Second-chance Purgatory?

[chevyontheriver]

That is close to saying the protestants are not christian.

No. Just that along the way you lost a few books.

As a messianic, we follow the Jewish canon on the Hebrew scriptures. Maccabees are not in Hebrew. Never were.

I note that you do seem to accept some books of the Bible that were rejected by the Jewish authorities, notably the entire New Testament.

 

[grasping the after wind]

The Catholic Church doesn't judge, God does. We all face judgement according to Scripture and God can have mercy on whomever God chooses.

I agree with the Catholic church on that point. We do not agree on the existence of Purgatory but I do not think the Catholic Church sees Purgatory as the place where non believers get a chance to change their minds. From one of your earlier posts I think you would say that is not the purpose of Purgatory but I am not sure if you think non believers might end up their under certain circumstances. All again dependent upon how God would judge them and not on my or your or the Catholic church's judgement.

 

[thecolorsblend]

Maybe what he was referring to was this verse about those who have never heard the gospel preached but have no doubt have had the revelation of God given to them thru His creation. However it says nothing about being given purgatory, it just says they are without excuse. Romans 1:18-20

For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus (Romans 2:12-16).​

That says the people who have never heard the gospel are without excuse.

It does not say they will have no mercy.

 

[thecolorsblend]

So Jesus doesn't atone for sins?

Purgatory is a process of purification.

Who do you suppose is purifying the souls in Purgatory?

 

[Yarddog]

I agree with the Catholic church on that point. We do not agree on the existence of Purgatory but I do not think the Catholic Church sees Purgatory as the place where non believers get a chance to change their minds. From one of your earlier posts I think you would say that is not the purpose of Purgatory but I am not sure if you think non believers might end up their under certain circumstances. All again dependent upon how God would judge them and not on my or your or the Catholic church's judgement.

Purgatory isn't a doctrine relating to non-believers.

 

[Yarddog]

Even someone who believed in a different religion? Or who knew so little about Christianity that it made more sense to them to believe what they grew up practicing?

If God chooses to show mercy on a person of mercy who grew up in a nonchristian religion, that is God's place to say and not man's.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I agree with the Catholic church on that point. We do not agree on the existence of Purgatory but I do not think the Catholic Church sees Purgatory as the place where non believers get a chance to change their minds. From one of your earlier posts I think you would say that is not the purpose of Purgatory but I am not sure if you think non believers might end up their under certain circumstances. All again dependent upon how God would judge them and not on my or your or the Catholic church's judgement.

Purgatory is for those who are saved, that they may be purged of all that is not ready to cross the threshold into heaven. The bad habits, the disordered attractions, the small-mindedness and prejudice, they all fade away there and a person is ready to live finally the way they crudely believed on earth.

It has nothing to do with a second chance. God will judge with infinite mercy and infinite justice. Who gets judged how is for God to decide, and not for us to second guess. What little we know is that purgatory is not the back door to save the unsaved.

 

[StephenDiscipleofYHWH]

Hello, I've never been on one of these forums before but have to hear some other opinions on this. I was raised to believe that if you do not accept Jesus into your heart, you go to hell... period. Well the other night this topic somehow came up with my boyfriend and he does not feel the same way (he grew up Christian as well). He believes that people across the world who did not grow up in a Christian society and who were raised by their families to believe a different religion, will not automatically go to hell, but instead go to some sort of purgatory where God will give them a second chance. He doesn't believe that God would condemn someone to hell for believing in the religion their parents taught them to. I'm not sure of anything like this being referenced in the Bible and am feeling very conflicted now. Thoughts?

If a person has heard of Christ and his Gospel then they will be judged by the Knowledge they have received by his Gospel, and whether they denied him or accepted him. If a person has never heard of Christ then(having never heard Christ's law) they are a Law unto themselves
Romans 2:
12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another
16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

So if they have never heard of Christ(and his law) but do by nature the things contained within his law, then they are judged by the work of the law written in their hearts their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts accusing or excusing one another. They get no second chance in the grave/hell but their chance is here on earth just the same as everyone else.

All men will by judged by Christ's Gospel according to the knowledge they have received and the works they are able to perform.

 

[~Zao~]

That says the people who have never heard the gospel are without excuse.

It does not say they will have no mercy.

Those who show no mercy are biblically those who will be given no mercy.

 

[joymercy]

.

 

[chilehed]

Even someone who believed in a different religion? Or who knew so little about Christianity that it made more sense to them to believe what they grew up practicing?

please help me.

God's creation is part of his revelation of himself.

Scripture says that everyone has some idea of God. It's undeniable that many non-Christians are seeking God - they may have false ideas about Him but they're seeking Him nonetheless, and NO ONE can seek God except on God's initiative. The fact that they're seeking God, however imperfectly, shows that He is working in their lives.

Romans 1:18-21 says "The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened."

So here scripture explicitly says that one can know God by natural revelation, right? Someone who does evil can’t legitimately claim that he never knew about God, because God made sure through creation that everyone knows about him. The passage doesn’t say that they’re wicked because they don’t know God, what it says is that they’re wicked because they know God well enough and they reject him anyway!

A Protestant might say that that level of knowledge is not salvific, that you can’t be saved if that’s the limit of your knowledge of God. But there are two problems with that viewpoint. First, that would mean that people are lost because God requires them to know what they cannot know, and they cannot know it because God didn’t allow them to know it. That would violate God’s perfect justice. Second, it would mean that one can only be saved through the attainment of information which is hidden to all but a select few, which is at the core of the gnostic heresies.

If one has to have heard of Jesus in order to be saved, then never having had the opportunity to hear of him is a really good excuse for never having heard of him. But the bible specifically says that even these people have no excuse for rejecting God, because they did know about him and they rejected him anyway. What gets you into hell is rejecting God. If you don’t know about Jesus then you can’t very well be culpable for rejecting him, because you can only reject what you know about. God holds us accountable only for what we know, and not for what we cannot know.

And so the Church teaches that even these people may be saved (not that they will be saved, but only that they may be saved) through the merits of Christ, by means of which we do not know.

I like the way C. S. Lewis said it in Chapter 15 of The Last Battle. In it, Emeth tells of his meeting with Aslan:

Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honor) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, "Son, thou art welcome." But I said, "Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash." He answered, "Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me." Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said "Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one"" The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, "It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites - I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For he and I are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?" I said "Lord, thou knowest how much I understand." But I said also (for the truth constrained me), "Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days." "Beloved," said the Glorious One, "unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."​

Anyone who is saved, is saved through Christ, and, as has already been said, the only way to get into Purgatory when you pass on is by being saved when you depart.

 

[Dave-W]

No. Just that along the way you lost a few books.

I note that you do seem to accept some books of the Bible that were rejected by the Jewish authorities, notably the entire New Testament.

Of course. We believe in the Messiah.

 

[Albion]

I do believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven and eternal peace. But what about all of the people out there in the world that, let's say know of Christianity, but their family has told them their religion was the right way. And they were never witnessed to by a missionary so they never learned the depths of Jesus. Do they just get sentenced to hell?

Is it essential to us in our own lives to know how God will handle such issues that we worry about??

That said, if anyone wants to ponder such matters, that is not sinful. However, once it wanders over into creating a new theology and deciding that what has been reasoned out is the answer for sure, we are making a mistake...and a needless one.

 

[Oldmantook]

Hello, I've never been on one of these forums before but have to hear some other opinions on this. I was raised to believe that if you do not accept Jesus into your heart, you go to hell... period. Well the other night this topic somehow came up with my boyfriend and he does not feel the same way (he grew up Christian as well). He believes that people across the world who did not grow up in a Christian society and who were raised by their families to believe a different religion, will not automatically go to hell, but instead go to some sort of purgatory where God will give them a second chance. He doesn't believe that God would condemn someone to hell for believing in the religion their parents taught them to. I'm not sure of anything like this being referenced in the Bible and am feeling very conflicted now. Thoughts?

No reference anywhere in the whole of Scripture to a place known as purgatory. There is a lake of fire though a.k.a. hell. The closest thing to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory is the doctrine of apocatastasis which was a doctrine of the early church which believes that those souls who end up in the lake of fire because they never trusted in Jesus as Savior will suffer chastisement but this punishment is for the purpose of chastisement; not eternal torment. This chastisement is temporary and not forever until God's perfect will is fulfilled "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil 2:10-11).

 

[Calvin_1985]

Purgatory is a process of purification.

Who do you suppose is purifying the souls in Purgatory?

Jesus work is finished by His Death Burial and ressurection. Can you show anywhere in the Bible that speaks of a place called purgatory where further cleansing takes place after physical death or can you even demonstrate it from any part of scripture.

I realize that you will unsoundly jump to the Roman Catholic explanation for this but I ask anyway.

 

[Albion]

It doesn't matter to this discussion, Calvin. Even if Purgatory were real and operates as the church that invented it says, it still does not cover the situation that was described to us in the original post.

 

[chevyontheriver]

please help me.

What if someone who is living under the brutality of the Taliban for example and has never literally heard of Jesus as Messiah and His message of saving grace---however----->

they walked alongside of the Christian faith, without knowing they were doing so.

such that, they lived very moral christ like lives of being chaste, not lieing or stealing, not killing and honoring their parents, and so much so like a clean and up right christian, knowing there is a God, but not being aware of the salvation of jesus christ the messiah?

kept in darkness, not educated, not able to read, keeping modest, obeying their husband, loving God....but not knowing jesus death and Resurrection and saving grace.....

is this not something that god in his infinite mercy will attend to in purgatory and allow them to know the truth and accept it there?

please help me.

i was told this by catholics.

i will follow you so you can pm me.

@thecolorsblend you may pm me as well if you wish

God may provide for them. I don't know how that might work. The normal way is to repent and believe and be baptized. God might have another way for someone else, but I do not presume to know how this might work.

Purgatory is for the saved, not a second chance. If God has another way, then it is beyond what we have been shown that purgatory is all about.

What we should be doing is evangelizing people. That's what we have been given. The rest is up to God, and we should not presume too much about how that might work.

 

[ripple the car]

please help me.

What if someone who is living under the brutality of the Taliban for example and has never literally heard of Jesus as Messiah and His message of saving grace---however----->

they walked alongside of the Christian faith, without knowing they were doing so.

such that, they lived very moral christ like lives of being chaste, not lieing or stealing, not killing and honoring their parents, and so much so like a clean and up right christian, knowing there is a God, but not being aware of the salvation of jesus christ the messiah?

kept in darkness, not educated, not able to read, keeping modest, obeying their husband, loving God....but not knowing jesus death and Resurrection and saving grace.....

is this not something that god in his infinite mercy will attend to in purgatory and allow them to know the truth and accept it there?

please help me.

i was told this by catholics.

i will follow you so you can pm me.

@thecolorsblend you may pm me as well if you wish

I would say this is possible. Definitely possible.

Christ will judge with perfect justice and mercy. There are those who do what is right, do their best, try to live out the best of what their off-the-mark religion teaches, and who are kinder and more loving than most Christians.

The Diary of Saint Faustina points to this, too. That Divine Mercy pursuits all souls to the very end, and that Christ's merciful love, sacrifice, and compassion call to anyone who will go through Him, and honor Him.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Of course. We believe in the Messiah.

Which the same Jewish authorities that fixed their canon disbelieved in and decided to reject every book they could which spoke of Him. My point is the 'Hebrew Canon' is a canon put together by people who rejected Jesus. The Septuagent Canon is more rational in that regard because it did not come with a concurrent rejection of the Messiah.

 

[thecolorsblend]

Those who show no mercy are biblically those who will be given no mercy.

That really has nothing to do with anything at all.