Sin; The Basis for Purgatory

What exactly is purgatory and where did the teaching of purgatory come from?

"Purgatory (Lat., "purgare", to make clean, to purify) in accordance with Catholic teaching is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.

The faith of the Church concerning purgatory is clearly expressed in the Decree of Union drawn up by the Council of Florence (Mansi, t. XXXI, col. 1031), and in the decree of the Council of Trent which (Sess. XXV)defined:

"Whereas the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has from the Sacred Scriptures and the ancient tradition of the Fathers taught in Councils and very recently in this Ecumenical synod(Sess. VI, cap. XXX; Sess. XXII cap.ii, iii) that there is a purgatory, and that the souls therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar;

The Catholic doctrine of purgatory supposes the fact that some die with smaller faults for which there was no true repentance, and also the fact that the temporal penalty due to sin is at times not wholly paid in this life."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12575a.htm


A person's view on whether or not there is a place we call "purgatory" depends on their knowledge of the Scriptures and also on their understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Having been brought up in the Catholic faith I believed in purgatory. But, when I studied the Scriptures for myself (which I encourage everyone to do) I could no longer subscribe to the idea of purgatory. I hope to lay out here in clear terms why I believe purgatory is not scriptural and I encourage readers to look up the Scriptures to gain a greater understanding for themselves. As Christians it is important for each person to know not only what they believe but why they believe it. As adults, it is not really acceptable for our beliefs about God to be based merely on what we were taught it as children or on what our parents, grandparents or even friends believe. We are each called to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord. (2 Peter 3:18) Each of us is called to a personal relationship with God through Jesus and as in all relationships, we have to do our part to learn and grow. It is through the knowledge of God that grace and peace are multiplied to us. (2 Peter 1:2)

Who was Jesus? Was He sinless?
So let's begin by understanding some basics about our Savior.  He is our foundation and everything else we believe is built upon that foundation.(1 Cor. 3:11 ) Historically there has been a lot of disagreement about who Jesus was. Was He really fully human and fully man? This was a major point of contention among many in the early church.  Covering the history of that topic is not my intention here except to say that I am writing from the basis that Jesus was indeed fully human and fully man; that He was the Son of God in the flesh. This is important because as the Son of God, Jesus was perfect. He never sinned. Because of that important distinction, He was able to fulfill the Law that God set forth in the Old Testament that required a spotless lamb as a sacrifice for sin. (Ex. 12:5) Yet, He was also human. Because of that He is able to understand all that we go through; all that we struggle with, and therefore He has great compassion on us.(Heb. 5:7) But, He did not have the fallen sin nature that all human beings are born with. He had no earthly father but was rather He was conceived by Mary through the Holy Spirit, clothed in human flesh by the Holy Spirit and empowered to do all that He did by the Holy Spirit of God.

So while we can be assured that Jesus was sinless, we know that there is nor ever has been any other human being who is sinless. There are people who seem to be very kind, giving and caring. Yet at some point they will sin. And sin is the basis for the idea that a place called purgatory must exist.

What is sin?
The topic of sin is not very popular these days. Certainly people outside of church circles do not talk about "sin". Yet it is clear to anyone who reads the news that there is something wrong with humanity. And what is wrong is that every person is born with a sin nature; that is, we are all sinners by nature. (Romans 3:10) A little child does not need to be taught to sin, but needs to be taught to NOT sin. Now a person might think, if sinning is natural to us and we can't help it that we sin, then why would God condemn anyone for the sin they commit? Is it fair for God to condemn us for doing things that are natural for us to do? And is it sufficient for a person to do good works to recompense for our wrong doings, or at least acknowledge and be sorry for the wrong we do? Along these lines, the question of purgatory comes in. Will we be required to suffer for either known or unknown sins in order to "fully pay the satisfaction due to our transgressions" (as written in the above statement from the New Advent Catholic web site) in a special place that God has prepared for us so that we can be purged from our sin and be made suitable to be in the presence of a holy God ? 

Once a person truly understands the Gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, it will become clear that we can not suffer enough to make ourselves pure and holy and suitable to be in the presence of God. We can not be our own sacrifice because we are not sinless, and God requires a sinless sacrifice. Only Jesus fills the requirement. Our zeal for God and a desire to do right are not sufficient to save us because zeal and desires alone can not rid us of our nature. A person can be zealous for God but not be submitted to Him or attain a relationship with Him. (Romans 10:3) We will find ourselves crying as Paul did, Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24)

So, what exactly is sin? Believe it or not the topic of sin is simple yet it can also be complicated. Some things that used to be considered sin are not considered sin any longer in this day and age. Also, we see in Scripture that one of the 10 commandments is, "You shall not bear false witness." Yet when the midwives lied and told Pharaoh that the Hebrew women gave birth before they could arrive to help and therefore they were not able to kill the Hebrew baby boys, God approved of their "false witness" and it was not considered to be sin. (Ex. 1:19,20) Do the 10 commandments cover every type of sin? And if we keep all 10, will we have met all that God requires of us? Of course, many people today believe that there is only one commandment that matters to us today, and that commandment is to "love others".(John 15:12) So if we just love everybody, does that make us sinless in God's sight?

According to Strong's Concordance, the Greek word translated "sin" is hamartano which means "to miss the mark; to err." Immediately this would lead a person to ask, "What mark?" The mark is the standard that God requires; it is God's law. God is the Lawgiver and His laws apply to all of mankind; not just to the Church, and not just to Israel, but to everyone. God determines what "sin" is. He has told us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves. God also requires our obedience. He has also told us to love our enemies. No doubt we have failed to properly love God with all our hearts, failed to love our neighbor at times, failed to obey God's general as well as personal requirements and failed to love our enemies at some time or other in our lives. We miss the mark. We all have missed the mark.

Another word we find in the Scriptures that describes sin, the Greek word, "parabaino," is translated as "transgression." Strong's Concordance says that parabaino means "to go contrary to. . . i.e. to violate a command." As stated above, we have all violated God's commands at one time or another. According to Vines Expository Dictionary, Huperbaino means, "lit., to go over," i.e. "of overstepping the limits separating chastity from licentiousness, sanctification from sin," (used in 1 Thess. 4:6)    

And still another word connected to the idea of sin is the Greek word, "anomia" which means, "illegality; violation of law." Anomia is translated as "transgression" in some verses where it speaks of transgressing the law. According to Vines Expository Dictionary, Anomia means, "without law (a - negative) and is translated as "transgressors" in Luke 22:37. To be sure, Paul wrote to the Galatians, "Cursed is everyone that continues not in ALL things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them." (Gal. 3:10) When we commit "anomia" by violating even one of God's laws we are transgressors and we become cursed. The good news is that, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. . . " (Gal. 3:13) The Galatians had heard about Jesus and gladly received Him as their Savior, but then - as so many people do even today - they thought they needed to keep laws in order to be justified in God's sight. But, as Paul told them, "No man is justified by the law in the sight of God. . . but, the just shall live by faith!" (Gal. 3:11)

And yet another word is "paraptoma." This is translated as "trespasses." It means "a side slip, deviation, lapse. Unintentional error or willful transgression." According to Vines, it means, "primarily a false step, a blunder; denotes a deviation from uprightness and truth." Vines notes that, "In Gal. 6:1 the word is translated as "fault" . . .  the reference is to 'the works of the flesh' that are listed in 5:19 and the thought is that of the believer's being found off his guard, the trespass taking advantage of him. . . " But in James 5:16 the word, "faults" is hamartias. Vines notes that, "auricular confession to a priest is not in view here or anywhere else in Scripture; the command is comprehensive, and speaks either of the acknowledgment of sin where one has wronged another, or of the unburdening of a troubled conscience to a godly brother whose prayers will be efficacious, or of open confession before a church."

Because God is perfect and Holy, sin is burned up in His presence. No man could stand in His presence because man is a sinner by nature. But the good news is that God has made a way for men and women to be freed from that sinful nature; to be made into new creatures that have a new nature and whereby we can become His children and live in His presence. (2 Cor. 5:17) This is good news, indeed! Yet so many of God's children, so many even in the Church do not understand how this is done and how it applies to our everyday lives. So many in the Church are held captive to the sin nature and find themselves unable to obtain victory over it, as the Apostle Paul wrote about in Romans 7:19. Many struggle with addictions and with various types of sin. Many have never been taught how to apply the Good News to their daily lives and have never experienced the power of the Gospel to set them free. Too many of God's children are unable to live a life of victory over sin and the sin nature. As pastor and evangelist Jimmy Swaggart learned (after having struggled with the sin nature and falling and having his sin be broadcast publicly) that there is one answer to the sin nature, and one alone. And the answer is found in the cross of Jesus and what He did thereon. He had tried for years to overcome the sin nature and failed time and time again. It is sad to say, but his story is not all that unusual. How can a person overcome sin? Sadly, it seems that many churches never teach on this because the pastors do not know themselves. In the Catholic church it seems that their answer is that a person will more than likely have some kind of sin in their life when they die and will have to go to "purgatory" to be purified before being pure enough to stand before a holy God. So, basically they are saying that it is not possible to live a life of victory over sin. It is true that no person is able to attain sinless perfection in this life and we all fall into sin on occasion, but we should understand also that when a Christian receives a new nature from God, our old sinful nature becomes dormant - as long as we maintain our faith in the power of the Cross of Christ. Once we understand the sanctifying power of the Blood of Jesus and put our trust in it to save us, we can be saved not only at the time of our death but we are sanctified in our daily walk. Just as we have faith in Jesus for our eternal salvation, we are to have faith in Jesus for our daily sanctification.

The Catholic Church teaches that there are two general kinds of sin. One is "original sin," which is what I speak of here as the sin nature that every human being is born with. The Church teaches that there are also then sins that we commit - some of them may be grave sins and others may be minor. Some sins we knowingly commit and some we commit unknowingly. It is important to distinguish between "original sin" and sins we commit. The sin nature is the root cause of all other sin.

Dealing with the sin nature
There are generally 5 ways that people deal with the sin nature.

One is that they simply deny that they have a sin nature at all. By taking this stance, a person is actually calling God a liar (1 John 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.) This denial can take the form of excusing our sin. Many people think that their faults are just minor and not a big deal at all, even as at times we have heard people say, Well, I haven't killed anyone. They deny that they have a sin nature, seeing themselves as a basically "good person". Even if they are not perfect, they are good - in their estimation. But the Scripture tells us again in 1 John 1:8, "If we say we have no sin [sin nature], we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

Even some Christians are in denial about the sin nature in them. They read in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature  (creation); old things are passed away and all things are become new." They take this to mean that they no longer have a sin nature. I once held that view, but then what was I to make of it when I fell into some sin and "missed the mark"? As long as we live in this physical body, the sin nature is in us, but when a person becomes born again and is made into a new creation in Christ we receive a measure of the Holy Spirit and the sin nature in us is made dormant. We are told to not allow that old sin nature to dominate us any longer (Romans 6:12). If our faith is misplaced, that old sin nature can become active once again. Christians do sin. But our desire is to not sin because we now want to please God. When we do fall into sin we can confess our sin (to God as well as admitting it to ourselves and if need be confessing it to whomever we sinned against) and ask for forgiveness. The Scripture tells us that when we confess our sin, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive our sins AND to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

Another approach that people take in regard to sin is to remain ignorant about it. They simply don't understand the root of the problem and they do not understand the answer to the problem. Therefore they remain in their sin.

Others simply give sin license to operate. They might just say that what they are doing they do because it is their nature to do so. We see that today from many in the gay community. They claim that God made them gay, and therefore, since being gay is their "nature" then God approves of their acts. Others think that since grace is available, they can go ahead and do whatever they want to now, and ask for grace later. Evidently some in the early Church believed this because in Romans 6:1 Paul wrote, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? God forbid!" Apparently some thought they could continue to sin because then God could give more and more grace.

The fourth way people deal with the sin nature is to struggle with it. As written in the book, The Sin Nature by J. Swaggart, "Strangely enough, the 'struggle' with the sin nature applies, more than all, to Believers who are the most consecrated. They love the Lord supremely; therefore, to fail the Lord is a burden almost too heavy to bear. And yet, not knowing the Victory of the Cross, they are constantly failing the Lord, hence the constant struggle. In fact, most of these people are led to believe that this is what the Christian experience is - a daily struggle."

Since no person can overcome the sin nature by their own power, a Christian who struggles with sin might come to the conclusion that purgatory is the answer; the place where we can finally be purged from that sin we struggled with. But, as Swaggart said, it is "not knowing the Victory of the Cross," i.e., it is not knowing and understanding what Christ did at the Cross that causes us to think we have to struggle or suffer in order to become holy enough to enter Heaven. 

That leads us to the fifth and final way for us to deal with the sin nature, and that way is "grace". We receive God's grace - His unearned, undeserved favor, power and mercy - as we put our faith in what Jesus did on the Cross. Unfortunately, many churches do not teach much about what Jesus did there. It is talked about as a passing thing that somehow opened the way for us to go to heaven at the end of our lives, but it is not talked about as being of much help in living our daily lives. Therefore, too many Christians do not understand the truth (and how it applies to us today) of the Scripture that says, Therefore, we are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." (Eph. 2:19) We are- right now- citizens of heaven; members of the household of God.  And that is what will be the subject of the next blog!