Purgatory
One of the sillier things that Protestant christianity has done is to reject root and branch the idea of Purgatory. This was part of the whole Reformation rejection of Roman Catholic doctrine, owing to some nasty excesses and abuses that had arisen (and which were soundly addressed within the RC church by the Counter-Reformation). The reason that Purgatory got into trouble (as it were) was because of its association with the sale of indulgences – the idea that people’s souls were “stalled” in Purgatory and couldn’t be released until their sins had been paid for by the prayers and giving of those still living, and the suffering of the individual soul involved. Thus, people were forced to give more and more to the church under threat of suffering for their deceased friends and relatives. Not very nice.
However, the idea of Purgatory itself has almost nothing to do with this, nor with the Dantean idea of a garden where people wait to get into heaven. Indeed, if we look back at the roots of the idea, we find that not only is it entirely compatible with Protestant Christianity (as well as Catholic and Orthodox Christianity) but that it is almost inevitable as soon as we think seriously about what it means to die sinful but to be raised sinless.
The word “Purgatory” itself means essentially “the process of being purged”. That is, it’s a process of being refined, cleansed, of having our sinful nature taken away and replaced by the eternal, sinless nature of heaven. For the purposes of this discussion, I won’t initially be concerned with ideas of time and place – whether it’s a place we go to, or whether it happens simultaneously with death or resurrection; it will suffice to talk in general terms. Once we’ve got the groundwork established, we can think a little about the issues of particularity, but these are definitely subordinate issues and shouldn’t distract us from the larger truth.
So, what do we mean by Purgatory in this context? It simply encapsulates the truth that we all die sinful people – none of us are made perfect in this life, we all fall short of the glory of God. Even though Christians believe that Jesus has brought us forgiveness of our sins, we nonetheless continue to have a sinful nature. In other words, our body, mind and spirit (the whole being that is a human person) are still sick, broken and corrupted. However, Christians believe that, after we die, we will be raised to a life that is perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, and that we will have a new being that suffers none of the flaws of our Earthly being.
However, we have skipped over an important step – the transition from sinful to sinless beings. Something must happen to us to strip away the illusions, to mend all the broken parts, to heal the sick parts and to purify the corrupted parts. We must be purged of our sinfulness and rendered pure. This process is Purgatory – nothing added, nothing taken away. Simply the process of being purified. Now, this might happen simultaneously with being raised (associated directly with death and resurrection) or it might occur “afterwards” (however we perceive time then). It’s common among evangelicals, if they consider the matter at all, to believe that the former is true but we actually have more biblical evidence for the latter – in particular, that it will be associated with the judgement of humankind. (As a brief aside, it’s crucial to grasp that, for Israel and the early church, “judgement” was primarily about restoring justice to the poor and outcast, not about condemning lawbreakers. It should be understood as a positive thing, not a negative one, if possible.)
It’s important to realise that Purgatory has nothing to do with gaining forgiveness or paying the price of particular sins. As Christians, we believe that Jesus paid the price for us and gained us complete forgiveness. Rather, it’s about changing our nature. As I have posted previously, we must distinguish between the two, and one way to do so is to see sin in terms of relationship – a sinful act is one that harms our relationship with God, with each other or with the world. If we see this then we can also more easily see the difference between a sinful act and our sinful nature – for our nature is that sick and broken thing that causes us to perform those sinful acts. Our nature is the thing that is wounded by our own sins and the sins of others, the place where healthy relationships ought to spring from but that instead is a source of pain and harm. Purgatory, then, isn’t about paying for our sins but about changing our nature.
Whether we consider that it happens at death or aftwards, however, there is another issue to face, one that has always been associated with Purgatory but one that has not been popular among Protestant Christians (and perhaps especially not evangelical Christians). Pain. Our experience on Earth, in the life we know, is that the process of purgation (which we endure throughout life as we walk with Christ and are remade into His image) is associated with pain and loss. We do not like to lose those sinful parts of us, we resist their removal even as we want to see them gone. The healing medicine often tastes foul, and the side effects can be very uncomfortable. However, we expect that the discomfort is worth it, because we will be more whole, more healthy, afterwards, more like Jesus who is the author and perfecter of our faith. Why, then, would we expect this final purgation to be painless and easy? The only basis we have for guessing what it will be like is that it will involve pain and discomfort, whether it lasts but an instant or a long, long time.
There is one more issue here, which is one of appropriateness and awareness. Christians believe that, in heaven, we will see God face to face, be familiar with one another. But how could we face God, broken, ugly and sinful as we are now? We ought to desire to be perfect before we see God. And would it be real to us, would it be satisfactory, if this purity was totally free and without effort on our part? Would we not need some time for self-examination and self-discovery before it became real? And even if the purity was given as a free, painless gift, this self-examination would not be painless, because it requires that we face up to those things in us that were broken and sick, that we learn truly where we were wrong and where others were right, where we failed and where we should have succeeded.
If, then, we can accept that, at some point, we will receive a final purification (whether that is simultaneous with death or after it) and that this purification will be painful (whether that is directly because of the experience or through our self-examination after the event), what else should we call this but Purgatory? This is the historic teaching of the Church, this is what we inherit and this is what we need to believe – in the sense that it follows logically from our other beliefs and our human experiences, that it contradicts nothing that Jesus taught or that we learn in the Bible, and that it is indeed taught in the Bible itself both indirectly (in how it talks about sin and heaven) and directly (in how it talks about forgiveness, death, resurrection, judgement and the new Creation).
And the secondary issues of whether Purgatory happens at death or afterwards, whether its discomfort is instant or prolonged, and whether that discomfort arises from the experience itself or only our remembrance of it are truly secondary. They are less than many other issues that we accept as valid differences, because they concern matters about which we can know little by their very nature – because they will happen after death. And they in truth matter little, because they are talking about details of the process, not the nature, causes or effects of the process itself.
So, I would urge you to remember Purgatory, both the part we live through now and the part that is to come.
(_Various of the ideas in this article are due largely to C.S. Lewis, who was instrumental in my first taking Purgatory seriously myself._)
pax et bonum
Follow comments using Co.mments.com
Add to your del.icio.us bookmarks
Did u read Scott McKnight’s piece on protestant purgatory recently?
I guess that most who disagree would point to 1 Cor. 15:51-52.
graham () (URL)
8:42pm on 31 May 2005
Stephen () (URL)
02:04am on 01 June 2005
- Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” – 2 Cor. 5:8 says, “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” — apparently Paul understands that the believer will necessarily be with the Lord when he is away from the body. See also Phil. 1:23. – Stephen, in Acts, looked up and saw heaven opened, and, on his stoning, cried out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” The most straightforward reading is that he is convinced he is going straight to be with the Lord.
One of your central arguments seems to be that there must be some intermediate state where our sinful nature is stripped away and we are made perfect. It’s true that we are made perfect to enter into God’s presence — but I don’t see any way in which this requires an intermediate state. I suppose you may respond by saying that you have mentioned that it could be instantaneous — but if you’re saying it’s an instantaneous transition that happens together with death, why refer to it as purgatory? I also find your idea that it involves discomfort somewhat disturbing — Paul wrote on several occasions about looking ahead to his departure, desiring to depart and be with Christ. If he had to look ahead to something very uncomfortable I don’t see why this would be the case.
Ultimately, I see absolutely no Biblical evidence to support this, and so I find your argument rather unconvincing.
David M. () (URL)
02:23am on 01 June 2005
Yes, this is largely speculation. However, it has good roots. One of the first points I made was that this idea becomes inevitable as soon as we take seriously the idea of our sinless state in heaven – there must be a change. That much of Purgatory is completely inevitable and cannot be debated, surely? So, as I said, we must face a final purgation, which is all that Purgatory is.
As for the idea of discomfort or pain, I suggested two convincing (I believe) reasons why we should expect it not to be a picnic – our only experience of purgation (here on Earth) is painful and, even if the experience itself was miraculously easy and quick, our reflections on it would surely produce discomfort. However, I don’t insist on this, I merely suggest that it’s likely. These ideas also have no opposition in the Bible that I know of. They aren’t set out there, but many other things that we believe aren’t set out in the Bible, either (such as the idea of God as three coequal divine persons, sharing one divine nature but unconfused, or the idea that Jesus was perfectly Human and perfectly Divine, neither confused in His nature nor divided in His substance) – these are ideas that we derive by thinking about what is taught in the Bible and using our own understanding of God and the experience of other Christians to guide our thinking.
The texts that David quotes aren’t really apposite because they talk about different things. For example, “Today you will be with me in paradise” is clearly a metaphor – “today” is meaningless in eternity! At best, it means, “In your subjective perception of duration, it will be a short while before we are together in paradise.” (Also, this verse can legitimately be translated two ways, with no way to tell which is meant in the greek: “I tell you the truth – today you will be with me…” or “I tell you the truth today – you will be with me…”, which put quite different slants on the meaning.) Thus, it doesn’t address the process of purgation that the thief (no less than we) would have to go through.
More interesting are the two others (“We would rather be away from the body” and “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”) because they aren’t dealing at all with the idea of Purgatory or our going to heaven but with the idea of a division between the mind/soul and the body. And the Bible doesn’t teach such a division – Stephen’s cry wasn’t to say “take my spirit and leave my body” but “take myself”, in classic Jewish mode. Similarly, Paul isn’t saying that the body (as in, having a physical part to our beings) is to be left behind when we are in the new Creation, but about our sinful beings here on Earth (whether what we would describe as body or mind or soul) – that these are flawed now but that we will put on a new body in heaven (2 Cor 5:1-2, to place your verse in context). Similarly, your reference to Philippians doesn’t mean at all that we are to be disembodied spirits after we die – Paul is referring to his sinful, flawed being here on Earth. The problem with saying that the body is to be left behind is that it leads inevitably to the idea that the body is evil and the spirit good – a classic dualism that is foreign to the Bible and poisonous to Christianity. God created our bodies and said that they were good, and if we miss that then we will profoundly misunderstand the relationship between body, mind, soul and God.
Finally, I tried to be clear that the idea of an “intermediate” state isn’t at all what I’m proposing here. I’m talking about the process of purgation that must occur before we are perfect and see God face to face (and thus is implicit in every verse that talks about the purity of heaven and the resurrected saints). I don’t want to suggest (and explicitly disclaimed) the idea that we visit some intermediate garden to pay off our sins. Rather, I am reclaiming the idea that one of the important things that will happen to us after we die is that we will be finally and perfectly purified, remade into Christ’s likeness. This is what I mean by “Purgatory”, nothing more and nothing less.
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
10:28am on 01 June 2005
You won’t be surprised to know that ‘purgatory’ or ‘purgation’ is not something I have thought about. The last time I remember talking to someone about it was to a Catholic friend in 1983!
However, I suspect that such a category is unnecessary given a proper understanding of the resurrection. Paul speaks of his inner renewal in 2 Cor 4:16 in his ‘new creation’ experience. Of course he speaks of the outer renewal in his prospective bodily resurrection in 1 Cor 15. Thus restoration is consummated and complete.
As you noted in your post, ‘purgatory’ was certainly horribly abused in history. I put this down to the introduction of such unhelpful categories. To say that there is nothing in Scripture to prevent it is no guard against such error. Scrap purgatory and stick to resurrection, I say!
Anyway, I hesitate to get too involved in this – too many other plates to spin just now.
Stephen () (URL)
1:07pm on 01 June 2005
In an evangelical context, the word is unpopular. However, the process involved is implicit even in your description of Paul’s “inner” and “outer” renewal. My hope is that, by reclaiming the word, we will be able to think more clearly about the process involved both before and after death. Indeed, far from being an “unhelpful” category, I believe that it’s extremely helpful to a healthy Christian faith.
As for Scripture, it’s not that the Bible is silent on the issue – more that it is not directly mentioned but arises inevitably from certain things that are mentioned (fundamentally the idea that we will be sinless and perfected in heaven).
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
5:08pm on 01 June 2005
“If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.” (1 Cor 3:12-15)
I think this is more the kind of idea that John is driving at, and rightly so because the final end of sin, corruption and death has often been overlooked in most Protestant eschatology.
Sven (URL)
12:45am on 02 June 2005
Catholic purgatory (I was raised with this tradition) is actually quite similar to Buddhist Bardo realms when you strip away all the corruption of the Church in demanding payment. However, I do agree with other posters that there is limited evidence for it in the scriptures themselves. Pagels (I think) mentions this as a creation of the early Church leaders (Gnostic Gospels).
For Tibetan Buddhists, the Bardo realms are where consciousness sheds its previous existence and chooses its next incarnation (based, of course, to some extent on its karma). In a way, it’s not too disimilar from purgatory in that both are about purification. This is a common theme in shamanic cultures, as well. I would guess, without any direct evidence at the moment, that post-death purification, in some form or another, is nearly universal in the world’s religions.
Bill () (URL)
04:25am on 02 June 2005
I think something that should be set aside is the assumption that this is a linear process from death, through purgatory, to life everlasting. Martyrs, in particular, may not need purgatory after their death because their painful martyrdom IS purgation. So that may apply to the thief on the cross given the torment of his own crucifixion.
As for Scriptural texts, I’m afraid it might become a matter of debate about interpretations. The Catholics will point out certain texts, e.g., 1 Cor 3:12-15, Revelation 21:27. As a point of reasoning about it, however, the support for Purgatory is there. Perhaps something else to point out is that there is no contradiction between Scriptures and Purgatory, especially if you consider Purgatory to be a state, not a period of time.
Revelation 21:27 says “Nothing unclean shall enter” — which to me is a solid point to take off from. Becoming clean enough for Heaven, to allow entry into Heaven, is not the same as the salvation that is given by grace alone through the ransom paid for by our Lord on the cross. Being purified is not about being saved. If we relate Purgatory with a purging and cleansing action from holy suffering — suffering that is united with Christ, accepted in humility by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, then I think it becomes clearer, especially since St. Paul had a lot to say about suffering for Christ. Again this is AFTER having received the salvation of Christ by grace. This suffering is a cleansing process that makes us more fit for Heaven. No, this is not saying that we buy our way to Heaven by our suffering. We cannot merit Heaven any more than we can merit salvation. Everything is by grace. Purgatory is about conversion, about a transformation that makes us more fit for Heaven. Purgatory is not about buying in — it’s about fitting in.
I’m rambling. Sorry folks, but I hope something made sense in what I wrote above.
Jeff Tan () (URL)
09:03am on 09 June 2005
Julie D. () (URL)
04:30am on 22 June 2005
I came to this post late via your comment at ‘Goodinparts’.
As someone who still calls herself and evangelical, I really appreciate the way you contrast a process of purgatory with a state of purgatory. That’s really helpful, I suspect that I would speculate that would occur as we face our Lord (in the twinkling of an eye), but an emphasis on process is helpful.
If I have a sulk, it’s with your trivialising of evangelical thinking. you use words like “sillier”, write of evangelical christians not liking ‘pain’ and then dismiss evangelicals with “if they consider it at all”. I’m sorry you wrote like that. Perhaps I’m a little over sensitive having read some generalised criticism of evangelicalism over at Bigbulkyanglican and the Storyteller’s world recently. I know that we evangelicals are silly sometimes, some are harsh (even bigotted?) in our judgements. I, and many, are enjoying a period in history where different traditions are speaking to each other, we evangelicals christians have much to learn, but who hasn’t? Which tradition is without it’s sillinesses? I don’t want to defend us, I’m just sorry that you ‘othered’ us, generalised in a way that doesn’t reflect the thoughtful community I have grown up in.
Caroline () (URL)
10:03am on 21 September 2005
I wasn’t pointing the finger at evangelicals but at pretty much all Protestants!
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
1:10pm on 21 September 2005
Carmel () (URL)
10:59pm on 29 October 2006
[jim] ()
10:15pm on 20 June 2007