This morning during a Bible study that was looking at James 2, with regard to the concept of “faith without works is dead,” our Lutheran pastor made a comment about what was going on in the time of Martin Luther. He said that during Luther’s time the emphasis was heavily on the role of works in salvation. He said that they acknowledged the power of God for forgiving sins during redemption, but that one still had to work to take care of sins committed AFTERwards. That’s why they were big into indulgences and that’s why they invented Purgatory, so that people would spend hundreds or thousands of years there, working through the penalty for sins committed that Jesus didn’t save them from. And that’s if they didn’t keep sinning while they were there.

I found his statements disturbing and I decided right then to look into the teachings of the Church throughout history and find out just when Purgatory was “invented” and if it was possible to keep sinning there.

The first place I would look would be Scripture. Many Protestants today say that the only place in Scripture that the doctrine of Purgatory is referenced is in the Apocrypha, but you can’t discount that, because up to the time of the Reformation, the Apocrypha was considered part of the Old Testament.

This site gives us LOTS of references from the New Testament that talk about the concepts involved in Purgatory. Concepts like purification after death by fire and a place of suffering and forgiveness after death that’s not heaven. I won’t copy all the verses that are there, since they’ve already done the work. A few aren’t quoted, so you might want to visit BibleGateway to look them up. Some are indirect or symbolic, but others are more clear.

Looking at writings that exist from the first few centuries A.D., I’ve found several references (A.D. 160, 190, 202, 210, 216, 244) to praying for the dead, even dead believers, and descriptions of Christians being purified by fire for a time before entering Heaven. The Early Church Fathers on Purgatory presents an easy-to-read collection of quotes from Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, and more.

Clearly this concept was not invented during the Reformation nor by Pope Gregory in the 8th century. There are way too many references to Purgatory by the third century. So was the idea of Purgatory invented? Is it traditional? What’s the purpose of Purgatory? I’d always thought of it as a place where you got punished for sins, but I’d always been taught that all of our sins are forgiven through Christ’s work on the cross and that that covers ALL of our sins, past and future.

The basic definition of Purgatory is a state for those who have died and are bound for Heaven, but cannot yet enter because they are not pure. That is, they “have unrepented venial sins, have not fully expiated their mortal and venial sins (i.e. received temporal punishment), and/or still have attachments to things in this world (through sin) that take them away from God.” Revelation 21:27 says that “nothing unclean will enter Heaven.” 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 talks about how Jesus has laid the foundation but then men build on that foundation through what they do in their lives. Fire will test the quality of each person’s works, and the quality things will survive the test. Verse 15 says “If it [what he has built] is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”

So Purgatory is a place of cleansing on the way to an eternal destiny of joy in heaven. It’s not a place for people to get a second chance at salvation. But sin does have consequences, even when it’s forgiven. This is where Purgatory comes in.

“Christians have believed in the Purgatory from the earliest times, which can be seen in the writings of the early Church. There wasn’t any serious opposition to the doctrine until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century. The opposition is the result of a misunderstanding of what Purgatory really is.

Most Protestants would agree that unrepented sin cannot be brought into Heaven and that we must be sanctified before we enter it. This purification would occur instantly upon death. They have not given a name for this purification process, but Catholics call it Purgatory.”

We are also encouraged to pray for souls in Purgatory, that their stay be shortened and they be admitted to Heaven. Prayers for the dead are found throughout the Church Fathers, in all the Catholic liturgies by the 4th century, and even engraved on the tombs of Christians from the first few centuries.

For more information, including explanations, Scripture proofs, and history, visit Holy Souls Online or the Prayers for the Dead and Purgatory articles from The Catholic Encyclopedia.

Summary: Whether or not you believe in it, Purgatory has apparently been taught by the Catholic Church since the beginning. There is enough evidence from the first few centuries to prove that the early Christians believed in it and it wasn’t invented later on. The theory behind it seems sound enough when you just look at the references and take them at face value. I think that proof of it is found more in the traditional teaching of the Church than in Scripture alone. But at the very least, I’d have to say that my pastor was wrong about it.

[tags]purgatory, catholicism, religion, christianity, church history[/tags]