Well, thanks for the explanations about it, masonite. I doubt that I’ll ever believe in it, but I can understand the explanations and why some do.
Someone else said something to the effect that even though we’ve been cleansed by Christ, we still get dirty and that is true. Just want to add my explanation. I think when the Father looks at those who’ve accepted His provision in Christ, that it’s Jesus righteousness He sees, not our dirtiness. But this is just my belief and the way I understand it.
His4Ever, I completely recognize the point you’re making about the blood of Jesus being complete payment for the penalty of sin.
But you may have run into the concept of “sanctification” – I remember it principally from a Methodist context, but it seems to run throughout the Protestant views of God’s work in mankind.
In brief, what it suggests is that once we are saved, God then through the Holy Spirit begins His work within us to make us over into fit vehicles of His grace, removing the tendency to sin and enhancing the fortitude, compassionateness, and other virtues which He wishes us to develop.
It’s in the context of this that one must see purgatory – that none of us is fit to be with God, whose holiness cannot stand sin – since we are all sinners. Yes, when He looks at us who have accepted Christ, he sees not our evil selves but His Perfect Son, Who has interposed His sinless Self. But nonetheless in another sense of what He sees, He sees us as we truly are, and works to remove all that which is not in accord with His will.
I can still offend people by a careless or too-strong word, I can walk away from the problems of another or walk by them not realizing their inner pain and suffering. These are sins in me, still present, that I wish were not there – and He is working to cleanse me of them.
There is a book by CS Lewis called the great divorce… It has an interesting viewpoint on Hell, Heaven, and Purgatory.
Going to catholic high school had some advantages… I once cornered the school’s priest and asked him to explain purgatory to me. It helped that we were friends.
He told me that it was a concept to explain what might happen under some circumstances… For example what appends if a baby dies before baptism? The poor child was born with original sin and it wasn’t washed away by holy sacrament. Does the baby go to hell for something outside his control?
I am sure with thought many other situations could be thought of where it would be confusing to us mortal folks to understand what might happen.
The last thing, they way I understand and believe things, God doesn’t send us to heaven or hell, we make our choice during life and deal with the consequences for all eternity.
