How to Explain Purgatory to Protestants

• SingaporeMacross

  18 Apr 05, 23:10

  Originally posted by Weirdo80:

  The whole point that I'm trying to bring across is that Jesus died for our sins and we should focus on the grace given to us. Only Jesus can cleanse us of our sins, not Mary, not any sacrement, not any ritual or priest. Not even devoting our entire life to doing good works will get us cleansed. Just claiming the promises of God and confessing in Jesus. God has made it so easy for us to draw close to Him and eliminate the gap that sin has brought. Why do we want to make things difficult for ourselves by doing this, that and the other?

  The Sacrament of Reconcilliation removes sins, only because Jesus works through it. The priest does not forgive our sins. It is Jesus who forgives us. But it is through the priest that Jesus forgives our sin. So when we go for Confession, we are really claiming what God has promised for us, and confessing in Jesus!
  
  To add, Confession would be useless if Jesus did not die on that Cross and be raised to life.
• SingaporeMacross

  18 Apr 05, 23:21

  Originally posted by Weirdo80:

  Agreed. However, in number 2 we believe that if a person is truly faithful, it will be manifested in his actions. Therefore Jesus said that "faith without works is dead". Just saying that we are faithful without having the faith spill into our lives is just paying lip service to God. However, we do not advocate certain rituals or actions that must be done for salvation to occur because salvation has been paid for by Jesus and not us. For example, if we go to eat at a very fancy restaurant with friends and someone in the group says that he has paid, do we go to the cashier and ask if he really has paid? Or do we attempt to pay again even if the price has already been paid? No, we don't. Instead, we smile and thank the person for his generosity. We then proceed to LEAVE the restaurant because we have FAITH that the price has been paid up fully. That is an action that is brought about in the faith that our friend has paid the bill. We don't go back to the cashier and beg to give more money, or wash the dishes of the restaurant to try and make up for the "free" meal.
  
  We also do not advocate that priests or pastors can cleanse our sins. Pastors can pray with us as a guide, but we only look to Jesus for forgiveness. We also belive that Mary is a mortal, she is not sinless. There can be no communication between the living and the dead. Therefore we do not ask for Mary to intercede on our behalf as she cannot hear us.
  
  The magnitude of differences between Christians and Catholics is too big to be debated here. Theologians and Bible scholars have been fighting over them for centuries. We can only hope to live in peace and agree to disagree. I sincerely hope, though that the Catholics here can just ponder about the things that I have mentioned.

  Aye, there are too many differences.
  
  For instance, in your analogy, you are saying that once saved, always saved. We do not believe that this is the case. A person can lose his salvation if he drifts away from God! Jesus saved us by dying for us. When he did this, he opened the gates of heaven. His dying is not a license for us to sin. We acknowledge that we are weak sinners, but we are justified in Christ. Yea, but we still need to repent if we want to claim His mercy and grace.
  
  Mary is alive in heaven. She is not dead. As are the Christians of the past ages, they are not dead! They are alive in heaven! It is by God's power that they can hear us.
  
  Let us pray.