Luke 16:29

Moses and the prophets] These would give them sufficient light and guidance.

30, 31. Our Lord disbelieved the power of signs and wonders to produce repentance, and here declares that even the sign of His own Resurrection will leave many hard hearts unmoved.

The pains of Dives being those of Hades, not of Gehenna, many recent commentators regard his release from them as possible, and see in his new-born anxiety for the welfare of others (Luke 16:27) an indication that his punishment is producing its intended purifying effect: see on Matthew 12:32.

Additional Note

The chief interest of this parable to modern readers is the light that it throws, or seems to throw, upon the state of departed souls between death and judgment. As to its significance in this respect, expositors are not entirely at one. Some regard all its statements on the subject as teaching definite doctrines binding on Christians, others regard them as only the poetic framework of the parable, embodying conventional Jewish ideas, and therefore as having no significance for Christians. Both extremes are to be avoided. On the one hand, the parable is plainly intended to inculcate, as against the unbelief of worldly and sensual men, the doctrine of future rewards and punishments beginning immediately after death, and to be so far a serious doctrinal statement. On the other hand, the thoroughly Jewish cast of the phraseology warns us against taking its details too literally. The essence of the teaching is thus expressed by Luckock: 'The souls of the departed in the intermediate state are possessed of consciousness, memory, and sensibility to pain and pleasure; the life of all men, whether good or bad, is continued without interruption after the separation of soul and body; and retribution commences between death and judgment. These conclusions are in direct antagonism to the theory that the soul falls asleep when the body dies, and will not wake again till the resurrection of the dead.'