Oh boy.
I don't see the idea of purgatory in the Scriptures.
It seems to me to be an invention of humans who wanted to make a way for sinful people to get to heaven, bypassing the work of the Cross.
Thus, the idea of purgatory is not only non-Biblical, but ANTI-Christ.
If we can add to the work of Christ, by paying for "some" of our sins in purgatory,
then why can we not pay for all of them, eventually, in hellfire, and at some future point in eternity, escape hell?
Add to this, the idea of canonization of saints.
The Scriptures imply not at all, that some Christians who have died have achieved a higher "sainthood" (by going straight to heaven, and skipping purgatory) than those of us who are in Christ, here on earth.
The Bible calls all Christians, saints.
The ideas of canonized saints and purgatory are interdependent, and I can find no support for either in the Scriptures.
What say you?
I'll be blunt. This is all wildly off-base from what Catholics believe. Allow me to explain why. First, Purgatory.
Purgatory does not add to what was accomplished on the Cross, nor does it bypass the Cross. It is only possible
through the Cross. The existence of Purgatory, really, is self-evident. Nothing that is unclean shall enter the Kingdom of God (Rev 21:27). I dare say that none of us will be wholly clean when we die. And no "covering" of our sins can deceive God. Shall we suppose that God can ignore sins? By no means! Rather, we must be purified. One might even say our sins must be
purged from us.
Purgatory is the place of this purification.
As far as Scripture goes, first we have Second Maccabees. Though you may not recognize this work's canonicity as the Catholic and Orthodox churches do, it
is a historical text, from which we can learn things about ancient Jewish practice. In 2nd Maccabees, specifically Chapter 12, vss 39-46, Judas Maccabeus and his soldiers discover fallen Israelites who were carrying tokens of a pagan god under their tunics, which would be sinful. Judas and his companions conclude these men died because of their sin,
and then pray for the dead men to be forgiven. He also sets up a "sin collection" to make atonement for their sins. Thus, we see clearly that the Jews believed that the sins of the dead could be forgiven after death. Jesus never speaks on this, true, but he never explicitly condemns it, even when he condemns other practices of empty piety.
Secondly in support of Purgatory, Jesus speaks in the Sermon on the Mount about making peace with your enemies. In Mt 5:25-26, He says to make peace, lest you be thrown into prison. Is this talking about temporal prison? Unlikely. Is it talking about Hell? Also unlikely, considering He adds that even if you end up in this prison, you can leave—after you've paid the last penny. Also pointing to a supernatural understanding of "prison" is that the Greek work,
phulake, is also used in the First Epistle of Peter to describe where Jesus went after His death.
Finally, we have First Corinthians and the Trial by Fire (1Cor 3:11-15). This is obviously speaking about the judgement more particularly, but notice that even the one whose work is lost, is himself saved. That is Purgatory at its essence: a painful process that ultimately saves us. But again, it only works by the Cross.
Now, as for canonized saints...of course, we are all "saints" in a sense. Canonization is merely saying that this person is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in Heaven, and moreover that they are a good model of Christian living. It doesn't mean that your grandmother is
not in heaven. It just means that we don't have explicit confirmation, which nowadays comes through miracles attributed to the saint's intercession.
