Adult Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 17

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Adult Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 18

00:13

Well, good morning, beloved. Testing one, two, three. Testing one, two, three.

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Yeah, you got it. Whatever you need. I just said I just felt like I was kind of close to my mouth. Yeah, it's great.

00:26

It's great. As long as everyone can hear me, it picks me up online. Yeah. Well, let's pray.

00:37

In a gracious God, we come before you in the name above all names. In the name of Jesus, our beloved Savior, to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, we pray,

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God, that in this moment, you'd help us to lay aside earthly cares and worries and help us, Father, to now consider the matters before us in your most holy and precious word.

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We pray, God, for the saints that are gathered here. The saints are gathered elsewhere. We pray, Lord, also for the saints that are ill and sick and cannot be here.

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We think of our sister Sue, particularly this morning. We pray, God, that you'd heal her and bring her forth in a manner in which would be pleasing to you.

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Father, we pray, God, that you bless all the saints who are gathered and help us to understand rightly your word. So you may rightly divide the word of truth in Jesus name.

01:19

Amen. Well, today we're going to go into chapter 12 of our book.

01:27

On the Roman Catholic controversy, and I think like as we I think we spent like two or three weeks on mass, on the

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Eucharist communion, so hopefully we got a good grasp of that. And I want you to see a common theme of all these kind of controversies of Rome.

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So I mean, the book is called The Roman Catholic Controversy. So so what's the controversy here? And I would say underlining every single controversy that Rome teaches is is an incomplete view of justification.

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It always comes back to the doctrine of justification when it comes to to Rome and purgatory, which is the subject that we're going to be examining now this week, is no different.

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The whole issue of purgatory comes up, comes arises out of a faulty view of justification.

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OK, we're going to examine why exactly that is. And again, we're going to be in chapter 12.

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We're going to go to the page 182. And I want someone to explain to me.

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What is purgatory? Yes, Emmanuel. That's pretty good.

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Anyone else want to take a jab at it? The DMV. Yeah. So you it's come up a couple of times.

03:31

Venial sins, mortal sins. What's the difference between venial and mortal sins and Roman Catholic dogma?

03:38

Manuel. Give me an example of venial versus mortal.

04:01

Go ahead. Yeah, it could be, yeah.

04:39

It's in the forgiveness of heaven. I was wondering if I did. Last rites does not guarantee someone entrance into heaven.

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Right. So it helps in Roman Catholic dogma, but it's not it's not like the cure all, you know, thing.

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And so, you know, again, Roman Catholics. Similar to well,

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I guess Jehovah's Witnesses, similar to Roman Catholics because Roman Catholics and first have this really weird.

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Worldly explanation for for death, in a sense, where they all say

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God is the ultimate judge. So we can't say who really gets in heaven, who doesn't.

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Right. We can't determine that per se. And the Jehovah's Witnesses will say that as well, even though they believe they're the only ones who will get saved if they obey and do all the right things.

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But any workspace religion will basically always kind of their escape hatch is.

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Well, God's the judge. Right. So so, you know, he's going to determine who gets to heaven or not.

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But it's really you know, that's actually a really unbiblical way of thinking. Not that God is the judge, because obviously that's true.

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That's right. But the way in which religions in the world uses as a cop out to to determining people's spiritual state.

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Right. And so one of the jobs of the church is to determine people's spiritual state, which is membership.

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Right. And so it is our it is our job to discern whether a person is a member of the body of Christ, whether a person is truly saved, born again, regenerate.

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Now, we don't know in an ultimate sense because people come in who are not sometimes born again, even though we they seem to have a credible testimony of faith.

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But but it's really a cop out to say, well, God's the judge. And so we don't really know where the scripture says these are written so you may know you have eternal life.

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They who put their faith in the name of the son of God. And so there is an assurance in salvation. There's an assurance.

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And Jesus talks about this when he talks about the pebbles, the weeds and the wheat clearly distinguishable different things.

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Weeds and weeds are not the same thing. So clearly they're going to be distinguishable in the end times, which is what

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Jesus points to Matthew 13. So so, again, we want to we want to think rightly about these things.

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But yeah, mortal sins are grave offenses to God and Roman Catholic dogma. Mortal sins include things like adultery, murder, you know, you know, certain types of fornication, you know, very grave, serious sin.

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So if you die in that state, you are outside of God's grace versus venial sins or sins that like you, someone said, kind of dings against you, but but aren't necessarily a grave enough to remove you out of God's saving or sanctifying grace is what they use.

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It used from sanctifying grace. And so that's where the doctrine of purgatory comes in is what do you do with someone who hasn't committed mortal sins but has all these venial sins that need to be sanctified or purged?

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So this is where we get the word purgatories comes from the word to purge. OK, and so how do we purge these sins from, you know, from these venial acts?

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That's where the idea, the concept of purgatory comes into play. Any questions so far?

08:05

Manuel, say again. Gluttony would be probably more venial.

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Been a lot of fat popes throughout the years, so. Yeah, they pretty good, so they had to make sure that was in the venial side of things.

08:23

Yeah, so. I've heard that. Well, that's a good question,

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I think. And honestly, like I've looked a little bit into this and gluttony is one of those sins that on paper is considered, but because honestly, there's been so many gluttonous popes, they've always shoved that to the side and say, well, you know, that's one of the things that only

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God can judge. You know how big how big is too big? Only God knows. Right. So. It is a

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Roman Catholic, yeah. I mean, we Protestants don't typically use that as a measuring thing.

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Oh, you know, that comes from Rome. Yeah, that's Roman dogma. And so really, there's there's three ways in which

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Rome categorizes sin. There's three categories. There's original sin, which is present at birth and and it's forgiven at baptism.

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This is why they baptize infants. Right. And then there's mortal sin, which, again, these are grave matters.

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These are things also done in full knowledge of intent is really important in regard to their concept of mortal sin.

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Deliberate consent is what they also refer to as something that you have to deliberately consent to these things in order for it to be considered a mortal sin.

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And these are things that removes friendship of God. These are things that can lead to eternal punishment, but they can be forgiven by confession.

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Okay, so if you go to the priest, you confess these things, they can be forgiven. And then there's venial sins, which again, they're less serious sins, a temporal, there's a temporary punishment for these things, not an eternal punishment.

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They're forgiven by mass, by penance, and or purgatory. Okay, so basically, you know,

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Roman Catholic, again, like I said earlier, this is a very important statement. Every error of Rome comes back to a misunderstanding of justification.

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Every single one of them, okay? And purgatory is no different. So again, we're in chapter 12 this morning.

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And the reason why purgatory exists is because what, again, what do you do with these venial sins?

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They're forgiven by mass. So if you take mass, you're forgiven these venial sins. You can also do penance.

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Does anyone know what penance is? What is penance? Emmanuel?

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That's a good distinguishing marker, actually, yeah. In particular, that which is prescribed by Rome for certain venial sins.

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So if you've ever gone to a confession, we don't have too many ex -Roman Catholics here, right? There's, I don't think any, is anyone here ex -Roman

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Catholic? Yeah? Okay, two. So you go to your priest, you do the confession, and as you're doing the confession, if it's a venial sin, the priest will usually say, okay, now go and do seven

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Hail Marys. Something to that degree. That is your penance. That is your good works.

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And you do the beads, you do the rosary, you do something to appease divine wrath, essentially.

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Am I right, or, yeah? Yeah, it's a prescription. Exactly right, yeah. It's, all right, here's your spiritual prescription.

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And, you know, there's something really attractive about that, to be honest, like, as a, you know, in our flesh, we want it to be that simple.

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We go to a doctor, we get a prescription. We go to a drive -thru, we get food. You know, you go to your priest, you want something prescribed to you so that you can do something so that you feel like you've been absolved, right?

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There is a strong appeal to that. I mean, sometimes as Reformed Baptists, we can look at that and scoff, but there really is an appeal to that that we need to reckon with.

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Because we, as humans, want to feel like we are doing something, contributing to our wholeness, to our wellness, to our spiritual well -being.

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And, of course, Roman Catholics will, in the priesthood, will give you their prescriptions for your venial sins.

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And so, penance is essentially, again, it's good works that lead to forgiveness of sins, or forgiveness of venial sins.

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So, again, all this comes back to what? This is a works -based salvation system, okay?

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They have a wrong view of justification. How is someone made right, justified before God? Is it through faith in Jesus Christ by grace alone, or is it by means of all these other things?

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And that's at the heart of the Roman Catholic controversy, is, again, the doctrine of justification. Pastor? How many beads does a rosary have?

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Anyone know? So, there's 59 beads in a rosary, okay?

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And the rosary, it's like a necklace. It looks like a necklace, has a cross, usually, or an image of the

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Virgin Mary or Saint Jude. And then, you count them.

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So, it's almost like a reminder, okay? I've got to do seven beads. I've got to do, okay, Hail Mary, full grace, this and that, and then that's one, okay?

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Then do it again. And so, the beads are there to help remind you to keep count of your penance, of your spiritual prescription.

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Count the beads. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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And there's sections to the beads, and the different sections of the beads mean different things. So, I don't know all about the,

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I don't know too much about it, but there's sections, like, I think it's broken up in five sections.

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Yeah. Yeah, so there's like five sections it's broken up to, and, you know, they all have a different significance.

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So, yeah. It's kind of a lot for a person to remember, you know.

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That's why it's almost like a visual aid. You know, Roman Catholics are very visual, of course, if you go to a Roman Catholic church.

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Images and statues everywhere, stained glass with, you know, biblical depictions. They're very, it's a very visual religion, and that's part of the appeal, is that it's very tangible.

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It's very physical. That's right. I mean, it's paganism.

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I mean, the ancient pagans were, I mean, if you look at any ancient pagan civilization, very visual.

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You go to ancient Egypt, statues of Horus, Isis everywhere. I mean, you can't escape it.

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Ancient Rome was the same way. They have altars everywhere to different gods with images and something akin to a rosary.

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The rosary is actually an evolution of ancient pagan practice of, again, a very similar type of penance to those ancient gods.

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They would have kind of what looks like a rosary, and it was as an act of reminder of their daily prayers.

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And so, you know, Roman Catholicism really just piggybacks off a lot of the pagan practices of the ancient world, again, which is part of the appeal.

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Any questions so far? Okay. Well, let's get down and dirty with the picture of purgatory.

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This is a fascinating discussion. It's a really interesting discussion because, again, we have kind of the why.

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Why did the issue of purgatory arise? And it arises out of a false, faulty view of justification and also a false view of sin because they break up sin into kind of three categories.

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Again, original sin, mortal sin, venial sins, and that's a faulty view of sin.

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Sin is sin. James chapter one and two says that if you've broken one law, so what is sin?

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It's transgression against the law. If you've broken one law you're guilty of? All of it, all of it, right?

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And so sin, Romans chapter six, verse 23, the wages of sin is death, okay?

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It is your wage. You are working towards it. Psalm 55, I believe, you know, we were conceived in sin in our mother's womb.

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You know, so we are, Ephesians two, by nature objects of wrath because of our sin, because of our sin nature.

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And so breaking up sin into kind of these three categories is not a biblical concept.

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All sin leads, all sin leads to eternal punishment. All sin must be accounted for.

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How is sin accounted for in the biblical worldview? It's through the shed blood of Jesus or eternal separation from God in hell.

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And when I say separation, I think sometimes that's also a faulty view of hell.

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And so let me define what I mean by separation. Not separation from the presence of the Lord. In fact, hell is where you get

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God's full presence unleashed on you. And we know that because of Revelation chapter 14, it says, speaking of the lake of fire, hell, that they will be tormented day and night in the presence of God and of the

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Lamb, day and night. So think of it as, you know, if God is the center, if God is the sun, you're literally being tossed into the center of it.

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You're being tossed into the gravity of God's holiness and nothing is going to spare you from it, okay?

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That is hell, is God's full presence fully unleashed upon the unrepentant.

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Whereas Jesus, in Christ, we are shielded from not the presence of God, but from the wrath of his presence.

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And we get to enjoy, we get to step into that gravity, that sun, that glorious light, and not be totally consumed by it, right?

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Because Jesus, just as Moses, when he encounters Jehovah in the mountain, on Mount Sinai, he had to wear a covering.

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Jesus is that covering for us, where we get to approach him and not be consumed by him totally.

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And so when I say that it's away from the presence, it's away from the presence of his grace, of his love, but it's also a place where you're getting

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God for all that he is in his holiness. And it completely consumes and destroys the center for all eternity.

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That's a right view of hell. Whereas, again, the Roman Catholics say, well, actually, there's a middle place.

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And that middle place is where people who have lived maybe good moral lives didn't commit any mortal sins.

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And again, in their concept, there are people who don't commit mortal sins, which is actually nonsense.

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Every sin is a mortal sin. You gotta understand that every sin is a mortal sin. Every sin leads to death, okay?

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And it's not true that there are those who do not commit mortal sins. In the

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Roman Catholic view, right? So if we're just taking Roman Catholicism at face value, everyone commits mortal sins.

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He says, well, a good Roman Catholic would say, well, I haven't committed adultery, but I say unto you, as Jesus says, if you even look at a person with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart, right?

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So it's the same thing that the ancient Jews were trying to level at Jesus. Like, hey, Jesus, I keep the law.

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I'm not committing these mortal sins. And Jesus says, well, actually, you are, because you're doing it in your heart, right?

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And so every sin is a mortal sin. So Roman Catholics, again, miscategorize, misunderstand justification, they misunderstand sin.

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And so they have to account for what do you do with individuals who don't, in their view, commit mortal sins, who commit venial sins, less serious sins, but haven't been forgiven by either the mass, last rites, penance, or anything of the sort.

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How can their sins be accounted for? How can their sins be purged so that they can go to heaven?

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Because they do believe, rightly, that sin cannot coexist in heaven, okay?

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Okay, that's right. However, how do you get these people who've committed venial sins sanctified enough to go to heaven?

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Purgatory. So it's not the blood of Jesus. It's not his sanctifying work through the

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Spirit. It is now another mechanism by which a person can be purged of their sins, and that's, again, in the doctrine of purgatory.

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So purgatory really is this intermediate state where it's neither heaven nor hell.

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It's something kind of in between. It is a place, however, that is less than ideal because it's not heaven, but it could be a lot worse because it's not hell.

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And so you have this weird, you've heard of this term limbo, right? Limbo is a

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Latin description for purgatory as well, okay? Yes, because there is punishment.

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So in the Roman Catholic view, there is punishment that's happening in purgatory, and so it is, again, less than ideal.

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You don't want to be there per se, yeah. Emmanuel? Yeah, so it's usually for, again,

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Roman Catholics who haven't received last rites or who, and again, this is where it gets very sticky is because ultimately they say, well, only

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God truly knows, but there are pronouncements that can be made, or used to, it doesn't happen often anymore.

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Purgatory is not as popular as it once was, and actually this chapter delves into that a little bit because it's not particularly accepted in Western culture, right?

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So purgatory was a far bigger deal back in Europe, back in the

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Middle Ages. It's still something that Roman Catholics hold onto, but it's just not as popular as it once was.

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But when it was popular, they would say outright, well, this person wasn't good enough, even though they're Roman Catholic, they're in purgatory.

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So hey, if you've got a relative who's in purgatory, you can help them be sanctified through these penance, through these indulgences is what they call them, and indulgences were usually mechanisms within the

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Roman Catholic Church to raise money. And what they would do is they would say, well, if you paid this amount to the treasury, you'll help them on their scoreboard to get out of purgatory quicker.

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And so that is unfortunately some of the mechanisms that Roman Catholicism has used throughout the ages to swindle people out of resources and money and time.

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And yeah, it's a very wicked thing in reality.

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As it's practiced, it's a form of spiritual abuse and it's a form of coercion.

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So, because if you have a member of your family who's in purgatory, of course you want them out of there. So yeah, pastor.

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Yeah, it's a bit of an oversimplification, but there is a truth to it. Where, so in the first nine centuries of the church, you don't have any well -defined view in purgatory.

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You have some weird statements from people like Justin Martyr and other church fathers who were ambiguous.

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Part of the issue here and what I want to get into is where some of this doctrinal issues arise of purgatory is actually a doctrinal misunderstanding of their intermediate state.

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And the church fathers really struggled with this as well. And so you get some kind of weird, vague things from the church fathers and it kind of moors over centuries.

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And so about 1 ,000 to 1 ,400, you have this formalization, this canonization of this doctrine of purgatory.

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So really from around the year 1 ,000 to 1 ,400, that's where it really becomes solidified within Roman Catholic dogma.

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And it arises primarily because of, again, the debates that were being held in the church regarding the intermediate state and also the evolution of mortal sins, venial sins, original sin, and then obviously, yeah, the need for raising money to build

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St. Peter's Basilica, which took 400 years to make. So they needed to get some money into the treasury.

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So part, and that is historically true, it coincides, but it wasn't just so that they can raise money.

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You know, there was some sincerity to the formulation and debates that were being held in that time.

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So yeah, so let's define that.

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Again, this is where it gets interesting because even within Protestantism, there's diverging views, right?

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And so I would have maybe a little bit of a different view from even some within our church.

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And so essentially, here's the two main categories, okay? So we have heaven and hell.

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That's like the classic Christian, Protestant understanding of the afterlife, okay?

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So let's categorize, there's the here and there's the hereafter, that's the afterlife. And the question that arises in the biblical narrative and also within church history is, first and foremost, what do we do with the

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Old Testament saints? Because heaven, in the way that we understand today, is a very

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New Testament thing, it's a very New Testament phenomenon. In the way that we talk about heaven, it's very

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New Testament. When you ask an Old Testament saint, so let's say we're interviewing an

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Old Testament Israelite, what their hope is, it would not sound like a

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Christian's hope. You'll never hear an Israelite say, well, my hope is to die and go to heaven.

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That is foreign to the Old Testament. The Old Testament does not have that same concept, and you just don't find it.

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If you ask an Old Testament figure what their hope is, their hope is directly connected to the land.

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Their hope is to inherit the land of Israel, to flourish the land of Israel, that they would live on it forever. That was their anticipation, that was their hope, that was where their focus was, was the inheritance of the land, the physical land, and ultimately the inheritance of the whole earth.

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That's what, so their mind was somewhere else. It was not necessarily upon, you know, dying and go to heaven.

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That's a very New Testament concept. And so, okay, what do you do then?

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Okay, where did the Old Testament saints go when they died? Christians will have two answers.

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I'm not talking about Roman Catholics, I'm talking about Protestants. We'll have two answers to that, both being different. First, Christians would say, well, they died and went to heaven.

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Okay, that's when they went, and that's where they were, that's where they are today. Another side of the

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Christian I would say, well, actually, they went to paradise, and that's not the same as heaven.

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And so they would have what's called an intermediate state. And in the

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Old Testament, if you ask an Old Testament figure, like, for instance, Job, Jonah, David, and I'm using those names in particular because they actually tell us where they were gonna go when they died.

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They all said that when they died, they would go to Sheol in the Hebrew. Greek equivalent would be

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Hades, okay? So they all knew that when they died, they would go into Sheol.

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They never talked about going to heaven. They always talked about going to Sheol. Job said he prayed to be concealed in Sheol.

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Jonah prayed from the belly of Sheol in death. David said that he would be buried and he would lie in Sheol.

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These are all things, expectations that they had. Now, most people agree,

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Hebrew scholars would agree that Sheol is not heaven. Sheol is the general term for the grave or for the afterlife, in a sense.

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But it's always a shadowy place, not a place of light, love, and enjoyment necessarily, but it's more a place of, it's kind of shadowy.

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We don't have a lot of data. We don't have a lot of information about it. The Old Testament is particularly kind of quiet about what happens in Sheol and what happens in Hades.

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So it's a mysterious place to the ancients to some degree. Emmanuel? Correct.

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They're swallowed. Yeah, that's right.

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So Sheol is, again, an interesting place. And in the

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King James Version of the Bible, the good old King Jimmy, they often put in Sheol is often translated as hell.

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I would say that is an incorrect translation. I don't think Sheol is hell, and I don't think it's heaven.

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And so my view would be the latter. I don't think Sheol is heaven, and I don't think Sheol is hell.

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I think this is a distinct place. And what's of interest is how the

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New Testament looks at this and how Jesus looks at this place called Sheol, and the

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New Testament in the book of Luke uses the term Hades, which is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew word

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Sheol. And we know this because in Acts 2, Peter quotes from the Old Testament where Sheol is used, but he uses the

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Greek word Hades. So we know it's the same place. It's the same word, different language.

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And so when we look at Luke chapter 16 in particular, let's go there for a moment. Verse 19.

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Luke 16, verse 19. There was a rich man whose clothed in purple and fine linen and was feasting sumptuously every day.

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And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table.

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Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.

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Very interesting, okay, we have Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.

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And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw

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Abraham far off at Lazarus' side. He called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send

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Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.

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But Abraham said, child, remember that you in your lifetime received good things and Lazarus and like men are bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish.

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And besides all this between us, you and a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here may not be able and none may cross from there to us.

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So here's the picture that Jesus is painting of Hades. Okay, there's two sections, apparently, one that's torment, one that is

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Abraham's bosom, and between the two is a great chasm. So think of one side of your been to the Grand Canyon, think of one end of the

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Grand Canyon, the other end. You might be able to wave to the other person, you may even be able to scream to the other person, but there's no way you're going to get from one end to the other.

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There's a great chasm between the two, okay? And so one is Abraham's side, Abraham's bosom, what's often referred to as paradise in the

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Old Testament. And then there is, of course, the side of torment. And so Jesus paints this picture of Hades as really interesting.

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And this is where the church fathers begin to really develop, where eventually you get to this idea of purgatory.

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And it actually stems from a misunderstanding of what's called the intermediate state. And so I would be a proponent of the intermediate state, not everyone would be.

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I don't think it's that vastly important in the grand scheme of things.

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But here's my perspective. My perspective is simply this, that in the Old Testament, when a person died, the righteous would go into Abraham's bosom, the unrighteous into Hades.

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So you'd think Hades is kind of like the county jail. The bad part of Hades is like the county jail, but it's not the penitentiary.

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It's not the eternal state of hell, okay? So it is a place of torment.

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It isn't where you want to be, but it's not the eternal hell. And how do we know this?

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Well, because the Bible talks about, particularly in Revelation, that death in Hades, Sheol, will be tossed into the lake of fire.

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And the lake of fire is that which is referred to as the eternal state of the damned, of the wicked.

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It's gonna be lake of fire. Now, Jesus uses another Greek word to describe what

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I believe is the biblical hell, the eternal state, the lake of fire. And it's a Greek word, Gehenna. Jesus uses this term often,

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Mark 9, for instance, where he talks about Gehenna as the place where the worms do not die and the bodies are not consumed. This is the eternal state for the wicked.

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And that doesn't happen until his coming. If we understand 1

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Thessalonians 1, we understand 1 Corinthians 15, we understand Revelation 14, 19 and 20.

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These are all things that happen at his coming, okay? Is the eternal separation of the sheep and the goats.

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And the goats will depart into everlasting fire. That means they're not there yet. They're not into that place of eternal fire yet.

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They are currently in Hades, would be my perspective. Now, again, according to the Old Testament, everyone died and went to Hades as Sheol.

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But something drastically changes at the resurrection and ascension of Christ. Christ opens the door for heaven.

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No one has ascended to heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man, Jesus says in John 3. And so Jesus is the way by which heaven is opened.

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I'm the way, the truth, and the life. And if you look at Hebrews 11 and 12, and maybe at some point we can go into this a little bit deeper.

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But if we, and I encourage you to look in your free time and end those chapters of Hebrews 11 and Hebrews 12, it talks about all these great cloud of witnesses from the

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Old Testament saints. But then it makes a really stunning admission at the end of chapter 11 and the beginning of chapter 12, is that these who preceded us, the

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Old Testament saints, would not be glorified apart from us, okay? So that means that those saints of the

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Old Testament couldn't have been glorified in heaven apart from the inclusion of the New Testament church, right?

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So it's the New Testament church, it's the Jesus opening the new and a better way through his shed blood which opens the way for heaven for both the

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Old Testament and the New Testament saints simultaneously, okay? So that now the believer who dies in Christ doesn't go into Hades, doesn't go in Sheol, but he goes directly into the presence of the

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Lord where he awaits now the resurrection from the dead. That would be my view.

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It's also seemingly the view of the early church fathers and however,

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I would be at odds with many Puritans in my position because many Puritans had a more simplistic view.

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Because what I just described to you is a little bit complicated. The Puritans had a more simplistic view which is now that Hades, Sheol, these are all just terms for heaven and hell.

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And depending on the context, it could either be heaven or it could be hell. And that when a person dies and they go to hell, a person dies in the

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Old Testament, they went to heaven. That's fine. I don't think there's anything wrong with that position.

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However, I think there's enough scriptures that points to a very clear distinction between Sheol, hell, and heaven that I have a hard time contextualizing.

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It doesn't mean that I'm right or they're wrong. It just means that there's a lot in this topic that needs to be considered.

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What's that? Hey, that's okay, man. That's all right. Go ahead, Pastor. Oh, no, it clearly, yeah, yeah.

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Of course, yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean,

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I don't think, yeah, he's clearly a parable because he says he's setting up a story, a scenario, right?

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But behind the teaching, so we have to be careful when we say, okay, a parable. A parable doesn't mean that,

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Jesus often taught in parables to teach theological truths, right, and so the story is the parable.

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The story is rich man, Lazarus. We've got this dichotomy between these two groups of people, these two types of people, but then the setting is true, just like he would use the setting of farming, you know, fishing.

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These are all settings that are real, that are true, but the story, the characters involved are parabolic, yeah.

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Anyone have any thoughts or questions? Yeah, go ahead. Well, he went to Hades, and this is where the

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Nicene Creed is very important, right? So it says he descended into hell. Wait a second.

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Jesus descended into hell? No, no, no, no. The word there is Hades. Now, this is where we'd have a problem.

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If Jesus actually descended into hell, into the lake of fire, eternal torment, what are we saying about the nature of Christ?

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What are we saying about his nature, that he descended into hell, the place of fire?

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Was he tormented there? It brings up all these Roman Catholic controversies, in a sense, right? Whereas, if you have an

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Old Testament view of Hades, or Sheol, it would make sense that he went to Hades, because that's where everyone went.

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Everyone went to Hades, okay? And that's not me saying it. It's what the Bible says in the Old Testament. Everyone went to Sheol.

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David went to Sheol. This is why he's quoted in the book of Acts, in chapter 2, and also in chapter 16,

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I believe. He's quoted as dying and being in Hades, okay? And that's where Jesus went.

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Jesus also descended into Hades, which is the place of the dead, which is how the church fathers interpret

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Ephesians 4, when Ephesians 4 says, what does it mean that he descended, but that he went to the lower regions of the earth, but that he also ascended and brought with him a host, which, in the view of the early church, was that this is a triumphant victory of Christ, taking the

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Old Testament saints out of Hades and transferring them to heaven, okay, to his kingdom.

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And so that was the view of the early church, and that would be more akin to my view as well.

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1 Peter chapter 3 says that he preached to the spirits that were in prison. Yes, yeah.

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Another view that is popular is that he preached to the angels that were in prison during Noah's time, or the

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Nephilims. I don't think that that's probably what 1 Peter is referring to. I think that 1

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Peter chapter 3 refers to his message to those in the intermediate state.

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Go ahead, Emmanuel. Yeah. Which is why

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NIV says he proclaimed the message to the spirits that were in prison, yeah.

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You had a question there? Yeah. Again, so, you know, the

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Puritans, they were really good at simplifying difficult biblical concepts.

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Sometimes a little bit too much, in my view. Whereas what they would say is they look at these words that were used in the

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Old and New Testament, Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, Gehenna, and they'd say these are all synonyms for the same thing, essentially, or for either heaven or hell.

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And so the scripture uses this term Tartarus once in the New Testament.

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I think it's 1 Peter chapter 4, if I'm not mistaken. And Tartarus in the ancient world, so we have to understand that these words are not just used in a vacuum.

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There's a context behind them in the ancient world. The Greeks used

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Hades as well. Obviously, it's a Greek word. And Hades to them was a place of torment. So there's, again, a negative connotation, which is why eventually, you know, the

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King James, for instance, translates Hades as hell, was not only considering the biblical data, but also how the ancient

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Greeks used that term itself. You have another term, Tartarus, which in the

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KJV is also translated as hell. And Tartarus is in the ancient world, wasn't the place for humans.

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Hades was the place that the humans went for torment. But for the Greeks and for the Romans, Tartarus was the place in which the rebellious gods or spirits went.

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And it was a distinct place, right? And the way that Peter uses it in the context of his letter, he uses it in reference to angelic rebels, angelic beings who are being held in Tartarus.

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And so I would also say that there is a distinction. Tartarus is a distinct place from hell, from Hades.

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It's a temporary, again, temporary place for the spirits who rebelled against God, waiting the final judgment.

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Because actually it says in that text, let me find it actually, just so we can look at it.

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Scripture. I think it's only used once.

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It could be used twice. Yeah, 2 Peter 2. Let's go there for a moment.

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2 Peter 2. Notice what it says in verse 4.

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For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell, the

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ESV translates Tartarus as hell. Look at the footnote where it says 2.

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It says Greek as Tartarus. And committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.

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So hell is the final destination for the wicked. Both for the, according to Jesus in Matthew 25, hell is the eternal destination for Satan and his angels and the goats on his left.

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Okay? It's the eternal place. How then can they be in hell, waiting hell? Doesn't make any sense.

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And so again, God did not spare the angels, but cast them into Tartarus, holding place for the damned angels, but committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.

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Okay? Which again, why in Revelation 20, you have the scene where it says in verse 14, death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.

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I don't think Hades is the same as the lake of fire. There's a clear distinction. If not, the scripture's being redundant.

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The use of language would be redundant. And that hell's being cast into hell. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

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And so, although my view would be a little bit more complex, I think it is what the scripture is pointing to.

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And again, the Puritans, with all good intentions, try simplifying this a little bit more.

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But I think there are certain things in scripture that aren't so simple. And I think that's okay. This is where the, again, the doctrine of purgatory comes into play, is because this is kind of a complicated thought and doctrine.

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And so, they knew the scripture taught something about this intermediate state. They knew the church fathers affirmed this sort of intermediate state.

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So then, okay, what do we do? How do we categorize this intermediate state now? Well, they changed the intermediate state to this place called purgatory.

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And that's where, in church history, these debates arose from, primarily from the 800s all the way to the 1000s, and then became canonized from 1000 to 1400.

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And that's how you see the evolution of it. So, it didn't just come out of a vacuum. There were some real theological discussions happening that led to the rise of purgatory.

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Any thoughts or questions? Well, I would say every person who dies apart from Jesus Christ goes to Sheol.

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The believer no longer goes to Sheol. The believer goes straight into the presence of the Lord. And so, to be absent from the body, to be present with the

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Lord, as scripture says. And so, we are awaiting the resurrection still, the rejoining of body, soul, and spirit in the presence of the

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Lord, but we are awaiting in the presence of God, no longer in a separate place.

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And again, this is kind of, you know, might be new to some folks, but let me just.

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So, I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 39 and 40.

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Actually, I want to start in verse 13. Ultimately, salvation for the

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Old Testament saint is the same as the New Testament saint. So, don't misunderstand me when I said that there was a clear distinction in their thought process and their hope, per se, because the hope that was, you know, the cosmology of an ancient

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Israelite wasn't to die and go to heaven. That wasn't their cosmology or their eschatology. That wasn't what was in their mindset, per se.

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Their hope was directly tied to the land. But they also understood there was a heavenly component to this, and I think sometimes as Christians, we overemphasize heaven to the detriment of the actual earthly hope that we still have as Christians, because it's very

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New Testament as well. Jesus says, the meek shall inherit the what? The earth, okay?

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So, our eschatology has to include the redemption of the earth, has to include our inheritance of the earth, not just dying, going to some ethereal heaven, okay?

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That's very pagan thought, actually, and it's where, again, a lot of the issues in Rome arises. It's from adopting paganism into their, you know, view of heaven, and so I would say, again, the

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Old Testament saint was looking forward to these future promises, but it wasn't something that they enjoyed.

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What do I mean by that? Look at what it says in verse 13 of Hebrews 11. These, referring to the

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Old Testament saints, all died in faith, not having received the things promised, okay?

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The things promised is heavenly life, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, okay?

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Verse, now verse 39. All these, again, Old Testament saints, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us,

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New Testament saints, that apart from us, New Testament saints, they should not be made perfect, okay?

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So if the Old Testament saints were translated to heaven and meeting upon death in the Old Testament system, they would have been made perfect apart from us because that's where we're made perfected.

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It's in the presence of God, and yet the New Testament here is very clear that the

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Old Testament saints were not perfected. They were not made whole apart from us. So it is only in Christ's ministry that he opens the new and a better way to heaven and that those who died in Christ from now on go into the presence of the

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Lord. Revelation is really jam -packed in this language, as a matter of fact, where, you know, and for the

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New Testament saint, it's a victory to die, right? Old Testament saint, if you died, it's not a good thing.

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It's never a good look when you died in the Old Testament. There's always a negative connotation.

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Even when the best of people died, even in the best of terms, it was always still a negative connotation.

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But for the Christian now, it's not negative at all. It's a joy, it's a victory. Why is there such a stark difference?

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It's because, again, there was a stark difference in the reality of what they experienced apart from what was eventually fulfilled and promised in Jesus' life and ministry, where he opens up heaven, he opens up a new and a better way for us to have fellowship with the

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Father. And the Old Testament saints were not sanctified. They were not made perfect apart from us, which is why in the conclusion of all this, in Hebrews chapter 12, and in verse 22, after considering all the things said about the

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Old Testament saints, how he now points in chapter 12, verses 1 through 2, he points to Jesus as that crowning victory over death.

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It says this, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly

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Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are rolled in heaven.

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That's the church. And to God, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

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That's the Old Testament saints. And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

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Clearly, you know, Paul in Hebrews 12 is pointing to this perfected work of Christ, and that there's something so much better now for us on the other side of death that was not immediately so for the

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Old Testament saints. He's showing that clear distinction that now we get to approach the city.

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Now we get to see Mount Zion. Now we have this festal gathering of this harmony between the

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Old and New Testament church. And so that's, I think that is the biblical position.

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A lot of debates, and I'm eager to hear what you guys have to say on this. And I want you to push back on this, because if I'm wrong,

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I want to know. But ultimately, you know, it is a fascinating discussion. And hopefully this gives you a little bit insight in where the picture of purgatory comes in.

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Next week, we'll finish up the chapter on purgatory to go a little bit deeper into what Rome teaches on this. But I want to kind of give you this foundation as to why is this a discussion in the first place.

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It is because there are some hard theological questions that have to be addressed and have to be wrestled with because of what the

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Bible and the Old and New Testament says about death and about Sheol, Hades, heaven,

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Tartarus, and all these weird places that the Bible talks about. So very interesting stuff, right?

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Can we all agree on that at least? Yeah, good. Any last thoughts or questions that won't lead to a 20 -minute discussion?

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Purgatory is bad. Correct. That's right.

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New heavens, new earth. Yes. Correct, correct, correct.

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That's right. That is the question. That is the debate. Anyone else have any thoughts or questions?

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Good stuff. All right, let's pray. God, thank you so much that you've given us your word.

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And Father, even as we discuss these weighty doctrinal matters, Lord, we know that we have peace with you through Jesus Christ and that we've been justified by faith and that we can enjoy now your presence, your faith, your face through the shed blood of your son,

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Jesus, whose blood speaks a better word than the spilled blood of Abel. Lord, we thank you that it is by grace that we've been saved and we praise you,

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God, for being such a wonderful Savior so that regardless of the intricacies of these doctrinal issues, we know that now, in Jesus, we have hope, we have salvation, and we have heaven to look forward to and eternal life.

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And so, Lord, we leave these matters into your hands knowing that you are the God who knows all things from beginning to end.