Posted on 01/29/2007 6:45:51 AM PST by stfassisi
THESE folks didn't do that.
The Bibles they use, as the Bibles that Jews and Catholics use, all three, came down by Tradition. Each have their Traditions and cling to them.
It is true that without 2 Maccabbees, there is not in the Bible the clear and explicit reference to prayers of atonement for the souls of the departed. It is also true that this was THE SPECIFIC THING that Luther really was alarmed about in the so-called "Apocrypha". But what of it?
The Jews use an abridged Bible, as do the Protestants, Catholics do too, as compared to the Orthodox, and all do as compared to the Ethiopian Abyssinian Church.
Gehenna's in the King James.
The DEFINITION of Gehinnom isn't in the Bible at all.
2 Maccabbees makes the Jewish understanding in the Oral Tradition into text, but if one is using an abriged version of the Bible and doesn't have the benefit of access to 2 Maccabbees, there's still the bare fact that Jesus repeatedly referred to Gehenna and didn't define it or correct the Jewish tradition. Which means that the Jewish tradition on the subject was right, or else Jesus wouldn't have taught it explicitly, uncorrected.
I am going to get fired here on earth if I don't knock this off until this evening.
Don't be too mad at the Protestants, just as they shouldn't be too mad at us. We're each using the books our traditions say are holy. To talk with them, it's best to refer to the books they accept. It's ok to reference the books their forefathers excised, because that brings to the fore, again, the matter of authority.
In truth, the number of people, Catholic and Protestant, who beat each other over the head over the matter of the Apocrypha probably exceeds the number of those same people who have actually READ the entirety of the Bible by a factor of two.
People like to fight. Blessed are the peacemakers.
"Purgatory is a dangerous, ungodly fiction."
Purgatory is Gehenna.
So is Hell.
Same place. Two functions.
Ask Jesus, his audience, or any other Jew (other than a Sadduccee!) then or since.
It's Biblical.
So, if Purgatory is what you have said it is, then the Gospels (where Jesus refers to Purgatory/Hell using the Jewish term therefore) is a fiction.
I know you don't believe that.
Do not be so certain of your doctrines.
Some of them are in error.
Which won't cost you your soul, of course, but it will give you a lot of bruising of others to answer for at Judgment.
Du calme!
It is also true that this was THE SPECIFIC THING that Luther really was alarmed about in the so-called "Apocrypha". But what of it?
What of it? It's one thing to follow Apostolic traditions as to what is or is not Scripture. It's quite another to deliberately rip pieces out of Scripture, because one finds them offensive to one's own personally invented novelties.
Purgatory is a dangerous, ungodly fiction.
What's "ungodly" is the "Reformist" view of the atonement of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ - that once your accept Jesus as your Saviour, your sins past, present, and future are "covered." It's as if one's conduct, whether good or wicked, doesn't matter, as long as you accept Jesus as your Saviour. This view is contrary to the Gospel itself.
I don't think leaving what you can't take with you is going to buy you or anyone else any time out at all. What you give while you can still enjoy it or use it - remember the widow's mite.
It took a council to figure that out?
Mort de rire. Jamais!
Purgatory is a dangerous, ungodly fiction that lies about Jesus Christ on the cross. There are few things worse.
What does Trent have to say?
If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema (The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1919 ed.), pp. 214, 46).Canons Concerning Justification: Canon 30:
Now let us see what Scripture has to say...
"These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple" - Revelation 7:14-15 People go to Heaven because of what Christ has done for them, not because of what they've done for Christ. The ungodly person who believes in Christ while not working (Romans 4:5-6) is assured of avoiding God's wrath (Romans 5:9-10) as a free gift of God's grace (Romans 6:23). God invites anybody who thirsts to..."take the water of life without cost" - Revelation 22:17"...The truth is that there is no Purgatory. Even when the apostle Paul knew he was imperfect (Philippians 3:12), he knew he would go to be with the Lord when he died (Philippians 1:21-23). We read in scripture:
How does one wash robes in blood and find that the robes have been made white? By washing them in the blood of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world for His sheep.
"She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet." -- Proverbs 31:21
Mothers, tell your children not to fear; by grace through faith they have been redeemed.
the toll houses aren't exactly taken as literal doctrine. further there's nothing like a waiting room concept there; its an anaology regarding judgement (note:tollhouses mentiones 30 days... not un-defined period in purgatory; and the theme is answering for your sins not trying to toil to repay for them [which is impossible btw])
from an orthodox perspective both seem pretty heretical especially when taken strictly literally...
that said i also picture the beatleguice waiting room when pondering purgatory...
I remember reading a scriptural "explanation" of purgatory in the last 2 years....can't quite remember where. Scott Hahn perhaps.
I think it only works if the Apocrypha is used. Beyond that "outer darkness" is distinguished from the "lake of fire."
It's the eventual acceptance piece that is missing in the real canon.
The sins of His sheep were paid for by the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8). Justified once for all time by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. There are so many Bible verses stating this it is baffling how so many people miss it.
[we]"...are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood... He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." -- Romans 3:25,26 "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." -- Romans 3:20 "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." -- Romans 4:25 "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men." -- Romans 5:18 "... through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses." -- Acts 13:38 "those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." -- Romans 8:30 "know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified." -- Galatians 2:16 "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace." -- Galatians 5:4"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:...." -- Romans 3;20,28
Our sanctification is temporal. We grow in faith in and through time, by the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Our good works earn us nothing; they are evidence of our salvation, not payment for it because mercy cannot be earned.
If one truly believes in Jesus Christ, they can be assured the Holy Spirit is working to keep them on the straight and narrow path. All stray, but by the grace of God, we stray less and less each day. His mercy actually makes us want to obey and be conformed to His will until the day we die and we are glorified with Him.
Pick up the Bible and read it. It's all there.
And so we see the crux of the reason for the RCC's addition of the Apocrypha to their bible. If it ain't in Scripture, add more text.
As far as the concept of Gehenna and Hell being the same place. Prior to the revelation of God's plan of salvation through the sacrifice of His Son, it is not likely that anyone would have a separate concept of the two. We know from the parable of Lazarus and the rich man that, indeed, there is a temporary place for souls - and an unbridgeable chasm between the paradisical "bossom of Abraham" and torment.
Your Purgatory would allow this unbridgeable chasm become bridgeable to paradise. However we know that the only bridge is from this temporary torment, Gehenna, to Hell.
The Bible clearly teaches that man has one shot to determine where he will spend his eternal existence. Hebrews 9:7: And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. There is no second chance, and neither we nor our relatives can buy or otherwise earn our way out of God's justice.
So I was imagining the counter at my cousin's wake where I could buy a mass to help him get out of purgatory?
Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam Hussein will be pleased to learn this!
There's also the verse about those who say evil things about Jesus being forgiven versus those who blaspheme the HS never being forgiven.
It's hard to imagine that being twisted into a defense of purgatory, but it is.
Amen!
"Also consult 2 Maccabbees for an instance of prayers of atonement for the souls of the dead."
Idol worshipers were to be stoned in Israel. There was to be no mercy shown to them so how does your reference to Judas praying for idol worshiping soldiers who were killed for their sin, prove you point? In fact, aren't those who die worshiping idols as far as the Roman Church is concerned, guilty of a mortal sin and beyond the mercy of God?
Maybe they were just venerating them??
:>)
31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
Twisting? Hardly. In the plain sense of the text, according to vs. 32, the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is a sin that cannot be forgiven in this world (which I'm assuming most take no issues with), nor in the world to come. That said, if there were no sins forgivable in the world to come, this last part of Christ's statement would not be necessary. There are the sins that are forgiven here (via the sacrament of penance normatively or by perfect contrition) and those that are remitted after death (in Purgatory).
Someone should tell that to the RC faithful who still cough up a large chunk of cash to buy their dead relatives out of some phantasmic fantasyland.
Trent merely acknowledged things had gotten a tad out of hand. But throughout Trent and up to this very day, the sale of Indulgences is still alive and kicking through the RC coffers.
Knowing this, obtaining an indulgence can never be a selfish act, indeed it can be made completely unselfish by offering it up for a Holy Soul in Purgatory. Since the Pope himself desires that abundant use be made of indulgences, the challenge for each one of us is to obtain as many of them as possible, particularly in the time of Jubilee left to us. It is a pity that many have fulfilled the conditions for one indulgence for themselves only to stop there...""...Pope John Paul II places the gaining of a Jubilee Indulgence in the context of entering into the spiritual communion of the Body of Christ, knowing that in the spiritual realm, people do not live for themselves alone, each indulgence gained becoming a gift of grace for the whole Church.
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