Does the Bible Really Say That?: Discovering Catholic Teaching in Scripture (11 page)

CHAPTER 26

Purgatory

If Jesus Christ died ‘once for all,’” a Protestant might query you, “then why does the Catholic Church teach that you must suffer in purgatory for your sins? Wasn’t his death sufficient to save you from your sins?”

This is surely a reasonable question. After all, Hebrews 10:12–14 proclaims, “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” So, that being the case, how can purgatory be compatible with Christ’s perfect, once-for-all sacrifice?

The key is to recognize that our earthly life affords us an opportunity to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We are called by Christ to accomplish this by his grace (Mark 9:23). He told us, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). These truths dovetail with what Revelation 21:27 says about the condition one must be in to enter heaven: “[N]othing unclean shall enter it.”

Now, consider the words of Christ in Matthew 22:1–14. He compares heaven with a wedding feast. One of the invited guests arrives without a “wedding garment” (he is dressed shabbily and inappropriately for the great occasion). The master says to him, “‘
Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment
?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen” (emphasis added).

Christ’s once-for-all death on the cross is the perfect and unique sacrifice for sins, one that saves from damnation those who are in Christ (Hebrews 7:25) and “cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). But notice that this “cleansing” does not happen all at once; it takes time and perseverance on our part, for the span of our entire lives. Jesus said, “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22; 24:13; Mark 13:13).

This all means that, for some of us, the process of purification in this life is left uncompleted when death comes. Hebrews 9:27 says, “[I]t is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment.” After the judgment comes our eternal destiny in either heaven or hell. For those whose names are found written in the Book of Life, heaven awaits. But since “nothing unclean” can enter the glorious splendor of God’s presence in heaven (1 Timothy 6:16), if one is not fully prepared to meet God face-to-face, if spiritual defects and temporal effects of forgiven sins still cling to the soul, then some final purification must take place before that one can enter heaven.

Because God is all holy, the prophet Habakkuk reminds us, he will not allow anything in heaven with him to be less than holy and spotless: “Your eyes are too pure to behold evil [O Lord], / and you cannot look on wrongdoing” (1:13, NRSV). Catholics call this process of final purification or purgation “purgatory.”

Saint Paul teaches very clearly in 1 Corinthians 3 that God performs a final purgation or purification—a process that involves suffering—on the souls of some departed Christians. This is the most central of all the biblical texts on purgatory and we will return to it later in this chapter. For the moment, though, read and ponder what the Bible says here about what happens to some souls when they are purified after death:

According to the commission of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:10–15, ESV)

This final purification removes all the dross that clings to the soul, things that Saint Paul describes metaphorically as “wood, hay, and straw”—flammable materials which are burned away in this judgment by God. Conversely, that man’s good works—which

Saint Paul compares with “gold, silver, and precious stones”—are refined and retained. In Matthew 12:32, Christ mentions a sin that cannot be forgiven even “in the world to come,” implying some sins will be forgiven after death.
¹

Remember Christ’s parable about the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:32–34? When the wicked servant proceeded to maltreat his fellow servant after the king had canceled his own debt, the king threw him into prison. “‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt.” Then Christ adds a chilling warning, meant for us:
“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart”
(Matthew 18:35, emphasis added). Clearly, Christ did not mean that the Father would literally lock people in prison in this life; rather, he is referring to what will happen to those who die with a hard heart and stored-up anger, unwilling to forgive their brother or sister.

Those who die with these kinds of defects (and others of different types) adhering to the soul can and must be purified from them. Only then will they be able to enter into glory, the presence of God himself.

Further Reading:
2 Maccabees 12:43-45; Luke 16:19–31; 1 Corinthians 11:27–32; Hebrews 11:13–16, 32–40; 1 Peter 3:18–19; 4:6

CCC,
1030–1032, 1472–1477

CHAPTER 27

Do Good Works Work?

The question of whether or not Christ requires good works for salvation is a vexing and long-standing matter of dispute between many Catholics and Protestants. While it would be utterly impossible to explain this issue adequately within this limited space, it is helpful for Catholics and Protestants to consider those Scripture passages that tell us something about the role good works play in Christ’s plan of salvation.

Matthew 7:21–26
  “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but
he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven
.... Every one then who hears these words of mine
and does them
will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.... And every one who hears these words of mine
and does not do them
will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand” (emphasis added).

Matthew 19:16–22
  “And behold, one came up to him, saying, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?’ And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good.
If you would enter life, keep the commandments
’” (emphasis added).

Matthew 25:31–41
  “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’”

Romans 2:2–10
  “We know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who do such things....
For he will render to every man according to his works
: to those who by patience in well-doing [i.e., in doing good works] seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and
do not obey the truth
, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil...but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good” (emphasis added).

Galatians 5:6
  “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but
faith working through love
” (emphasis added).

Philippians 2:12–13
  “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (emphasis added).

Ephesians 2:8–10
  “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

James 2:14–17
  “What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?
So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead
” (emphasis added).

James 2:20–24
  “
Do you want to be shown, you foolish fellow, that faith apart from works is barren?
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, and the scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’; and he was called the friend of God. You s
ee that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone
” (emphasis added).

Revelation 2:26
  “He who conquers
and who keeps my works until the end
, I will give him power over the nations” (emphasis added).

1 John 3:21
  “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask,
because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him
. And this is his commandment,
that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us
. All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them” (emphasis added).

1 John 5:2
  “By this we know that
we love the children of God
,
when we love God and obey his commandments
. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (emphasis added).

Further Reading:
Matthew 5:16; Luke 1:5–6; John 6:28; 9:4; 14:22; Acts 9:36; Romans 3:20–28; Hebrews 10:24; Revelation 2:2–5; 2:19–23

CHAPTER 28

Guardian Angels

Do you ever think about your guardian angel? You have one, you know. Your angel’s mission from God is to look after you. This role is explained in the simple prayer that Catholics everywhere learn in childhood:

Angel of God my guardian dear,

to whom God’s love commits me here,

Ever this day be at my side,

to light and guard, to rule and guide.

Amen.

Interestingly, the ancient and much-cherished Catholic belief in guardian angels—mighty spirits charged by God to assist human beings—has never been formally defined as a dogma of the Church. It has, however, always been part of Catholic belief and piety. The Catholic Church’s two thousand-year history of liturgy, prayers, hymns and sacred art has been filled with the presence of belief in guardian angels—and for good reason. The Old Testament contains numerous examples of God assigning angels to protect and deliver his people. And, as you might expect, we see similar incidents of angelic protection in the New Testament as well.

The Lord himself explicitly taught the existence of guardian angels when he said, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10).

Genesis 19 recounts the case of two angels sent by God to protect Lot and his family from a violent mob bent on harming or killing them. These angels not only struck many of the aggressors with blindness, but they also spirited Lot and his family out of the city just before God rained down a hail of flaming brimstone upon it, obliterating it and its wicked inhabitants for the terrible iniquities committed there (see Luke 17:29).

In Exodus 32:34 God promised Moses and the Israelites a special guardian angel saying, “my angel shall go before you.”

In Daniel 10 a warrior angel is sent to speak with the prophet Daniel. This angel had a “face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the noise of a multitude” (v. 6). The angel explained to Daniel that he was fighting alongside “Michael” (that is, Saint Michael the Archangel) against the “Prince of Persia” (a wicked angel that oppressed the people of that region) (Daniel 10:13).

The Deuterocanonical book of Tobit contains yet another account of a guardian angel, Raphael, who was sent by God to guide and protect the virtuous Hebrew youths Tobiah and Sarah (Tobit 3:16–17; see also chapters 5—6; 8—9; 12). At one point, the angel Raphael defeats the wicked angel Asmodeus, a demon, and “binds him hand and foot” (Tobit 8:3).

Here are several other scriptural reminders that God does indeed send his holy angels to light and guard, to rule and guide his people.

Psalm 91:9–12
  “Because you have made the
Lord
your refuge, / the Most High your habitation, / no evil shall befall you, / no scourge come near your tent. / For he will give his angels charge of you / to guard you in all your ways. / On their hands they will bear you up, / lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

Exodus 23:20–22
  “Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. Give heed to him and hearken to his voice, do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him. But if you hearken attentively to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.”

Psalm 34:7
  “The angel of the
Lord
encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.”

Daniel 6:19–22
  “[T]he king arose and went in haste to the den of lions. When he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish and said to Daniel, ‘O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?’ Then Daniel said to the king, ‘O king, live for ever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.’”

Acts 12:13–16
  “And when he [Peter] knocked at the door of the gateway, a maid named Rhoda came to answer. Recognizing Peter’s voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and told that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, ‘You are mad.’ But she insisted that it was so. They said, ‘
It is his angel!
’ But Peter continued knocking; and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed” (emphasis added). This passage indicates that the New Testament-era Christians believed in guardian angels.

Hebrews 1:14
  “Are not all ministering spirits [angels] sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?”

Further Reading:
Genesis 24:7; Numbers 20:14–16; Psalm 34:8; 35:5; 2 Maccabees 3:22–28; 10:29–30; 11:6; 15:23–24; Zechariah 1:8–11; 3:6–7; Judith 13:20; Acts 5:18–23; 12:6–11

CCC,
328–336