Why don't Protestants believe in purgatory?

[hausofferni]

I just don’t get it? Who is to say that we are even worthy of entering the kingdom of heaven, with our Perfect Heavenly Father? How dare anyone say and assume that we are going to heaven after we die, how are Protestants so certain? You have to be literally perfect to enter heaven, how are Protestants so sure they don’t need purgatory? Purgatory just makes perfect sense.

 

[Padres1969]

I just don’t get it? Who is to say that we are even worthy of entering the kingdom of heaven, with our Perfect Heavenly Father? How dare anyone say and assume that we are going to heaven after we die, how are Protestants so certain? You have to be literally perfect to enter heaven, how are Protestants so sure they don’t need purgatory? Purgatory just makes perfect sense.

Namely because Purgatory isn’t in the Protestant versions of the bible which exclude the deuterocanonical books. Since most of what is thought of as “Protestantism” believes in Sola Scriptura it wouldn’t make sense for them to believe in something that is correspondingly not in the bible and only viewed as something out of Catholic tradition.

That and purgatory was tied intimately with the idea of buying indulgences which is one of the key issues (and that the time abuses of the Catholic Church) that spurred the beginning of the Protestant reformation in the 1500’s.

 

[spedteacherita]

I just don’t get it? Who is to say that we are even worthy of entering the kingdom of heaven, with our Perfect Heavenly Father? How dare anyone say and assume that we are going to heaven after we die, how are Protestants so certain? You have to be literally perfect to enter heaven, how are Protestants so sure they don’t need purgatory? Purgatory just makes perfect sense.

Christ is our Advocate, our Propitiation for our sin. When He breathed His last breath on the cross the curtain was torn in half from top to bottom signifying that we no longer have to have anyone other than Christ’s atoning sacrifice. I don’t believe in OSAS as some may think but I am constantly repenting of my sin - daily, hourly, by the minute or the second…not one of us are perfect in God’s sight without Christ advocating for us.

 

[Wannano]

Christ is our Advocate, our Propitiation for our sin. When He breathed His last breath on the cross the curtain was torn in half from top to bottom signifying that we no longer have to have anyone other than Christ’s atoning sacrifice. I don’t believe in OSAS as some may think but I am constantly repenting of my sin - daily, hourly, by the minute or the second…not one of us are perfect in God’s sight without Christ advocating for us.

Exactly, well said. Reminds me of a hymn we used to sing:

Moment by moment were kept in His love,
Moment by moment there’s life from above,
Looking to Jesus 'til glory doth shine,
Moment by moment, Oh Lord I am Thine.

 

[SyroMalankara]

I just don’t get it? Who is to say that we are even worthy of entering the kingdom of heaven, with our Perfect Heavenly Father? How dare anyone say and assume that we are going to heaven after we die, how are Protestants so certain? You have to be literally perfect to enter heaven, how are Protestants so sure they don’t need purgatory? Purgatory just makes perfect sense.

Some do - mostly Catholic-oriented Anglicans, very few Lutherans, and Baptist seminary professor Dr Jerry Walls:

articles.latimes.com/1995-10-20/news/ls-59038_1_intermediate-state
patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2010/09/protestant-purgatory/
firstthings.com/article/2002/04/purgatory-for-everyone

 

[ComplineSanFran]

… purgatory was tied intimately with the idea of buying indulgences which is one of the key issues (and that the time abuses of the Catholic Church) that spurred the beginning of the Protestant reformation in the 1500’s.

I think if you ask a dozen Calvinistic or Reformed Protestants what they think of purgatory, most will shudder. The remnants of the Reformation hold strong today, and I believe it’s all tied to the abuses. Plus, didn’t it become doctrine in the late 15th c, just before the Reformation?

 

[SyroMalankara]

I think if you ask a dozen Calvinistic or Reformed Protestants what they think of purgatory, most will shudder. The remnants of the Reformation hold strong today, and I believe it’s all tied to the abuses. Plus, didn’t it become doctrine in the late 15th c, just before the Reformation?

LOL, maybe the term - the theology is from the Apostles.

 

[SAVINGRACE]

'This seems so simple. Its common sense. Scripture is very clear when it says, “But nothing unclean shall enter [heaven]” (Rev. 21:27). Hab. 1:13 says, “You [God]… are of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wrong…”

How many of us will be perfectly sanctified at the time of our deaths? How many unconfessed venial sins (thoughts/words/deeds) will we have at the time of our death? I dare say most of us will be in need of further purification in order to enter the gates of heaven after we die, if, please God, we die in a state of grace.

In light of this, the truth about Purgatory is almost self-evident to Catholics. However, to many Protestants this is one of the most repugnant of all Catholic teachings. It represents “a medieval invention nowhere to be found in the Bible.” It’s often called “a denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice.” It is said to represent “a second-chance theology that is abominable.”

Rejecting the inspiration and canonicity of the Book of Maccabees does not negate its historical value. Maccabees aids us in knowing, purely from an historical perspective at the very least, the Jews believed in praying and making atonement for the dead shortly before the advent of Christ. This is the faith in which Jesus and the apostles were raised. And it is in this context Jesus declares in the New Testament:

"And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come "(Matthew 12:32, emphasis added).

This declaration of our Lord implies there are at least some sins that can be forgiven in the next life to a people who already believed it. If Jesus wanted to condemn this teaching commonly taught in Israel, he was not doing a very good job of it according to St. Matthew’s Gospel.’ - Tim Staples

catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/is-purgatory-in-the-bible

 

[10gr8kids]

Christ is our Advocate, our Propitiation for our sin. When He breathed His last breath on the cross the curtain was torn in half from top to bottom signifying that we no longer have to have anyone other than Christ’s atoning sacrifice. I don’t believe in OSAS as some may think but I am constantly repenting of my sin - daily, hourly, by the minute or the second…not one of us are perfect in God’s sight without Christ advocating for us.

I have heard this meaning about the temple veil being torn many times. Can you please tell me where I can find this in Scripture? I have never been able to find it. Or is it just an opinion of what it means? Michelle Arnold one time had an article and she gave a different analogy for this. Here is the link to the article, I found it very interesting.

catholic.com/blog/michelle-arnold/the-ripping-of-the-veil

 

[Techno2000]

I have heard this meaning about the temple veil being torn many times. Can you please tell me where I can find this in Scripture? I have never been able to find it. Or is it just an opinion of what it means? Michelle Arnold one time had an article and she gave a different analogy for this. Here is the link to the article, I found it very interesting.

catholic.com/blog/michelle-arnold/the-ripping-of-the-veil

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” Matthew 27:50-51

 

[SyroMalankara]

Besides, the salvation of those in the purgatorial state is entirely due to Christ’s incarnation, sacrifice and resurrection.

 

[Mumbles140]

CS Lewis was a firm believer in the idea of Purgatory, writing his allegory “The Great Divorce” about the concept. Granted, he was a high Anglican and pretty keen on some Catholic ideas (i.e. confession to a priest), but he fits the bill of a Protestant believing in Purgatory.

 

[GKC]

CS Lewis was a firm believer in the idea of Purgatory, writing his allegory “The Great Divorce” about the concept. Granted, he was a high Anglican and pretty keen on some Catholic ideas (i.e. confession to a priest), but he fits the bill of a Protestant believing in Purgatory.

You can find Lewis referring to Purgatory on a number of occasions, including in some of his private letters. In the latter part of his life, he was moving toward the Anglo-Catholic side of the Anglican spectrum (not necessarily the high church, strictly speaking). The most often cited instance of this being in his LETTERS TO MALCOLM. I said (in one of a number of places on this subject):

*Lewis did accept the concept of Purgation, as it is often thought of in Anglicanism; a process/event, not necessarily a place. And though one must be cautious in attributing anything the narrator “says”, in MALCOM, since the letters are constructs, epistolary exposition that does not necessarily always reflect Lewis directly, in this case, it does.

His quarrel with what he considered the classic 16th century concept of Purgatory, as something the reformation had released believers from, can be found in his ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, in a discussion of Fisher’s concept of Purgatory (p. 163); that for Fisher, the pains of Purgatory were less purgative than retributive and, more directly, More’s concept in THE SUPPLICATION OF SOULS, discussed pp. 172-173. “This sort of thing, among others, was what the old religion had come to mean in the popular imagination during the reign of Henry VIII: this was one of the things a man left behind in becoming a Protestant”. He also discusses his views on Purgatory in the GREAT DIVORCE, putting his thoughts into George MacDonald’s mouth.
Lewis was a believer in Purgation, all the same.*

 

[ComplineSanFran]

CS Lewis was a firm believer in the idea of Purgatory, writing his allegory “The Great Divorce” about the concept. Granted, he was a high Anglican and pretty keen on some Catholic ideas (i.e. confession to a priest), but he fits the bill of a Protestant believing in Purgatory.

But Anglicans are not really Protestant – much more the via media, especially high church. You still might want to look at Bishop Tom Wright’s non-acceptance of purgatory and his reasons.

ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Rethinking_Tradition.htm

“Some still appeal to the Bible in support of purgatory, but they appeal in vain. There is a famous passage in 2 Maccabees 12.39-45 where some who have died in battle are found to have been secret idolaters, whereupon Judas Maccabeus and his followers offer prayers and sacrifices on their behalf to make sure that they will come to share in the resurrection. This passage does indeed envisage an intermediate state: the resurrection has not yet happened, and some who (it was hoped) would attain it were found to have committed sin that had not yet been atoned for. But this isn’t ‘getting out of purgatory’; it’s a matter of ensuring that, though all alike are in the intermediate state, these ones will rise again (not ‘go to heaven’, we note) to enjoy God’s new world when it comes. The books of the Maccabees are, of course, in the Apocrypha; but the early Christians would in any case have replied that ‘the blood of Jesus, God’s son, cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1.7). If any retrospective action were needed, it would be, at the most, baptism for those who had died unbaptized, though the single passage where that strange practice is mentioned (1 Corinthians 15.29) continues to be much disputed. Attempts to find other proof-texts are unconvincing at best and embarrassingly fanciful at worst.”

 

[littlestsouls2]

Father Monsabre wrote the following words: “Its principles regarding justification led Protestantism to deny the dogma of purgatory. Man, saved by faith alone, by the merits of Christ, without relation to his own deeds, need fear nothing from divine justice. Divine justice must acknowledge his audacious and imperturbable conscience in the redemptive virtue of Him whose merits he exploits, even though he himself may have violated all the commandments. The negation which follows from these principles, invented to shield the wicked, is as odious as it is absurd. It is unintelligent and barbarous, for nothing is more conformable to reason than the doctrine of the Church on purgatory, and nothing is more consoling for the heart.” (Quoted in ‘Life Everlasting’ by Rev. Garrigou-Lagrange)

 

[Augustine3]

I think if you ask a dozen Calvinistic or Reformed Protestants what they think of purgatory, most will shudder. The remnants of the Reformation hold strong today, and I believe it’s all tied to the abuses. Plus, didn’t it become doctrine in the late 15th c, just before the Reformation?

The dogma was defined in the year 1254 AD at the first council of Lyon. However the Catholic Church has always taught the doctrine of Purgatory as evidenced by the Early Church Fathers below.

catholic.com/tracts/the-roots-of-purgatory

 

[10gr8kids]

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” Matthew 27:50-51

I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I knew where this verse was, I’m wondering about the reason the veil was torn that was given; where is this found in the Bible?

 

[spedteacherita]

Exactly, well said. Reminds me of a hymn we used to sing:

Moment by moment were kept in His love,
Moment by moment there’s life from above,
Looking to Jesus 'til glory doth shine,
Moment by moment, Oh Lord I am Thine.

Amen!! Thanks for sharing!

 

[spedteacherita]

LOL, maybe the term - the theology is from the Apostles.

Where can we find this theology from the Apostles? I’m curious because I’ve not seen it in the Word of God.

Blessings!

Rita

 

[eazyduzit]

Where can we find this theology from the Apostles? I’m curious because I’ve not seen it in the Word of God.

Blessings!

Rita

I’d like to see it too. From what i know, the apostles taught that Christ himself purged (purgation) our sins. Heb.1:3 ,2Pt1:9 etc.