“²² And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; ²³ And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.” (Luke 16:22-23).

The language is highly symbolic and the deaths of both the rich man (Judah) and the beggar (the nations) represent a fundamental change in their condition and status. It does not say that Lazarus was buried — it says that Lazarus was carried to the bosom of Abraham but the rich man was buried, never to become the favored nation of God in their own right again. I want to emphasize this, because it is a very essential point. Lazarus was never buried, he was carried away to a bosom. But the rich man, it says, died AND WAS BURIED. Never again would the kingdom of Judah become the chosen nation of the Lord in their own right. Not until Judah is joined unto the Lord and His sanctified people in Christ Jesus will they ever be recognized as the people of God.

But what does this death of the rich man and Lazarus mean? We must travel back in our consciousness to the time in which our Lord related this parable and the tremendous events then transpiring. The coming of Jesus Christ into the world brought a dispensational and spiritual change not only for Israel, but for every nation and people on the face of the earth. It is written, “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:45,47). Can the natural mind ever fathom the depths of the eternal truth that there has never been in the history of the world but two men? There is a deep and hidden meaning in the words, “the first man Adam” and “the last Adam.” The natural mind would conclude that, if there were two Adams coming four milleniums apart, the first of these being the first Adam, it would logically follow that the next Adam would be the second Adam. The Lord Jesus Christ is here called the last Adam. But he who is called the first Adam is also called the first man. And He who is called the last Adam is also called the second man. The first Adam is the first man, but the last Adam is the second man, and the second man is also the last man. These simple statements, which on the surface seem so insignificant and scarcely worth our notice, are in fact pregnant with meaning, and full of wisdom and understanding.

The first Adam is said to be the first man. The last Adam is declared to be the second man. If the second man is also the last Adam, He is also the last man. Now if the first Adam is the first man, it would of necessity follow that there were no men on earth before him, for he was the first. And if the last Adam is the second man, then there were no men on earth between the first Adam and the last Adam, for the last Adam is the second man, and there can be no men between the first man and the second man. If there were even one other man between the first man and the second man, obviously the second man could not BE the second man; he would be the third man, the one hundredth man, or the five billionth man. And since the second man is also the LAST MAN, there can not have been any men since Him, for if others have followed Him, He is not then the last man. So then, the first man was the first man, the second man was the second man, and the second man is the last man, so that there have been only TWO MEN who have ever lived upon this planet — Adam and Jesus Christ! There were none before Adam, none between Adam and Christ, and none since Jesus Christ.

Only two men. No more. No less. These simple statements portray as nothing else can the great truth that all men who have ever lived ARE INCLUDED IN THESE TWO MEN. These two men are corporate men, many-membered men. And since all men are contained in these two men, what happens to these two men happens to us ALL. Let our minds grasp the significant truth that when the first man sinned we all sinned, for we were, each and every one of us, genetically, substantially, and experientially right there in him. The same death that passed upon him because of his sin passed likewise upon us all, even to the last man of Adam’s race, for all have sinned.

Now God has declared that our Lord Jesus Christ, the second man, should be both the last Adam and the last man. I cannot explain how divine power can accomplish such wonders, but God has decreed that all men of all ages should be included in Him. God has gathered up all the members of Adam’s sinful race out of all ages past, out of the present, and out of all ages yet to come and included them ALL in Christ, the last Adam. Therefore, by one divine and omnipotent stroke God has included all men in His Son, declaring Him to be the last Adam and the last man, the end of the old Adamic creation. God, almighty and omnipotent, gathered up every tribe and tongue and people and race and nation and without either their knowledge or consent, included them in Christ, the last Adam, even as He included them in the first Adam; and, having included them in the last Adam, He crucified Him and them in Him. May our minds be enlarged by the quickening of God’s blessed Spirit of truth that we may comprehend in the wisdom of God how this last Adam included in Himself all the people and nations that had sprung out of old Adam, putting them all out of the way, nailing them to His cross, crucifying the W-H-O-L-E  W-O-R-L-D in His Son.

Let all who now read this message know assuredly that, when our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and died, both the rich man and Lazarus died WITH HIM and IN HIM! A great change came about after the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross. The old dispensation passed away for both the rich man and the beggar, and they both walked up on the other side of Calvary under new conditions. The language of the apostle Paul might clarify this thought of dying as brought to view in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In pointing out how by the death of Jesus men are delivered from the old conditions and claims of the law to serve God in newness of spirit in resurrection life, Paul explained, “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of the letter” (Rom. 7:6).

In other words, the rich man and Lazarus both were dead to the conditions that existed under the old dispensation before Calvary, and they woke up to the new conditions ushered in via the unfolding of God’s redemptive processes by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Under these new conditions, the Jew who had lived so sumptuously every day before the days of Calvary, awoke to find himself subject to a new redemptive process, namely, divine correction — buried in the torments of hell, persecuted, cast out, despised. The beggar, on the other hand, had arisen to the position formerly occupied by the sumptuous Jew, for he is now found in Christ, the seed of Abraham — in the bosom of Abraham!

The rich man “lift up his eyes in hell,” says the Word of the Lord. The Greek word translated “hell” is HADES. Concerning the literal meaning of the word HADES there can be no doubt. It comes from the Greek A(I)DES [ᾅδης]. The “a” is a prefix which is equivalent to our “un—” and the stem “—id” means perceive. Thus we have UN-PERCEIVE or imperceptible; the unseen. That is Hades — the unseen world, the unknown realm. Our English word hell is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word “hillan” or ‘helan,” meaning a cavern, anciently denoting a concealed or UNSEEN place. In parts of England men still say, “I plan to hell my potatoes,” meaning to bury them in a hole or pit, that is, a covered place, out of sight. And in the old days a young couple seeking to be alone, sought a hell, a place where they could make love without being seen by prying eyes. The rich man went to hell, into the unseen, entering upon a new condition which he could not in a million years have anticipated, nor would he have sought or desired it. It is a land of shadows, of unrealities, of clouds and mists, of whispers and mystery. What metaphors could more appropriately or adequately describe the condition of the Jews throughout the past two millenniums of their wretched, hunted, haunted, driven, excluded, rejected, outcast, despised and hated Diaspora among the nations of earth! The miserable Ghettos of Europe are certainly vivid examples of the “hell” in which the rich man lifted up his eyes, being in torment!