[Havoc]

There isn't a notion of purgatory in scripture. Abraham's bosom isn't defined thoroughly apart from the parable. Scripture deals in depth with the status of men who die in sin or in righteousness of Christ. It discusses specific places - none of which mentions purgatory or anything close to it. There's a reason for it - it doesn't exist. I understand the point you make otherwise. The tell is that heaven gets discussion. Hell gets discussion. The lake of fire gets discussion. Where's purgatory? It isn't just that it isn't mentioned by name. It's that the story that we are told with regard to the other places rules out any possibility of purgatory. Absent the body, present with God makes it impossible. The fact that we cannot "expiate" our own sins is spoken to by the apostles and christ. It can't be done. So making up a place for us to do it in doesn't work. It adds to the gospel thus making it a different gospel by definition.

[mdmathis6]

You understand that I'm not convinced of a purgatory state and believe as you do...Christ spoke of Abraham's Bosom as a real place. He also told the disciples that he was "going to prepare a place for them that where I am...there ye may be also..". So I don't know was Abraham's Bosom, heaven? Or was paradise, Heaven? Or are the many mansions Christ is preparing for us Heaven? Certainly we know Hell was an established fact but was there a transitional place for the righteous...especially in the time before Christ's death and resurrection? Who knows. We do know that now when those who die in Christ...in fact die...they are with him forever...and that is Heaven enough for me!