Compromising the Message

Luke 16:24

²⁴And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

The Rich Man wanted Abraham to send Lazarus to him for a very specific reason.  He wanted to bring Lazarus into a relationship with him.

Shortly after the resurrections, rabbis became obedient to Yeshua, Acts 15:1.

¹And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.

It was initially thought that one had to immediately follow the entire law for salvation.  The outcome of Acts 15 judged this to be wrong.  Salvation is by the grace of God.  Gentiles were to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit into the law.

The whole book of Galatians was written against the teaching that salvation came through the traditions of the Rabbis and the law, Galatians 1:13-14.

¹³For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God, and wasted it: ¹⁴And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.

This is a reference to Rabbinic tradition and not the commandments of God.

 Galatians 2:16-18

¹⁶Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Yeshua Messiah, even we have believed in Yeshua Messiah, that we might be justified by the faith of Messiah, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. ¹⁷But if, while we seek to be justified by Messiah, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Messiah the minister of sin? God forbid. ¹⁸For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

These people were trying to rebuild the justification of the Rabbis into the faith of Yeshua.  They were fulfilling the very words of the Rich Man, send Lazarus to me.

For the literalist, do they honestly believe that water on the finger of beggar going down into hell fire is going to make it?  The water will dry up half way down.  What the Rich Man was attempting to do was compromise Lazarus.  The water on Lazarus’ finger was the message of Lazarus.  The life giving message of the gospel, Ephesians 5:26.

²⁶That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

The word is likened to the cleansing by the water.  Where did Lazarus get his message?  Lazarus was carried away by angels.  Angels comes from the Greek word aggelos {ang’-el-os}.  It means one who is sent, a messenger from God.  Lazarus’ message came straight from God.

Why did the Rich Man want Lazarus to touch his tongue?  The tongue refers to the message that is being declared.  The water of Lazarus was the message of life.  To touch the tongue would be to have the message issued forth from the Rabbis.  This would be the joining together of Lazarus’ water of life with Rabbinic teaching.  This would be the very abomination that would destroy the gospel message.

Unfortunately, the message of the parable is missed because of the hyper-literalism that has been applied to it.  The literalism in Christianity tarnishes the very intent that God is trying to get across to the believer.

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