The whole Catholic idea that we may not be ready for heaven when we die, Protestants find particularly offensive.
Protestants have misconceptions of what the Church teaches on Purgatory, (and it IS a biblical teaching).. regardless of Protestant denial. A denial which is not rooted in Scripture, but in sin.
Protestants ignore Biblical statements that contradict their position, and they contradict their OWN position, thus proving that their position is false, since the Truth, by definition, cannot contradict itself.
Firstly: Protestants cannot produce even ONE verse in scripture that states that there is no Purgatory, or that states that every person goes immediately to heaven or hell at the moment of death. (since the Protestants hate it when we use inferences to prove our point about Mary's Immaculate Conception, and deny it on the basis of 'it doesn't state it explicitly and clearly' I will expect they disprove the Catholic position with the same criteria).
Protestants will try to use St. Luke 23:43 when Jesus turns to the thief
and says "TODAY, thou shalt be with me in paradise." That verse doesn't
cut it as a proof text. Why? First of all, it doesn't say that EVERY
Christian goes to paradise on the day he dies, it simply says the THIEF
did.
SECONDLY (and more importantly) is this: The "Paradise" the thief and
Jesus went to together on THAT DAY, was NOT heaven where the righteous
see the face of God. Remember that Jesus said "TODAY you will be with ME
in paradise." But where did Jesus GO on that "TODAY?" on the day He died-
Good Friday?
We know He did NOT go to Heaven, because we know that three days later,
on Easter Sunday, He said to Mary Magdelin in St. John 20:17 "Stop clinging
to me, for I have NOT YET returned to the Father" He in fact, did
not ascend into Heaven until 40 days LATER, and St. Paul tells us, that
Our Lord was the FIRST human being to enter the presence of God in Heaven
so that in everything He may have the primacy.
So where did Jesus go on Good Friday?- Into Sheol the realm of the dead which had two parts to it: Paradise (Or Abraham's Bosom); and the place where the unjust went (commonly called Prison) Eph 4:9. No one entered Heaven before Jesus. he took the OT Saints into Heaven with Him on Ascension Thursday 40 days after the Resurrection.
Then the Prot will try these two verses: 2Cor 5:8 "We are confident,
I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present
with the Lord."
Phil 1:23 "But I am straitened between two: having a desire to be dissolved
and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better."
St. Paul is speaking about himself here. St. Paul went straight to
Heaven, he was a Martyr, and Christ said that there is NO greater love
than that. St. Paul is writing FROM PRISON, he knew he was to die a martyr's
death and lay down his life for the friendship of Jesus Christ. He
died in the Catholic faith, and it is the Church's teaching that if you
are in the True Faith and die a martyr for the faith, you go STRAIGHT to
Heaven; Your Sanctification is complete, you do not need Purgatory.
What the Church does not, and cannot teach- because the BIBLE does
not teach it-, is that EVERY Christian, regardless of how he dies, regardless
of how he lives, regardless of how far along in his sanctification he is,
goes straight to Heaven; The Bible, no where, states this.
Why do Protestants believe it then, if it is not in Scripture? Because it is a Protestant tradition, a tradition of men, and this Protestant teaching that everyone that dies go straight to heaven contradicts the clear statements of God's Word: NT- Hebrews 12:14 "Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification: without which no man shall see the Lord."
Question- If a Christian dies and has not completed his sanctification,
his process of being made Christ like, will he enter Heaven?
Hebrews 12:14 says No.
The Protestant will argue "But when we become Christians we are covered
with Jesus' Holiness so we don't need to be holy ourselves!" But there
are two problems with this attempt to evade the clear teaching of God's
Word in Hebrews 12:14: First of all the
holiness that it speaks of is not some supposed 'holiness' that merely
covers up our sinfulness, it is not the Righteousness of Christ, it is
a holiness NOT that we get instantly get as we become Christians, it is
a holiness we must PURSUE, it is a holiness we must 'MAKE EVERY EFFORT
TO OBTAIN', so what St. Paul is talking about here is a holiness we aquire
in stages, it is a progressive thing.
This Protestant tradition of going to heaven immediately after death makes a mockery of Heaven; it is a PREPARED place for a PREPARED people; it is a PERFECT place for a PERFECT people; it is a HOLY place, for a HOLY people.. a place of perfect holiness for those who have been made perfectly holy by the sanctifying grace of God.
Rev 21:27 "There shall not enter into it any thing defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the book of life of the Lamb."
As St. Paul says to CHRISTIANS in I Thessalonians 5:23 "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." He speaking to people who, according to the traditions of the Protestant are supposedly ALREADY covered with the cloak of Christ's Righteousness, but that's not enough to be ready for Jesus' coming St. Paul says: 'I have got to pray for you, that you are TOTALLY SANCTIFIED' he says.. 'only then will you be ready to go to Heaven and Praise God forever and ever' If you are not ready for Heaven at the end of your life, if you are not totally sanctified, you must be MADE HOLY, you must complete the process of sanctification- in Purgatory.
St. Paul brings out this process of "Purgation" in several of his letters- in 1st Corinthians chapter 3 he is saying "Why are you saying 'I follow Paul, I follow Apollos?' Who is Paul? Who is Apollos? We are simply ministers of the one that you've believed in. I may have planted, Apollos may have watered; but God made you grow it's not the one who plants or the ones who waters that's anything, it's GOD who make you grow! He's the one that should be getting the focus of your attention." And he goes on to use other analogies like farmers and then builders... and he says in verse 10 that "according to the grace of God that is given to me as a wise 'architect', I have laid a foundation; someone else has built on it. Don't lay any other foundation other than that which laid, which is Jesus Christ, and if anyone builds on this foundation- that is on Christ- with gold, silver and precious stones OR with wood hay and stubble, every mans work will be tested, the day of the Lord will reveal what kind of work you've done, if any mans work remains or endures which he has built he will receive a reward, but if any mans work is burned up; he shall suffer loss, he himself shall be saved but so as by fire."
What St. Paul is saying is that the Church is like a building and I
have been building on the foundation of Jesus Christ, I can build with
wood, hay and stubble, which is bad stuff, and when tried with fire, it
will get burned. Or, I can build with gold, silver and precious stones.
God's Fire at the Judgment day is going to test my work. My work may
burn, but I may be saved, by passing through the fire.
Not only does St. Paul teach this but St. James (chapter 1) and St.
Peter (chapter 1:6-7+)
They speak of the purging on earth, your faith can be tried while still
on earth. You do not ever need to go to Purgatory. You CAN be sanctified
while on earth by trials. Part of Purgatory's pain is the shame that we
didn't HAVE to go there, we could have gone straight to Heaven if we had
done our works good, if we had listened to Christ and done all that we
were told we must do.
Purgatory OT- Offering up Prayers for those in Purgatory to speed their
purgation:
2 Mac 12 We have a story of the Jews engaged in battle against their
enemies the Serians, prior to the battle the Jews prayed for absolution,
a blessing and for victory, and they prayed that God would not let any
of them die in the battle. Even though they won the battle,
afterwards a lot of the Jews had died and the Jews that survived were puzzled
by this; ‘why was this?’ (39) “And they began to collect their bodies for
burial (40) and they found under the coats of the slain some of the donaries
of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbiddeth to the Jews: so
the all plainly saw, that for this cause they were slain.” Now these Jew
believed in God, but they thought they would supplement whatever spiritual
grace that God had given them by thinking ‘I will cover all my bases, for
good luck’ and that is why God struck them down.. but the Jew didn’t respond
with ‘That’s it, they are lost!’ First of all the (41) Jews blessed
the Judgement of God and then- “.. (42) betaking themselves to prayers,
they besought Him, that the sin which had been committed might be forgotten.
But the most valiant Judas (Machabees) exhorted the people to keep themselves
from sin, forasmuch as they saw before their eyes what had happened, because
of the sins of those that were slain. (43) And Judas took up a collection
and sent 12 thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem, for sacrifice, to
be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning
the resurrection. (44) (for if he had not hoped that they that had
been slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain
to pray for the dead.) (45) And because he considered that they who had
fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. (46) It
is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they
may be loosed from sins."
Notice what’s happening here: They have committed a sin; for that sin
they died; and they were not able, obviously, to enter Heaven- in fact
as we know no one in the OT ever did- They took up a collection and had
the High Priest offer up a special Sacrifice for the souls of these departed
men in Jerusalem, so that they would be liberated from whatever purgation
they were undergoing because of this sin and that God would be merciful
to these men in His Justice; and to do this is a “Holy and wholesome thing.”
Where were these souls that were prayed for to be loosed from their
sins? They were not in Heaven (no one in the OT went there) there
is no sin in Heaven. They were not in hell, (the final damnation
part of hell) because no one in hell can be freed from their sins- so there
must, therefore, be an intermediate state between Heaven (where people
don’t NEED to be released from their sins) and Hell (where people can NEVER
be freed from their sins). There must have been a place where THESE
men went who will eventually, therefore, go to Heaven, but had sins that
they did not confess or make restitution for on earth that now they had
to make restitution for, hence: Purgatory. And EVERY orthodox Jew
today, believes in Purgatory. They pray every sundown on Friday evening
the Kadash (the prayers for the dead).