---
title: Luke 16:23
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/luke-16-23/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/luke-16-23.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Luke 16:23
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Luke 16:23

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham from afar, with Lazarus by his side.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "And in the Grave he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and he saw Abraham from afar and Lazarus by his side."

## JW Usage

The Watchtower reads "in the Grave he lifted up his eyes, being in torment" as figurative language because the JW doctrine of soul sleep cannot accept that a man "in the grave" is conscious, sees Abraham, speaks, and feels anguish. The standard JW move is to treat the entire scene as a parable of class reversal whose details cannot be pressed for cosmological information. Hadēs is rendered "the Grave" precisely because "Hades" carries connotations of a place of conscious existence that Watchtower theology denies.

## Protestant Usage

Take the verse at face value in the Witness's own NWT — even with the "Grave" rendering, the rich man "lifted up his eyes," "saw Abraham from afar," and was "in torment." Whatever you call the location, the description is of conscious experience after death. That is the theological work the verse does, and the JW concession that the parable conveys "real spiritual truth" is enough to collapse the soul-sleep reading: Jesus would not build a lesson on the conscious dead if the dead are non-existent. Pair Luke 16:23 with Luke 23:43 (Jesus to the criminal: "today you will be with me in paradise") and Philippians 1:23 (Paul: "to depart and be with Christ" is far better) — the New Testament's intermediate-state testimony is consistent.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders Hadēs as "the Grave" (capitalised) at Luke 16:23, collapsing the Greek Hadēs into the neutral category of physical burial. Standard English translations render "Hades" or "hell" precisely because the location described is not the grave: a man in his grave does not lift up his eyes, see Abraham, speak across a chasm, or beg for water. The juxtaposition of "in the Grave" and "in torment" is awkward in the NWT for that reason — the translation cannot carry what the parable describes. Watchtower publications then footnote the awkwardness as "parabolic," but the awkwardness is created by the translation, not by the text. Hadēs in Greek literature and in the New Testament names the place of the conscious dead between death and resurrection; flattening it into "the Grave" is the load-bearing move that makes the soul-sleep reading look textually possible.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Rich Man and Lazarus](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/rich-man-lazarus.md) — Luke 16:19-31 — Conscious Afterlife [Soul & Hell]
- [Hadēs Is Not the Grave](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/hades-the-grave-rendering.md) — Luke 16:23 / Revelation 1:18 — The NWT Collapses Two Greek Words Into One [NWT Translation]
- [One Death, One Judgment — No Second Chance in the Millennium](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/postmortem-salvation-rebuttal.md) — Hebrews 9:27 / Luke 16:26 / 2 Corinthians 6:2 — postmortem evangelism rebutted [Eschatology]