Luke 16:31. If they hear not Moses, etc. The Old Testament Scriptures were sufficient to lead them to repentance, and if they were not rightly affected by them, no appearance from the other world would awaken faith, conviction of the truth. For the Jews at that time the Old Testament was sufficient. Those who do not hear when God speaks, will not hear the truth about the other world, even if a message came from it. Granting the possibility of such message, we must, from this verse, deny any moral advantage to be derived from it. According to our view of the chronology, the raising of Lazarus had already occurred; and this, so far from convincing the Pharisees, who were now addressed, led to their bitterest opposition. Our Lord rose from the dead, but did not appear to the Pharisees ; and the testimony concerning His resurrection produced no important results among them. The prerequisite to the conversion of a Jew to faith in the risen Lord was an earnest listening to what God had spoken before.

THE FUTURE WORLD, in the light of this parable. Our Lord here assumes: (1) that all live after death ; (2) that in the state of the disembodied dead, there are two classes, which remain unchanged : the punished and the blessed; (3) that the disembodied spirits retain their personality and their memory; and that one element of torment is the apprehension, on the part of the lost, of what they would not believe on earth, without any corresponding moral effect; so that even natural sympathy only increases their misery. The parable, especially in its closing verse, cautions against too great curiosity on this subject. The answer He puts in the mouth of Abraham is not only opposed to modern ‘spiritualism,' but also to attempts to work upon the conscience and awaken faith by graphic portrayals of future misery. If Lazarus, coming from Abraham's bosom and a witness of the sufferings of Dives, could do no good to those who were disobedient to the simple words of Divine revelation, little good can be expected from the most vivid descriptions made by those who have never been there. Dante's Inferno has done little for Christianity.

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Old Testament