A question about Purgatory.

[Shin]

PS, Ok, The simple answer is there is no prison, anymore. When a man dies, he either goes to heaven or hell. The verses in 1 Peter refer to Old Testament Saints, like King David, Abraham, Moses, Etc. The reason Jesus preached the Gospel to them is to tell them they needed Christ to enter heaven. ( Born Again). Matt. 12:32 is talking about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, where the Jews were given into the beliefs of Bezlebob where they gave credit to miracles to the devil. Is that simple enough?

  Peace,    Golfjack

I just want to note that you’ll find purgatory in such examples as one of the earliest Christian female martyr’s writings, the martyrdom of Sts. Felicity and Perpetua, as well as other works. It’s a historical fact.

You don’t find opposition to it until modern times. There’s no big tussel over purgatory until then, it’s accepted. So any scripture exegesis that pretends to do without purgatory is simply modern reading into the scriptures rather than the true Christianity of history.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

PS, Ok, The simple answer is there is no prison, anymore. When a man dies, he either goes to heaven or hell. The verses in 1 Peter refer to Old Testament Saints, like King David, Abraham, Moses, Etc. The reason Jesus preached the Gospel to them is to tell them they needed Christ to enter heaven. ( Born Again). Matt. 12:32 is talking about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, where the Jews were given into the beliefs of Bezlebob where they gave credit to miracles to the devil. Is that simple enough?

  Peace,    Golfjack

So a man goes to heaven or hell and there’s no having to pay the last farthing, as taught by Christ?

Matthew 12:32 says the sin would not be forgiven in this world or the world to come. What does the explanation of the sin have to do with the fact it would not be forgiven in this world or the world to come?

Also, I noticed you didn’t provide the simple answer to what it means that a man will suffer loss, yet be saved, as through fire.

It’s going to boil down to interpretational differences. Please provide the scriptures that give you authority to determine your interpretation is correct over all others?..

 

[golfjack]

PS, Please give me your auuthority to interpret scripture. The loss is the reward. My authority is in Christ and not man. To me it’s pretty silly not to be able to understand scripture unless it is approved by a Catholic interpretation. Pretty aragant, I must say. It’s kindf of like global warming fear mongerring that wants no opposition. But, I respect your right to believe what you wish. Do you respect mine? Anyway, as long as one is saved, it doesn’t make much difference if one believes in purgatory. Maybe, in another thread, we can discuss the New Birth, which to me is important.
Peace, Golfjack

 

[Shin]

PS, Please give me your auuthority to interpret scripture. The loss is the reward. My authority is in Christ and not man. To me it’s pretty silly not to be able to understand scripture unless it is approved by a Catholic interpretation. Pretty aragant, I must say. It’s kindf of like global warming fear mongerring that wants no opposition. But, I respect your right to believe what you wish. Do you respect mine? Anyway, as long as one is saved, it doesn’t make much difference if one believes in purgatory. Maybe, in another thread, we can discuss the New Birth, which to me is important.

  Peace,    Golfjack

So you’re an individual influenced by Christ to properly interpret scripture, but the Church founded and given authority by Christ isn’t? And it’s arrogant? Lovely… Just lovely. lol.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

PS, Please give me your auuthority to interpret scripture. The loss is the reward. My authority is in Christ and not man. To me it’s pretty silly not to be able to understand scripture unless it is approved by a Catholic interpretation. Pretty aragant, I must say. It’s kindf of like global warming fear mongerring that wants no opposition. But, I respect your right to believe what you wish. Do you respect mine? Anyway, as long as one is saved, it doesn’t make much difference if one believes in purgatory. Maybe, in another thread, we can discuss the New Birth, which to me is important.

  Peace,    Golfjack

You posted on a sola scriptura thread to which I asked questions, that I feel indicate my feelings toward private interpretations. I see you haven’t addressed that yet.

For authority on interpretations of scriptures, from my view, please read the passages below.

1Ti 3:15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

Eph 3:10 That the manifold wisdom of God may be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places through the church

Joh 14:16 And I will ask the Father: and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever:

Joh 14:26 But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.

The Church is a gift from Christ. The Church has a unified interpretation. Private interpretation leads to many different interpretations. According to St. Peter, some have wrested scriptures, even to their own destruction.

2Pe 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

The Church has had a unified interpretation for 2000 years. Private interpretations has new revelations everyday.

There are many denominations, with slight to great differences in doctrines, based on someone’s private interpretation. Who is right? Who has the authority to say another’s is wrong? Are all the denominations being of the same mind and judgment?

1Co 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no schisms among you: but that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment.

**Rom 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, to mark them who make dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them. **

The founding fathers of America wrote a constitution and established a legislative body to interpret that document. They did not send that to every citizen and say, here interpret this for yourself. Would God have done less than men?

Again, you have avoided providing a simple answer to the question about, a man will suffer loss, yet be saved, as though through fire…

 

[golfjack]

Simply put, every time you Catholics see the word Church, you think it means Catholic Church. Study Col. 1:24 to find a good definition of Church. To me the Church consists of all born again believers that have there place to help the Church. On a personal note, I have been called by God to be an Evangelistic Preacher.
Peace, Golfjack

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Simply put, every time you Catholics see the word Church, you think it means Catholic Church. Study Col. 1:24 to find a good definition of Church. To me the Church consists of all born again believers that have there place to help the Church. On a personal note, I have been called by God to be an Evangelistic Preacher.

     Peace,   Golfjack

St. Ignatius, legend has it he was the child that sat on Christ’s lap, was a disciple of St. John and appointed by St. Peter. In 106AD, within a couple of years of the book of Revelatioins being written, St. Ignatius wrote:

See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution(55) of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper(56) Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

Now, please explain why you didn’t address any of the scriptures and points I raised in my previous post? A Church started by Christ, interprets scriptures and you call it arrogant, yet you interpret them for your self and can’t see how that’s arrogant? I use scriptures and you trump it by saying you’ve been called to be an Evangelical Preacher?

 

[golfjack]

PS, I have answered most of your questions, but you do not like the answers. I don’t believe in legands by the way or the many assumptions your church ,makes. My answer is the Church started by Christ, I belong to. Do you? If you are born again, you do.

Authority is a big topic that should be discussed in another thread. But I do have authority to use the name of Jesus. In fact, all believers do.
Peace, Golfjack:thumbsup:

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

PS, I have answered most of your questions, but you do not like the answers. I don’t believe in legands by the way or the many assumptions your church ,makes. My answer is the Church started by Christ, I belong to. Do you? If you are born again, you do.

Authority is a big topic that should be discussed in another thread. But I do have authority to use the name of Jesus. In fact, all believers do.

   Peace,   Golfjack:thumbsup:

I’d have to disagree that you addressed most of the questions and points I’ve brought up in our discussion. I guess we’ll have to let our posts speak for themselves.

Believing in a legend is not a requirement of the Church.

Who St. Ignatius was a disciple of, appointed by, or what he wrote is not legend. It is documented.

You posted on a sola scriptura thread and I responded in an attempt to discuss authority with you, but you haven’t gone back since.

I was a protestant until 1985 and I began researching and digging because of all the different denominations. No one evangelized me into the Catholic faith. I feel it was a calling from God, for which I am truly thankful. Read Matthew 16 and see where Christ built a Church. No one can dispute there was only one Church until 1054 when the great schism occured. Then we had two Churches, with Catholic doctrines. It wasn’t until the 1500s that the Protestant reformation took place, There have been reformations ever since, because of private interpretations. For me, I prefer the fullness of truth as opposed to a “watered down” truth. That’s my opinion of Protestant Churches. They all have roots to the Catholic Church, but the further out they branch, the further from the fulness they are.

Our, never ending, spiritual growth, on this earth, will go on our entire lifetime. It all begins with Christ and I certainly hope you introduce many to Him. I also pray for spiritual growth for all that come to know Him.

 

[Faith_at_Large]

If any person were to die immediately following baptism, my understanding is that they would go immediately to Heaven. So too with those who die a martyr’s death. The Thief on the Cross did not get to be baptized, but he did repent of his sins and accepted his punishment on the cross. I would expect that Jesus would have counted the thief to be worthy of baptism and given him a clean slate. Of course several hours of suffering on the cross as penance for his sins, which the thief acknowledged, could be counted as well.

I leave it in Christ’s hands. But I would be surprised if that thief spent any time in purgatory. I would also not be surprised to learn that the other thief wished he could have gone to purgatory - but again, I leave the matter in God’s hands.

 

[golfjack]

PS, Be back tomorrow. It’s been nice discussing this topic with you. I was Catholic until 1979, but left when God spoke to my heart about salvation. My walk has been very interesting to say the least. I graduated from Rhema Bible Inst, where I met many nice Christians, and believe it or not some very dedicated Catholic priests. I believe they were Charismatic Catholic Priests, who believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, and believe to enter into heaven, one must be born again.

Good night my friend in Christ. Peace, Golfjack

 

[JKing]

We always seem to get so bogged down in time questions. The following is only my opinion, but it helps me reconcile some of the difficulties when thinking about the afterlife.

I believe that these questions will be completely irrelevant when we are looking back from the other side. When we die we leave the river of time. We are in eternity where time is meaningless. All events are present to us. So when we die we have our particular judgment and receive our sentence. If hell, we are joined to our material bodies, witness the general judgment and go to hell. If our sentence is heaven then we are purged, if necessary, joined to our glorified bodies and witness the general judgement and enter into the beatific vision. Time has no impact on these events.

What we know is that we are individually judged immediately and then we are all present at the general judgment where the sheep and the goats are separated. This is true whether we died in the first century, the 10th century, the 20th century or we live until the second coming. Time will cease and our talk about the order of events or how long they last will be meaningless.

So… When Jesus told the thief “Today you will be with me in paradise”. I think the “today” meant that time will cease to have meaning when soul and body are separated and they enter eternity. By the end of that day, when they are both dead, all things will be present. The particulars about judgment, purgatory, Christ’s resurrection, opening the gates of heaven, the end of the world, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, etc. do not have any impact on the fact that today, they enter eternity. And in that eternity, Jesus and the Good thief will be in paradise together.

We have to let go of our temporal perspective.

 

[8eofilos]

I still can’t believe people talking of purgatory. It does not exist.Purgatory can’t clean our sins.
The only One that can bare our sins and clean us is Jesus.As for the Thief on the cross.Learn your lesson again…Jesus is God.When Jesus says this moment remember that He has no time.When they ask Him who He is,He says I Am and not will or was because He is Eternal.He said “before Abraham I Am” not was.So to conclude to your thought the Thief is saved because Jesus takes the sins of the Thief and cleans Him.There is a confession at the minute of the Crucifixion.So in Jesus eyes and mind and time, the thief at that moment is saved.
Look at it this way…He says I will be back soon and there have been 2000 years past…Our time is not His time as He is timeless.He is already at the Second Coming when we our counting,He is in the Creation while we are in this time

 

[JIMC3]

if the man who is in the side of jesus when they are in the cross are a sinner, why jesus brought the thief on heaven instantly without cleansing in the purgatory? because Jesus said “right now I will put you in paradise” the underlined phrase “right now” only means an immediate deliverance to the kingdom of God. Does it mean that Jesus do not consider purgatory to cleanse the sin of the thief?

thankssss for your attention!!:thumbsup:

 

[alanmr]

**I have no problem with purgatory in that one must undergo a process of purification before entering heaven. But the accounts of purgatory, complete with great pain and suffering, seem an invention of the human mind. Some saints describe excruciating pain and the torment of flames. Father Schouppe’s book on Purgatory: Explained by the Lives and Legends of The Saints (1893, reprinted by Tan) has hundreds of descriptions, mostly horrific. But is not purgatory a hopeful and pleasant place – once you are there, you have a sure ticket to heaven? Moreover, how can a soul experience the physical pain that afflicts people when they are alive?

What of those in purgatory who have nobody to pray for them. I believe in heaven, hell, and purgatory but we can only imagine them in human terms. This does not deny their reality but only limits our understanding.
**

 

[SeanTom]

Please note that Luke 23:43 states: “I assure you, this day you will be with me in paradise”. Also, note that Jesus did not ascend into Heaven for several days after saying this so how could the criminal be with Jesus in Paradise that day?.

Now if you will recall, punctuation marks were not used at the time Scripture was written, punctuation was not developed as yet. All writings during that time had words bunching together without any punctuation marks.

Now having said that, when puncuation marks came into being and were placed in Scripture to make more sense while reading the Word of God, the comma used after the words “I assure you, this day…” may have been misplaced, thus not really meaning that the criminal would go directly to Heaven with Jesus that day. Now some theologians feel that the comma should have been placed after the word “day”, which would then read "I assure you this day, you will…"which means that the criminal was assured that he would be in Paradise with Jesus some time in the future. This would leave a period of time for him to spend in Purgatory, i.e. “I assure you this day, you will be with me in paradise”; the criminal was only ASSURED on “This day” and not actually entering Paradise on that particular day.

 

[JIMC3]

i have tapes from a local retired priest in orlando and attended a retreat with him also…he talks about a DEFINITIVE ENCOUNTER where purgatory is an instant purification process…it made sense to me because time is a natural concept and we are then in a supernatural place…all time is NOW…no fire in hell either, same concept…a natural concept applied so people can understand something like pain and anguish…but the anguish would be the absence of God…knowing what is available but being unable to participate in it…we can’t do 5 years of purgatory for bad behaviour because there is no time, no years, no weeks, no days…what does that prayer say, …is NOW and ever shall be, world without end…it is all NOW…
MY PROBLEM I S THAT THIS CONCEPT OF DEFINITIVE ENCOUNTER HAS BEEN TAUGHT IN SEMINARIES FOR A LONG TIME BUT DOESN’T SEEM TO MAKE IT’S WAY INTO MAINSTREAM RELIGION.
i would like to get ideas about this and how it effects other people. thanks.

 

[weaponx88]

As a child I was raised as catholic. I always did not understand why we would pray for souls in purgatory during mass if Jesus died on the cross for those souls. The whole entire thing made no sense to me. When I turned around 13 I stopped going to church as it seemed to strict and had too many laws and steps to get to heaven. It became just work and not freedom. I HAD to confess on saturdays, even though I felt i did nothing wrong, I made up sins MANY times just to get past the ordeal of confession. I was instructed to say a specific prayer exactly as taught prior to entering the booth or ill would come. I felt violated by this guy on the other side of the wall for having to share such a personal part of my life to him.
Saying sorry to my parents or siblings for “sinning” against them just wasn’t good enough.
Then all I needed to do was recite a number of Our Fathers and hail marys at the alter and all was fine again, well it just seemed silly to me.
It wasn’t till I was around my late 20s that I picked up a Bible and began to read it for myself.
I found much of the catholic teaching that I was taught at an early age non-existant.
I found a God that had only 1 mediator…Jesus and not mary or any of the catholic saints let alone a priest. I found nothing, not one iota about a place remotely close to what I was taught at an early age as purgatory.
In my adult eyes I saw purgatory as a slap in the face of The Savior. That His work on the cross was not good enough to cleanse ones sins. That His suffering wasn’t good enough and that we still had to suffer to get into heaven. I saw it as “OK God…we can take it from here, thanks anyways”.

To me I found this to be very troubling.

 

[SeanTom]

Jim,

I have no problem with your response concerning the time spent in Purgatory. The time spent in Purgatory depends on the amount of sins one has when he arrives. But having said that, one’s time in Purgatory could last only a split second of our time since time will not be the factor. But the the debt that has to be paid through temporal punishment for the sins will determine the time spent in Purgatory.

As for “fire” in Hell. We are told that Hell’s torments are unimaginably severe and everlasting. The suffering in Hell will depend upon the number and greatness of sins committed. The greatest grief results from being separated from God. There is an additional punishment which God created, which we can call Hell-fire (Matt. 13:42; 18:9). This fire is some agent outside the souls of the damned and causes them real pain and suffering. God manifested His justice by creating an eternal Hell, for the evil of a mortal sin is unlimited, and so the punishment for it must be without end.

Christians are not perfect, but are forgiven by one who is.

 

[PJM]

=childhoodtimes;5126427]if the man who is in the side of jesus when they are in the cross are a sinner, why jesus brought the thief on heaven instantly without cleansing in the purgatory? because Jesus said “right now I will put you in paradise” the underlined phrase “right now” only means an immediate deliverance to the kingdom of God. Does it mean that Jesus do not consider purgatory to cleanse the sin of the thief?

thankssss for your attention!!:thumbsup:

Dear friend in Christ, a wounderful question.

Let’s begain by poiting out a tidbit about the Bible.

"Everything in the Bible is true, however, NOT everything in the Bible is factual."

Your question is a case in point.

The “good theif” the one who “stole heaven” [Bishop Fulton Scheen] could not have gone to “heaven the same day” because Christ Himself was yet to die, and TO BE RISEN FROM THE DEAD, which historical evidence and the Bible tells us took place on Easter Sunday! Therefore access to heaven was denined to all, untill The Ressurection of Christ to The Father.

So what was Jesus promising?

Jesus was forgiving the “good thief for all his sins as well as all of the effects of sin.” Thus he was “perfected” without Purgatory, which of course is something God can, and in this case did Will.

Yes, it means that for reasond of “God’s Greater Glory” and the sanctification of the “good theif” God Himself perfected this person, to demonistrate in Benolevance and Power!