What is Purgatory, and is it taught in the Bible? Let’s talk about it, and yes.
Roadmap
This will be the first installment in our mini-series on Purgatory. Our hope is that non-Catholic Christians, especially protestants, will be willing to consider the many more Scriptural details that support the Catholic teaching about Purgatory after they see how clearly Jesus teaches it. Growing up protestant, I thought Purgatory was obviously unbiblical. But when I began reading the Church Fathers, and saw how they unpacked Scripture in such a way that Purgatory not only became plausible, but fairly obvious, I realized there was a much stronger biblical basis for this Catholic doctrine than I realized.
Our Roadmap for this installment is as follows:
- Our thesis is that Jesus teaches the doctrine of Purgatory quite clearly, despite the fact that many people miss it, including myself. I must thank Dr. Brant Pitre for pointing this out in his video, Purgatory in the Bible. We will show this by:
- First, providing a brief definition of Purgatory (leaving many of the details for future installments); then
- Describing the human soul, and how it becomes impure; then
- Explaining that sin results in both eternal and temporal punishments; then
- Showing how God uses temporary punishment to purify us of our forgiven sins and grow us in virtue; then
- Providing a practical analogy to illustrate the common sense of Purgatory, what I call my “Punching a Hole in the Wall” story; and finally
- Reading Jesus’s words recorded in Luke 12:41-48, and explaining how they clearly indicate something very much like the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.
What is Purgatory? A Brief Definition
First, a brief definition of Purgatory. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (par. 1030) describes it this way:
All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
The doctrine of Purgatory is quite basic, but has many details. For this introductory post, we will stick with the basics.
The Catholic Church teaches that everyone, body and soul, will ultimately end up in either Heaven or Hell for all eternity. Only these two states are eternal.
However, She also teaches that some of those on the way to Heaven who have impurities in their soul will first be purged of those impurities prior to entering Heaven. Hence the word, “Purgatory.”
The Soul, Sin, and Impurities
Where do these impurities come from? From deliberate sins, and the just penalties due for those sins. We’ll illustrate what this means below through a simple example. But if you keep in mind how a parent disciplines a child, you’ll understand the common sense basis of Purgatory much more easily.
To better understand this notion of “impurity” in our souls, let’s first clarify a few matters about the human soul. The soul, to use somewhat more technical language, is the form of the body. It’s what gives life to the body. This is why the definition of death is the separation of body and soul. Human beings possess what the Church calls a “rational soul,” which is a soul capable of knowing and obeying the truth (unlike animals). This is what it means to bear God’s image. God, who is Truth, created those who bear His image to know and love the Truth, which is Himself. We know the Truth with our minds. We love the Truth with our will.
The soul is therefore the seat of our two most basic powers as human beings: our intellect (by which we perceive the truth), and our will (by which we decide to obey or disobey the truth). Whenever we sin, we are in some sense discerning the truth with our intellect, but refusing to follow it with our will. This is why continuing to sin, particularly when we know better, makes us more and more miserable. We are in some sense “splitting” our soul when we fail to keep our will aligned with our intellect, and our intellect submitted to God.
When our intellect and will are severed by sin, this results in an “impurity” in our soul, which, in layman’s terms, means our soul is not perfectly aligned with God. It may know the Truth (with the intellect), but it is not loving the Truth (with the will). But to be in Heaven forever, we must be perfectly aligned with God, which means our soul must be perfectly “pure.” Scripture is full of verses that speak of the purity required to be in God’s presence. As the book of the Apocalypse (“Revelation”) says, “Nothing unclean shall enter it [Heaven], nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Apoc. 21:27).
Eternal and Temporal Punishment
Such impurity in our souls, caused by sin, incurs two types of punishment, or penalty: eternal (forever) and temporal (temporary).
Eternal punishment is what is experienced in Hell. Temporal punishment is what is experienced in Purgatory.
Eternal punishment is incurred when we fall into mortal sin, and fail to repent before death. But thanks to the grace of Christ, such punishment can be avoided by repentance. However, sin also incurs a temporal punishment, which is a temporary penalty God imposes on us for the sake of growing us in holiness (again, think of a parent forgiving their child, but nonetheless imposing a disciplinary measure on them to help them grow in maturity). We can either pay those penalties in this life, or in the next. Any penalties that are left unpaid by someone who is otherwise in a state of friendship with Christ is purged after they die in Purgatory.
Since Purgatory is temporary, the penalties it resolves are temporal penalties, as opposed to eternal penalties for sin. The eternal penalty of sin is Hell, and can only be paid for by Christ. The Church does not teach that Catholics can “earn” their way out of this. No one can, except by the grace of God. But temporal penalties, when done by a Christian who is otherwise in a state of friendship with Christ, can and will in fact be “paid” for by Christians, either in this life, or the next, through an appropriate punishment. However, these penalties are disciplinary measures imposed by our loving Father on His sons and daughters for the purpose of making them holy, which is another way of saying making them “pure.”
How the God Who Forgives Uses Punishment to Make Us Holy
We see this pattern of God using punishment to purify His children, those He loves, throughout Scripture.
A good example would be Proverbs 3:11-12, which is quoted in Hebrews 12:5-6:
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, 12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.
First, it’s important to recognize that Scripture speaks of God imposing punishment and discipline on those He considers “sons,” those “whom he loves…in whom he delights.” These are those the Catechism refers to as “in God’s grace and friendship.” Therefore, we are not speaking of someone on their way to Hell. We are speaking about those who are in a loving relationship with God.
Second, Scripture speaks of God inflicting “discipline” and “reproof” on these sons “whom he loves.” Scripture explains the purpose of this as follows (Heb. 12:7-11):
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Thus, we see quite clearly that God reserves a painful form of discipline exclusively for his legitimate children. However, this discipline—unlike the eternal punishment of Hell—is meant to make them holy, and its ultimate fruit is the righteousness necessary to eternal life in Heaven.
That is why the Catholic Church teaches that God, in love, applies this form of discipline to every Christian who commits sin after receiving baptism (which cleanses their souls, and makes them a new creature, in a state of grace and friendship with God). The purpose is to purify their souls of the sins they have committed after baptism, and lead them to eternal life in Heaven. However, if they die before their discipline has been completed, their soul is not yet completely purified. So the place where their soul receives this final purification before Heaven is Purgatory.
As the book of Hebrews states quite clearly, this discipline is only applied to God’s legitimate children, and it results in greater righteousness, which is precisely what the Catechism teaches about Purgatory: it is only for those who are on their way to Heaven (being legitimate children), and will result in them being purified (and therefore, more righteous).
This is not a concoction of the Catholic Church. It’s a reality every parent is well aware of. They punish their children to help them become better. This punishment, as Scripture quite clearly says, is not a negation of God’s mercy. Rather, it is an exercise of it.
Here is an example to illustrate the concept.
Punching a Hole in the Wall
Let’s say a Christian purposely punches a hole in someone’s wall. This is a serious sin. Unless they repent, they are on their way to Hell, because they deliberately chose hatred of their neighbor, which breaks Jesus’s commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.
But let’s say they repent. Now, they are no longer threatened with Hell. Eternal punishment is off the table because they have turned back to God.
However, their neighbor’s wall still has a hole in it. Therefore, in justice, they are obligated to repair the wall that they broke by their sin. This is part of the temporal punishment they owe because of their sin.
Imagine the Christian in this case was a teenager. The person whose wall they broke could forgive them, and their earthly father could forgive them. But despite being forgiven, any earthly father worth their salt will punish them (as the book of Hebrews and many other verses quite clearly state). They will require their child to repair the damage they have done. The hole in the wall must be fixed. They can do so in many different ways: they can ground them, deduct money from their allowance, require them to buy the supplies and fix it themselves, etc.
This punishment is temporary, not eternal. But it must be done. Does their father do this because he hates them, or because their relationship is broken, or because his forgiveness is not sufficient? No, of course not. He does it because he loves them, and wants them to grow in virtuous maturity—exactly as Scripture describes God’s desire for His children. He desires that his teenager should have a pure soul, which means that the split between their intellect and will that took place when they punched a hole in their neighbor’s wall must be healed. They bring their intellect and will back together by repairing that damage, and that healing is the result of their submission to their father’s love through punishment. This is why protestant accusations that Catholics believe in “works based salvation” when it comes to something like Purgatory stems from a complete misunderstanding of what Purgatory is all about. It is as incoherent as accusing a child who is willingly and dutifully bearing a punishment imposed on them by a loving parent of thinking they “deserve” their parent’s mercy by bearing the punishment.
At this point, there are two possible outcomes:
- The repentant teenager repairs the temporal damage from punching a hole in their neighbor’s wall in this life; or
- If they die before doing so, they will pay for that temporal damage in the next life, prior to entering Heaven.
It’s that simple. The “place” where this final disciplinary cleansing occurs is Purgatory.
Jesus Teaches the Doctrine of Purgatory in a Parable (Luke 12:41-48)
In St. Luke’s Gospel, we find Jesus explicitly describing such temporary punishment prior to entering Heaven in one of His parables, where we read as follows (Luke 12:41-48):
41 Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. 44 Truly, I tell you, he will set him over all his possessions. 45 But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the unfaithful. 47 And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. 48 But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.
In His parables, Jesus frequently uses the metaphor of a master leaving his possessions to servants, and then returning and judging them according to how they managed them. We see this, for example, in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25. The master is Christ, the servants He has hired are Christians, and they each receive a different reward or punishment based on what they did, corresponding with them going to Heaven or Hell.
Christ utilizes the same metaphor in this parable. However, He doesn’t mention only two outcomes—namely Heaven and Hell. Rather, He describes four (really three). They are as follows:
(1) Eternal reward—Heaven
“Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. Truly, I tell you, he will set him over all his possessions” (vv. 43-44).
(2) Eternal punishment—Hell
“[The master] will punish him, and put him with the unfaithful” (v. 46).
(3A) Temporary (severe) punishment—Purgatory
“[The servant] shall receive a severe beating” (v. 47).
(3B) Temporary (light) light punishment—Purgatory
“[The servant] shall receive a light beating” (v. 48).
Thus, Jesus clearly describes three types of outcomes for the master’s servants. Each of these describes what the servants receive upon the master’s return (i.e. Christ’s return), and are thus clearly eschatological. There is no more work to be done. All that remains is reward and punishment.
Two of the outcomes are eternal, obviously corresponding with Heaven and Hell (#1 and #2). However, one of the outcomes clearly refers to temporary punishment, whether severe or light (#3A-B). This would likewise obviously correspond with Purgatory. And since temporary punishment excludes the possibility of Hell (since Hell is eternal), it logically follows that after death, some who are in a state of friendship with Christ will in fact attain eternal life in Heaven, but only after receiving some sort of temporary punishment by which they are cleansed.
In other words, they will go through exactly what the Church describes as Purgatory.
So there it is: Purgatory straight from the mouth of Christ.
