What does the Bible say about purgatory?

When so labouring, the hope of future reward from the Lord acts both safely and powerfully: otherwise there is danger. But it is dangerous also to despise the future as naturally do those who are too much occupied with present results. Will their work stand? "If the work of any one shall be burnt up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire." It is a powerful figure, and not hard to understand where the truth in general is held firm.

It is well known that Rome has founded on this passage one of its chief proofs of purgatory; but this is itself a sample of the refuse against which the apostle warns. For it is evident that not the faithful in general or their ways are in question, but ministers and their doctrine and again that a day of sifting judgment is meant and not some intermediate state now after death. Fire is the figurative expression of His judicial action which consumes all dross, not punishment for the separate spirit or soul, nor even a process of purifying it. "Saved, yet so as through fire," is to mark the difficulty of it; yet will God take care that so it shall be. So, as has been said, a builder might see his building ruined by fire, yet himself escape. Besides each one's work is to be thus tested — the apostle's work as certainly as that of his detractors, and gold, silver, and precious stones are subjected to the fire no less than the consumable material. Does all this apply to Romanist ideas of purgatory? The real point is the danger of introducing rubbish even where the true foundation is owned, not fundamental error or Antichristianism, but airy notions, lax maxims as to practice, etc., which the day of trial would detect and destroy. It was not so with his work whom some at Corinth had despised.

It is not sins he is speaking of in 1 Corinthians 3, when speaking of wood, hay, stubble, but preaching and teaching; and if, though a real Christian on the foundation, all his labour is bad as labour, from teaching nonsense and futility, even if not heresy, when put to the test by trial, it all goes. He is not lost, but his work is; and he sorely shaken and disturbed. Paul is speaking of his own, Apollos', or others' work, not of their sins. Origen believed nobody would be lost, not even the devil, and that hell served for purgatory, and men came back, and might fail over again. He is a pretty authority to quote for purgatory.

But in 1 Corinthians 3 we have human builders, and a temple or building which is then in existence. As a wise master-builder, Paul had laid the foundation; the work was well done; but here man's responsibility comes in. Every man is to take heed how he builds thereon. Wood, hay, stubble may be built into the building, and the work come to nothing, though the builder be saved yet so as by fire. And a third case is mentioned: one who corrupts the temple of God; such God will destroy. We have a good man, and a good builder, who has his reward, the fruit of his labour; a good man, but a bad builder, whose work is destroyed, though he is saved: and one who corrupts God's temple, and is himself destroyed. Now in all this we have a temple whose state depends on builders or corrupters. The responsibility of man enters into the question, and the state of things depends on his faithfulness. Hence it may be badly built or corrupted. This cannot be where Christ builds.

330 As to purgatory, he does speak of it elsewhere, but with the greatest possible uncertainty, so that to say he taught it is alleging what is false. He speaks of the subject in three different places, and in all of them in reference to 1 Corinthians 3 — he shall be saved, yet so as by fire — and using the same arguments, and indeed in a great measure the same words. The places are, Defide et operibus, 15 and following (or 24 and following); Enchiridion de fide, spe et charitate, 69 (or end of 18); and De Civitate Dei, 21, 26.

"There is also the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of just men are purified by a temporary punishment, to qualify them to be admitted into their eternal country, into which nothing defiled entereth." — Donovan's Translation, vol. 1, p. 123, 2, Art. 5.}

They say that men who are forgiven their sins must nevertheless pass through the fire of purgatory, in order to be cleansed from them.

"There is a purgatory," says the Council, "and the souls detained there are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful but especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the Mass. This holy council commands all bishops diligently to endeavour that the wholesome doctrine concerning purgatory, delivered unto us by venerable fathers and sacred councils, be believed, held, taught, and everywhere preached by Christ's faithful. . . . . In the fire of purgatory the souls of just men are cleansed by a temporary punishment, in order to be admitted into their eternal country, into which nothing that defileth entereth . . . . . The sacrifice of the Mass is offered for those that are deceased in Christ, not entirely purged."*

Purgatory, according to Tridentine doctrine, is a penal fire to satisfy for the remains of sin in the righteous, a place of punishment where justified souls in general suffer for a time before they go to heaven; for, as they teach, souls dying in mortal sin go to hell, while on the other hand martyrs and adults dying immediately after baptism go to heaven. Thus, in the first part, Art. v. § iv.-vi. of the Catechism, they distinguish hell into (1) the place where the damned are for ever punished, (2) the fire of purgatory, where the souls of the pious suffer torture in expiation for a definite time, and (3) the receptacle in which the souls of saints before Christ's advent were received, and, exempt from any pain and sustained by the blessed hope of redemption, dwelt there in peace. It is true that this last statement does not cohere with the language of § 8, that the fathers were tortured in suspense while waiting for glory: but when was error really consistent? Again, in § 10 they confess that Old Testament saints, like those of the New, not only were in limbus as we have seen, that is, in the bosom of Abraham, but also might need the satisfaction of the fire of purgatory for their venial sins, and for whatever remained of the temporal punishment due for mortal sins though forgiven.

245 This is the more strange, because their authentic doctrine declares that extreme unction wipes away the remains of sin, "abstergit peccati reliquias." It is strange that, after absolution, and the viaticum, and extreme unction, each of which is alleged to be efficacious to clear a man from sin, he should go into the torment of purgatory after all. Is this all the efficacy which belongs to the church's acts — that, after she has done all she can in order to their being cleansed, she lets the souls go into a place of fire, whose efficacy does not flow from her at all? And remark here, that she then offers the mass to get the soul out of the purgatory which God, they say, has sent it into, out of which she was not able to keep it by all she did for it when in the body! Are these the Lord's ways, or like the Lord's power? But this only in passing. I can understand that a conscience troubled by sin and fearing wrath, will fly to anything to get relief, where the true efficacy of Christ's precious blood to cleanse it and give it peace, is not known.

But why all these efforts and means to relieve and quiet the uneasy soul, why the doctrine of purgatorial fire to cleanse and fit the soul for God's presence? Because the great and precious truth, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, is not believed. If it does so, why go to purgatory (that is, a place of cleansing, for such is the meaning of the word) to get it cleansed? That is, the Romish system is infidelity as to this great and precious truth also of God's word.

But there is infidelity too in it, as to something more than the truth; there is infidelity as to God's love. What is the text constantly quoted to lay a ground for purgatory? — "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison; verily I say unto thee, thou shalt not come out thence till thou hast paid the last farthing." Is it thus God has met us in the gospel? That the unrepenting sinner will meet with the just wrath due to his sins every true Christian owns; but such a use of this text is really denying the efficacy of Christ's work. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And that we might be forgiven, Christ has died upon the cross. But this doctrine of purgatory teaches that we must pay to the very last farthing — that God will exact it of us. It is infidelity as to that grace which has given Jesus to bear our sins in His own body on the tree; so that every repentant sinner should know that God loved him, so as not to spare His own Son, but gave Him as a propitiation for his sins; and that Christ has, by the sacrifice of Himself, put away the sin that justly alarmed his conscience; or, as the scripture expresses it, "He has by HIMSELF purged our sins." (Heb. 1:3.) The doctrine of purgatory is really infidelity as to the efficacy of Christ's blood; for, if this has cleansed the true Christian from all sin, he does not want purgatory to effect his cleansing. It is infidelity as to the authority of God's word, which declares that His blood does cleanse us from all sin, and that Christ, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high; and it is infidelity as to the precious love of God, who gave His Son to do it, that we might have peace in our souls through His name.

N. Yes, but the clergy are to teach according to it, and according to the consent of the Fathers. But we will pass on. I will quote Bellarmine's account of purgatory, as he is of very high, perhaps the highest, authority among Roman Catholics; for as to the consent of the Fathers, it is out of the question. On this point he says, what is so called is "a certain place in which, as in a prison, souls are purged after this life which have not been fully purged in this life; that thus purged, namely, they may be able to enter into heaven, where nothing defiled will enter." Yet the same Bellarmine distinctly declares that lust has ceased in death, that evil habits are not corrected in purgatory, that it is purely a penal satisfaction for sin — that is, no purifying or purging at all. See what he says as to satisfaction, lust being gone. Well, I deny purgatory as a wholly false unscriptural idea, and as a denial of the efficacy of the work of Christ. I read in scripture, "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." God declares of the sanctified (and they only, it seems, go into purgatory), that "He will remember their sins and iniquities no more." I find that, when we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord; I am taught to give thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. I find that the poor thief went, the same day he died, straight into paradise to be with Christ. Hence for the true Christian the fear of death is wholly taken away. He is already one spirit with Christ, and he knows that to depart and be with Him is far better. Christ has borne his sins in His own body on the tree; and he has not himself therefore to bear the consequences of them. He has a wholly new life by the quickening power of Christ. Christ is his life; and when out of this sinful flesh he is in every sense clear from sin for ever.