thanks
The Bible tells us that Christ has perfected us. If Christ has made us perfect, then how can we be impure?
Jesus didn’t tell him he would be in Heaven, Jesus told him that he would be in Paradise that day.
And what is it that you believe that Purgatory will accomplish that the blood of Jesus could not?
This passage isn’t referring to Purgatory at all, but to reward in Heaven.
Actually, it says nothing at all about purgation punishing sin after death
Then why does Paul tell us that we can know now that we’re saved now?
Actually, this is a parable and not a literal account of a real event.
Nowhere in this verse does it say anything about Purgatory. How could Paul know that this man was in Purgatory?
We’re not saved by the amount of our faith, but by the object of our faith.
Christ, by one sacrifice, has perfected for all time those who are being sacntified. If we’re already perfect, how can we still continue to be sanctified? The Greek present is an emphatic tense indicating a continuing action. We are not yet perfectly sanctified, and so Purgatory is the place where we will be perfectly sanctified, if we die in a state of incomplete sanctification.
Sin still has temporal consequences, otherwise there would be no pain or suffering for Christians. A Christian may be forgiven his sin by God, but if he breaks the law, he still must serve jail time: Christ’s sacrifice didn’t accomplish the removal of temporal consequences for his sin. Though Christ’s sacrifice destroyed the eternal consequences of his sin, the temporal consequences still exist.
“If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” I don’t think heaven is a place where we “suffer loss.” I don’t think heaven is a place where we “will be saved, but only as through fire.” This passage certainly refers to our reward in heaven, but the testing process is describing purgatory, where some, though being saved, will only be saved as through fire, i.e., with suffering.
He doesn’t. In fact, he teaches the opposite to the Corinthians: “I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.”
If that were a true statement (it’s not), you would still be arguing against your point: to speak of salvation in the present tense is to affirm that it’s not yet complete, rather, that it’s an ongoing process. If you wanted to prove that salvation were a once-in-history event, Paul would have to speak of salvation always in the perfect tense, not the present tense.
Where does he say that?
And so you can interpret it any way you want? What’s your interpretation of this passage?
Why would Paul pray for a dead man if he was already in heaven or hell? In the former case there’s no need and in the latter case there’s no help.
So we’re just to ignore him when he denies his own perfection?
Certainly it would, but the Catholic Church has never taught that Purgatory is a place where we’re saved “apart from Christ’s atonement.” You have some more to learn about Catholic teaching if you think the Church teaches that. Purgatory is a place purchased for us by Christ’s atonement. It’s “heaven’s mudroom,” where we who are imperfectly sanctified are washed, cleansed, and made actually clean prior to entrance into heaven. This is only possible because of Christ’s sacrifice and ransom.
Simple. We’re made righteous in Christ.
Except that the Bible tells us that Chist has already perfected us. If He has made us perfect before God, then there is nothing left to burn in the mythical land of Purgatory for.
Truer words were never spoken.
Because they’re two different things.
We’re not talking about the natural consequence of sin, we’re talking about God’s punishment of sin.
Actually, this passage is referring to reward in Heaven, not to Purgatory.
Then explain the examples I’ve already given.
This passage isn’t speaking of salvation at all.
I see. So then, when I crashed my car and said, “my car is destroyed”, it wasn’t destroyed, but merely in the process of being destroyed?
Heb 7:27
My point exactly.
And such a blasphemous teaching cannot be justified by scripture.
Your view of purgatory is wrong…if I believed what you believe involving purgatory, I wouldn’t believe it either…but I DO believe in purgatory. How do you figure?
per·fect Pronunciation (pûrfkt)
As Assurance of Salvation? points out, “Certainly, Christ did die on the cross once for all and has entered into the holy place in heaven to appear before God on our behalf. Christ has abundantly provided for our salvation, but that does not mean that there is no process by which this is applied to us as individuals. Obviously, there is, or we would have been saved and justified from all eternity, with no need to repent or have faith or anything else. We would have been born ‘saved,’ with no need to be born again. Since we were not, since it is necessary for those who hear the gospel to repent and embrace it, there is a time at which we come to be reconciled to God. And if so, then we, like Adam and Eve, can become unreconciled with God and, like the prodigal son, need to come back and be reconciled again with God, after having left his family.”
That’s funny. I thought it meant “perfect.” If it’s regarding only righteousness, I would think it meant at least “perfectly righteous.” Are you perfectly righteous? I know I’m not. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Or, more properly, “Made holy.” We can’t continually be set apart for a holy purpose; that’s a one-time act, and so your understanding violates the emphasis of the present tense. We can, on other hand, continue to be made holier and holier and holier: that’s why the author of Hebrews tells us to strive for the holiness without which no one will see God.
If you’re not talking about temporal consequences of sin, then you’re not talking about purgatory.
You already made that claim, and I already replied as to why it’s an inadequate explanation. You should consider interacting with my arguments, rather than merely re-presenting your own.
As I’ve done so multiple times on this forum, 1 John 5:13 teaches that we may know that we have eternal life (i.e., are saved) now, not in the future. Paul clearly does not consider his own salvation be a closed book, and John doesn’t write that we can know that ours is; he only writes so that we may know that now, at this present moment, we are saved and if we continue to be faithful, we will continue to be saved.
“Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from the God..” If that’s not talking about salvation, what is?
You clearly seem not to understand that different languages have difference semantics. The present tense of English does not carry the same emphasis on continuing action that the present tense Greek does.
“He has no need, like thos ehigh priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of th epeople; he did this once for all when he offered up himself.”
So I guess that means you have no argument to make against our interpretation of Paul’s prayer.
On the contrary; the blasphemous teaching that cannot be justified by Scripture is the alternative to purgatory, that we impure humans are merely declared pure by God and will enter heaven, sin-stained and all.
But beyond Protestants like Lewis, who openly admit their belief in purgatory, it may be said that Protestants in general believe in purgatory, they just don’t call it that. For every historic Protestant will admit that our sinning in this life does not continue into heaven. In fact, they will be quite insistent that although our sanctification is not complete in this life, it will be completed (instantaneously, they say) as soon as this life is over. But that is what purgatory is! – the final sanctification, the purification. Thus it is permissible to say that many Protestants believe in purgatory without even realizing it.
I think several people here have shown that references to purgatory are abundant in Scripture. And I don’t believe anyone’s even touched on what the Deuterocanonicals have to say.
With a capital T.
No! It’s nothing of the sort. It’s part of the apostolic deposit of faith. Jesus Christ taught the existence of purgatory to his Apostles.
You make a big mistake when you concede the battle for the Bible to Protestants from the very beginning.
So you know many Protestants who say that we’ll enter heaven still stained by sin?