you where the one to bring up suffering.
Purgatory’s ALL about suffering, Odell. I wasn’t the one who “
brought up suffering.” It’s what your doctrine of Purgatory is all about.
Here’s the way I see it:
When it comes to the discussion of Purgatory you Catholics jump through all sorts of hoops trying to prove a doctrine that simply has no Divine revelation for support. As I’ve said before, what completely separates
true Christianity from all the man-made religions on earth, now and in the past, is that
true Christianity is based entirely on Divine revelation. The true Christian walks by faith in what God Himself has revealed. Like Abraham in Gen. 15:6, it’s
believing what God Himself has said, not what men assert.
The
theopneustos Scriptures reveal that God dealt with sins,
once for all, not with “
fire,” but with
blood, the blood of Jesus Christ. And the message that the risen Christ sent out to the world to
believe through His Apostles is this:**Acts 10:43 **"
Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins."But Catholicism, contrary to what God has revealed concerning the, once for all, sacrifice of His beloved Son, in unbelief, still insists that there is reserved in the afterlife a “
temporal punishment” yet to be experienced by those whose sin, Scripture reveals, have already been Divinely forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ:
III. THE FINAL PURIFICATION, OR PURGATORY
1030 "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."The notion that one who has Divinely received forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ must yet himself undergo further “
purification” in the afterlife is a direct attack on the sacrificial work of God’s Sin-bearer, and utter
unbelief in what the Word of God has expressly stated concerning Jesus Christ and the sins of mankind: that He “
had made purification of sins” by the sacrifice of Himself and through the shedding of His blood (Heb. 1:3b).
Nowhere is the Catholic doctrine of “
temporal punishment,” reserved for the
forgiven “elect” for the sake of future cleansing, revealed prophetically or taught doctrinally by the Apostles or Christ in Scripture. It’s an
added doctrine by men, and I must say,
thoroughly rooted in unbelief in what God has revealed concerning Christ and sin. According to the Scriptures all sins were Divinely dealt with,
once for all, through God’s Suffering Servant, never the sinner.
It’s the RCC, not Scripture, that gives this place of suffering its name:"
1031 "The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.604"And she admits that the doctrine was “
formulated” (not Divinely revealed) at the Councils of Florence and Trent. Hence, not Biblically based but a “tradition” of the RCC which, it asserts, is based on certain texts of Scripture which it interprets as a future, cleansing fire for sins:"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:605"Those Scriptures referenced in the CCC are 1 Cor. 3:15 and 1 Pet 1:7. But in both those passages the fire is
figurative and neither refer to the purifying of sins in the afterlife as its Divine purpose. The former is revelatory and discloses the value of the Christian worker’s WORKS for the result of receiving REWARDS (or not); the latter reveals the believer’s faith during this life."As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire."The Roman Catholic is told he “
must believe” in “temporal judgments” and a future “
purifying fire” based on the word of their leaders alone."He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in 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.606"But the fires of Catholic Purgatory aren’t about “
forgiving” sins (which would be blatantly contrary to Scripture), but about “
purifying” the Catholic through personal suffering; which in itself denies the purifying power of the blood of Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures (Heb. 1:3b).
Catholic “Purgatory” is a truly baffling doctrine because it’s so
disproportionate. Rome teaches its people that while here on earth they can have sins very easily and painlessly absolved and purified sacramentally through a Priest, attached with a few
Hail Marys and
Our Fathers. However, any sins left over (venial) he/she must suffer great personal pain for an undisclosed amount of time in Purgatorial fires. Totally nonsensical - no wonder it’s not found in the God-breathed (
theopneustos) Scriptures. Such inconsistency could have never originated with God.
Bottom line is God has revealed to us how He Himself dealt with our sins,
once for all, through the sacrificial death of His beloved Son (Col. 2:13-14). What is now required of man is to
BELIEVE it. But Rome’s doctrine of Purgatory denies it.
