Purgatory Help!?

[david_friol_1]

Hello all,

I am being welcomed into the Catholic Church on Easter of this year. I have quick question. I was raised in a very rich Protestant Background and know VERY little about Purgatory. I had a discussion today with a friend ( it wasn’t heated, simply a discussion) regarding Purgatory. I explained that it was a place where those who were in the grace of God but not yet totally purified would go to become pure to enter the glories of Heaven. She countered with a “well doesn’t that just cheapen the sacrifice of Christ? If going to Purgatory can allow you to enter Heaven, then why did Jesus need to die?”. I really had no idea how to respond to that. Did I approach the answer incorrectly? I told her I would get back with her after I had studied and learned a little more. Thanks.

Hey
Tell her that just because some one pays to get your car cleaned at the car wash does not mean that your car is automatically cleaned, even though you really believe that it is paid for you still have to put it through the car wash
God bless you and your family

 

[brb3]

Christ has paid once and for all for our sin. His death is the ultimate satisfaction and price for our redemption, but His life and His death must be lived out in us. That’s why we need to pick up our cross, and we need to imitate Christ. Did you catch that? We don’t suffer because Christ’s sufferings weren’t enough. We suffer because Christ’s life must be reproduced in us. It is finished. It is accomplished, but now it must be applied. The work of the third person of the Holy Spirit is New Testament history, is personal history.

well stated …

 

[brb3]

Protestants believe in purgatory too! In fact, they have to, since purgatory is so clearly biblical… but here’s the rub: they call it sanctification instead, and they don’t ALWAYS believe it occurs after death or involves intrinsic purification

Well, they believe they are being ‘purged’ of sins in this life … but, not completely. And, they do see sufffering as needed and efficacious for them in this life … to a lesser degree than Catholics do.

Ultimately, Protestants believe they will be VIEWED as perfect, before God the Father, thru Christ’s sacrifice for them on Cross. Christ’s sacrifice will ‘cloak’ them with imputed Righteousness … enabling them to stand before God at the Judgment, and declared Righteous … and able to receive their awards.

They know the hay and stubble will be burned away … but, its more of an instantaneous event, and not a painful one, where they suffer punishment. Only the heathen unbelievers will receive punishment. Christ has suffered for them, the elect … so that at the Rapture, they instantly receive their PERFECTED HEAVENLY GARMENTS. In a moment, in the twinkling of the eye … they will be transformed and made perfect with new body and intellect.

The idea that they would need to spend ‘temporal’ time in punishment for venial sins is odious to them. God has ALREADY dealt with that issue on the Cross. Name it and claim it !!! They are forgiven in total. They latch onto Paul’s testimony “absent from the body, present with the Lord” … as why purgatory in the next world is non-sensical. To be with Christ means ALL SINS ARE FULLY FORGIVEN IN HIM, and they can now see and understand all things perfectly clear, no longer looking thru a foggy glass.

We Catholics must admit they hold a Glorious hope/assurance. Problem is they only consider certain scriptures that support this belief. The other scriptures … they ignore, as they can’t explain them. They don’t think some scripture can be understood just yet … until they are united in Christ at the Rapture.

 

[brb3]

Purgatory is not explicit in the bible. Sorry.

I too recently shared your understandings … but, I spend several days examining the evidence in scripture, and the historical writings of the early Church.

Sorry but, we both were wrong. Purgatory [purgation of venial sins] was a consistent belief held by the early Christians since DAY 1 … Pentecost. St. Augustine in 4th Century best expressed/explained it in his writings.

Begin by clicking on ENCYCLOPEDIA at top bar on CAF homepage, click on P … go to Purgatory topic. Read those 25 pages … then take their citations and go back to your Bible and you will clearly see that Catholics are deadon right, on this Doctrine.

 

[Ignatius]

Hello all,

I am being welcomed into the Catholic Church on Easter of this year. I have quick question. I was raised in a very rich Protestant Background and know VERY little about Purgatory. I had a discussion today with a friend ( it wasn’t heated, simply a discussion) regarding Purgatory. I explained that it was a place where those who were in the grace of God but not yet totally purified would go to become pure to enter the glories of Heaven. She countered with a “well doesn’t that just cheapen the sacrifice of Christ? If going to Purgatory can allow you to enter Heaven, then why did Jesus need to die?”. .

It is because of and by Jesus Passion and Crucifixion for us that we can be and are purified. Purgatory is the result of His Sacraficial death for us.

 

[thessalonian]

Hello all,

I am being welcomed into the Catholic Church on Easter of this year. I have quick question. I was raised in a very rich Protestant Background and know VERY little about Purgatory. I had a discussion today with a friend ( it wasn’t heated, simply a discussion) regarding Purgatory. I explained that it was a place where those who were in the grace of God but not yet totally purified would go to become pure to enter the glories of Heaven. She countered with a “well doesn’t that just cheapen the sacrifice of Christ? If going to Purgatory can allow you to enter Heaven, then why did Jesus need to die?”. I really had no idea how to respond to that. Did I approach the answer incorrectly? I told her I would get back with her after I had studied and learned a little more. Thanks.

Protestants have a huge problem with their doctrine of imputed righteousness and the process of sanctification. Let me explain: Let’s say that Billy Graham is riding a bus A man sits down next to him who is a vile sinner. He lives with a woman he is not married to, cheats on her with other women, takes drugs, has murdered and raped. You name it. Well Billy works his magic on the guy and the guy “get’s saved”. The Bus goes off a cliff and Billy and the man die. Well here is the problem, the man still needs a lot of sanctification, while, assuming that Billy has been right with God, he needs much less or who knows maybe none. Now tell me how does this man get sanctified for revelations tells us “NOTHING UNCLEAN SHALL ENTER”? Sanctified means to be made HOLY! Clean if you will. Or do you have some guarantee in scripture that all sanctification happens before death and therefore the guy doesn’t have to worry about dying for a few years? forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/quote.gifSomething’s gotta give here. Catholicism of course believes in infused righteousness at baptism so it is quite a bit different. To me protestants need purgatory to "fix’ their doctrine more than Catholicism.

 

[acuddymar]

To DAVID 89:

After Christ died and went down into 'hell", he was actually going into a holding place where those who had died in God’s grace, were taken up to heaven which heretofore had been closed due to the sin of Adam and Eve This was not purgatory.

Acuddymar

 

[Mystophilus]

If there are only Heaven and Hell, then there is a zero-thickness line between eternal salvation and eternal damnation, which is rather silly, really. Purgatory makes a lot more sense in saying that there is a very complicated mess between “utterly rejects God’s goodness” and “is completely committed to God’s goodness”.