What my wife's Baptist brother-in-law said about

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Hi all,

I spent the past Saturday with my wife’s family. They are, mostly, Evangelical Christians, mostly Baptist.

My wife’s older sister and her husband are both devout followers of Christ, members of a Baptist church. They are both teachers in the congregation.

Since I have returned to the Church after 30-plus years in the Evangelical community, I have gotten into a few discussions about, guess what, Mary, the Pope, purgatory and the intercession of the saints.

Well, my brother-in-law is a learned man, Scripturally speaking. He said he believes that sometime after death, the Christian believer will see God in all His Glory, see how sinful he really is, and feel pain because of this.

To which I replied, you are espousing the Catholic position on purgatory. Of course, he protested that he wasn’t.

He also admitted that it definitely WAS a church council that determined the NT canon but won’t make the leap to recognizing the authority of any other Council.

I am thinking of getting him a copy of Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Please pray for him and his wife. (Doug and Mary)

Thanks,
Gene
 
Sure sounds like purgatory to me. When sinful impure man finds himself in the presence of God who is all perfect, all one’s defects are brought to light. That cannot help but be painful. In his very approach to God, those imperfections are burned away.
 
Gene C.:
Well, my brother-in-law is a learned man, Scripturally speaking. He said he believes that sometime after death, the Christian believer will see God in all His Glory, see how sinful he really is, and feel pain because of this.

To which I replied, you are espousing the Catholic position on purgatory. Of course, he protested that he wasn’t.
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That’s funny. I’ve had the same conversation with Protestants and they’ve drawn the same conclusion about “Purgatory” especially after I show them Revelation 21:27 and Hebrews 12:14. They acknowledge the concept, but can’t quite bring themselves to give it a name. 😃
 
some, many protestants still have the Dante’s inferno concept of “Purgatory”. Maybe you should take a little more time to define for them what and how you understand the term, “Purgatory” .
 
Gene C.:
Hi all,

I spent the past Saturday with my wife’s family. They are, mostly, Evangelical Christians, mostly Baptist.

My wife’s older sister and her husband are both devout followers of Christ, members of a Baptist church. They are both teachers in the congregation.

Since I have returned to the Church after 30-plus years in the Evangelical community, I have gotten into a few discussions about, guess what, Mary, the Pope, purgatory and the intercession of the saints.

Well, my brother-in-law is a learned man, Scripturally speaking. He said he believes that sometime after death, the Christian believer will see God in all His Glory, see how sinful he really is, and feel pain because of this.

To which I replied, you are espousing the Catholic position on purgatory. Of course, he protested that he wasn’t.

He also admitted that it definitely WAS a church council that determined the NT canon but won’t make the leap to recognizing the authority of any other Council.

I am thinking of getting him a copy of Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Please pray for him and his wife. (Doug and Mary)

Thanks,
Gene
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How wonderful that he is espousing Catholic teaching without even knowing it!! I am curious how, as an evangelical, he came to his conclusion about purgatory. Did he cite scriputre? If so, which verses? Or was this just the working of The Spirit? Just curious…
 
Hi

I found also, in my brief stint in the Baptist faith, that a lot of Protestants - especially Baptists - also believe in Penance :eek: …just not by that name 😃 . My preacher taught that once you commit a sin, there is a penalty for that sin, (a result of that sin that affects the world around you - and yourself) and you must pay it. Everyone looked at him like he had grown a third eye - but he backed it up with scripture - so it was accepted…kinda. Wish I could remember what they were :rolleyes: .

Peace

John
 
Daniel Marsh:
some, many protestants still have the Dante’s inferno concept of “Purgatory”. Maybe you should take a little more time to define for them what and how you understand the term, “Purgatory” .
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Daniel and everyone else,

Try this one:

*Then I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire. On the sea of glass were standing those who had won the victory over the beast and its image and the number that signified its name. They were holding God’s harps, and they sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: "Great and wonderful are your works, Lord God almighty. Just and true are your ways, O king of the nations. * Rev. 15:2-3 NAB

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality. I Cor 15:51-53 NAB

They sure sound like Purgatory and Purification to me…

Most Prostestants hear the word “Purgatory” and conjure images of things that the Church would never teach, but they don’t know that. They only know the prejudices they were taught.

Remember, they have a tremendous emotional investment in NOT being wrong. If the church is right about Mary, Purgatory, the Papacy, the Eucharist, the Sacraments, or the Communion of the Saints, then they’ve been WRONG, And, that’s going to be emotionally devastating!

With the two scriptures above, you’re not asking them to do anything esoteric. Purgatory and Purification are in the Plain Meaning of the Scriptures.

But remember that emotional investment, and just ask them to look at the Scriptures and ask them why would God tell us about a process of Purification and about Saints celebrating it if it wasn’t true and if he didn’t want us to consider it Grace.

I hope this helps the conversation along.

In Christ, Michael
 
Gene C.:
Hi all,

I spent the past Saturday with my wife’s family. They are, mostly, Evangelical Christians, mostly Baptist.

My wife’s older sister and her husband are both devout followers of Christ, members of a Baptist church. They are both teachers in the congregation.

Since I have returned to the Church after 30-plus years in the Evangelical community, I have gotten into a few discussions about, guess what, Mary, the Pope, purgatory and the intercession of the saints.

Well, my brother-in-law is a learned man, Scripturally speaking. He said he believes that sometime after death, the Christian believer will see God in all His Glory, see how sinful he really is, and feel pain because of this.

To which I replied, you are espousing the Catholic position on purgatory. Of course, he protested that he wasn’t.

He also admitted that it definitely WAS a church council that determined the NT canon but won’t make the leap to recognizing the authority of any other Council.

I am thinking of getting him a copy of Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Please pray for him and his wife. (Doug and Mary)

Thanks,
Gene
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Gene:

Next time he descibes the process, describe it back being careful to use the Church’s description but not the Church’s terminology… Remember, there’s that episode where Moses isn’t allowed to see God because he would die if he did.

When he agrees to your description, say, “Did you know that’s how the Catholic Church describes the process of Purification and 'Purgation” that must of us will need to undergo before we can enter the full presence of God?"

Since he’s already agreed to the description, he won’t be able to back out without doing spiritual and psychic violence to himself… You can both agree to jettison the faulty description of the Church’s teaching which he’s believed the Church has taught since he was a child.

Freed from that, he can now look at the Scripture like the ones I’ve sited and see how Purgatory is a Gift from God helping most of us to be prepared for the presence of God.

One more on Purification and Purgation:

*If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of each one’s work. If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage. But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire. * I Cor 3:12-15 NAB

That is also the plain meaning of this scripture… None of these should do any violence to the Sacred Scriptures or to scriptural exegesis.

In Christ, Michael
 
I would recommend getting them James Akin’s “The Salvation Controversy.” It is the best book I’ve ever read on the various aspects of salvation: justification, sanctification, grace, faith, predestination, , indulgences, temporal punishment, and eternal punishment. Akin is good at thorough biblical exegesis using the original languages.
 
Thanks to all for a healthy conversation!

Strangely enough, it was Dr. R.C. Sproul, the Calvinist philospher and teacher, who helped me come back to the Church by constantly espousing St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas as the two greatest thinkers of Christianity.

R.C. recently talked about the need for the believer to be purified before we can actually see God after death. He is not sure, though, if it is the sight of our Lord that will purify us, or if we need to be purified before we get to see Him.

Peace,
Gene
 
Gene C.:
He is not sure, though, if it is the sight of our Lord that will purify us, or if we need to be purified before we get to see Him.

Peace,
Gene
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guess he is in LIMBO on that for now, huh
 
Gene C.:
Thanks to all for a healthy conversation!

Strangely enough, it was Dr. R.C. Sproul, the Calvinist philospher and teacher, who helped me come back to the Church by constantly espousing St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas as the two greatest thinkers of Christianity.

R.C. recently talked about the need for the believer to be purified before we can actually see God after death. He is not sure, though, if it is the sight of our Lord that will purify us, or if we need to be purified before we get to see Him.

Peace,
Gene
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Gene C:

The Scriptures and the Church leave that open.

Get him to talk…

Remember the three scriptures I posted. One comes from Fr. Fessio (I’m a convert) and two from an apologist friend of mine.

Right now, it’s NOT all that important that he agree about the name, Just that he understand the need for the process and agree that it’s in the Bible.

Once he’s there, and he understands that he’s there, you can then show him how the Church describes it. Remember, we don’t know how well we understand our doctrines until we have to describe them withut using the normal words that we’d use to describe them.

I think you’ll be amazed at just how much you’ll learn by having to do that.

In Christ, Michael
 
Rev. 15:2-3

Hi Micheal with all respect you are reading your doctrine into the text, because the text is not literal. The key words, appears, like, and so on…

As for purification, most protestants who understand the bible have no problem with that. It is the claim that it is a third place that is rejected.

And, we will simply have to disagree.
 
Daniel Marsh:
Rev. 15:2-3

Hi Micheal with all respect you are reading your doctrine into the text, because the text is not literal. The key words, appears, like, and so on…

As for purification, most protestants who understand the bible have no problem with that. It is the claim that it is a third place that is rejected.

And, we will simply have to disagree.
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Daniel:

Protestants, esp. Dispensationalists, take the Apocalypse of St. John pretty literally. Are you saying that those people who take the Apocalypse as a statement of things to come or as a styatement about the realities which exists in heaven and elsewhere are wrong?

Because otherwise, this is the plainest sense of that Scripture as well as the other 2 I listed. I understand that you don’t like the Doctrine as you’ve heard it described. I also understand that many Anglicans were quite shocked when the then Fr, John Neuman, Vicor of Oxford wrote the following:

VII. Remarks on certain Passages of the Thirty-nine Articles
(Being No. 90 of the Tracts for the Times.)
newmanreader.org/works/viamedia/volume2/tract90/

It probably is wrong to think of Purgatory as a Place, but correct to think of it as a STATE where God does a PROCESS of Purification so that we can be made ready to that which would have struck Moses dead. But," he said, “you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” Exodus 33:20 RSV

Would that help you to accept the Doctrine if you could see this as a STATE in Which we are purified so we can fully enjoy heaven and God’s presence?

Why else do you think the Early Church prayed for the Dead?

In Christ, Michael
 
I used to be a Baptist teacher and preacher. And as i look back on my former position on this subject about purgatory, I saw purgatory basically impossible, because I viewed the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross exempting me from any punishment of my sins. I had believed that once I put my faith in Christ, faith alone that is, that all my sins past, present and future were completely washed away by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I can look back on that and point out many of the doctrinal errors I held. I rejoice now that I have the one true Church with Her 2000 years of Tradition led by the Successors of the Apostles!
 
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