Luke 16:25

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now here he is comforted, and thou art in anguish.

Son ... A moment earlier, the rich man had addressed Abraham as "Father," and here Abraham did not deny the fact of the rich man's being one of the patriarch's fleshly descendants. This circumstance makes it easy to identify the class of men represented by the rich man. Who but the Pharisees were always proclaiming their rights as children of Abraham (see Matthew 3:8; John 8:37-44, etc.)? Mere fleshly descent was exposed in this parable as having no value in the sight of God.

Good things ... evil things ... They are wrong who try to make this parable teach that mere wealth is sinful and mere poverty righteous. As Trench noted:

The rebuke of unbelief is the main intention of this parable; for if we conceive its primary purpose to warn against the abuse of riches, it will neither satisfactorily cohere with the discourse in which it is found, nor will it possess the unity of purpose, which so remarkably distinguished the parables of our Lord.[41]

It is most deplorable that some commentators have fitted this parable into their notions of some new social order, in which wealth is evil in itself, and poverty good. The rich man was not punished for being wealthy, but for being devoid of all sense of humanity; nor was Lazarus rewarded for being poor. Although not elaborated, the true character of the beggar is implicit in the name Jesus gave him, which means "God help, an abbreviated form of Eleazar."[42]

[41] Richard C. Trench, op. cit., p. 451.

[42] H. Leo Boles, Commentary on Luke (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1972), p. 319.