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All analogies and metaphors have their failings.

The strength of an “itch” as a metaphor is that it is something common, the pleasure at scratching at one likewise and so too the frustration of one beyond reach.

That itches can be inflamed as you scratch at them is likewise useful.

But of course this was just a metaphor useful to introduce both the ideas of frustration and satiation.

The idea of a sin nature is naturally as diverse as what sins so easily entangle men, and here we must admit that not all men are drawn to all sins.

Years ago Jummy Carter said something that led to people mocking him, he said that he had lusted after women.

Yet from a scriptural standpoint what he said was entirely correct about the struggle with sin ... it is not just visceral doing but a matter of what is demanding you obey it. For someone listening to the Holy Spirit the struggle will be against the thing in the mind, the thing wanting us to obey it and not the Holy Spirit.

Now ...

... about purgatory ...

... it is not mentioned in scripture and I find no basis for purgatory.

Disclaimer: herein, towards the end of this post, I’ll refer to abuses of views, not just to merely agreeing with them. When you see something indicated that is presented an abuse of a view, please understand that I’m talking about the abuse of same and not merely holding the view. I’m hoping what I wrote was clear enough, but I came back and inserted this disclaimer just in case it wasn’t ... after all, it’s a poor writer who blames his reader.

That addition said....

Heaven is mentioned. Hell is mentioned. So why would no one mention purgatory if it were needed to be known about?

What Christ has done is sufficent to present the elect to Himself as without blemish. He did not say on the cross that it was mostly done.

When the redeemed pass out of this life the old body of death, in which the desire for sin resides, is removed. All that remains is the nature that is in accordance with the Holy Spirit ... what need is there for that to suffer?

I realize that there is the objection of unconfessed sins; however, if someone were unrepentant they are not saved, not that they are mostly saved. A supposedly repentant person can have sin that they are unaware of, or somehow do not realize is sin, but when made aware of them how they respond will give the evidence for if they were ever saved to begin with.

Briefly (too late, I know), consider the idea that men can be dealing with sins in their own strength rather than relying on the strength which God supplies. In essence, because it’s moral, telling God “I got this.”

Yet as I said, we men have a holiness problem, not merely a moral one and working in our own strength is a way to produce false fruit in that it isn’t fruit of the Spirit.

It’s all a matter of Whom or who is really at work.

So when someone who has been dealing with a sin themselves, rather than turning this over to God, comes to the point that God turns them over to that sin there are two possible responses, and a very bad third.

The first is that they finally are brought to an end of themselves and they truly repent, confirming that they were saved to begin with because this result is possible only by His grace. Peter denying Christ, even though his pride in his own righteousness demanded he never would, is an example of someone being sifted like wheat and of the response of a repentant man.

The second possibility is that the person, who was never really saved, falls away and does not return.

The third very bad option is that the worldling comes back into the congregation and starts insisting that the saints compromise with him and agree that what he does is really okay. In doing so he helps others reveal that they too are unrepentant because they follow after him. This end result is like that mentioned in Romas 1:18-32 which begins because people do not retain the knowledge of God and end up either embracing or enjoining/supporting perversions and wickedness of all sorts ...all while patting themselves on the back, no doubt, that they are good people.

There is no need for purgatory in the one good sort of instance and no function for it in the existence of the lost in the other “two” instances (they are really the same, just a practical worldly difference separates them).

That’s why I don’t think purgatory is a valid proposition.

It is not mentioned. I serves no function.

The protest that those who do not believe in purgatory may think they’re getting away with something (because: grace) is not relevant. If someone got baptized, as one fellow once said to me, “just in case” all they got was wet.

God is not mocked ... people may convince themselves of things that just are not true for a cause and still what they think doesn’t make it so.

It doesn’t matter if what they are convincing themselves of for a cause was easy believism with no real repentance or the opposing abuse, which I would not accuse you of so please don’t think I’m doing so, they can sin and still be okay after a relatively short while in purgatory (you must have met folks like this as well as the “just in case” crowd).

Please let me be clear: here I’m talking about people who latch onto ideas for reasons and causes that are their own, separate from what they may seem to latch onto.

Neither believing in purgatory nor not believing in purgatory is a matter of repentance ... but choosing to use some idea as pretext for not repenting at all is very much a matter of repentance. So in this last bit I’ve been referring to those who seek to abuse an idea, either unmerited grace or if there is purgatory, and not those who only consider an idea valid in good conscience.