these things, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you people, so that those wanting to go over from here to you people cannot, neither may people cross over from there to us.'

⁶ "Then he said: 'In that event I ask you, father, to send him to the house of my father, for I have five brothers, in order that he may give them a thorough witness, that they also should not get into this place of torment.' But Abraham said: They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to these.' Then he said: 'No, indeed, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent.' But he said to him: 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.'" —Luke 16:14,19-31, NW.

⁷ The rich man, every reader can see, pictured the highly favored, self-important religious leaders, who find their counterpart today in the religious clergy of Christendom. The beggar, whose name "Lazarus" means "God is helper", pictured that Jewish remnant who hungered and thirsted for truth and righteousness and who depended upon the religious leaders for spiritual nourishment. They got very little of that, just crumbs, for they were served with religious traditions of

men rather than with God's written Word. They were looked down on as spiritually ulcerous, whom only "dogs" would stoop so low as to lick in order to give comfort.

⁸ Death to beggar Lazarus and then to the rich man pictured a change in the condition of these classes. By means of God's angels the beggar class were transferred to Abraham's household to feast with him at his table, leaning upon his bosom. This meant becoming free from dependence on Jewish religious leaders and now becoming the children promised in God's covenant with Abraham. As Abraham here pictures Jehovah God himself, this meant becoming the spiritual children of this heavenly Father. This did not occur in hell, Sheol or the grave, for Jesus did not say the beggar Lazarus was buried. This blessed change of state came to the faithful Jewish remnant in this life. But how? By Jesus' priestly ministerial work.

⁹ Jesus followed up John the Baptist and preached God's kingdom throughout the land wherever he could gain an audience. In the synagogue at his home town Nazareth he took the roll of Isaiah's prophecy and read to his townsmen the prophecy concerning the liberation work he would do for the people, in these words: "Jehovah's spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach a release to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away with a release, to preach Jehovah's acceptable year." With that as his text Jesus began to

preach to them, saying: "Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled." But when he told them the straight truth the religious people there in that synagogue rioted and rushed him out of town and tried to stone him to death. (Luke 4:16-30, NW) Those Nazarenes did not accept the liberation he offered by means of the truth. So they did not become his disciples.

¹⁰ Later he said to believers: "If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31, 32, NW) Abraham's son Isaac was born from the free woman, his wife Sarah. Jesus, whom Isaac pictured, is free as the Son of God's free "woman", His organization, and all his followers who become children of the Greater Abraham with him are also free, being children of Jerusalem above, the free "mother". So by Jesus' preaching the Kingdom truth the faithful remnant died to their hitherto diseased beggar state of slavish dependence upon Jewish religious leaders and became part of Abraham's true seed. Five hundred years previous a Jewish remnant had come out of captivity in ancient Babylon. Now again a remnant got free from a religious bondage like that of Babylon.

¹¹ The religious rich man class died to their former advantageous condition and came into torments instead of comforts. If dead and buried, how could they experience torments? This class died to the service of Jehovah God and showed themselves to be the visible seed of the Serpent, for they persecuted and opposed Jesus and his

disciples who were serving God. The rich man class were buried in Hades, Sheol, or hell or the grave (all equivalent terms) in that they were rejected from God's service and were just as inactive in it as persons in the grave are inactive, buried in earthly things.

¹² But is there a blazing fire of torment in Hades? Not in the literal Hades or grave. But in their dead and buried condition the religious rich man class were subject to fiery torment. How? By exposure to the teaching of God's Word by Jesus and his disciples. Jesus separated the rich man class like chaff or straw from the wheat. "What is the straw to the wheat? saith Jehovah. Is not my word like fire? saith Jehovah." (Jeremiah 23:28, 29, AS) How they must have been scorched when Jesus denounced them as hypocrites, vipers! as in Matthew, chapter 23! They howled against Jesus and finally procured his death. After Jesus' death and resurrection and his ascension they objected to the activities of his disciples and felt torment at their preaching and teaching the people. They did not see themselves favored with any of the blessings of the true sons of Abraham, but they saw the faithful Jewish remnant enjoying these as Christ's disciples, and this tormented them. When the feast day of Pentecost came and the holy spirit was poured out in fulfillment of Joel 2:28,29, it was poured, not upon this rich man class, but upon Christ's disciples. It was these disciples filled with the spirit who preached the message of God's kingdom and who became alive and active in His service. It was not the rich man class who were thus being used. They were left inactive toward God's service as if buried stiff

in the grave or Hades. But how they did writhe under the torment of the disciples' educational work among the common people! —Acts 2:2-47; 4:1-22; 5:33-40; 7:54-60.

¹³ In what way, then, did they want the Lazarus class to dip the tip of their finger in water and cool the tongue of those tormented in the blazing fire? Since water is used as a symbol of the Scriptural truth, they wanted the Lazarus class to leave the bosom of God's favor and compromise the truth and present the message of God's Word in such a way as not to torment them any further. It would also ease the pain of their religious susceptibilities if the faithful remnant would quit preaching God's Word altogether, and let the religious leaders do the only instructing, in the traditional way. But the Greater Abraham's reply to their plea reminds us how truly Jesus' sermon on the mount worked out: "Happy are you poor, because yours is the kingdom of God. Happy are you who hunger now, because you will be filled. Happy are you who weep now, because you will laugh. But woe to you rich persons, because you are having your consolation in full. Woe to you who are filled up now, because you will go hungry. Woe, you who are laughing now, because you will mourn and weep." (Luke 6:20, 21, 24, 25, NW) That was the way things had reversed themselves for the beggar and the rich man.

¹⁴ God's righteous judgments have reversed matters that way, and his judgments are unalterable.

"Thy judgments are a great deep." (Psalm 36:6) They stand as a "great chasm" to divide the rich man class far from the bosom of divine favor and from the Lazarus class. This chasm of judicial separation cannot be crossed or bridged from either side. In view of that, the rich man class prayed God to send the remnant to his "five brothers", that is, his allies and religious associates, that he "may give them a thorough witness". By this the rich man class indirectly acknowledged that the remnant are Jehovah's witnesses. But do they really want these witnesses of Jehovah to testify the Kingdom message to their allies and religious brothers? No; but to compromise the message and present their message in such a manner as not to put these religious brothers in a "place of torment" the same as the rich man class is in. Do not expose false, traditional religion, and do not proclaim "the day of vengeance of our God". —Isaiah 61:2.

¹⁵ But their religious brothers and allies in the Jewish organization have "Moses and the Prophets". So "let them listen to these", is the Greater Abraham's reply. The remnant of Jehovah's witnesses are under divine command and anointing to preach Moses and the Prophets. They are not allowed to take away from such nor add to such. So if the rich man's brothers are real sincere Jews wishing to escape the fiery condemnation of the Scriptures, let them listen to the message of the Law and the Prophets and discern that these point them to Christ, the Seed of God's woman.

¹⁶ But the rich man class insist that they know better than Abraham. Moses and the Prophets are not enough! What their brothers need is a sign besides, someone to come to them from the dead. Then they will believe! But the Greater Abraham, Jehovah God, replied the same as his Son Jesus Christ: "A wicked and adulterous generation keeps on seeking for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.... look! something more than Jonah is here." And: "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe." (Matthew 12:39-41 and John 4:48, NW) Because the rich man's "brothers" were wicked and adulterous for not exercising faith but wanting to see something before believing, no sign was to be given them. Having Moses and the Prophets, those brothers are responsible to search these inspired Scriptures and see that Jehovah's witnesses are telling the truth. If they refused to believe Moses and the Prophets, they could not be persuaded by someone's resurrection.

¹⁷ So when the Greater Abraham resurrected Jesus from the dead on the third day, did God send him to the "rich man" class or to the "five brothers" of such? No! God did not make these religious hypocrites witnesses of the resurrection of his Son, for he knew they would not even then believe, but would pervert the facts. Indeed, they

were the very ones that bribed the soldiers who had been guarding the sealed tomb where Jesus' corpse was buried to say that his body had been stolen from it by his disciples while these soldiers were asleep at their posts. (Matthew 28:11-15) Hence the Greater Abraham sent the resurrected Jesus to the Lazarus class, for these would prove faithful witnesses of this crucial resurrection truth. Said the apostle Peter, one of the Lazarus class: "We are witnesses of all the things he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem; but they also did away with him by hanging him on a stake. God raised this One up on the third day and granted him to become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses appointed beforehand by God, to us, who ate and drank with him after his rising from the dead. Also he ordered us to preach to the people and to give a thorough witness that this is the One decreed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness." —Acts 10:39-43, NW.

¹⁸ In proof that the "rich man" or his "five brothers" would not be "persuaded if someone rises from the dead", we have this record about the preaching of Peter and John: "Now while the two were speaking to the people the chief priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being annoyed because they were teaching the people and were plainly declaring the resurrection from the dead in the case of Jesus." (Acts 4:1,2, NW) There was no relief from torment for the rich man class back there. Likewise there is none for their modern counterparts now.