From Facebook Live, Karlo, we get this question. Valerie: "I have a
Protestant friend who I am trying to explain Purgatory to. I used Wisdom
chapter 3 but she still does not understand the concept of having to be
purified. Is there a better scriptural reference that I might be able to use?"
Yes, well, the key classic text that has always been referred to in the tradition
of the Church is 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 where St. Paul's
talking about "No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid,
Christ Jesus," then he talks about, "if one builds upon this foundation," you know,
that the certain works that we build on this foundation with are going to be
tested, St. Paul says. And a key phrase there, he says in verse 13: "the Day
will disclose--" "iméra" in Greek, which is normally used in reference to the Day
of Judgment, which according to Hebrews 9:27 is after death. So St. Paul is
talking about a state of existence after death. He goes on describing these
various types of works; some works are "wood," "hay," "stubble," the other works are "gold,"
"silver," and "precious stones." And he talks about how these works of the individual
are going to be put through a fire, "tested by fire," as he writes, so there's the sort
of testing of the works. If the works, he says, are, you know, gold, silver, and precious
stones, they will survive the testing of the fire, right? They will remain. That
implies that these are good works. The wood, hay, stubble, which represents bad
works, are going to be burned up in the testing of the fire, according to St.
Paul. But he says when these works are purified or burned up in the testing, the
individual will suffer loss--although, Saint Paul says, he will be saved as if
through fire, there in verse 15, "he will be saved only as through fire." So notice,
Cy, St. Paul's talking about a state of existence that's after death--because he
says "the Day," sort of the Day of Judgment, right--
and the individual is going to be standing before God, which according to
the Old Testament, the Prophet Malachi-- I think chapter 3 verse 5, I might be
mistaken but you gotta check it again for me--God is a refiner's fire,
right? So we have the Day, it's a state of existence in the afterlife, and the
individual is going to have sin on the soul, so that rules out this state
of existence being Heaven. Because no sin can exist in Heaven, right? But yet this
individual is saved--"sozo" in Greek, which has to do with salvation, right, not just
in a temporal sense but in an eternal sense-- but he's going to be saved as only by
through fire, which--that image calls to mind a sense of purgation. So if the
individual has sins, and the individual is suffering, it can't be Heaven; but it
can't be Hell either, Cy, because the individual is saved.
Right. And in Louisiana terms, "There ain't no folk in Hell that's gettin' out," right?
So we have a state of existence in the afterlife that's neither Heaven nor Hell,
and the individual is undergoing a sort of purgation of venial faults, what we would
call venial sins, right? Lesser-degree sins. What do we call that? We simply call
it "Purgatory," which means "purgation." So that's the key text that we always turn
to, and even Jesus seems to imply the existence of Purgatory--well, not seems,
He does, because the Church has definitively used this text in support
of Purgatory her magisterial documents in Matthew 12:32,
when Jesus Christ talks about the unforgivable sin, and the sin will not be
forgiven "in this age nor in the age to come." Which implies, "in the age to come,"
which Biblical scholars will suggest as the afterlife, some sins can be forgiven
or purged or remitted--namely, venial faults. And it can't be Heaven, can't be
Hell; we call it Purgatory.