Purgatory Debate Review

1 Corinthians 3 and the Fire That Tests Christian Work

All these books over here, I have things to read out of. So we need to get to them. Let's get to the debate itself. Here is a section from Tim where he attempts to provide evangelical support for his interpretation.

The fire does not purify, close quote. Now I find this to be fascinating because even an evangelical scripture scholar like Dr. W. Harold Mayer in the Expositors Bible Commentary who says in a commentary on these very verses that we're talking about, let me quote it here.

He says, fire in the scripture is used figuratively in two ways, as a purifying agent, and by the way, he references Matthew 3 .11 and Mark 9 .49 as two examples of our Lord using fire as a purifying effect, and as that which consumes.

And he gives a bunch of verses. So it is a fitting symbol here for God's judgment as he tests the quality of the Christian's work. And he makes a good point there, but I also wanna.

Now, I'm gonna stop right there before he goes to the second one because it would be nice to actually read what Dr. Mayer actually said. Dr. Mayer's interpretation is almost identical to my own. He specifically says, instead of talking about the details of the building itself, Paul turns his attention to the kind of materials Christian workers are using, the materials of preaching the cross for the salvation, building up believers and living a Christian life that is commensurate with that preaching.

The purity and depth of such Christian teaching and a life corresponding to it are crucial for that kind of building material will stand the test of fire on the day of the Lord's judgment. Since valuable metals and precious stones were used to adorn ancient temples, Paul could have taken his imagery from Herod's temple in Jerusalem, or from the beautiful public and religious buildings in Athens and Corinth, where the remains of the sixth century BC temple of Apollo still stands today.

Such imagery would be sufficient to convey the thought of pure doctrine. The frames of ordinary houses and buildings were built of wood, hay or dried grass mixed with mud was used for the walls and roofs were thatched with straw or stalks.

So the kind of insipid teaching and life represented by these lesser things will also have to face the test of the pure fire of God's justice and judgment when it will be consumed. The day is not a day of calamity or hardship brought by man, but rather the day of the Lord, which is exactly what I said.

The day of the second coming of Christ, the quality, verse 13, is to be equated with the kinds of materials of doctrine and life that are used. The fire is the fire of God's judgment. Fire in scripture is used figuratively in two ways, as a purifying agent, Matthew 3, 11, Mark 9, 49, and as that which consumes, Matthew 3, 12, 2 Thessalonians 1, 7, and 8, Hebrews 12, 29.

So as a fitting symbol here for God's judgment as he tests the quality of the Christian's work. Those Christians whose work stand the test of fire will be rewarded, those whose works are consumed by the fire will themselves escape the flames, an exact statement that he mocks in his purgatory presentation, will escape the flames as if they were to jump out of the burning wooden structure they had built and will be saved alone without any works of praise to present to Christ.

Not a word of purification, not a word of purgatory, not a word about sin, nothing. The exact same interpretation. I gave and given by the Jerome Bible commentary and we just didn't read the rest of it.

That's on pages 207 and 208. Always read the sources as we're going to see in the rest of the clip.

Point out what you'll find from another Protestant work and a good one called Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, volume six, page 944. Here, these Protestant scholars teach what I would argue it is impossible for any Christian to ignore about this text if he's serious about studying it and that is that St. Paul is here referring to, to quote Kittel's, let me quote, he is referring to the idea of an eschatological refining fire.

And they reference here Malachi chapter three, verse two.

He gives nine words. Let me give you the rest. Page 944, Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, volume six. Poor fire occurs in three passages in Paul. The reference in each case is the eschatological judgment of fire.

In 1 Corinthians 3 .13, Paul adopts in his argument the idea that the Lord will execute the last judgment with fire. The coming day will decide concerning the work of preachers for it shall appear with fire.

The eschatological judgment of fire will test the quality of every work. The good builder whose work is fireproof will receive reward. The poor builder whose work burns up will suffer loss but not eternal damnation.

He shall be saved so as through fire, verse 15b. The difficult concluding clause does not describe the punishment as a purging fire but uses a proverbial saying to make the point that only with the skin of his teeth and not without great peril will the one concerned attain to eternal salvation.

How could you read a source like this that directly contradicts your own position and not mention that? I just have to wander in passing. Paul is here bringing four current ideas into,.

Listen to this.

Paul is here bringing four current ideas into loose connection without following them through consistently. One, the theme of the house on fire which derives logically from the metaphorical description of preaching his building.

Number two, the expectation that the coming Lord will appear with fire. Second, this one is 1 .8. Number three, the idea of an eschatological refining by fire, Malachi 3 .2. And number four, the proverbial expression about being saved through fire, i .e. having a narrow escape.

The stress is on the incorruptibility and definitiveness of the last judgment. In 2 Thessalonians 1 .7, the parosee of Jesus is depicted in Old Testament terms, et cetera, et cetera. That's the last that he says.

Nothing, nothing, nothing about the purification of sins, purgatory, or anything else, and plenty indirect contradiction in the very same text. Sometimes it just makes me wonder if these guys don't expect that we're ever gonna bother to look any of this up.

It really does make you wonder because even in his closing statement,.

Even though Protestant scholars, as I mentioned, as well as Catholic, do see an obvious reference here back to Malachi, but we can't say there's any purification going on here.

Now, what did the actual text say? A loose connection of a number of different things, not anything about purification. The text didn't say it, and yet how many times did Tim Staples repeat it? Now, I was gonna mention, I didn't read the part where I was criticized in the Catholic Answers Forums for just being so nasty to Tim.

And that's just the way that I am. And yet, how many remember some of these statements from Mr. Staples?

A man to me needs to realize something. You've been listening to a man in James White, who I respect greatly as a man and as one who is very fervent in his beliefs, and I wanna be clear on that, but you're also listening to a man who can keep a straight face and say that St. James taught justification by faith alone, even though St. James says, you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone, which is a fascinating way to approach scripture to say the least.

Now, does that sound very nice to you? I mean, I just, obviously, I asked the question, has Tim Staples ever responded to a 24-page chapter in The God Who Justifies, providing exegesis of James 2, verses 14 and following?

Has he ever even attempted to criticize that?

I am unaware of it.

If he has, I'd be happy to see it, but something tells me if that had ever been published in any place, a lot of people would have been directing me to it. It just seems like the folks at Catholic Answers just wanna try to avoid your knowing that that kind of information is there.

But remember this particular phraseology?

The bottom line is that is bogus. Sin and the effects of sin are being described quite effectively here for those who have eyes.

It's that eye is deceit, for some reason I cut off the end. Really, we've seen both of the reference sources that he used do not teach what he says they teach. They contradict him. And the term sin never appeared in that place.

And if we just have eyes to see, and to say otherwise is bogus. And then, of course, we had this line.

Scripture says, rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. Consider yourself rebuked, but I only do so out of great charity toward you and all of your listeners. And for those of you listening, check out our website at CatholicAnswersAtCatholic .com.

You can email me there as well. But I would finally exhort all of us not to follow, as St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, 7, godless and silly myths. And quite frankly, you're gonna get a lot of silly myths with Mr. White with all due respect.

Keep cutting off that last portion for some reason. Myths, myths, myths. But you know something? I didn't have to cut out Catholic .com there. By the way, the Catholic Answers website is Catholic .com.

I don't have to fear you going there.

If you go to the Envoy web forms that Patrick Madrid runs, and you try to post something that says AOMN .org, the software has been specifically coded to put zeros in the place, so no one can even find the reference that you're going to.

What does that tell you?

What does it tell you that they fear us? They fear what you will read here. When Patrick Madrid had that article written on the Council of Nicaea,.

They didn't even tell you where to go.

To read the article that they were criticizing. Just listen to us, we are the church, don't question us.

Is that apologetics?

Hmm, doesn't seem to be. But you want some myths? Folks, please, do this for me. If any Catholic listening to this right now, and I'm hoping that there are some, that you've stuck through this far, even though for many of you, oh, I don't wanna listen to this, I'm turning it off.

If you bought into any of this, well, Mr. White just doesn't understand the Catholic position because of one statement by the current Pope. Please go by, check it out from the library, do it however you need to do it.

There's a book by Tan Publications.

Ever heard of Tan?

It's a Catholic group, yes. And it's called Purgatory by Father F .X. Shoup, S .J. That means Society of Jesus, he's a Jesuit. Read it, just start at the beginning, go to the end. Almost every single page will have stuff on here that, well, Mr. Staples will now identify as misunderstanding.

Let me just read something toward the end here. It's about the brown scapular. I mentioned this, he didn't say anything about it because he didn't wanna get in trouble. Two wonderful promises of our Lady are available to those who have been enrolled in the brown scapular.

Enrollment is a simple process. One should ask a priest to make this enrollment. The great promise of the Blessed Virgin Mary given to St. Simon's Stock on July 16th, 1251 is as follows, quote, "'Whoever dies wearing the scapular "'shall not suffer eternal fire,' end quote.

Our Lady's second scapular promise, known as the Sabatine Privilege, the word sabatine meaning Saturday, was given by the Blessed Virgin Mary to Pope John XXII in the year 1322 and is as follows, quote, "'I, the mother of grace, shall descend "'on the Saturday after their death, "'and whomsoever I shall find in purgatory "'I shall free,' end quote.

There are three conditions for obtaining this privilege, the wearing of the scapular, the practice of chastity according to one's state of life, and the daily recitation of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Those who cannot read can abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays instead of reciting the Little Office. Also, any priest who has diocesan faculties, which includes most priests, has the additional faculty to commute, change the third requirement to another pious work, for example, the daily rosary.".

Now, I don't believe that Mary said any of these things, okay, and I know that today there's all sorts of controversies. The fact is that for hundreds of years, even if you say, well, the Pope never blessed it, the Pope allowed it, it continues to exist, and he knows it, and what good would it have done if anyone didn't think that, well, purgatory involved suffering over time?

Which, of course, is exactly what we read. For example, on page 89, "'Faith does not teach us the precise duration of the pains of purgatory. We know in general that they are measured by divine justice and that for each one they are a proportion to the number and gravity of the faults which he has not yet expiated.

God may, however, without prejudice to his justice, abridge these sufferings by augmenting their intensity. The church militant also may obtain their remission by the holy sacrifice of the mass and other suffrages offered for the departed.

According to the common opinion of the doctors, the expiatory pains are of long duration. There is no doubt,' says Bellarmine, that the pains of purgatory are not limited to 10 and 20 years, and that they last, in some cases, entire centuries.

But allowing it to be true that their duration did not exceed 10 or 20 years, can we account it as nothing to have to endure for 10 or 20 years the most excruciating sufferings without the least alleviation?

If a man was assured that he should suffer without some violent pain in his feet, or his head, or teeth, for the space of 20 years, and that without ever sleeping or taking the least repose, would he not a thousand times rather die than live in such a state?

And if the choice were given to him between a life thus miserable and the loss of all his temporal goods, would he hesitate to make the sacrifice of his fortune to be delivered from such a torment? Shall we then find any difficulty in embracing labor and penance to free ourselves from the sufferings of purgatory?

Shall we fear to practice the most painful exercises, vigils, fasts, almsgivings, long prayers, and especially contrition, accompanied with sighs and tears? End quote. These words comprise the whole doctrine of the saints and theologians.

Pages 89 and 90. I guess I'm in good company because even Bellarmine just didn't get it. He just didn't understand, along with Mr. White doesn't understand. My, oh my, oh my. So I took a little time, and I looked up some papal documents, because remember, we had one papal document read to us.

One quote from the current pope. Went back to May 24th, 1824, Pope Leo XII. You must also discuss carefully how much efficacy there is in indulgences. How great is the fruit of remission, not only of the canonical, but also of the temporal punishment due for sins.

And finally, how much aid from the treasure of merits from Christ and the saints may be applied to those who died truly penitent before they had made adequate satisfaction for their sins. Their souls must be purified in the fires of purgatory, so that entry into the eternal fatherland may open to them.

Where did I get that silly idea that Catholics had ever associated the fire of 1 Corinthians 3 with purgatory? Oh, I'm such a silly Protestant. Well, so is Leo XII. He must be a silly Protestant too. Their souls must be purified in the fires of purgatory.

Guess he's just a confused pope.

Infallibly confused, but still a pope. Or how about Pope Paul VI? We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ. Those who are, listen to what Rome really teaches folks here. This really does help to illustrate why we engage in this type of work in regards to Roman Catholics.

I know people don't like it. Oh, well, my aunt so-and-so is such a wonderful little Roman Catholic. I wish she wouldn't talk about the Roman Catholics. Listen to what they teach about the gospel. We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ.

Those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are attaining their purification, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one church.

Obtaining their purification.

Christ Purifies a People for Himself, Not Through Purgatorial Suffering

Do you remember the text that I mentioned to you at first? That I mentioned at the beginning of the debate, basically, in my opening statement? Titus 2 .14, speaking of the God-man Jesus Christ. He's just been called our great God and Savior, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, every lawless deed, no distinction, no divisions, every lawless deed, and to purify for himself a people for his own possessions, zealous for good deeds.

To purify for himself, my friends, not that they purify themselves, not that they obtain their purification. The difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and Romanism is that Jesus purifies for himself in the gospel, and in Roman Catholicism, you add to the work of purification.

He cannot do it himself. One is God-centered, one is man-centered, one brings life, one brings death. The post-conciliar documents called Indulgentiarum Doctrina, it's just one document, but a number of different sections to it, quoted often in the Universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, says, it is a divinely revealed truth that sins bring punishments inflicted by God's sanctity and justice.

These must be expiated either on this earth through the sorrows, miseries, and calamities of this life, and above all through death, or else in the life beyond through fire and torments or purifying punishments.

These punishments are imposed by the just and merciful judgment of God for the purification of souls, the defense of the sanctity of the moral order and the restoration of the glory of God to its full majesty.

Did you hear that? Or am I just overwhelming you with all this stuff? Did you hear what just was said? Forget about Titus 2, forget about Jesus purifying. These punishments are imposed by the just and merciful judgment of God for the purification of souls, the defense of the sanctity of the moral order.

And did you catch the last one?

And the restoration of the glory of God.

To its full majesty.

God's very glory will be dependent on your suffering, your satisfaccio and purgatory, not the finished work of Christ. It's a blasphemy. Any person can believe the word of God is the word of God and read that and not go blasphemy.

Because that's what it is.

All these ecumenists sitting around in their rooms trying to massage language to create a unity that does not exist, it's blasphemy. Identify it for what it is. Don't call this some mere difference of opinion.

This is about the gospel. It goes on to say, for this reason, there certainly exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home and those who are expiating their sins in purgatory.

And those who are still pilgrims on earth, a perennial link of charity and an abundant exchange of all the goods by which with the expiation of all the sins of the entire mystical body, divine justice is placated.

Expiating their sins in purgatory. And you see, I haven't taken the time to do it because I wanted to make sure that this debate took place, but now I have the time, I don't have the time right now, but we'll now be able to do so in his CD series.

And he made reference to this, he didn't expand upon it, but he made reference to it. He talked about my other errors. There's a whole section where he goes after me in my alleged ignorance of the doctrine of purgatory.

And one of the things he went after is my statement that nowhere in Rome's doctrinal formulations do they say that our satispassio, our suffering in purgatory, is the application of the merits of Christ.

This is our suffering. This is not the merits of Christ being applied. And he goes through an incredibly long argument to try to find some way of making that suffering due to the grace of Christ. But that's just because he doesn't understand what Protestants understand or believe, or at least Reformers believe, about the imputation of Christ's righteousness and the nature of the atonement.

He does not understand it. Nor does he feel any particular need to understand it. But these things are vitally, vitally important. And so I hope that has assisted anyone who had any questions from that.

I went a lot longer than I thought and I started preaching. I apologize for that.