How to Explain Purgatory to Protestants

plo30360 SG

1 Cor 3:15, mentioned nothing about "saved yet so by fire".

(I Cor., 3, 11-15) should be this to see the whole context

"For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay stubble: Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire."

Simalry for the rest of verses. It is you who quote the verses out of context.

Weirdo80 SG

So we both agree on the fact that God is love, and that we need to confess and repent. However, the point now is that repentance comes from Christ, and not our own works. Just like the bandit hanging on the cross, he too realized his sins and asked Jesus for forgiveness. He did not perform any rites, neither did he mutter any incantation. All he knew was that he had sinned, and that Jesus could take away his sin. Therefore he asked Jesus not to forget him, and that day he joined the Lord in paradise.

The whole point that I'm trying to bring across is that Jesus died for our sins and we should focus on the grace given to us. Only Jesus can cleanse us of our sins, not Mary, not any sacrement, not any ritual or priest. Not even devoting our entire life to doing good works will get us cleansed. Just claiming the promises of God and confessing in Jesus. God has made it so easy for us to draw close to Him and eliminate the gap that sin has brought. Why do we want to make things difficult for ourselves by doing this, that and the other?

plo30360 SG

Originally posted by Weirdo80:
You are right to say this. Our sins are not covered over - they are WASHED AWAY completely by the blood of Christ.

You are right but even Christ Himself gave the conditon for that washing away:
Repentance first

Even the holiest Christian at the hour of death is no sinless because he may have not seeked forgiveness for ALL his sins. Hence he is not fully repentant.

plo30360 SG

And we agree that salvation is not through works alone however it is neither through faith alone:

It is:
1.Faith(First and foremost prequisite)
2.Faith inspired works
3.Salvation up to God.

Weirdo80 SG

Originally posted by plo30360:

And we agree that salvation is not through works alone however it is neither through [b]faith alone:

It is:
1.Faith(First and foremost prequisite)
2.Faith inspired works
3.Salvation up to God.

[/b]

Agreed. However, in number 2 we believe that if a person is truly faithful, it will be manifested in his actions. Therefore Jesus said that "faith without works is dead". Just saying that we are faithful without having the faith spill into our lives is just paying lip service to God. However, we do not advocate certain rituals or actions that must be done for salvation to occur because salvation has been paid for by Jesus and not us. For example, if we go to eat at a very fancy restaurant with friends and someone in the group says that he has paid, do we go to the cashier and ask if he really has paid? Or do we attempt to pay again even if the price has already been paid? No, we don't. Instead, we smile and thank the person for his generosity. We then proceed to LEAVE the restaurant because we have FAITH that the price has been paid up fully. That is an action that is brought about in the faith that our friend has paid the bill. We don't go back to the cashier and beg to give more money, or wash the dishes of the restaurant to try and make up for the "free" meal.

We also do not advocate that priests or pastors can cleanse our sins. Pastors can pray with us as a guide, but we only look to Jesus for forgiveness. We also belive that Mary is a mortal, she is not sinless. There can be no communication between the living and the dead. Therefore we do not ask for Mary to intercede on our behalf as she cannot hear us.

The magnitude of differences between Christians and Catholics is too big to be debated here. Theologians and Bible scholars have been fighting over them for centuries. We can only hope to live in peace and agree to disagree. I sincerely hope, though that the Catholics here can just ponder about the things that I have mentioned.

SingaporeMacross SG

The Sacrament of Reconcilliation removes sins, only because Jesus works through it. The priest does not forgive our sins. It is Jesus who forgives us. But it is through the priest that Jesus forgives our sin. So when we go for Confession, we are really claiming what God has promised for us, and confessing in Jesus!

To add, Confession would be useless if Jesus did not die on that Cross and be raised to life.

SingaporeMacross SG

Aye, there are too many differences.

For instance, in your analogy, you are saying that once saved, always saved. We do not believe that this is the case. A person can lose his salvation if he drifts away from God! Jesus saved us by dying for us. When he did this, he opened the gates of heaven. His dying is not a license for us to sin. We acknowledge that we are weak sinners, but we are justified in Christ. Yea, but we still need to repent if we want to claim His mercy and grace.

Mary is alive in heaven. She is not dead. As are the Christians of the past ages, they are not dead! They are alive in heaven! It is by God's power that they can hear us.

Let us pray.

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