- Introduction:
-The Roman Catholic Church defines purgatory as "purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” and for those “who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified” (CCC 1030). It is further maintained that, “this final purification of the elect...is entirely different from the punishment of the damned” (CCC 1031).
- Purgatory Denies The Sufficiency Of Christ's Sacrifice:
-The idea that we are able to atone for our sins undermines the message of the gospel. Christ made a sacrifice to save those who are unable to make amends for sin themselves. We cannot offer any atonement sacrifice for sins by suffering in purgatory or by offering indulgences because that debt has already been fully settled by Christ Himself on the cross. To suggest that we must pay the penalty for any sin even after it has been pardoned by God diminishes the efficacy of His atonement. That is a terribly inadequate and inconsistent view of forgiveness. It would be an insult against God to the highest degree to try to pay for even the smallest part of a debt that He has already paid in full. It is another way of saying that His work is not good enough for us. If we are forgiven for a sin and there is still some sort of punishment that we must endure in the afterlife, then we are not really forgiven.
- Does 1 Corinthians 3:15 Offer Biblical Support For Purgatory?:
- Does Matthew 12:31-32 Offer Biblical Support For Purgatory?:
- Does Matthew 5:25-26 Offer Biblical Support For Purgatory?:
- Does 2 Maccabees 12:39-46 Offer Biblical Support For Purgatory?:
- Some Eastern Orthodox sources, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate, consider Purgatory to be among:
- The Origin Of The Roman Catholic Dogma Of Purgatory:
-“...The written prayers which have survived, and the evidence from the catacombs and burial inscriptions indicate that the early church believed deceased Christians to be residing in peace and happiness and the nature of the prayers offered for them were that they might have a greater experience of these. As early as Tertullian, in the late second and beginning of the third century, these prayers often used the Latin term refrigerium as a request of God on behalf of departed Christians, a term which means ‘refreshment’ or ‘to refresh’ and came to embody the concept of heavenly happiness. So even though the early Church prayed for the dead, it does not support the concept of a purgatory for the nature of the prayers themselves indicate the Church did not believe the dead to be residing in a place of suffering. The roots on the teaching on purgatory can be traced back to pagan Greek religion and philosophy in such writings as the Roman poet Virgil's Aeneid and especially through the influence of Plato, whose views were introduced into the Church primarily through Origen...He was an influential promoter of purgation through suffering after death.” (William Webster, Roman Catholic Tradition: Claims and Contradictions, p. 63-64)
Purgatory is necessary for papists, otherwise how would they coerce their people into paying indulgences? I also examined (not quit in your detail) purgatory and indulgences:
ReplyDeletehttps://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2010/06/unbiblical-catholic-sin-purgatory-and.html