08/15/2022 – “Is Purgatory in the Bible?” (primary and a supporting article attached) / Quo Vadis?
Greetings! For those of you who don’t know, I was an active Roman Catholic for roughly a decade of my young adult life, my father’s denomination. I had been baptised and raised as a Missouri Synod Lutheran, the denomiation of my mother. So, “one in the body of Christ”, but there are legitimate reasons why we worship in different worship centers. I submit that neither theology on purgatory nor the rapture are examples of legitimate reasons. How so? But they aren’t insignificant either.
So, I should be a fairly effective Christian apologist , for I have spent much of life studying it. As a subset of that, I should also be an effective catholic denomination apologist as well. One body in Christ: Both Roman Catholics and Missouri Synod Lutherans believe we can only be saved through the substituionary atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (grace alone). No one can enter the gates for being a “good” person. So, that is not under question here , when we look at the question of purgatory. So, once we see that, we shouldn’t seek to divide the one body of Christ, keeping in mind there are too many self professed christian churches that just aren’t christian anymore, not least of which are denominations with a faithful testimony going back to our nation’s founding.
So, even though I can hold my own in Catholic denomiation apologetics, I never accepted that purgatory existed, at least until now. So with 1 Corinthians 3: 11-15 plus the early church father’s writings on the subject (see article links below) , I have turned to leaning on the other side. In my mind, both purgatory and the belief in the rapture can certainly be “inferred” from His Word, but the case is weak. And in both cases, I don’t believe I am going to be turned away from the gates of heaven for being wrong on either of those questions.
So, how is significant then?
I will address that through my early reading of “How to be Holy” by Peter Kreeft, our upcoming group study dialogue through this blog. Chapter 14 is titled: “Holiness is Easy”. A quote from “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life” by William Law was dead on I reluctantly thought was dead on: “if we examine ourselves with honesty we will discover; only one reason why we are not as holy as the saints: because we do not wholly want to be.”
So, I am going to posit two premises that I believe apply to both purgatory and rapture acceptance:
Premise; “If I believe in purgatory, I am more likely to examine myself.”
Why? There was an early Christian heresy, Antinomianism, that tried to convince people they could go on living and sinning just like they were before they became Christians. Paul addresses this in Romans 3:8. So, if I believe in purgatory, I have a personal stake, albeit selfish, in this. Does it matter whether or not I go to heaven to experience the unfathomable joy, without going through purgatory? That is much more likely to get me to the place where I need to be: “that the thought of sin is abbhorent, for it would grieve the Holy Spirit. This is a natural progression in the sanctificatiion process of a redeemed believer.
Only God can measure a heart. The fear of the Lord comes over me with the realization if a life long self professed Christian 1) is not fired up about witnessing to future Christians or 2) does not desire to be holy as in: “sorry, doesn’t interest me.”; then such a person is probably not yet saved themselves. Key note: The good deeds cannot save you, but the fact you are fully motivated in those deeds is evidence that you are indeed saved. So is that significant? Or , is it a crazy thought on my part, thereby ignore it?
Here is the similarity to the rapture belief: If you just have no clue which side is right, wouldn’t it be better to grab onto: “No rapture.” Why? If I grab on whole heartedly to the rapture belief, am I not more likely to spend my time on the sofa waiting to get beemed up , and out of this worldly mess? Am I not less likely to embrace the belief that in this worldly mess, the kingdom of God is here and now, and He is calling us to fight to glorify Him and fulfill our most important mission we were born for? So , a similar premise again for the rapture belief:
I am more likely to be actively engaged as a Christian warrior if I don’t believe in the rapture going forward.
Again, selfishly speaking at least originally, if I am facing the possibility of living through the tribulation period just before end times, aren’t I more likely to be engaged in fighting against Satan’s minions. This assumes even that I accept God’s promise in His Word that the remnant Church will never be defeated. Suddenly, I have no choice, I am in the midst of the heat of the battle.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-purgatory-in-the-bible
https://www.catholicfidelity.com/apologetics-topics/purgatory/the-early-church-fathers-on-purgatory/
SolI Deo Gloria!