Various passages. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 16, 2018.
Over the last several weeks we have established that all people will face their physical death and that what they experience next will be one of two possible situations. Keep in mind that we are not dealing with the special case of those who are alive at the resurrection. Those who belong to Christ when they die will immediately go to be with Christ in heaven at the right hand of the Father. Those who do not belong to Christ go to torments in Hades, or The Grave. There are other beliefs that are floating around out there, which I believe to be in error.
There are many passages throughout the Bible that use sleep terminology for physical death. Even the resurrection is spoken of in Daniel 12 as waking up out of the dust of the earth. There are some who teach that these verses prove that the soul or spirit is not conscious during death. A person would simply die and then the next thing they would experience is the Resurrection day. There are also some verses that seem to imply that the dead are not aware. However, these verses are saying that they are not aware of earthly things, not that they are unaware of the spiritual place in which they find themselves. The imagery of sleeping is not used to teach that such is happening. It is a euphemism that is typical when speaking of the dead. Other passages make it abundantly clear that they are conscious and aware of the spiritual things around them.
Next we will deal with the most abundant belief about the afterlife that has no biblical basis.
First let’s explain just what purgatory is. Purgatory comes into play when a believer dies. It teaches that sin after salvation can be absolved or forgiven, but the guilt cannot. Thus all believers who die are saved, but many are not pure. The pure go immediately into the presence of God and Christ, as we have already said. However, Christians who are not pure go into a temporary place of fiery pain until they have been “purged” of all their guilt. Then they will be allowed to go into the presence of God. Purgatory is not the same as the place of torments in Hades, but sounds an awful lot like it.
It is also taught that certain prayers, righteous works, and even monetary gifts that are given in this life can lower the amount of time that we will have to spend in purgatory, perhaps even lower it to zero. These are called indulgences. In fact, a person can obtain indulgences on behalf of family members and other believers who have passed away and may still be in purgatory.
This teaching was one of many that Martin Luther opposed in the 16th century when he nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenburg Castle church door. He quoted a popular jingle of the day, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul out of purgatory springs.” Of course, such teachings led to all manner of corruption in the name of bringing money into the treasury of the Roman Catholic Church, and in the name of rich people being able to indulge themselves in sin due to the fact they could purchase indulgences against any guilt.
It is important to note that this was a doctrine that was particular to Rome and the western Churches. When the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic Churches separated in AD 1054, 400 years followed of trying to reconcile their differences, which was never accomplished. The teaching of purgatory was one of these doctrines that the Eastern Church never adopted. Martin Luther and the other Protestant Reformers also came to reject this teaching.
Rome puts forth several defenses of this teaching, which were found lacking by all the afore mentioned parties. Let’s look at a couple of the passages put forward. The first is 1 Corinthians 3:12-14. It is said that the testing fire in this passage is purgatory. This is an untenable interpretation for several reasons. Paul is talking about the work that is done to build the Church of Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on anything other than Jesus Christ, it is compared to using wood, hay, and stubble for building materials. The passage does emphasize that this judgment does not affect salvation, but notice just what is subjected to the fire. The person is not subjected to the fire, but rather the works that we have done for Christ are tested. That which is according to Christ is rewarded as precious gold and silver, but that which is founded upon our own thinking, or the thinking of others besides Christ, will not survive and will not become reward to us. However, some will protest that verse 15 uses the phrase, “he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” Both the English translation and the Greek language use the word “as,” which is used to introduce a simile or comparison, not a literal teaching. This judging fire isn’t literal. It is symbolic of Christ’s judgment of our works and the rewards or lack thereof that will be given to us. It, in no way, teaches that the soul spends an amount of time in purgatory so that guilt can be purged.
Another passage used is 1 Peter 3:18-22. Here Peter makes a comparison between Jesus and Noah’s ark. In Noah’s days, God was patient with the wicked giving them opportunity to respond to the preaching and life-testimony of Noah. Only those in the ark were saved from the waters of judgment. Similarly, we are in a time in which God is being patient with the world and allowing people opportunity to enter Christ through faith and water baptism. In this case Christ becomes a spiritual ark. Yet, note verse 19. Here it says that by the Spirit Jesus went and preached to the spirits in prison (clearly intended to be Hades). The wicked are in prison in the sense that they are being punished and awaiting judgment. The righteous are in prison in the sense that they can’t get out without God’s help. Note our previous sermons on what the righteous experience in Hades.
Pro-purgatory interpreters see the term “preached” as an offer of salvation. Thus they see people in a prison who are given an opportunity to get out. This is not quite what purgatory teaches, but even then that is not what is meant. The word “preached” does not mean “to offer salvation.” It simply means to proclaim. When we proclaim the Gospel to people on this earth, it includes an offer of salvation. However, if Jesus proclaims anything to those in Hades, it is his victory over death. This would be bad news to the wicked in Hades, and good news to the righteous. The righteous will now be allowed to go with Christ into heaven, but the wicked remain. It is one thing to use human logic and reasoning to make sense of what is clearly taught. It is quite another to use human logic and reasoning to promote something that is not clearly taught. This passage in no way pictures the righteous paying for their guilt and getting out when they have paid it off.
Lastly, there is a passage in the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees that describes Judas Maccabees having a sacrifice offered on behalf of some Israelites who had died because they found out after their deaths that they had objects dedicated to false idols on their persons. Judas hopes that the offering will offset their sins and buy them grace from God. Now 2 Maccabees is not Scripture, nor does it explicitly or implicitly say that it is a word from the Lord. Just because someone in Israel believed something and the priests of his day went along with it, does not mean that God would honor it. Nor that these souls were actually in a place of purging. If anything, it is a religious “Hail Mary” that would help everyone feel like they did the best they could in light of a horrible revelation. Even more powerful than what I have just stated, is the fact that Jesus rejected most of the teachings and beliefs of the Israelites of his day. Whether Sadducee or Pharisee, Samaritan or Jew, Jesus spent most of his career correcting their false ideas. Thus, even if 2 Maccabees taught a doctrine of purgatory (which it clearly does not) that would not mean we would automatically adopt it without a word from Christ or His Apostles.
Faulty interpretation is not the only problem with the doctrine of purgatory. The adoption of it creates difficulties in other doctrinal areas that are clearly taught in the Bible. This doctrine rejects the final and full sufficiency of Christ’s once-for-all atonement. In fact 1 Peter 3:18, a passage cited above, starts out with the words, “Christ also suffered once for sins,” that is our sins. Isaiah 53:5 states that the Messiah was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. It is clear that the death of Christ was a suffering and painful experience that made for us peace and healing. Thus the belief in purgatory diminishes the work of Christ on the cross to merely making it possible for us to pay for our sins, which is heresy.
The doctrine of purgatory also creates an unbiblical idea of penalty and guilt. This doctrine divides the forgiveness of God into two categories, absolution and expiation (removing guilt). Although both concepts are biblical, they are simply two ways of looking at a singular process of forgiveness.
Another problem with the doctrine of purgatory is this. It distorts the biblical teaching of grace by infusing human merit into it. It ends up creating a system of self-atonement works, both in this life and in purgatory. Either we have received all of God’s grace as a gift, or it is not grace, but a payment. You can’t have both and remain orthodox.
Lastly, it confuses the judgment of God by creating the concept of a remedial punishment. Christ takes our punishment and judgment upon Himself that we might become the children of God, not that we might remediate our own punishment.
These last four points are not original to me. So I am crediting Michael F. Ross of Christian Research Institute for them. An article of his on the subject can be found at: http://www.equip.org/article/is-purgatory-a-biblical-concept/ (as of 9/18/2018).
Quickly I will point out another issue that is brought up by people regarding our experience after death. Annihilationism is the belief that those who do not belong to Christ are annihilated, i.e. go out of existence spiritually, either at their physical death or at a spiritual death in the Lake of Fire. A related, but somewhat different view called conditional immortality ends up at the same place as annihilationism. It says that humans do not inherently have immortality. A person goes out of existence unless God intervenes and gives them immortality. Thus they see all the righteous being immortal, but all the wicked as being annihilated.
The problem with these views is Scripture itself, especially the teaching of Christ. In Mark 9:43-44, Jesus says,
“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands to go to hell (Gehenna), into the fire that shall never be quenched—where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
He repeats this formula two more times, but changing it to your foot causing you to sin, and then your eye. Here we can see that Jesus emphasizes that Gehenna is a fire that shall never be quenched. Why would we fear going into the fire that is never quenched if we are just going to be annihilated? He is clearly not talking about Hades here (Revelation 20:14 states that Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire), but rather the Lake of Fire (also called the Second Death). Jesus also quotes from Isaiah 66:24. The imagery there is that the wicked will be thrown into a fiery place where the fire is never quenched and their worm never dies. What is meant by this phrase “their worm never dies?” Some see it as a reference of their body and soul. Others believe that it refers to their death. Just as the flames are never quenched (i.e. never run out of fuel) so the worms never die because they never run out of flesh to eat. This metaphor could be taken both ways. Either the person is never completely destroyed by this destructive death, or the destruction they face is simply far worse than what is in this life. Yet, note that nothing is said to “declare” that the soul goes out of existence. Alongside of this in Revelation 21, Why would God resurrect sinners bodily just so that He can make them instantaneously go out of existence when they are thrown into the Lake of Fire? Couldn’t that have been done in their spirit state? Another point, Daniel 12 states that some will awaken from the dust of the earth to everlasting shame and contempt. How can they have everlasting shame and contempt when they no longer exist? The Church has always held that even the souls of the wicked will be conscious and await judgment. To teach otherwise is to fight against the clear teaching of Scripture.
Let me close this by recognizing that the most important thing in all of this talk is the assurance that we can prepare ourselves now to avoid a bad situation after death. If you haven’t made your peace with God, I challenge you to hear His offer of salvation and turn to Him in repentance and with faith in Jesus. Flee to Jesus today.