The concept of purgatory indicates a debt that needs to be paid. Christ paid that debt. For someone to assume that guilt is to step away from the grace of God.
I think the debt metaphor would be unfortunate, but it is one of the biggest images in both testaments so I will have to find a way to live with it. But I have two comments:
I disagree with Salvation (It's hard to type that for some reason!) in her statement that purgatory is to purge the harm we've done others. I think it's to purge the harm we've done ourselves.
It's not about guilt as such. Vicious acts harm the perpetrator. They are crippling. It is that crippling, that self-induced disability, that spiritual self-mutilation that purgation addresses, in our view.
But there is another matter. Another deputy, a pshrink, and I were talking outside juvenile court about how psychology seems to be trashing the concepts of guilt and responsibility. I finally found a formulation that the pshrink liked and the other deputy said he'd think about. I said psychology doesn't seek to remove responsibility but to enable it and to enable a richer responsibility. To speak in extremes, a sick and deranged person is not responsible for his acts. He is not thought of as being ABLE to choose in accordance with reason. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists have the aim of restoring a person to responsibility, the ability to answer for his acts.
Our idea of the free and the 'well' person is that he is responsible and he seeks responsibility.
In some sense then, the picture of salvation -- of the 'end' of man in the strict sola gratia view as it is sometimes presented leaves us with the picture of an infantilized man. He eternally irresponsible and everything is done for him
Some of this is the limitation of trying to express in human terms what is inexpressible. In some sense what I just said seems to be to be correct. Everything has been,is being, and will be done for us.
But there is still the objection that the saved person ends up being portrayed more as God's lap dog than as Christ's faithful soldier and servant.
If I, under an alcoholic compulsion, do damage to my neighbor's property, part of my sobriety will include trying to repair the damage. And if I have harmed myself, part of my sobriety will be to exercise, eat right, and all the rest. I am not truly well if I do not do these things.
Yet,rare is the sobered-up drunk who says, "By my right hand,I sobered up," and stays sober. In the recovering alcoholic there is both gratitude for the gift of sobriety and an increased willingness to pay one's debts to the extent possible. To do so is part of choosing to accept the gift of sobriety, and at the end of the day, the recovering drunk is grateful that he was given the gift of freedom and responsibility from his affliction.
So (I would say),while the primary metaphor remains the lap or the child metaphor, still "the full stature of Christ" suggests(to me) that that metaphor needs to be fleshed out or adumbrated with a subordinate metaphor which takes into account being saved for freedom.
In this view, one possible way to express purgation is that it is the process in which we 'train our wills' to give utterly whole-hearted assent to that which we half-heartedly agree to now. NOW it is hard to WANT to forgive as we have been forgiven. It is hard, when we are humiliated or rebuked to put our whole trust in God.
In front of planned parenthood on Friday,God "appointed" a madman to assail, insult, and threaten us. I viewed the whole thing as an interesting and salutory exercise in learning how weak my faith is and how much I need God for every breath and every intention. You probably would not approve but I started and was joined a little prayer to Saint Michael,not only as a plea for angelic protection but to remind the others that while principalities and powers are arrayed against us, a far more powerful Lord with a far stronger army fights for us. "And he will win the battle," as Luther says.
So, while lots was going on there, there was also purgation going on. We were being offered training in faith.
Those who accept the completed work of Christ will stand before God without blemish only because of the work of Christ, not through any effort of their own.