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Post by Ali Blue on Jan 21, 2006 22:25:43 GMT -5
ok... but I don't remember ever ever ever reading about purgatory in the Bible.. whenever Jesus talks about what happens after life he says it's either Heaven or Hell.
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Post by Tiana, eh? on Mar 10, 2006 1:08:25 GMT -5
If Eoloth/whatever her present name is does have references, I'd be interested in seeing them, though... I can honestly say that from my extensive degree of Bible readings done for Awana, I've never run into a mention of a middle-ground... and I can say also I've read probably three quarters of the Bible through that time period.
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Post by Ali Blue on Mar 24, 2006 22:49:58 GMT -5
I used to do Awana too!!!
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Post by Barnzo on Mar 25, 2006 11:18:22 GMT -5
WOW! This is a GREAT thread, who I know as SG (you know what I am talking about, SG). Purgatory:
MT 12:32: "And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age OR IN THE AGE TO COME." Jesus is saying that SOME SINS CAN BE FORGIVEN IN THE NEXT WORLD. Sin can not be forgiven in Hell. There is no sin to be forgiven in heaven. Any forgiving of sin in the next world can only be occur in Purgatory.
1 COR 3:15: "But if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, BUT ONLY AS THROUGH FIRE." This cannot refer to eternal loss in Hell, for there no one is saved. Nor can it refer to heaven, for there no one suffers. It refers, then, to a middle state where the soul temporarily suffers loss so that it may gain heaven. This is essentially the definition of Purgatory.
There are also MANY other verses in the Bible that talk about Purgatory that I do not have time to post right now.
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Post by eoloth on Mar 25, 2006 13:10:06 GMT -5
ok, so after taking like FOREVER to get back to you ppl about this, here i is again. I apologize for the inconvenience. I must forewarn you. Yes, many of you will or may note that the Bible does not have explicit references to Purgatory. The verses and information I am giving you are for your discretion. Some of it may seem very vague. So if it seems to you that these verses don't give evidence for a middle ground, well let's just be safe to say that one believes and sees what one wants to believe and see. As Catholics, we don't believe in the Bible alone, we have the authority of the CHurch to stand on as well. (If you'd like clarification on these topics, let me know, and I will attempt to enlighten you) The Church does believe in Purgatory. This is a dogma which the Church has taught infallibly (i think...don't quote me on that one) but if they do teach it infallibly, one requirement is that dogmas are expounded based on Scripture and Tradition. Nothing stated infallibly goes against either of these, nor is a totally new doctrine of belief. That said, I will launch into the Bible quotes about Purgatory. Barney Jenkins has already related two of them. thank you.
Mt. 5:48. "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." I don't know about all of you, but I'm asking. How many of you think that you won't have committed any sins, aka, won't have any sins on your souls when you die? *does not expect many hands raised* I know for myself, I will need to have some sins cleansed before I leave earth, and what if I don't get the chance? I have to be perfect to enter the kingdom of heaven, so where am I going to go after death, if my sins aren't forgiven in life, or if I haven't paid the punishment due to my sin? I go (and you do) to Purgatory. To be cleansed 'as through fire'.
Heb. 12:14. "Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." What sort of holiness is this? I believe it is a perfect holiness, but our human natures cannot attain such by ourselves. We need grace. The grace of Purgatory allows us to attain this perfect holiness after death, since we ourselves cannot always reach it in life. (Of course, the exception is saints.)
James 3:2 (NOTE: some Protestant Bibles may not have this book in their Bibles. Luther believed it to be too Catholic. It taught Catholic beliefs such as the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, and the teaching of faith without works is dead.) "For we all make many mistakes, and if any one makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also." Jesus Christ is the only perfect man. Mary is the only perfect woman. Period.
Rev. 21:27. "But nothing uncleam shall enter it, nor any one who pracftices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life." Let's all hope we're written in that book! Thankfully enough, anyone who goes to Purgatory, though they suffer, they are sure of one thing: they will get to Heaven and will see God. No one who goes to Purgatory goes to Hell. Purgatory is like a hospital, it's the place where we have to receive some painful or icky but always beneficial medicine, so that we can get better, and go see Jesus.
1 Jn. 5:16-17. "If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that." This basically defines sin. Venial sin is the lesser sins. Mortal is the greater. To commit venial sin only separates one little by little from God. But mortal sin (murder, adultery, stuff you'd go to jail a while for) is a complete turning your back on God type of sin. It is the death of the soul, whereas venial sins are just the sickness of the soul. Nevertheless, all sin is to be detested, and all are equally "wrong" in the sense that they all need to be forgiven.
2 Sam. 12:13-14. "David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' And Nathan said to David, 'The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because bu this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.'" This is one of the testaments also that Jesus' death doesn't cover our sins so that we don't need to suffer payment and punishment....look, David, though his sins were forgiven, still had to suffer the consequences, and receive punishment. So too, if the temporal (meaning not permanent) punishment we receive due to our sins is not fulfilled here on earth, we must accept it after death in Purgatory.
I have fully eight more verses about this. But I don't have the time to write and explain them now. If you want to hear them, let me know and I'll write them another time. Any questions or concerns about other points of Catholicism that I brought up (such as Marian stuff, Papal Primacy or Infallibility, or Biblical books) let me know. God bless you all for entering this discussion. Hopefully it has been informative or at least thought-provoking for you.
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Post by Barnzo on Mar 25, 2006 16:42:30 GMT -5
Nice job, Kiranitha!
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Post by Ali Blue on Mar 25, 2006 19:28:57 GMT -5
Mt. 5:48. "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." I don't know about all of you, but I'm asking. How many of you think that you won't have committed any sins, aka, won't have any sins on your souls when you die? *does not expect many hands raised* I know for myself, I will need to have some sins cleansed before I leave earth, and what if I don't get the chance? I have to be perfect to enter the kingdom of heaven, so where am I going to go after death, if my sins aren't forgiven in life, or if I haven't paid the punishment due to my sin? I go (and you do) to Purgatory. To be cleansed 'as through fire'. when Jesus died, He died for all our sins, when we ask for repentance and tell Him that we want to follow Him, our sins are taken care of, the only thing that would send you to Hell after asking Jesus into your heart, is if you completely turn away from God. if you steal a cookie and don't repent, God's not gonna send you to 'Purgatory' before you get to Heaven. He will accept you, as His child, because Jesus sacrificed Himself for us. He endured the pain, so we would not have to. There is no need for Purgatory. You're either gonna be hot after death or happy. STRIVE not attain, strive. men cannot attain holiness. it's as simple as that. Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are holy, nobody else on Earth is. it's impossible, as you said. and that verse says nothing about Purgatory. all it says is to strive to be like God. The Bible is crystal clear about life after death, I don't think God would just go cloudy on an essential part. And as I said earlier, Jesus gave up His life (lol, I almost wrote lice..) so we could be holy and perfect in the eyes of the Lord. I still don't see what that has to do with Purgatory. (Mary was not perfect. In the Bible it says you will be sitting on the right hand of Jesus, not Mary.) everyone who has accepted Jesus has their name written in that Book. God is a God of grace, He would not say "Oops.. you see that little lie you forgot to confess to me? You're gonna have to burn in Purgatory for a couple decades. Sorry, but Jesus' blood ain't gonna cover you on that one." This is a verse that has created much controversy, I hope you don't mind if I stop to discuss it, but it intrigues me. here's my Bible's version, it's basically the same only different wording. (me being Protestant, I don't really understand the terminology in Kiranitha's version.) 1 John 5:16-17 '16. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall aask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this. 17. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.' I'm stumped on this one, any of you guys have an idea of what John might be talking about? That was before Jesus' death, therefore, something that has not happened, cannot cover someone's back. It is fulfilled either in Hell or on Earth. Of course David had to suffer the consequences! That's what happens when you do bad things! With or without God's help, there will always be consequences. Always. I would like to see those eight verses. Thanks a lot for having this discussion with me. I'm so happy I actually found someone who will get into this kind of stuff with me! Everyone else is too afraid they'll hurt someone's feelings.
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Post by Barnzo on Mar 25, 2006 21:58:43 GMT -5
Thank you, too, Alistair! I really love talking about Faith!
(I don't have this quoting thing down, so I will just kinda repeat what you say. Yeah, I am really . . . a slow learner)
NOTHING is even a TAD bad in heaven. No ONE is even at all bad in heaven, either. If someone stole a cookie, and even if they DID confess it, the sin still happened. It is like this:
If you break a window at your neighbor's house, you would go over there and say that you are sorry. But the window is still broken. You need to pay for it to fix it.
On earth, you "break the window". You can not pay for it on earth. That is what you do in purgatory.
And I will say more, but I need to get off now. (One of our family's rules)
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Post by Ali Blue on Mar 25, 2006 22:24:16 GMT -5
I know everything's perfect in Heaven, but not by our doing. not because of anything we endured, it's Christ's pain, not ours, that gets us into Heaven. Going to your metaphor: You still have to pay for it yes, but then your dad, (aka Jesus) comes along and pays it for you, because you could never make enough money to pay for the window.
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Post by Barnzo on Mar 26, 2006 9:26:53 GMT -5
When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that made us able to go to heaven. It makes it possible. But it does not take away our personal responsibility for our own sins. Or we could just lie there, saying," Well, cause ya died for me, I will just start killin people, sinning, and not really caring if I sin or not. You payed the price for me, so I will put it all in your hands."
So then you could be the most murdering person in the world, and not worry because Jesus died for you. Then, if it were that way, everyone who even said, "Yes, I believe!" and did not ever live it, would go to heaven. But it is not really that way.
C.S. Lewis, a protestant, firmly believed in Purgatory. He was not, as I said, a Catholic.
In other words, God just made us ABLE to go to heaven, and did not take away our free will.
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Post by Morgana Le Fay on Mar 26, 2006 14:33:27 GMT -5
Just a few words...
Catholics don't take the Bible literally. At least, not 99% of it. The only thing that is really really literal is the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood at mass. (I've noticed with Baptists, this is the opposite - the only thing NOT literal is the sharing of the bread and wine. Funny huh?)
I'm not well read Biblically, but Puragtory is similar to what ... someone previous... said. It's like a holding pen, essentially. You wait there until The Boss feels you've paid for all your little sins and you truly repent, then you can 'come on up'. It's like a second chance - those who never have been taught Christ or God have a chance to know him and repent. It's also like a test, to see if you do believe.
Some forms of Christianity don't accept this, being more literal in their line of thinking. That's what makes the denominations different.
Also, people will translate the Bible's words how they want to, whether it really means what they're saying or not.
Great defense, Kiranitha and barneyjenkins.
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Post by Barnzo on Mar 26, 2006 18:52:33 GMT -5
Well, Catholics do take it literally, actually. A lot of it. Well, I see what you mean, depending on what you mean by "literally", but I guess I do see what you are meaning. Thanks!
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Post by Ali Blue on Mar 26, 2006 22:28:51 GMT -5
When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that made us able to go to heaven. It makes it possible. But it does not take away our personal responsibility for our own sins. Or we could just lie there, saying," Well, cause ya died for me, I will just start killin people, sinning, and not really caring if I sin or not. You payed the price for me, so I will put it all in your hands." So then you could be the most murdering person in the world, and not worry because Jesus died for you. Then, if it were that way, everyone who even said, "Yes, I believe!" and did not ever live it, would go to heaven. But it is not really that way. C.S. Lewis, a protestant, firmly believed in Purgatory. He was not, as I said, a Catholic. In other words, God just made us ABLE to go to heaven, and did not take away our free will. A lot of protestants believe in Purgatory, doesn't make it right no matter who believes in it. (except for God.. of course ) But, on to what you said earlier in your post: If you believe that God took away your sins and repented, you wouldn't just go and totally disobey Him and sin all over again. True repentance is your soul being chafed by what you did, and after you repent you strive to change what you did. And that is our personal responsibility for our sins, changing our ways and conforming our hearts to be like God's. God gave us free will so we could choose to be like Him. There's no truth in repentance if you're forced to repent. And if you truly want to be like Him, you will follow Him, and sure you'll screw up every once in a while, Peter, Paul, and John did. Mary did. Every human messes up, it's something you can't avoid. But we either have to pay the price for it, or Jesus does. there's no small price after death, no little Camp Purgatory. Either your sins are all gone, or they're all there.
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Post by Barnzo on Mar 27, 2006 16:31:50 GMT -5
I was giving that just as an example. And if you are knew that you will go to heaven no matter what, just because you believed in God, then what would be the purpose of totally devoting your life to him. Faith without works is dead.
And about being forced to repent, that is what I was saying. If you simply knew that God died for you, and that you were "safe" no matter what you did, then because you have free will, you could do anything you want, but still go to heaven. With sin. If you would die with sin, then there would be a sinner in heaven. Then heaven would not be perfect. What else could take away your sins after you are dead, but before heaven?
And about Mary making mistakes: where? When?
(Hope I aint losing "friends" by this . . . for me, it is making friends, because we are not, like, being extremely mean or anything)
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Post by Trinity on Mar 27, 2006 22:34:09 GMT -5
In Proverbs, we are told not to be as dogs returning to our own vomit (vomit being sin). I have heard this argument many times before, and the answer always seems to depend on the person you are talking about, so I don't like to generalize. As a Christian, once you accept Christ, He brings the change into your life. You are no longer a slave of sin, and you can choose to fall into temptation or to resist. Whether you make that choice or not is up to you.
ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God demonstrates His grace in that He sent His son to wipe our sin away and leave us as white as snow so that when we go to heaven, we may stand blameless before Him not because we are perfect, but because the blood of Christ was shed for us.
The Bible does not say that Mary was perfect, it says she found favor in God's eyes and He chose her to bear His Son. I can think of nowhere that it says Mary was perfect in the Bible; she was just an ordinary girl who believed in Christ and was put into extraordinary circumstances. Because if Mary was perfect, then God would have created someone before His Son who was blameless and perfect, and only Christ is perfect.
I don't have a Bible handy at the moment, so I'm going to hold off on going through the Bible verses because I would like to see what verses are surrounding them before I give any opinions on those just so I can see the whole picture...
Anyway, don't worry about losing friends, BarneyJenkins! Debates like these that are going as smoothly as this one don't result in that. I like the way this debate is, and let's keep it that way because I have seen WAY too many get ugly...
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Post by Ali Blue on Mar 27, 2006 22:39:23 GMT -5
"What else could take away your sins after you are dead?" Jesus. and you could not do anything you want after believe in Jesus, because then you would be a slave of the devil, not a servant of God. You have the free will to choose, yes, but if your heart is not true, then God will see it, and He will not allow you into Heaven. now, if your heart is true, when you walk up to His throne on your judgement day, He will say to you: "Well done, good and faithful servant." and you will live in Heaven for all eternity. look at it like this: When you get to Heaven, you didn't have enough time to repent to God for the last sins you committed. When you get there, God points out all your sins, but Jesus, who 'paid' for your soul steps up and says "I've got this one, let them come in." it's just like that. and God will let you in! *yay* as for Mary, the Bible says that everyone has fallen short of the glory of God. now, as Mary was a mortal, and was definitely not God. She fell short. thus she made a mistake. I know that Mary was blessed above all women, but that does not at all mean that she never made a mistake! No matter how close anyone is to God, or how much He blesses them, they still sin! (btw, don't worry. no friends lost. )
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Post by SilverSergyon13 on Mar 28, 2006 9:03:20 GMT -5
Commander, that was a good post. I liked the way you worder things.
When I went to catholic sunday school, I did realize that catholics usually aren't very literal when believing or studying the bible. I remember the first time someone quoted a bible verse to me while trying to prove a point. I thought it was the strangest thing in the world. To catholics, the bible is seen more as a story book almost, or at least that's how I was taught. We would read the stories and the characters became like the fictional characters we know and love. It was very rare that we would take a verse and rip it apart into all it's various literal pieces just to make some sense out of it (Haha, the ripping isn't a bad thing. I say the same thing when people "Rip apart the lines of a poem or a book to study it.)
I have math HW I have to finish now, so I'll write more in a bit (If I can find any time)
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Post by Barnzo on Mar 28, 2006 16:59:13 GMT -5
And purgatory is not exactly for the FORGIVING of sins, but for the paying of and the punishment for your sins. Not as a bad thing, but for making everything right.
And, just a thought, how about we talk about things that we AGREE on? Catholics and Protestants agree on many things, and we could talk about those things.
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Post by Trinity on Mar 28, 2006 19:51:08 GMT -5
*raises hand meekly* Jesus died for us so we wouldn't have to pay for our sins, because we never EVER could. He endured the punishment (the wages of sin is death) so that we would not have to, even though we SO deserve it (that's God's mercy for you).
I'm not trying to disagree, that just really stood out to me...
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Post by Padawan goober-shadowslayer on Mar 29, 2006 17:04:51 GMT -5
I agree with you Trinity, but that does not mean that there is not a purgatory. We need to be purified if we want to go to heaven, we either have that purification here on earth or in purgatory. God sees everything that we do.He is ALL powerful.
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