Luke 16:19-31 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:… The folly of demanding that one should visit us from the dead, for the double purpose of proving the future state and preparing us for it, will appear if you will look thoughtfully — 1. At the sort of witness and testimony demanded. As to the witness, it is for "one from the dead," and his proposed duty is to "testify" to the living. Not an angel; but a dead man. And he is to come back to earth not to work prodigies, but to bear witness. If such a spirit were seized with either a voluntary or involuntary impulse to return to his earthly theatre of action and begin life afresh, in what way would such a wanderer make himself known to your senses? Can you tell? Now the first thing necessary to your satisfaction would be to recognize him as a human soul, fresh from the fields of immortality. If there .should be more than one, you must know all of them to be veritable witnesses in order to believe them, and how will you settle this in each case? In this world a witness, oral or by parole, is always recognized through his body. But the body which this spirit wore on earth lies unstirred in the sepulchre. The general character of human spirits, and the possession of specific secrets for their identification, are very insecure signs, on which we can place but slight dependence. And does it mend the matter at all, even if his body should be raised for this visit? Here you see that the men who reject the evidence of miracle in all other cases insist upon the working of the most stupendous miracle possible, before they will believe one word in this case. Supposing, then, that God had granted the request of Dives by sending Lazarus back to the "five brethren," and they had recognized him, how would his visit have acted upon their minds morally if they were men of thought, reason, and common sense? Let us see. Right there the thrilling spectacle of spectral testimony begins. Their very first thought would relate to the reality of the witness himself; whether he were an entity or a phantasm. They would demand of him the proof that he had really lived and died, and visited the shaded provinces of departed souls, that he had become known to their brother there, and returned to this globe in a provable identity. They would then demand proof that, as a witness, his own mind was not influenced by optical illusion, spectral disease; that it was solid, sound, and well balanced, and so that his narrative was not the fruit of an excited fancy. Nay, they would need to convince themselves that their own brains did not reel before him in delusion. When all this should be settled, then the real difficulties of the apparition witness would but just begin, if he were not scouted and ridiculed until he were ready to abandon his own convictions and discredit his own story. The very attempt to express the first sentence would confound him, because it would discover to him a set of ethereal conceptions taken up into his own incorporeal existence, with which earth had no analogies, and therefore has no words nor methods by which they can be intelligibly stated or understood. 2. Testimony so given, and by such a deponent, would be totally inadequate to its alleged purpose, both in its nature and effects. How can the eye of the body fixed upon a corporal being convince the understanding about the invisible things of the eternal world? These are things of faith, not of sight, like so many colours of the rainbow. If the risen Christ is no proof to the senses, much less can one like ourselves from the dead be a convincing witness to warn us. It is much more likely that we should want to kill him than to be "persuaded" by him; just as the Jews callously wanted to kill Lazarus of Bethany when Jesus had raised him from the dead. I can easily understand how the presence of a man raised from the dead might terrify a guilty sinner; how the apparition might put him under an appalling spell, so that his heart fluttered; a prisoner under the charms of magic; but I cannot see how the bondage of evil habits could be broken, or the deceptive charms of sin dissolved by such a startling apparition. Even the pure presence of an angel stooping to an earthly mission has been so terrific to holy men, that they have feared death in consequence. But how, if a ghastly spectre should glare upon guilty and hardened men from the solitudes of eternity, and address them in sepulchral tones; surely their blood would curdle, their nerves shrink, their hearts faint, and their life become ice. How can all this be related to genuine repentance? (T. Armitage, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: |
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