Ver. 19-22. It is a question of no great concern for us to be resolved about, whether this be a history, or narrative of matter of fact, or a parable. Those that contend on either side have probable arguments for their opinion, and it may be they best judge who determine it to be neither the one nor the other, but a profitable discourse, that hath in it something of both. Our chief concern is to consider what our Lord by it designed to instruct us in. And certainly those do not judge amiss who think that this discourse hath a great reference to what went before, Luke 16:9,10, where our Saviour had been exhorting his hearers to make themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, as also to the Pharisees deriding him for his doctrine, Luke 16:14; our Lord by this discourse letting them know the danger of covetousness and uncharitableness, and also letting them know that what is highly esteemed among men may be abomination in the sight of God. He telleth them there was a certain rich man, who lived in great plenty and splendour; his clothing was purple and fine linen, that is, exceeding costly and splendid; his fare, or diet, was delicate and sumptuous, and that every day, from whence may easily be concluded, that if he had had a heart thereunto, he might have spared something for the poor. Nor were the objects of his charity far off. There was a certain beggar named Lazarus, poor enough, for he was full of sores, and would have been glad of the offal of the rich man's table; but the dogs were more charitable than their master; we read of nothing which the rich man gave him, but the dogs came and licked his sores. What was the end of this? The beggar died, and he was by the angels carried into the bosom of Abraham, that is, into heaven; some will have the phrase signify, one of the chiefest mansions in heaven. Abraham was the father of believers, and an hospitable person while he lived upon the earth. Lazarus is expressed to have been conveyed to him. There are many things discoursed by men of wit and learning about this Abraham's bosom, but the best centre here, that by it is meant heaven: and from hence two great points are proved:
1. That the soul is capable of an existence separated from the body, and therefore is not, as some atheists dream, a mere affection of that, and an accident, but a distinct spiritual subsistence.
2. That the souls of the good, when they depart from their bodies, immediately pass into an eternal state of blessedness.