Two thoughts on the question of purgatory. First, man was created in the image and likeness of God. Straight from Genesis. God loves all men and desires all to return to Him. Man however, ruptured that relationship through an act of disobedience and can only return to God in a state of pure love, devoid of any sin and the stain of it. Some are capable of it. The martyrs, for example, who gave their lives for God. Also, when I was growing up I remember being told that Christ said, "greater love than this no man has then he lay his life down for a friend. So I ask the question, does a person, say a soldier for instance, who gives his life for his buddies by covering an explosive with his own body, qualify? And if he does, does his love for his buddies show a love that is so rich and magnificent to God, that there is no need for a final purification? That soldier wasn’t perfect, but his final action brought him back to the state of perfect love in which we were originally created,that negates any further need for purificationAnd if that is true, since most of us don’t reach this perfection of love in our lifetimes, and since God loves man so much that he desires all to be saved, doesn’t it stand to reason that there has to be some vehicle for God to remove those final vestiges of sin that would prohibit us from entering that kingdom where nothing impure can exist. Hence, a purging “fire”,- purgatory.
The second idea for me comes from an act performed by Christ himself; one that possibly prefigured purgatory for us all. At the Last Supper, before he consecrated the Eucharist, he took a basin of water and a towel, and washed the feet of His apostles. Washing the feet was an act of hospitality that cleansed the “taint” of the environment off the feet of the guest. Could this be a foreshadowing of purgatory (and infant baptism also)? That to be clean and worthy of inclusion in the house, a servant would wash the feet of the guest. When we arrive at the kingdom, without sin that prevents us from entering but still tainted by an environment of sin, does Jesus himself, (remember the quote, "I came to serve, not to be served?) wash the taint away. Does He purge the final vestiges of sin (unresolved grievances, sins of omission, things like that) from our souls so that we can become pure enough to stand before God’s throne?
Just a thought. It may not line up with the idea of a place or fire and an atmosphere of suffering for the residue of our sins, but it helps me understand better the richness behind the doctrine.
