Unpacking Truths

Purgatory

• LOC Church • Season 1 • Episode 120

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✝️ Unpacking Truths: Episode 120: Purgatory

Pastors Kendall and Mo invite listeners to embark on a theological odyssey as they pull back the veil on the enigmatic realm of purgatory. With a dash of humor to lighten the gravity of the exploration, they share quirky musings on this transitional state before delving into its historical and scriptural foundations. The discussion reveals how traditions like Lutheran and Anglo-Catholic interpret purgatory through the lens of their distinct heritages. They dissect the Protestant Reformation's role in shaping modern views on texts like 2 Maccabees and unravel how beliefs about the living's influence on the afterlife have evolved over time. This episode promises a riveting blend of lighthearted conjectures and profound theological insights.

Listeners are challenged as the pastors probe the purgatorial fires thought to refine and transform souls on their journey to salvation. They navigate the thorny history of indulgences and their impact on the faithful, contrasting the problematic practice with the Catholic notion of the soul's voluntary quest for purity. The discussion takes a deep dive into grace's power to change individuals, moving beyond the idea of 'cheap grace' and considering what it means to actively participate in one's own sanctification. Inspired by the wisdom of C.S. Lewis and the Apostle Paul, the episode closes with reflections on daily choices and the nurturing role of community in spiritual growth. Tune in for an episode that offers not merely discourse but an invitation to contemplate the implications of beliefs on the path to holiness.

#TheologicalOdyssey #ExploringPurgatory #FaithJourney #SpiritualRefinement #HistoricalTheology #ProtestantReformation #GraceAndSanctification #CSLewisWisdom #CommunityInFaith #PathToHoliness

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Speaker 1:

Well, hello friends, we're excited to jump into our topic today. It's a serious one, a deep one. Some people have raised the question of how do we understand purgatory and do we believe there's a purgatory or not? So we're going to dive in and we're going to get serious about this one. Hi, I'm Pastor Kendall.

Speaker 2:

And I'm Pastor Mo and we're Unpacking Truths.

Speaker 1:

Where we unpack God's Word and God's truth for life.

Speaker 2:

today, Everyone is seeking, and we're here to help you find hope and power in God's Word. Before we get serious, let's think about this in our own context. Seriously, what do you envision purgatory to be like?

Speaker 1:

I think it is a spiritual gym, mo. Spiritual gym, yeah, like with lots of weights or like jazzercise.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, Are you doing Pilates in this gym? I don't know.

Speaker 1:

If that's what you need, that's what you're doing Is there a reformer in your stretched extra far. I think there's definitely a personal trainer. Yeah, so what's your image?

Speaker 2:

I don't know. Mine is being in the grocery store and there is an extreme couponer in front of me and it's just like I feel my soul being refined, even when it happens now. So it just, but it never ends. They just have coupons for days and yeah, I think that would be very refining to me.

Speaker 1:

That would be refining to Mo, who's wanting to get on with her life and make things happen, and instead having to wait in line.

Speaker 2:

I want to hear what their. What is your purgatory, your idea of?

Speaker 1:

purgatory.

Speaker 2:

Please send that into us. I definitely want to hear this.

Speaker 1:

Well, mo, it's funny that you lift it up in that way, because part of what you're pointing to is the idea. One way is that purgatory is this idea of this painful process we have to go through. And so let me just say, you know, growing up I grew up in the Lutheran church I never heard purgatory mentioned. I went to seminary. We never talked about purgatory because that was something that the Roman Catholics believed, and so I like, heard about it tangentially, but never really thought about it. Heard about it, but I will tell you. And so when this topic came up from one of the listeners, I was intrigued, because I have been doing thinking about this idea over the last couple of decades as a pastor, and I'm actually more drawn to the idea, not in the way that a lot of people often conceive of it, but in a different way. And so it'll be good. So why don't we talk about some of the historical roots first and then talk, or where did you?

Speaker 2:

want to go. No, I was going to say, which is interesting to me, that you're kind of interested in it. I come from an Episcopal background and so we're Anglo-Catholic, so we do talk about purgatory.

Speaker 1:

I pray for you often.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we do talk about purgatory, and I like the idea, because I'm not sure I'll be done cooking by the time I leave this side. No, so let's get into it. And yeah, why don't you begin us with some? Where does this come out of?

Speaker 1:

Well it comes out of some. Well, we both had come upon the reading in the Apocrypha from 2 Maccabees, chapter 12, where I believe it's Judas Maccabees says in verse 45, in his firm and devout conviction that all God's faithful people would receive a wonderful reward, Judas made provision for a sin, offering to set free from their sin those who had died.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because there was a war and there were soldiers that had died and what he had found was some amulets around their necks signifying that they trusted in God. But, just in case, I have my rabbit's foot so I want to make sure, just in case. And he saw that and he was like, oh my goodness, they died almost like a friend to God, but not fully trusting in God, so he didn't think their hearts were fully there. And so, yeah, prayers, sacrifices, prayers on behalf of those who've passed on. So yeah, that's where that idea.

Speaker 1:

So and again Maccabees. In my understanding that's part of the Apocrypha which has been a part of the Roman Catholic Bible, not a part of Protestant Bibles. At the Reformation they said they didn't feel that was core canon and so they kept Hebrew Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, but that Apocrypha stuff in the middle discarded, so that it really wasn't that. I never grew up thinking of 2 Maccabees as scripture, but that's where. But a lot of that idea, the idea of the resurrection, which I agree with, grew up in sort of between Old Testament and New Testament, but then also this idea of us being able to. So there's a couple ideas with purgatory. One was Judas Maccabees talking about that. We in this world can influence those who have died, their relationship with God and they're working out their salvation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, prayers on behalf of the dead, which is a right where, when we look at Maccabees, didn't Martin Luther actually just throw it in the back of the Bible Because it was in the original Bible?

Speaker 1:

I don't even remember.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was in the original Bible of 397 AD and then when it was ratified by the Pope in 401, it was still there. It wasn't until later about 1100, that Martin Luther moved it to the back, according to the history that I had researched, but then it was totally just removed altogether around the 1600s and made into the Apocrypha.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but now we're talking more Apocrypha than Purgatory, so why don't we get? Back Because maybe that's another topic.

Speaker 2:

I know.

Speaker 1:

And we can also talk about the deuterocanonical works or the pseudepigraphy at some point.

Speaker 2:

Lots of fun topics, I just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Speaker 1:

So let's get back to purgatory. So the idea of purgatory is that there is this place that we go after we die, where there is some work that happens to us or some penance that we do, or some transformation that happens to us that gets us ready for the full experience of heaven.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And it's conceived of differently. The word purgatory literally comes from the Latin word purgo, which means to clean or to cleanse to clean or to cleanse, and so some of it is.

Speaker 1:

And here's where the, I think, some of the danger from a Protestant side. If it is all about salvation by grace, it's all of what Jesus has done for us, then it can't be about well, jesus didn't fully cleanse me of my sins or forgive me of my sins. Now I've got to work a little bit of it out and as a good Lutheran Christian I could never go along with that. It's not that I'm making up my salvation or I'm having to earn my salvation. It can't be about earning it all, because anything that is gets in the way of that, all of myself, my rightness with God, is anything but a gift from God through Jesus to me is wrong, verboten anathema wrong.

Speaker 1:

Grace is a gift, so if it's not about earning salvation, is there still a place for it or not?

Speaker 2:

Well, and I'm not so purgatory. I know a lot of people look at it, and rightfully so, because there were some things like indulgences being sold in order to buy your family member who's passed into heaven.

Speaker 1:

Do you know the classic line that Tetzel said, that Luther just challenged he? Goes a coin in the copper rings and a soul from purgatory springs was the idea, and that's how they were selling these indulgences back at that time that you could buy. And of course the money went to build St Peter's Cathedral in Rome. That it was, and Luther just saw it as the pope extracting money from the poor people in Germany to build his cathedral and he was saying you're buying their freedom from purgatory.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, you're buying their freedom from purgatory. Oh yeah, but an understanding—so I think a more Catholic understanding of purgatory is— and one that I was taught was that when we die and we're face-to-face in the space of entering the kingdom of heaven, right, with such love, with such truth, that if we die, not in the right space in our heart, right that we, our soul, will want to do what is needed in order to purify ourselves, in order to ready ourselves to enter into the presence of God. And this comes out of different scripture right, it comes out of Matthew 5, 45, be perfect and whole, as your Father in heaven is whole. It comes out of Revelation 21, 27. Nothing impure or unclean can enter the kingdom of heaven. And also out of 1 Corinthians, 3, 13 to 15, where they speak into us being refined in a fire. Right, like being tested before we enter into the kingdom of heaven. And so it comes out of these spaces where what does it mean to be made? Right Because we can pass away.

Speaker 2:

Let's say I'm a believer, I believe Jesus saved me, and yet I'm living in a lot of sin.

Speaker 2:

Right Like I'm extorting people in my workplace, I'm using people, I'm not faithful in my marriage.

Speaker 2:

I'm, let's say I'm just doing what I want to do, living a really selfish life, but I'm like I love Jesus simply, but I'm not really living that out and my heart isn't being transformed or made new. Um, it's kind of that's where this idea of cheap grace comes in, right, like, but it's okay because thank you, jesus, for what you did on the cross. You're like a pretty little blanket that gets thrown under over my sinful life that you know is. And then all of a sudden I get to enter, I'm entering into the kingdom of heaven, but I'm kind of dirty, like meaning I'm reminded of the wedding banquet, right, and where he had on the wrong outfit and so he was like cast out. Well, this is almost reverse, where I wouldn't want to enter into this beautiful wedding banquet if I'm in rags and I think I realize I'm in rags when I pass on right. It's that space of seeing everything in truth and in God's truth, and so I would want to turn and enter this space to be purified.

Speaker 1:

That was my upbringing understanding. Okay, no, and I like that more. The definition I one time heard of cheap grace is I love to sin. God likes to forgive. It's a perfect arrangement, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, nice, and that is really sort of that cheap grace.

Speaker 1:

It's just like I keep doing what I do and you keep forgiving.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, God and there is something, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, that the huge bane of the Christian church has been cheap grace, that we preach the forgiveness of sins without the transformation of the sinner, without the repentance of the sinner, without the transformation of the sinner, without the repentance of the sinner. And so for me, the way I had not been taught purgatory, but the way I sort of picked it up culturally, was this idea that purgatory was this place, that if I had done more bad in my life than good or sort of what you described a lot of bad stuff in my life but I came to Jesus, that I needed to make up that deficit, there was still a debt to be paid. And so there was some sort of looking backwards, some debt that I had to pay, some punishment that I had to go through. I was saved, I was going to eventually be with Christ, but I had to pay some of this debt, which that doesn't make sense to me at all. No, because that to me goes against grace, that it I've quoted it before.

Speaker 1:

But in Rick Warren's book the Purpose Driven Life, I think one of his first lines is God is more concerned with the shaping of our character than our comfort, because God is trying to transform us, that Jesus didn't say just believe in me. He said come and follow me, be transformed. And one of the dangers, I think, is this sense of like I just want the forgiveness, but I just want to keep living as I am. And what I have come to see is that I think Jesus called to me and we often talk about this in our sermons that the abundant life involves living into the fullness of what God intended.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But sometimes living into where Jesus called me isn't pleasant.

Speaker 2:

Oh no, it isn't comfortable Sometimes. I mean you could say almost all the time.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, I mean, I think there is some good that comes out of it, when I really do forgive and I don't hold on to the judgment and that, that I don't hold on to grudges and those things and I truly let go of that. So I think there's good, but some of it is just hard.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think almost all of it is hard, like there are blessings to be received, but not without work, like all of it's work, if I mean, if I'm fully honest like I don't get to spend my money the way I want to spend it, I don't get to spend my time the way I want to spend it, I don't get to utilize my natural, god-given talents to make my life just better. I have to be thinking about other people all the time. It is a dying of self, literally, and in the process of death. It's painful, it's hard, but yet there's beauty that comes out of it, there's incredible things that come out of it and blessings, but I don't think it's a journey at all that is not hard, painful or takes work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that for me is some of that journeying with Jesus and some of that hard stuff of letting go of what Kendall wants in living and do how Jesus envisions my life, that I think that you know that great verse from Romans 12, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That I think Jesus' call to us is a call to transformation.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And so for me, the way I kind of look at purgatory, that's where I use the gym, where I have come to be drawn to this idea that God is wanting to transform Kendall, that Jesus wants to transform Kendall and he's going to do some of that work. As much as I'm open to that on this side of eternity. But if what still needs to be transformed is going to have to happen at some point and somehow it feels like if there isn't a transformation that needs to happen for Kendall, then why do all the discipleship stuff? I mean, if it really is at my death I get the magic Jesus pill and then Kendall's made perfect in all ways, well then, why work hard at it now? Let me just wait until I get the magic pill and get it at the end, and then I'm good.

Speaker 1:

I don't think that's what it is. I think our salvation is a gift to us, but that salvation comes as a desire to transform me. That it's the sanctification stuff. It's not justification that I'm working out, it's the sanctification of Kendall, the making holy of Kendall, and I think that either has to happen in this life or beyond this life.

Speaker 2:

No, absolutely, and I mean purgatory, has always been plan B, right. So like plan A is that you're doing this work now, like here and now You're allowing God to stretch you, open your heart, make you new in different ways. Yet you know things happen Like what if you were in a car accident and you were like you believed in Jesus and God and all that, but like you were living in sin actively, like you were wrestling with that, like there are moments that we haven't fully, um, I think, become refined or made into the likeness of Christ. Right, and that's our goal and that's our mission and that's what we've been all called to do, is to do that. It's the whole baptism, that's what our symbol is too dying to self, rising to new life in Christ, looking like Jesus, like in all that we do, and yet we don't always achieve that without losing our life on this side first.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, it's part of where I think I started to get drawn to this idea was on CS Lewis's book the Great Divorce.

Speaker 1:

That's a good one it really is, and I've lifted it up here before, where CS Lewis presents this in some of the language. I started reading it again just to get it fresh in my head here, but some of the language is a little 80 years ago language for folks to get around. But he basically imagines this bus ride from hell to heaven, where someone, all of these spirits in hell, have the choice of going to be in the realness of God's presence. Yeah, but they get there and they don't like it. Yeah, because it's about giving up their own priorities, their own way of wanting to look at the world, to live in the presence of God's way of doing the world. And so there is this transformation that has to happen and they don't like it because.

Speaker 1:

And so at some level part of what I also love that CS Lewis gets around in this envisioning of it it's not that God judges some people and says, well, you didn't believe in the right way, so you're going to hell and you're going to heaven. That it's about that. It's really our choice that either we are open to the transformation God wants to do in us that draws us into God's presence, or we are rejecting that life of love. That it's about God and others. I want it to be about me, and that's what hell is in this book is it's all about me. But that idea of the transformation of it comes through in the Great Divorce that just resonated in me and made sense and gets us around this how can a loving God condemn some people to hell? Well, cs Lewis goes, god doesn't. They're choosing it themselves.

Speaker 2:

Right and see, and in that I love that book too by CS Lewis. And yet, and I think too that reminds me of what it's like here though, on Earth, like we continuously do, we choose hell for ourselves, right by not choosing what is greater, taking, you know, not going through the narrow path, but the wide gate. That's easy and self-serving in the moment. Yet everything costs something, right. And so you know, I love sweets, I love ice cream, I want to eat it all the time, I want to eat it for breakfast, I want to order on dates, on dates, I want to order my dessert first. And you know what? I'm old enough I've started to do just that.

Speaker 2:

I don't care what kind of looks I get, but the point, the reality, is, if I do that, I'm going to be morbidly obese. You're going to have to roll me out around Like. That's just the truth. So it's many times, even though things taste good and they look good and we enjoy them in the moment, there are consequences and God's ways aren't our ways, and we don't even begin to understand some of how our choices impact our lives or the lives of others, even if they look good. You know, culturally or within our family systems and understandings, and that's why God's ways, you know they're hard and yet they're good, and that's why we need the body Like we need each other for that yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, as we were thinking about this topic, I was just drawn to Philippians, chapter two, as Paul was writing to this community that he loved and he says, therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence but more so in my absence, work out your salvation. With fear and trembling that he understood salvation was a gift given from Jesus, but there's still a working out of it, in the working out of it inside of Kendall, that of the beginning, the transformation of me to be the loving person God intended to me to be at the beginning. And that working out is either going to happen here or it's going to happen at some point. And that's where, for me, purgatory is. It's not about making up for my sins, no, it's about getting me fully in shape, getting me fully in Jesus' shape, getting me transformed into what I hope people get glimpses of now, of Jesus shining through me, but they don't get it all the time.

Speaker 2:

You know what I'm realizing? We're going to get a lot of hate emails by all the Protestants I know.

Speaker 1:

I know they're going to be like they are the worst Protestant pastors ever talking about purgatory and the space of, but for me it does come out to this discipleship, this transformation this walking with Jesus. Jesus invited the disciples to follow him, not simply well to observe him, but to be transformed by him.

Speaker 2:

Right. And when Christianity isn't just this label, right, it's not just this club or this thing we belong to because we're supposed to and we actually take the time to get to know God and we are touched by God. I don't know one person that has been touched by the presence of God somehow in and through another person, or through their scripture reading or just in prayer, and not then desired to draw closer and to look, want to be like Christ and want to do what God wants them to do. And so you're right Journey in this side or the next.

Speaker 1:

And Mo, I think that's right, and yet I think we also get tired doing it at times. Oh, absolutely, mo, I think that's right, and yet I think we also get tired doing it at times. Oh absolutely, and so I think you're right. Discipleship isn't just climbing a ladder to be better, it is. I want the life that Jesus wants for me, but sometimes that old Adam inside of me, that old sinful stuff, just wants to just make it not to have to focus on that and just serve my own ego, and so I think that's just the ongoing work God is trying to do in our lives.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know what? We couldn't answer this perfectly, but you probably could. Why don't you let us know to our listeners and those watching us your ideas on purgatory, or your understanding, or what were you taught about this place and space after death, yet before full union with God? We'd love to hear that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but don't call our bishops and tell us we should be fired and disproct.

Speaker 2:

No, it's stitches.

Speaker 1:

Snitches get stitches. Accepting purgatory might be an idea Next time. On Unpacking Truths, what do you think what are some of the assumptions that you have about married couples? What do you think that are out there, mo?

Speaker 2:

Well, like I mentioned earlier, definitely that in the church, but everyone puts on. I mean I wish they didn't put on the happy face, but often right.

Speaker 1:

Actually I like that people put on the happy face. I mean, we got to have some places to be real, but I don't want everyone.

Speaker 2:

But I get it because I've been, I've snapped off on my kids in the car and then I'm like smiling the minute. Hey everybody how you doing the minute you walk into church and then you're like grinding your teeth at your kids.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in. If anything we said brought up any questions or ideas, let's keep the conversation going in the comments below or email us at unpackingtruths at locchurchcom.

Speaker 2:

And don't forget to like, share and subscribe so we can continue helping people unpack God's truth for their lives.

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Pastor Kendall Koenig

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Pastor Maureen O'Connor

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