If the Dead Could Speak...

...we would not listen to them. So says Christ in Luke 16.31. Christ recounts the parable of Dives who dies in his sin and is in torment. He begs Abraham to send someone from the dead to tell his brothers to repent so that they will not end up like him. Abraham tells Dives that they have all they need to repent (Moses and the Prophets). If they do not listen to what the Scriptures are telling them, they will not listen to dead men speaking.

We are no less hard-hearted than the Jews, so we would be foolish to sit back and point the finger at them. What Christ is saying here is that Man (with a capital M) has everything he needs to come to faith—the Scriptures. Whatever else he might hear is not as good as what he already does have. It's an astonishing statement, and yet if one studies the reaction of the people to Christ's resurrection, demonstrably true. When someone DID return from the dead and speak to them, the masses still were not convinced.