1 Cor 3:15 & Pauline teaching regarding righteousness

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Stylteralmaldo

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Protestant Friend:
…Protestants do not object the idea of Purgatory because it is supported solely by Tradition but…becouse the Purgatory contradicts the St. Paul’s teaching of imputed righteousness to a sinner through his faith. 1.Cor 3:15 is not speaking about clensing of sins after death but about the authenticity of the ministries of the prominent men. Corinthian christians have come to idolise gifted servants (Peter, Apolos, Paul 3:4-5) and to form fractions within the church in terms of following particular minister of God. Now Paul demistyfies those ministers in the Corinthian eyes by saying how those glitering ministries don’t make good basis for forming any “holy orders” as it can be missleading. What is their worth will be shown in “the day” not in Purgatory and fire won’t be clensing but “testing every man’s work” to show if it is really what it seems to be. The hole purpose of those words is not to encouriedge imagination of some afterlife “place or process” but to sober Corinthians in their over-elevaiting mere men.
Can anyone help me with the context of:

(1) 1 Cor 3:15

(2) Righteousness as taught by Paul (I’m not sure what Pauline letter(s) he was referring to)
 
Here is some good information you can use.

“[W]hether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:9-11).

“Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:2-5)

“Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become manifest; for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).

“6 So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body. 11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men; but what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience” (2 Corinthians 5:6-11).

Purgatory is in no way an unbiblical doctrine. Rather, it is completely biblical on both implicit and explicit grounds. Implicitly, it can be derived from the biblical principles that we still sin till death but that there will be no sin in glory. Thus between death and glorification must come purification.
Explicitly, we not only have the witness of passages such as 2 Maccabees 12, but also the witness of passages describing our accounting before Christ in the particular judgment, including the especially vivid depiction of one escaping through the flames in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.

Jesus himself adds to this when he speaks in Matthew 12:32 of a sin which will neither be forgiven in this age nor the age to come, implying that some sins (venial ones of which we have not repented before death) will be forgiven when we repent the first moment of our afterlife.

Furthermore, in Matthew 5:25-26, Jesus tells us: “Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny.”
In this parable God is the Judge, and if we have not reconciled with our neighbors before we see God, God will hold us accountable for the wrong we did to them. This is what the Bible means when it says that God will take our revenge for us, so we should not take it ourselves, because God will defend the cause of the poor and uphold the case of the widow. Whenever a poor person or widow (or anyone else) is oppressed or wronged, God will hold the oppressor accountable for what he did – unless the wronged person freely chooses to forgive the offender. In that case, God will not hold the offender accountable for the wrong he did on a human level (i.e., against the human he wronged), but unless he has obtained forgiveness from God for the wrong he did against God, he will still be held accountable for that.
 
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Stylteralmaldo:
Can anyone help me with the context of:

(1) 1 Cor 3:15

(2) Righteousness as taught by Paul (I’m not sure what Pauline letter(s) he was referring to)
The word imputed with respect to righteousness appears several times in the King James Version in Romans 4:11, 22, 23, 24; 5:13 and James 2:23. In the Revised Standard Version the word used is reckoned.

Righteousness is being in a right relationship with God, being in a state of grace in Catholic-speak, if you will. Purgatory is not really about righteousness since only the righteous, those who die in a state of grace, can enter Purgatory on their way to heaven. Purgatory is about our final sanctification, being made perfectly holy. Speaking to those whose faith in Christ had already made them righteous, Hebrews 12:14 says, “Strive … for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”
 
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