🤔 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.