Here’s one “Therefore (Judas Maccabeus)made atonement for the dead,that they might be delivered from their sins.”Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice,why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.

Check out this article: http://www.aboutcatholics.com/life_in_c … purgatory/

[quote:3g9hs1jp]This is the only verse not taken out of context. Yes, only those who are made pure in Christ Jesus through his sacrifice will be in heaven. This verse does NOT support purgatory.[/quote:3g9hs1jp]
Could you please explain to me what you believe purgatory is? Because you just admitted that purgation exists and then denied it in the next breath.

[quote:3g9hs1jp]If God knew we could just go to purgatory for a while, why would Jesus have had to die?[/quote:3g9hs1jp]
And this confirms what you said in the other thread about not knowing anything about Catholicism.

So please explain purgatory to me and then I will correct where you are mistaken.

Except you admitted that purgation exists in your last post.

So please explain what you think purgatory means, as I can tell you now that it differs substantially from the Catholic teaching.

Lets look at Purgatory
This issue is a major stumbling block for many non-Catholis, especially Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Catholic tradations of purgatory(a temporary state or process of purification,carried out by God’s fiery love on the soul of a person who dies in the state of grace and is destined for heaven).First the doctrine of purgatory was not “invented” by Catholics in the eleventh or twelfth century,as some Protestants and others erroneously assume.This ancient Christian teaching,that there is a process of purification that the souls of some of those who die in the state of friendship with God (Romans 11:22,and 1 Corinthians 3:10-15).When Christians on earth(as well as those in heaven)pray for the souls in purgatory,it is one way in which we live out our commandment from the Lord(John 13:34, 15:12 Romans 13:.The early Church clearly understood the Apostles teaching on purgatory.

[quote:miqhaxib]Umm, are you implying that Protestants and Jehova’s Witnesses are in the same camp? I pray not[/quote:miqhaxib]
In the same camp only insofar as neither group is Catholic and both groups frequently enter into apologetical discussion with Catholics.

But I believe he mentions them separately by name in order to draw a distinction. Because of their rejection of one of our most basic and defining doctrines, JWs are not reckoned as Christians by the Church.

[quote:1gwtnree]When Christ died, he did not merely cover our sins, he ERASED them as far as the east is from the west. [/quote:1gwtnree]
So…you don’t sin?

I think their is a problem in understanding purgatory. Catholic theology argues that purgatory (state after death) is God’s way of pardoning all sins (I think so). Herkmen on the other hand as not being Catholic finds this doctrine wrong because God’s grace of salvation (blood of Christ) = immediate cleansing, or at least in some Evangelical circles, that once a Christian dies, he or she will enter heaven without the need of purgatory. Most Evangelicals deny the doctrine of purgatory because to them it is one of those “extra-biblical” doctrines (rosary, Mary, and other things they struggle with coming to grips with in Catholic practice).

[quote:32l5rnxw]I think their is a problem in understanding purgatory.[/quote:32l5rnxw]
Absolutely. That is why I asked herkman to explain purgatory to me as he understands it. Because based on what he has said, he has a different understanding than what the Church teaches.

[quote:32l5rnxw]Catholic theology argues that purgatory (state after death) is God’s way of pardoning all sins (I think so).[/quote:32l5rnxw]
Close. You cannot get into purgatory (a state, not a place) unless you are already on the way to heaven. Everyone who enters purgatory is destined to enter heaven. What purgatory does is removes all the last stains of sin, all the little inclinations we have that lead us to sin in our life even after our baptism and conversion to Christ. We know that, because we sin after we convert, some imperfection remains. These imperfections are removed in purgatory.

[quote:32l5rnxw]Herkmen on the other hand as not being Catholic finds this doctrine wrong because God’s grace of salvation (blood of Christ) = immediate cleansing, or at least in some Evangelical circles, that once a Christian dies, he or she will enter heaven without the need of purgatory.[/quote:32l5rnxw]
I find that even these Evangelicals, when you put the facts before them and make them think about it, admit that there is some kind of cleansing that must happen between life and heaven. That cleansing is purgatory. However, because they only learn half of purgatory (and usually distortions cast in a negative light at that), they refuse to acknowledge that cleansing as being the same as purgatory (as herkman objected above).

Catholics have long spoken of purgatory in terms of time, saying that doing X will require Y years in purgatory or some such. This is not necessary in the theology of purgatory but simply a way for laymen to grasp the concept. Purgatory could very well last for only the barest of split seconds.

[quote:32l5rnxw]Most Evangelicals deny the doctrine of purgatory because to them it is one of those “extra-biblical” doctrines (rosary, Mary, and other things they struggle with coming to grips with in Catholic practice).[/quote:32l5rnxw]
On the ball once again. When I started reading about Catholicism, I found there were things I objected to without even knowing what they were. It seems hardwired into some sects of Protestantism to oppose things simply because they are Catholic. At some point, the opposition of the Reformation became merely habit.