NOTE ON PURGATORY
It is obvious that the truth of a believer's judgment, so
abundantly stated in the Scriptures, is of vast practical moment, and, once it
lays its grip upon a soul, simply incalculable in its motive power. For, contrary to what is sometimes supposed,
it greatly reinforces our assurance of eternal life; because, by disentangling
countless conditioned promises of reward from the simple assurance of eternal
life granted on bare faith, it isolates the unconditioned gift into a radiant
light, while withdrawing into the sphere of reward numerous menacing passages,
expressive of extreme difficulty and doubt, which have ever been the
strongholds of Rome. By reassuring of eternal safety, while yet
warning of millennial peril, it frees the soul for an arrow-flight straight
to God's highest and best. Moreover, of
all Scripture truths none is more needed by the
But not the least of its advantages is the light it casts on Roman
error, and how that error arose; and, above all, on the Roman doctrine of purgatory. For (we first observe) it is a supreme
peculiarity of our Lord's love to His own that it can never stop short of the
perfection of the person loved. "As many as I love, I
reprove and chasten" (Rev. 3: 19): "He chastens us for our profit, that
we may become Partakers of His holiness" (Heb. 12: 10). His
holiness is perfection; so that our discipline, however drastic or prolonged,
is never a proof of His enmity, but of His love; and is never a sign-either
now, or at the judgment Seat - of a disciple's ultimate destruction, but of his
ultimate perfection. Where others
show their love by indulgence, Christ shows His by chastisement.
"Every branch in Me that beareth fruit, He PURGETH
it"
(John
15: 2). Thus if the judgment of [regenerate] believers, and the
Scripture so calls it (1 Cor. 11: 32), is in full
operation (as all admit) in the day of grace itself, it is
obvious that such judgment, even to the infliction of death here (1 Cor. 11: 30) or hereafter (Luke 12: 46), can be no contravention of the
principles of grace: our chastisement is our highway to perfection.
Now our Lord, in insisting on forgiveness among the servants of
God, has pictured what may happen after this life with a
force so appalling, in terms so irresistibly clear and convincing, and yet in
words so little accepted or taught, that it may well be - as Sir Robertson Nicoll has said - that "the Christian Church has never fairly
faced these words." For the regenerate nature of the Merciless Servant (Matt. 18: 24) is decisively
revealed: the unforgiving servant is himself a forgiven man. The King says, - "I forgave
thee all that debt, because thou besoughtest me." Has any unbeliever sought and obtained
forgiveness, and yet is an unbeliever and unregenerate still? No sin has
ever been forgiven, or ever will be, save through the blood of the Cross: is
such forgiveness ever unaccompanied by [eternal] salvation? This Servant, says Mr.
Kelly, "represents the Jew": "it is the hatred of the
Jew towards the Gentile" : or, as Dr. Bullinger
puts it, the ten-thousand-talent debt is the Crucifixion. But the Jew has
never repented, never confessed, never sought pardon, never obtained it, and
for eighteen centuries unmingled justice has rested on
Even if he were a regenerate Jew, of a remnant belonging partly to
our Lord's day and partly to the Great Tribulation, the truth is affected, not
in principle, but only in application: FOR HE IS A SAVED (BECAUSE A
FORGIVEN) MAN : therefore our Lord can so act towards the saved.
So sore a judgment on a regenerate man would thus be a
coming fact: all objections, therefore, to the principle
behind the fact must fall to the ground. But the context
carries no statement that he is a Jew, saved or unsaved. It is the
resurrection of an old and (one had thought) obsolete assumption that all
curses are for the Jew, and all blessings are for the
Church. Such a thought assumes that more
privilege means less responsibility; it assumes
that Jewish disciples with far less light will, if they sin, incur far severer
punishment: whereas the exact reverse is ever Paul's warning cry
- How much more, how much more! (Heb. 12: 25, Rom. 11: 24). Moreover, our Lord identifies the Servant
with the Kingdom of heaven (ver. 23), which has been
taken from the Jew (Matt. 21: 43) and given to the Holy Nation, the
Church (1
Pet. 2: 9,
R.V.).
But a further fact is equally decisive. Our Lord is answering a question - "How oft shall my
brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Jesus saith unto him, Until
seventy times seven. Therefore
is the kingdom of heaven likened
unto a certain king, which would make a reckoning with his servants." The parable is an amplification of the answer:
it is a revelation of what will happen to Peter if he does
not forgive: it is a scene of the
judgment Seat of Christ. Our Lord
has just dealt with church quarrels: "if thy brother
sin against thee" - it is offences
between brethren, or even apostles - "and he refuse to hear the church
also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican." If the
servant is an unbeliever, the parable is wholly remote from Peter's
question. Peter asks Jesus to define the
limits of forgiveness in the church
disputes just named: it could be no answer to Peter for our Lord to reveal
the consequences of an unforgivng spirit in an
unbeliever. Who is a 'brother'? "Whosoever shall do the will of God,
the same is my brother" (Mark 3: 35).
Most remarkable is it that, just as our Lord is the most insistent
preacher of Hell [Hades], so no warnings to the believer are as grave as His; and His
application of His own parable is fearfully decisive. "And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to
the tormentors, - till he should pay all that was due.
SO SHALL ALSO MY HEAVENLY FATHER DO UNTO YOU, IF YE FORGIVE NOT EVERY ONE HIS
BROTHER FROM YOUR HEARTS": "for judgment is without mercy to him that hath
showed no mercy" (Jas. 2: 13). Nor does this passage
stand alone. There are others of equally
fearful force.
(1) "If a man abide not in me, he is cast
forth as a branch, and is withered and they gather them, and cast them into the
fire, and they are burned” (John 15: 6).
(2) "Whosoever shall say [to his brother Moreh,
shall be in danger Of THE GEHENNA OF FIRE" (Matt. 5: 22).
(3) "For if we sin wilfully after that we have
received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins,
but a certain tearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire
which shall devour the adversaries" (Heb. 10: 26).
No branch, withering
after vital verdure, and embedded in the Vine, can represent empty profession: the 'brother' who angrily charges
another 'brother' as Moreh - 'rebel from God' - risks Gehenna
because his charge is false; that is, both are children of
God, and therefore God's ancient principle (Deut. 19: 16-19) recoils on him - that the false
witness incurs the penalty he sought to inflict: nor could the Apostle be more
explicit that 'we' - including himself -
must meet fearful consequences
for wilful sin. These passages may
be (I believe they are) susceptible of a reconciliation with the ultimate salvation
of all believers; but no thinking soul, reverent of Scripture, and conscious of
the dreadful holiness and majesty of God - "the
Lord shall judge His people," is immediately followed by,
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
the living God" (Heb. 10: 30) -
will wish to treat them lightly, or blunt the edge of these sharpest warnings
of the Most High. It is an ill turn to
the grace of God to make it silence the righteous claims, of His justice and
holiness: exactly so the Restorationist and the Universalist seek to elude the
doctrine of Hell.
Now we turn to the Roman doctrine of Purgatory. Rome's perversion of the truth, which would
have been impossible had the Church always held and taught the full Scripture
revelation of a believer's purging, has only twice been officially
defined. "If such as be truly
penitent die in God's favour before they have satisfied for their sins of
commission and omission by worthy fruits of penance" - i.e., have assisted their
own atonement - "their souls are purged after
death with purgatorial punishments"
(Council of Ferrara); "and the souls
delivered there are assisted by the suffrages
[prayers and devotions] of the Faithful, and
especially by the most acceptable sacrifice of the Mass" (Council of Trent).
The manifest errors here - apart from such fearful accretions as the
sale of indulgences, or the efficacy of the Mass - are mainly three. (1) The
doctrine of Purgatory locates the
purging in Hades: Scripture locates it in this life,
and at the judgment Seat after resurrection, but never in Hades.
[* Those
who allege must prove. I disagree with
the author under section (1). Also,
Christ’s judgment of His redeemed people must take place before the time of resurrection.]
**
“The belief that judgment for the believer is
exhausted in this life is obviously untenable, because we have all known backsliders
who died in the utmost worldly prosperity: so that Paul prays for one faulty
believer "that he may receive mercy of the
Lord IN THAT DAY" (2 Tim. 1: 18), and of
others - "may it not be laid to their
account" (2
Tim. 4: 16).
For there are sins that will be forgiven - obviously
not sins of unbelievers - in the Age to Come (Matt. 12: 32). In the words of Messrs. Hogg and Vine:-‘The
attempt to alleviate the text ('he that doeth
wrong shall receive again for the wrong that he hath done,' Col. 3: 25) of some of its weight by suggesting that the law operates
only in this life, fails, for there is nothing in the text or context to lead
the reader to think other than that while the sowing is here, the reaping is
hereafter."]
So we turn once again to the Scripture truth. God has provided two
purgings - one by blood, and one by discipline; and the
Purging by blood must precede the Purging by discipline. "According to the law, I may almost say,
all things are Purged by blood " (Heb. 9: 22) :"how much more shall the blood
of Christ Purge your conscience from dead works" - the deadly
efforts of self-righteousness - "to serve the living God" (Heb. 9: 14). For Christ has effected the essential and fundamental
purging once for all: "who when He had Purged our sins,
sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb. 1: 3); and this purging is
the sole basis, and predisposing cause, of all subsequent purging. For only a saved soul can be
purged by chastisement. No amount or
degree of suffering can improve into life a soul dead in trespasses and sins,
any more than dead wood can be made to grow fruit by pruning; chastisement
cannot purge him; he can be purged, but not by
chastisement; and God is not habitually chastening the wicked at all.
For "if ye are without chastening whereby all
[believers] have been made partakers, then are ye
bastards, and not sons" (Heb.
12: 8). Corrective
sufferings are only granted and effective to those already judicially purged by
the sacrifical sufferings of
The second purging is by discipline. "Every branch that beareth fruit" - i.e., living
wood, set in the living Vine - "He purgeth
it"
(John
15: 2). A soul which is born again, yet still having 'the flesh' in him, can have his
still fallible character cleansed and corrected by chastisement. Nor need this purging end with life. "Some of the old Roman divines taught that all
the remains of sin in God's children are quite abolished by final grace at the
very instant of their dissolution; so that the stain of the least sin is not
left behind to be carried into the other world" (Archbishop Usher's Answer to a Jesuit, p. 165).
This
ancient Roman doctrine is as unscriptural as the later Roman doctrine of
Purgatory. For the unbeliever who
falls asleep unwatchful, wakes unwatchful - the servant who dies slothful, appears before the judgment Seat
slothful; their last look on this world is, morally, their first look on the
next; they will be purged, but they are not purged;
there is no magic in death, and no* [*there is plenty of] opportunity in Hades
to correct a faulty discipleship; and the coming millennial day of
Justice, dominated by the judgment Seat, has for its essential characteristic
the recoil of works in judicial retribution. "For he that doeth wrong" - the context
is addressed solely to believers - "SHALL RECEIVE AGAIN FOR THE
WRONG THAT HE HATH DONE; and there is no respect of persons" (Col. 3: 25). But it is Divine Love that will not rest until
all we who believe are "become partakers of His holiness": no discipline
ever involves our destruction: it effects, sooner or later, our perfection. Perhaps the most solemn passage our Lord ever
addressed to the believer concludes exactly thus:-"Verily I say unto thee,
thou shalt by no means come out thence, TILL [for all chastisements of
believers are purgative and temporary] thou have paid the last farthing " (Matt. 5: 26).
So our Lord in the Parable of the Steward,
puts the conversion of the 'evil servant' beyond all doubt by identifying the two
characters as possible in one and the
same man. "But if that
servant"
- the good steward, whom the Lord Himself set over His household - "shall say in his heart" (Luke 12: 45): it is not a change
of servants that our Lord contemplates, but a change of mind
in the same servant: it is one and the same servant,
who may turn out either a good steward, or a bad.* "And that servant;
which knew his Lord's will, and made not ready, nor did according to his will, SHALL
BE BEATEN WITH MANY STRIPES." The appearance of the slothful servant at the
Bema with his fellow-servants is decisive proof of his conversion; for
the Scripture knows nothing of a rapture of unbelievers. In the words of Dr. Seiss:
"The words do not at all imply that the
one is saved, and the other lost, but simply that the one reaches blessedness
at once when the Lord comes, while the other, not being prepared by proper
watchfulness, is punished with temporal judgments, and only saved 'so as through fire’ at a
subsequent period."
[*"This
emphatic pronoun (Luke 12: 45) must have
some antecedent, and none is to be found save the'faithful and wise
steward' (12: 42). Truth is not to be. reached by settling for
ourselves in advance what the Lord may or may not do to His own servants, and
then sweeping aside the words which do not agree with that prior decision"
(G. H. Lang).]
It is certain that all believers must, sooner or later, appear at
the Bema (2
Cor. 5: 10), and it is equally certain that none can so
appear as a naked spirit; but what is constantly overlooked is that, apart from
our Lord, who rose in "the power of an endless life" (Heb. 7: 16), so far from death
after resurrection being impossible, we have not a single example to the
contrary in the recorded history of mankind. "Women received their dead by a
resurrection" (Heb. 11: 35) - a genuine, actual rising of the corpse, like Lazarus;
even a skeleton was reclothed (2 Kings 13: 21) yet, without exception, it has always been no
more than a temporary resuscitation to fulfil a specific purpose of God. Until the final entrance of all the risen into
the City in the Eternal Ages, it is of one group of the risen, and of one group
only; that a resurrection is stated which is incapable of death. "They that are accounted worthy to attain to that
Age, and the resurrection [out] from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage : FOR
NEITHER CAN THEY DIE ANY MORE; for they are equal unto the angels; and are
sons of God, being sons of the resurrection " (Luke 21: 36). Of believers not accounted
worthy of that Age, and the resurrection from the dead,
the First, no such assertion of incorruptibility is made; so also it is only of partakers of the Kingdom
(1 Cor. 15: 50), that Paul says that they shall be raised “INCORRUPTIBLE” (1 Cor. 15: 52).
Thus the warning of God comes home to us in full force. “So, then, brethren" - the Church of
Christ - "we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh; for if
ye live after the fiesh, YE
MUST"
- ye are about to: the expression in the Greek is almost,
one might say, consecrated to denoting the Millennial Kingdom; eight times it
is used in Hebrews of the Coming Age (Govett)
- "DIE " (Rom. 8: 12). It is not eternal death, for the believer is
guaranteed eternal life: it is not present death, for it is contrary both to
Scripture and to fact that all sanctified believers live to a great age, and
all backsliders die young: it is Millennial
death, the cutting asunder at the Bema. "Be not deceived;
God is
not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall
he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap CORRUPTION" (Gal. 6: 7) - a "corruption" as literal as
the "flesh" "The Apostle does not speak [in Rom. 8: 11-13] of the lot reserved for
the bodies of unbelievers, or of unsanctified believers. The same is the case in 1 Cor. 15: 20-28. The word of ver. 13 - ‘If ye live after the
flesh, ye shall die' - should suffice: that is not, especially after all that precedes, a word of salvation"(Godet).
For while all believers possess eternal
life, that life will be manifested for such believers as have renounced heavily
for Christ a thousand years earlier.
"There is no man that hath left house or
brethren
... for my
sake, and for the gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this
time. ...
and IN THE AGE TO COME eternal life " (Mark 10: 29).
So now we are in a position for a final summary on exclusion. Where, it will be asked, are the excluded
during the [Millennial] Kingdom? We are not obliged to solve all possible
problems connected with a revealed truth before we accept it; or else a
sceptic's inquiries on the origin of evil, or the sovereign elections of God -
queries impossible of human reply (Rom. 9: 20) - could invalidate the Gospel. Nor is it wise to probe too deeply into that
over which God has cast a holy reserve; lest, losing ourselves, we become
"wise
above that which is written." Let us
grant (if we choose) that God has shrouded the temporary fate of the excluded
in impenetrable mystery, the fact of exclusion remains, resting
securely on its own abundant Scriptures. Nevertheless Scripture is not wholly
silent on the location of the excluded. (1)
Some, perhaps from the lower regions of Enoch and Ehjah,
may behold - as Moses from Pisgah - without entering (John 3: 3, 5). (2) Some return temporarily to corruption, as
did all who rose before our Lord, until Hades, together with Death (or Abaddon) are emptied at the final judgment - saved
inmates issuing from Hades (Rev. 20: 13). Both these classes, presumably the great
proportion of the excluded, continue to enjoy the conditions of
[* The disciple saved, but barely escaping with his life, is said
to be 'fined' (1 Cor. 3: 15); and our Lord, depicting the disciple who seeks his good
things in this life, in contrast to him who even lays down life itself in
martyrdom, reveals that the 'fine' is the 'soul,' or life (Matt. 16: 26). "He that findeth his life [soul, or animal
life] shall lose it" - at the Berna;
"and
he that loseth his life for my sake shall
find it"
(Matt.
10: 39)
in the First Resurrection, in a life indissuluble
(Heb.
7: 16, R,V. margin).]
The denial of these
solemn truths paralyses and destroys some of the most powerful stimulants God
has supplied to His Church in its deadening struggle with the world, the flesh,
and the devil; it empties of all horror the dread warnings to the backslider,
and leaves him, if it does not put him, in a drugged sleep and it drives
privilege over the precipice of responsibility - a disaster of which the Church
has had direct warning; - "continue thou in His
goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off" (Rom.11: 22). And the melancholy fact revealed all down the
ages in this-that where the sharpness of God's warnings has been blunted by the
misuse of grace, sin follows, and too often privilege becomes the
cloak of lasciviousness. No man kicks against God's goads save at
his own peril. "To this man
will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word" (Isa. 66:2). Concerning the utterances, unutterably solemn,
with which our Saviour warns believers of the final fires with reiterated
emphasis, Isaac Taylor has said:- "We of this age may
expound as we think fit these appalling words; or may extenuate these phrases;
or, if we please, let us cast away the whole doctrine as intolerable and
incredible. Let us do so: but it is a matter of history, out of question, that
the apostolic church, and the church of later times, took it, word for word, in
the whole of its apparent value. It is
true that several attempts were made to substantiate a mitigated sense: but it
is certain that the language of Christ, in regard to the future life, was
constantly on the lips of martyrs throughout the suffering centuries. Often and often was it heard from out of the
midst of the fire, and was lisped by the quivering lips of women and children
while writhing on the rack."
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