Posted on 10/29/2011 3:31:02 PM PDT by RnMomof7
Catholics who believe a purifying fire will purge away their sins are deluded victims of a fatal fabrication. The invention of a place for purification of sins called Purgatory is one of the most seductive attractions of the Roman Catholic religion. Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church described this deceptive hoax brilliantly. He said: "Purgatory is what makes the whole system work. Take out Purgatory and it's a hard sell to be a Catholic. Purgatory is the safety net, when you die, you don't go to hell. You go [to Purgatory] and get things sorted out and finally get to heaven if you've been a good Catholic. In the Catholic system you can never know you're going to heaven. You just keep trying and trying...in a long journey toward perfection. Well, it's pretty discouraging. People in that system are guilt-ridden, fear-ridden and have no knowledge of whether or not they're going to get into the Kingdom. If there's no Purgatory, there's no safety net to catch me and give me some opportunity to get into heaven. It's a second chance, it's another chance after death" (from "The Pope and the Papacy").
The Origin of Purgatory
There was no mention of Purgatory during the first two centuries of the church. However, when Roman Emperor Theodosius (379-395) decreed that Christianity was to be the official religion of the empire, thousands of pagans flooded into the Church and brought their pagan beliefs and traditions with them. One of those ancient pagan beliefs was a place of purification where souls went to make satisfaction for their sins.
The concept became much more widespread around 600 A.D. due to the fanaticism of Pope Gregory the Great. He developed the doctrine through visions and revelations of a Purgatorial fire. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (CE), Pope Gregory said Catholics "will expiate their faults by purgatorial flames," and "the pain [is] more intolerable than any one can suffer in this life." Centuries later, at the Council of Florence (1431), it was pronounced an infallible dogma. It was later reaffirmed by the Council of Trent (1564). The dogma is based largely on Catholic tradition from extra- biblical writings and oral history. "So deep was this belief ingrained in our common humanity that it was accepted by the Jews, and in at least a shadowy way by the pagans, long before the coming of Christianity" (CE). It seems incomprehensible that Rome would admit to using a pagan tradition for the defense of one of its most esteemed "Christian" doctrines.
The Deception of Purgatory
Purgatory comes from the Latin word “purgare,” which means to make clean or to purify. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines purgatory as "a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God’s grace, are not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions." They must be purified of these "venial" sins before they can be allowed into heaven. Here we see Catholicism perpetuating the seductive lie of Satan by declaring "you will not surely die" when you commit venial sins (Gen. 3:4). The Council of Trent dares to declare that "God does not always remit the whole punishment due to sin together with the guilt. God requires satisfaction and will punish sin...The sinner, failing to do penance in this life, may be punished in another world, and so not be cast off eternally from God." (Session 15, Can. XI). Those Catholic Bishops had the audacity to declare that the suffering and death of God's perfect man and man's perfect substitute was not sufficient to satisfy divine justice for sin.
The Motivation for Purgatory
Over the centuries billions of dollars have been paid to Roman Catholic priests to obtain relief from imaginary sufferings in Purgatory's fire. The Catholic clergy has always taught that the period of suffering in Purgatory can be shortened by purchasing indulgences and novenas, buying Mass cards and providing gifts of money. When a Catholic dies, money is extracted from mourning loved ones to shorten the deceased's punishment in Purgatory. When my dear old dad passed away as a devout Catholic of 79 years, I was amazed at the hundreds of Mass cards purchased for him by well-meaning friends. We have heard of other Catholics who have willed their entire estates to their religion so that perpetual masses could be offered for them after they die. It is no wonder that the Catholic religion has become the richest institution in the world. The buying and selling of God's grace has been a very lucrative business for the Vatican.
Another motivation for Rome to fabricate the heretical doctrine of Purgatory is its powerful effect on controlling people. Ultimately, the enslavement and subjugation of people is the goal of every false religion, and Purgatory does exactly that. The concept of a terrifying prison with a purging fire, governed by religious leaders, is a most brilliant invention. It holds people captive, not only in this life but also in the next life. Catholic clergy will not say how many years people have to suffer for their sins or how many Masses must be purchased before they can be released from the flames. This dreadful fear and uncertainty is the most ruthless form of religious bondage and deception!
Another motivation for Rome to fabricate the heretical doctrine of Purgatory is its powerful effect on controlling people. Ultimately, the enslavement and subjugation of people is the goal of every false religion, and Purgatory does exactly that. The concept of a terrifying prison with a purging fire, governed by religious leaders, is a most brilliant invention. It holds people captive, not only in this life but also in the next life. Catholic clergy will not say how many years people have to suffer for their sins or how many Masses must be purchased before they can be released from the flames. This dreadful fear and uncertainty is the most ruthless form of religious bondage and deception!
Another motivation for Rome to fabricate the heretical doctrine of Purgatory is its powerful effect on controlling people. Ultimately, the enslavement and subjugation of people is the goal of every false religion, and Purgatory does exactly that. The concept of a terrifying prison with a purging fire, governed by religious leaders, is a most brilliant invention. It holds people captive, not only in this life but also in the next life. Catholic clergy will not say how many years people have to suffer for their sins or how many Masses must be purchased before they can be released from the flames. This dreadful fear and uncertainty is the most ruthless form of religious bondage and deception!
Biblical Support for Purgatory
There is absolutely none! In fact, neither the word nor the concept of sin-purifying fire is found in Scripture. The Vatican was confronted with this in the 16th century when the Reformers protested its practice of buying and selling of God's grace through indulgences. Backed into a corner, the Council of Trent added the apocryphal books to its canon of Scripture. Rome now declares there is scriptural support for purgatory in the apocryphal book of Second Maccabees. The council ignored the fact that the Jewish scribes never recognized the apocryphal books as inspired or part of the Hebrew Scriptures. They were never included because of their many historical, theological and geographical errors. Since God is not the author of error, He obviously did not inspire the writers of the Apocrypha. This is why the Apocrypha was never included in the original canon of 66 books. ..........."
The Biblical Rebuke of Purgatory
God's Word leaves absolutely no possibility for sin to be purged away by anything other than the blood of Jesus Christ. The beloved apostle John penned these words with irrefutable clarity. He wrote, "The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin" and "all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:7, 9). John did not say "some" sins or "most" sins, but all sin! This soundly rebukes the need for a sin-purging fire. God's Word also declares, "All things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Heb. 9:22). When Jesus "made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb. 1:3). Those who desire to have their sins purged need to trust a person, not a place. The blood of Christ is the only cleansing agent for sin! Those who come to the cross of Christ must come with empty hands of faith, bringing nothing but their sins.
Every blood-bought believer is instantly present with their Redeemer at the moment of death. To be "absent from the body" is to be "at home with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:6-8). This good news was affirmed by the Lord Jesus with the promise He gave to the repentant thief at Calvary. He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). This habitual sinner did not need a fire to purge his sins.
Catholics who believe in Purgatory need to be asked: "Who is in charge of releasing souls from the purging fire?" It cannot be God because of His promise to believers. "Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more" (Heb. 10:17). After conversion, God no longer counts sins against His children (2 Cor. 5:19).
Purgatory is a travesty on the justice of God and a disgraceful fabrication that robs Christ Jesus of His glory and honor. He alone satisfied divine justice, once and for all, by the perfect and finished sacrifice of Himself. The fatal deception of Purgatory blinds Catholics from the glorious Gospel of grace. It is one of Satan's many lies which keep his captives from knowing and trusting the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. It is Christ alone that will present us "faultless before the presence of his glory" (Jude 24).
Christ Jesus and His blood alone paid in full for my sins and all true Christians. Any one who places someone in-between to forgive our sins or attempt to deliver us to heaven is false doctrine.
Amen
I do not do the “ask and pounce” method of dialog; this is not a court, I am not a hostile witness.
I especially LOATHE, misrepresenting the answers in such a way that they suit your theory.
Where EXACTLY did a poster say “the rest is up to us”? EXACTLY.
IF, as your punctuation, if not your words, suggest, you IN YOUR OPINION think that “the rest is up to us” follows from what was said, then it is false not to present it so. You could ask, “How does that NOT mean ‘the rest is up to us’?”
But this sort of nonsense stifles communication and comity, fails to move the dialectical ball, and makes conversation unattractive.
The atonement done on the cross is eternal AND temporal. On the Cross IHS DID do, presently DOES, and WILL do everything, EVERYTHING, necessary for salvation.
Just as you do not agree with us about the nature of Free Will, and for related reasons, so also you seem not to understand how the free choice of the saint is one of the gifts of God who, we think, trains the saint in freedom.
Similarly, you SEEM not to understand our frequent petition “that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.” In the terms set forth by militant Calvinists, slaves to Nominalism, materialism, and a generally legalistic and mechanical view of God, IF this petition were viewed without the prosecuting attorney's over-confidence, it's fundamentally paradoxical nature would be seen.
But what usually happens is a flurry of denials of the possibility of worthiness at all, which strikes me as a limited view of the grace and power of God, and a forcing Him into our conceptual straitjackets.
One would almost think people on your side had never been in love. There are carnal examples and to spare of a union of wills in which both parties find freedom. And the lover, answering love's challenges, would testify that all his strength and resolve came from his beloved. And he would speak the truth.
It's not an accident that the Song of Songs is in the canon.
You make one good confession then can do whatever you like and still get a free pass.
Now THAT’s a cult.
Heb 10:39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
You could not possibly "draw back" from a work that Christ completed in you and yet there's the warning to not draw back to perdition. There it is, right in the same portion of Scripture you expound upon and yet it clearly contradicts Luther's theory of instant purification. So, some people believe Luther but I believe Scripture.
Regards
The Disciples and Apostiles were more in line with Missionaries and Evangelist of today. A way of spreading The Gospel which has also been around 2000 years and not in any shape or form part of the RCC. The early churches were more in line with churches of today whom some of which start churches even in their homes, get them established in a community, and move on to establish others. There are two churches in my neighborhood within two miles which were started by my neighbors. One of them after forming a church moved on to many more before returning too our community.
No Church is The Church. No church holds that right too call itself The Sole Authoritve Church. All Churches who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and teach the Gospel are on equal standing and Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Yes that means Catholic, Baptist, Church of GOD, etc. Not one, not a single solitary one has the sole claim too being The Only Church founded by Jesus Christ.
I do not believe any church teaching The Gospel is going to send it's members too hell. But I do believe ALL have some laws, rules, traditions, written by man which serve no other purpose than either to control the lives and thoughts of the membership or have some warped sense of power they feel over others salvation. Too such no one will ever ake them happy. They will find more things too add till Christ Second Coming to trouble the faithfull over.
The Bride of Christ is formed from all persons who acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior and believe they are saved through His New Covenant. Why do we need some person be it a Preacher, Priest, Pope, etc writing and adding too what Christ, Peter, Paul, Matthew, Luke, James, John, John Mark, Jude, etc gave us? We don't. Why should I believe some 10th Popes writings over that of say Oral Roberts?
If I need forgiveness and too confess my sins to The LORD I go somewhere alone and pray alone. Jesus Christ is faithful too forgive. That is how Christ said too pray and confess your sins. Now if I take $100 from the offering plate then yea the church would deserve confession of it. As well if I have sin I can not overcome which is the basis of James 5 16. For example we should not worry for GOD provides for our needs. Worried? Take it too the church and ask for prayer. But as for our everyday lives? This is Christ answer and for me that settles it.
5“And now about prayer. When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I assure you, that is all the reward they will ever get. 6But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly. Then your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you. 7“When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered only by repeating their words again and again. 8Don’t be like them, because your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! 9Pray like this:
Our Father in heaven,
may your name be honored.
10May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven.
11Give us our food for today,£
12and forgive us our sins,
just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.
13And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.£
Where does it say walk in a booth with a man on the other side listening too you?
You can pray it in your home in a room alone, you can pray it in the woods walking, when you pray the above words you are forgiven because The High Priest in Heaven at the Right Hand Of GOD intercedes for you.
Ask in Jesus name as believers we all have been given that privlidge. If we pray to GOD in Jesus name there is no one else higher and we need not pray to any beings lower for any favor that is not what Christ said to do. It's not like the military where you must ask this or that person also or first.
Amen and Amen. Well written and exactly right.
Yes we do both believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he died on the cross for our sins.
I, personally, have developed a much greater love and relationship with Christ since I became Catholic.
That is why every single day in my prayers I thank God for making me Catholic.
Have a blessed Sunday.
Corrupters of families will not inherit the kingdom of God. And if they who do these things according to the flesh suffer death. how much more if a man corrupt by evil reaching the faith of God. for the sake of which Jesus Christ was crucified? A man become so foul will depart into unquenchable fire: and so will anyone who listens to him. (Ignatius of Antioch (110AD)=Letter to the Ephesians 16:1-2) If we do the will of Christ, we shall obtain rest; but if not, if we neglect his commandments, nothing will rescue us from eternal punishment (“Second Clement” 5:5) But when they see how those who have sinned and who have denied Jesus by their words or by their deeds are punished with terrible torture in unquenchable fire, the righteous, who have done good, and who have endured tortures and have hated the luxuries of life, will give glory to their God saying, 'There shall be hope for him that has served God with all his heart!' (“Second Clement” 17:7) - Clement of Rome (150AD) Fixing their minds on the grace of Christ, [the martyrs] despised worldly tortures and purchased eternal life with but a single hour. To them, the fire of their cruel torturers was cold. They kept before their eyes their escape from the eternal and unquenchable fire (“Martyrdom of Polycarp” 2:3) “The Martyrdom of Polycarp” (155AD) We who are now easily susceptible to death, will afterwards receive immortality with either enjoyment or with pain. Tatian (160AD) We are persuaded that when we are removed from the present life we will live another life, better than the present one...or, if they fall with the rest, they will endure a worse life, one in fire. For God has not made us as sheep or beasts of burden, who are mere by-products. For animals perish and are annihilated. On these grounds, it is not likely that we would wish to do evil. (“Apology”)- Athenagoras of Athens (175AD) ...Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven,, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess' to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send 'spiritual wickednesses,' and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning of their Christian course, and others from the date of their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory. (“Against Heresies” 1:10:10) The penalty increases for those who do not believe the Word of God and despise his coming. . . . [I]t is not merely temporal, but eternal. To whomsoever the Lord shall say, ‘Depart from me, accursed ones, into the everlasting fire,’ they will be damned forever (“Against Heresies” 4:28:2) - Irenaeus (189AD) All souls are immortal, even those of the wicked. Yet, it would be better for them if they were not deathless. For they are punished with the endless vengeance of quenchless fire. Since they do not die, it is impossible for them to have an end put to their misery. (from a post-Nicene manuscript fragment) - Clement of Alexandria (195AD) These have further set before us the proofs He has given of His majesty in judgments by floods and fires, the rules appointed by Him for securing His favor, as well as the retribution in store for the ignoring, forsaking and keeping them, as being about at the end of all to adjudge His worshippers to everlasting life, and the wicked to the doom of fire at once without ending and without break, raising up again all the dead from the beginning, reforming and renewing them with the object of awarding either recompense. (“Apology” 18:3) Then will the entire race of men be restored to receive its just deserts according to what it has merited in this period of good and evil, and thereafter to have these paid out in an immeasurable and unending eternity. Then there will be neither death again nor resurrection again, but we shall be always the same as we are now, without changing. The worshipers of God shall always be with God, clothed in the proper substance of eternity. But the godless and those who have not turned wholly to God will be punished in fire equally unending, and they shall have from the very nature of this fire, divine as it were, a supply of incorruptibility (“Apology” 44:12–13) Therefore after this there is neither death nor repeated resurrections, but we shall be the same that we are now, and still unchanged--the servants of God, ever with God, clothed upon with the proper substance of eternity; but the profane, and all who are not true worshippers of God, in like manner shall be consigned to the punishment of everlasting fire--that fire which, from its very nature indeed, directly ministers to their incorruptibility. ("Apology" 48:12) - Tertullian (197AD)
The way of darkness is crooked, and it is full of cursing. It is the way of eternal death with punishment. (“Epistle of Barnabas”)
And so much more. Purgatory is just another excellent example where the Catholic Church deliberately changed the doctrine of the early church to make money and keep souls captive. What surprises me is how many people can be so inconsistent in what they believe simply because the "Church" states it.
Hebrews 10:38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
If a person stops having that faith in Jesus of course there will be a drawing back into perdition. Just because you lost faith doesn’t mean that the completeness of Jesus sacrifice is still valid.
The problem is men want to save themselves ...it is almost as if they think God is not able
Heb 10:35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
Heb 10:36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
Either purification isn't instant but requires that you stay the course and carry your cross, or salvation isn't instant but requires that you stay the course and carry your cross. It can't be that both are instant in light of , "... that, after ye have done the will ..." because something is your only after you've done His will.
I have to wear braces like gloves with the fingers cut out to type some days so if you could ignore the typos I'd appreciate it. I did see that one just as I hit the “post”, though.
Which has been the case for over 3500 years. GOD set the terms, Christ Himself met the terms unconditionally, and His Word is The Final Word.
Salvation is instant upon conviction that Jesus is the only way and acceptance of Him as your only salvation. Belief in self works to maintain that is lack of faith in that perfect and sufficient sacrifice. The only way to lose that salvation is to no longer believe that Jesus paid the COMPLETE once for all time penalty for all sin or completely renounce that faith in Jesus complete and only sacrifice for all sin.
LOL I usually ignore spelling errors if I can at least understand. There is one posting on these threads tho that has gotten so bad I just ignore.
Ya, that's a Jesus cult...You are responding to scripture I posted...Don't want to believe God, don't...Believe your religion instead...
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