Whoa! Hold your horses there, pardner…

Are you saying that before the Cross of Christ, there WAS a third alternative to heaven or hell?
Did you read the Scriptural reference I provided: see Lk. 16:19-31? There we got a glimpse of two men after death prior to the cross of Christ: Lazarus and the rich man. At the time of death Lazarus was carried away by angels to “
Abraham’s bosom” where he was comforted (16:22), while the rich man to a place of torment in
Hades (16:23, not “
Gehenna:” Hell - no man is yet in Hell).
One of the doctrines of the cross is
propitiation:Heb 2:17 “
Therefore, He (God the Son)
had to be made like His brethren in all things (the incarnation),
so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (see also Rom. 3:25; 1 Jn. 2:2; 4:10).
Propitiation may quite simply be defined as the offering of a gift or sacrifice of sufficient value in order that the wrath of another might be appeased. And the
propitiated person is one whose wrath has been turned into pleasure by the offering of a gift so desirable that the offended one can no longer find reason to continue in anger.
Jesus Himself made
propitiation for our sins through the offering of Himself on the cross, in our stead, and the shedding of His precious blood procured the forgiveness of all our sins. IOW, through His sacrificial death and the shedding of His blood God has been
propitiated. His wrath has been turned into pleasure.
In the book of Hebrews we see that Jesus entered into the heavenly Temple through His own precious blood, the
propitiatory gift:Heb 9:11-12 "
But when Christ appeared {as} a high priest of the good things to come, {He entered} through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption."As the
propitiation for our sins it was necessary for Jesus, our High Priest, to precede us believing sinners (made
saints now “
in Him”) into the presence of God for, were men to go before the Gift had been offered and accepted, we would have been slain (see Heb. 10:19-20). Christ, as the
propitiation for our sins, prepared the way for believers to enter immediately into presence of God; by the prayers of the saints still here on earth (Heb. 4:16), and, experientially, by all the redeemed who have died Eph. 4:8).
“
Abraham’s bosom” is now empty, but that place in Hades where the rich man was taken remains occupied with the unredeemed, awaiting the final judgment of the “
dead” (see Rev. 20:11-15).
Notice, Randy, that “
Abraham’s bosom” was not a place of tormenting fire, but a place of great comfort for Lazarus. And Paul has revealed that for the true believer, this side of the cross, to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6-9). After all, our citizenship is heaven (Phil. 3:20).
According to Divine Revelation there is no place, or ever was a place, nor ever will be a place, called Purgatory. Why? Because Jesus is the
propitiation for our sins and God, through His precious blood, has been
propitiated. Christ, through His sacrificial death, has opened wide the entrance into heaven for all the redeemed.