🤔 What’s up with purgatory?
Where it comes from:
📜 It’s not mentioned in the Bible; it is derived from the Apocrypha in 2 Maccabees 12, where a man named Judas (not that one) organized an offering for Jews buried with testaments to idols, believing it would enable them to enter the resurrection.
📝 These texts are considered descriptive, not prescriptive.
✝️ For Catholics, purgatory addresses sins NOT enumerated or absolved during confession.
Bible verses Catholics use:
📖 Matt. 12:32: Catholics interpret “forgiveness in the age to come” as evidence of purgatory.
⛓️ 1 Peter 3:19: Catholics see “spirits in prison” as souls in purgatory, whereas Lutherans interpret it as referring to demons.
How forgiveness works:
🤍 In Lutheran theology, forgiveness on earth is absolute. The forgiveness of sins proclaimed on earth manifests into the resurrection.
✅ If your sins are forgiven here, they’re never going to be brought back up later.
✝️ When Jesus said, “It is finished” on the cross, He atoned for all sins, making additional purification unnecessary.
💧 Baptism unites us with Jesus in his death and resurrection (Rom. 6).
Lutherans on Purgatory:
🚫 Purgatory is unnecessary because Jesus’ atonement renders believers perfect in God’s eyes.
✝️ The purgatory was Jesus. Our baptism ties us to that purgatory.
🙌 If you’re baptized, your sins are already forgiven. You’re a new creation in Christ — fully
saint and fully sinner.
⚖️ Purgatory is not a necessity for Christians, because your sins are already purged on the cross.
Conclusion:
🙏 Lutherans find comfort in God’s efficacious word and the promise of baptism, focusing on God’s grace rather than human merit.
🔥 Purgatory is tied to the idea of purging sins, but we say our purgatory was Jesus.
✝️ Jesus makes purgatory obsolete.
Contributor Amelia is a college student and HT’s assistant webmaster.
Contributor Rev. Harrison Goodman is the Higher Things Content Executive.
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