What is purgatory? It is the idea that there is a
place you can go to purify yourself of your sins before you can enter
heaven.
Is purgatory real? No. Where did the idea of purgatory come from? It
originated with Greek and pagan philosophy, in particular Plato, and was
introduced into the church through Origen in the 3rd Century, who is
considered a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church. In addition, the
teaching of purgatory is contradictory to Scripture for it undermines
its clear teaching of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and is not taught
in the Old and New Testaments.
When was purgatory introduced to the church? Sometime before the 5th
Century, the Roman Catholic Church took advantage of the idea of
purgatory and used it in conjunction with selling "indulgences" to help
put money into the Catholic Church.
An "indulgence" is the idea that by contributing some money to the Roman
Catholic Church, you could "indulge" in a certain sin and not have to
worry about the punishment for that sin.
In conjunction with purgatory, parishioners were assuming that something
divine was taking place when they gave the church money to have their
loved ones released from that imaginary place. By giving their money,
they would also have their own time reduced. I didn't know that the pope
and priests had the keys to death and hell.
What does the bible say happens when you die? "absent from the body,
present with the Lord" 2 Cor. 5:8. Of course, that only applies to those
who have put their trust in Jesus. There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit. Romans 8: 1
What happens to those who die who don't believe in Jesus?
And as it is
appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. Hebrews
9:27 When you die, judgment is immediate. Either your sins have been
washed away by Christ's shed blood or they haven't been. Those who have
rejected Christ still have the wrath of God abiding on them and they
immediately go to hell not purgatory. He that believeth on the Son hath
everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life;
but the wrath of God abides on him. John 3:36
When we die, we will not be routed to a waiting room to await entrance to
heaven. Either Christ's death paid the full price of our sins or it
didn't. We will either go to hell or heaven. There is no in between. The
Catholic Church is promoting a lie with its position on purgatory. Who
is the father of all lies? Satan.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states All who die in God's grace
and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of
their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so
as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. #1030
pg. 268.
The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the
elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.
The church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at
the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the church, by
reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire: As
for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final
Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever
utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in
this age or the age to come. From this sentence we understand that
certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the
age to come"#1031 pgs.268-269
The above statments show that the Roman Catholic Church's official
stance on the death of Jesus Christ on the cross to pay for our sins was
not sufficient. This is the spirit of anti-christ. Christ died for us
because we are not capable of paying for our own sins. If His death does
not perfectly satisfy God's wrath against us, then He is a liar and
cannot be trusted!
What are the three steps of the Christian walk and do they have anything
to do with purgatory?
Step 1 - Justification - Accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. When
you do this, it is "just-as-if-I" never sinned. Justification removes
you from the penalty of sin. This is a free ticket to heaven. You don't
have to endure a purifying fire beforehand.
Step 2 - Sanctification - Leading a life according to the Spirit as
opposed to leading a life according to the world. Sanctification sets
you apart from the world. The world should be able to look at your life
and see that you "are not of the world". This is a lifelong process.
Sanctification removes you from the power of sin. The closer you walk
with God, the less tempting sin is. Buying indulgences and paying for
loved ones who may be in purgatory has no place in the Christian walk.
Step 3 - Purification - No, you don't go to a room with a cleansing fire
to be purified. You are purified when God calls you home to heaven and
removes you from the very presence of sin. Purification is the blessed
hope that all Christians await. Christians are not afraid of
death...they know they are going to heaven. Imagine the fear of death
when someone believes they must first go to a place of torment before
they get to heaven. How can they be comforted when death approaches? Why
would anyone even want to be a part of such a teaching?
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel, and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ
shall rise first: (the spirits and souls of the saved will return with
Jesus to get their bodies) Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air:
and so shall we ever be with the Lord. WHERFORE COMFORT ONE ANOTHER WITH
THESE WORDS.
___________________________
Is Purgatory Real?
...(take 2)
By Percy Rob
I chatted with a friend today who has
a lot of Catholic influences in his life. He and I have had some great
discourses about all kinds of topics, and the topic of purgatory came up
today. In response to some of his questions and some of the passages he sent
along that seem to indicate purgatory is a real place, I wanted to take some
time to deal with the topic today.
What is Purgatory?
According to the Roman Catholic Church, purgatory is known as the "final
purification of the elect". To quote from the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, it states that "all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still
imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but
after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness
necessary to enter the joy of heaven." (See more at the Vatican's site)
Basically, it's a place where you get cleaned up before you finally are able
to be with God for eternity.
Does it exist?
Many would simply say that if purgatory can't be in the Bible, then it must
not be. Well, most of those people would not reject the trinity, which is
also not directly referenced in Scripture. However, the trinity has much
scriptural support (see CARM for details), and purgatory does not. So we can
see that just because it isn't mentioned isn't enough to close the argument,
we need to determine if the concept is taught in Scripture.
A fundamental problem
In Article 98 of The Roman Catechism, it states that ""...those who die in
venial sin, and those who have not done sufficient penance for sin forgiven,
are sent to Purgatory."
Why is this a fundamental problem? Anytime I see it suggested that someone
might not have been "good enough" to achieve something, I always ask, "How
good is good enough?" Indeed, the catechism would seem to state that if you
hadn't achieved a good enough "ranking" when it comes to doing good things
and staying away from bad things, you wind up in purgatory. How good is good
enough? The words of Jesus simply haunt us here.
"Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)
Jesus said this after He had concluded His "you have heard it said" portion
of the Sermon on the Mount. In that portion of His sermon, He laid everyone
out with their sin bare and naked before God. If you have hated your
brother, you have murdered, If you have lusted after a woman, you have
committed adultery. If you think you are doing ok by loving your brother,
you're not even remotely close to the standard until you have truly loved
your enemy.
PERSONAL NOTE: If this is required of me, I am
thoroughly without hope. I am so far from Heaven's Gates and my Father's
House that eternities in purgatory could never save me. I have hated deeply
and lusted more than I would ever hope anyone would know. This is my
response to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. "Somebody, please save me!"
This is where the fundamental problem with purgatory
comes in. The doctrine of purgatory responds to my plea in the following
manner: "Save yourself!" Be better, work harder, do more penance, and then
maybe, you won't have to spend so much time in another place doing more of
the same.
What Does the Bible teach?
1st - Each and every person is someone who has sinned against God. In Romans
3, Paul sets up the case that we are all alike under sin, no matter how much
sin we do in any given day or any given lifetime. If we are born from Adam,
we are sinners.
For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does
good, not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The
venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
2nd - We cannot do anything to save ourselves. There is no law, no penance,
no "hard work" that I can do to save myself. If that was the case, Paul
never would have followed up the above passage with this:
"Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the
law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held
accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified
in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin."
"By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight." There
is nothing I can do to make myself presentable to God. Nothing!!
3rd - Jesus' death on the cross is the ONLY payment for my sin that will
make me presentable to God and able to enter Heaven. In the words of Dr.
Corduan, Jesus' death was not only necessary, it was also sufficient. How do
we know this? Well, we know that it was necessary by our condemnation by
Christ in the Sermon on the Mount and by Paul in his famous treatise on our
sin in Romans. How do we know it was sufficient? Let's look at some
passages.
Christ is sufficient - In Colossians 2, Paul's desire for the church at
Laodicea is that they would "reach all the riches of full assurance of
understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom
are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order
that no one may delude you with plausible arguments." Wow. Quite a
statement.
OK, but is His death on the cross all we need to be made perfect? Hebrews
10:14 - "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who
are being sanctified." Yes.
In Colossians 2:13,14, Paul puts it bluntly and starkly. He calls us dead in
our sins, and only made alive by God, and that our sins were nailed to the
cross, and our debt was cancelled. "And you, who were dead in your
trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together
with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of
debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside,
nailing it to the cross."
God's answer to my plea, "Somebody save me!" is "Here is my son, He is
sufficient."
Why would purgatory be necessary if Christ's death is
sufficient? It wouldn't. Obviously, there are verses that are quoted
to try and make the case for a purgatory, and we will deal with some of them
here.
Revelation 21:27
"Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is
shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s
book of life."
One needs to be careful taking single verses out of any passage, but
Revelation is especially dangerous when it comes to quoting it out of
context. It is talking about the last days, and this verse talks about only
those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. John 3:15 and 16,
John 6:47, and countless other passages tell us how it is we are able to
achieve eternal life: by believing in Christ and His sacrifice for us.
Matthew 22, the parable of the wedding feast, shows us what we must be
clothed with, the righteousness of God. Our works cannot do this, see the
examples above. This verse says that evildoers will not make it into the
kingdom. Why? Because their name is not written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
"Nothing impure" will ever enter Heaven. Agreed. That's the problem. How are
we made pure? Jesus Christ. Again, see points above.
1 Peter 3:18-20 and 4:6
18-20
"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,
that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made
alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in
prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in
the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is,
eight persons, were brought safely through water."
4:6
"For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that
though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit
the way God does."
I'll let Geisler deal with this, since he does such a great job.
3:18-20
The Bible is clear that there is no second chance
after death (cf. Heb. 9:27). The Book of Revelation records the Great
White Throne Judgment in which those who are not found in the book of life
are sent to the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11–15). Luke informs us that, once a
person dies, he goes either to heaven (Abraham’s bosom) or to hell and that
there is a great gulf fixed “so that those who want to pass” from one to the
other cannot (Luke 16:26). The whole urgency of responding to God in this
life before we die gives further support to the fact that there is no hope
beyond the grave (cf. John 3:36; 5:24).
There are other ways to understand this passage, without involving a
second-chance at salvation after death. Some claim that it is not clear that
the phrase “spirits in prison” even refers to human beings, arguing that
nowhere else is such a phrase used of human beings in hell. They claim these
spirits are fallen angels, since the “Sons of God” (fallen angels, see Job
1:6; 2:1; 38:7) were “disobedient … in the days of Noah” (1 Peter 3:20; cf.
Gen. 6:1–4). Peter may be referring to this in 2 Peter 2:4, where he
mentions the angels sinning immediately before he refers to the Flood (v.
5). In response, it is argued that angels cannot marry (Matt. 22:30), and
they certainly could not intermarry with human beings, since angels, being
spirits, have no reproductive organs.
Another interpretation is that this
refers to Christ’s announcement to departed spirits of the triumph of His
resurrection, declaring to them the victory He had achieved by His death and
resurrection, as pointed out in the previous verse (see 1 Peter 3:18). Some
suggest that Jesus offered no hope of salvation to these “spirits in
prison.” They point to the fact that the text does not say Christ
evangelized them, but simply that He proclaimed the victory of His
resurrection to them. They insist that there is nothing stated in this
passage about preaching the Gospel to people in hell. In response to this
view, others note that in the very next chapter Peter, apparently extending
this subject, does say “the Gospel was preached also to those who are dead”
(see comments on 1 Peter 4:6). This view fits the context here, is in accord
with the teaching of other verses (cf. Eph. 4:8; Col. 2:15), and avoids the
major problems of the other view.
4:6
In response it should be noted, first, that there is no hope held out
anywhere in Scripture for salvation after death. Death is final, and there
are only two destinies—heaven and hell, between which there is a great gulf
that no one can pass over (see comments on 1 Peter 3:19). So, whatever
preaching to the “dead” may mean, it does not imply that one can be saved
after he dies.
Second, this is an unclear passage, subject to many interpretations, and no
doctrine should be based on an ambiguous passage like this. The difficult
texts should be interpreted in the light of the clear ones and not the
reverse.
Third, there are other possible interpretations of this passage that do not
conflict with the teaching of the rest of Scripture.
(1) For example, it is possible that it refers to those who are now dead who heard the Gospel while they were alive. In favour of this is cited the fact that the Gospel “was preached” (in the past) to those who “are dead” (now, in the present).
(2) Or, some believe this might not be a reference to human beings, but to the “spirits in prison” (angels) of 1 Peter 3:19 (cf. 2 Peter 2:4 and Gen. 6:2).
(3) Still others claim that,
although the dead suffer the destruction of their flesh (1 Peter 4:6), yet
they still live with God by virtue of what Christ did through the Gospel
(namely, His death and resurrection). This victorious message was announced
by Christ Himself to the spirit world after His resurrection (cf. 1 Peter
3:18). (Norm Geisler, When Critics Ask)
The Apocrypha
Often, the apocryphal books are also called upon to make the case for
purgatory. Some basic problems exist with the apocryphal books:
- No author of an apocryphal book ever claimed to be a prophet.
- No author of an apocryphal book was confirmed by any miraculous works of
God.
- No author of an apocryphal book is ever quoted by any of the prophets in
Scripture.
- Even the Jews acknowledged that the prophetic gifts had ceased by the time
the earliest was written (400 BC). If the Jews didn't
accept them, why would we?
In summary, we
have a massive problem with sin. Purgatory just isn't enough to deal with
it. Only Christ can pay my sin-debt.