Does Purgatory Exist?

What exactly is purgatory and does it really exist? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. If you'd like to talk to Pastor Adriel live, you can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. You can watch us on YouTube, and you can email us with your question at questions-at-core-christianity.com. Hey Bill, I was reflecting yesterday after our program on one of the questions we received from Rachel. She called in, I think towards the end of the broadcast, asking a question about her son, her son who's part of a cult right now, not walking with the Lord, and just how we can encourage each other, especially our family members who aren't walking with Christ. You think of parents who long to see their children walk with Jesus, know Jesus, love Jesus. I was reflecting on that question more, and I was reminded of, I don't know if you've ever read it, Bill, St. Augustine's Confessions, the story of his conversion that he tells. He talks about how it was his mother's prayers every day, praying for him.

He says that she watered the ground with her tears. What's so encouraging to me about the story that he tells is essentially, he didn't come to faith until later in life, and yet he came to be perhaps the greatest theologian in all of the western church. He gets converted later in life, and yet God really used him in this mighty way. He goes to his mother's prayers. He says, my mom prayed for me every day. What an encouragement, I think, for mothers, for parents to pray for their children, even your adult children not walking with the Lord necessarily. It's easy to feel like, oh, the time's up, that kind of a thing, but no, pray. Keep praying because the Lord can do mighty things.

As he did with Augustine, so great reminder for all of us. Well, here's the phone number to call if you have a question for Pastor Adriel. It's 1-833-843-2673.

If you want to spell it out on your phone, it's 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Mike calling in from Kansas City, Missouri. Mike, welcome to CORE Christianity. Hey, thank you for having me.

I appreciate it. Mike, what's your question, brother? Good to hear from you again, by the way. I think you've called before, right? Oh yeah, yeah, a couple weeks ago.

Awesome, well, thank you for calling back. What's your question? I was curious as to why God created the tree of knowledge, knowing that Adam and Eve would eat off of it. Why even create it in the first place? You know, like, it's kind of like putting a hungry steak in front of a hungry person, or hungry steak, I'm sorry, a steak in front of a hungry person, and then saying, don't eat it, you know. Yeah, no, well, I mean, that's an interesting way of putting it. You think of all the things that the Lord did give to Adam and Eve there in the garden. I mean, it just seems like he was lavish, just an abundance of, you know, everything that you see, it's for you.

Go ahead and take it, go ahead and eat it. But there's one thing I don't want you to touch, and we're thinking here about Genesis chapter 2, in verse 16 we read, and the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat it, for in the day you eat it, or in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. And so I don't see it so much as, you know, God putting, you know, a nice big steak in front of a hungry man or woman and just saying, okay, what are you going to do?

No, the Lord had given them everything. Actually, you know, God was over the top generous with Adam and Eve, and he said, here's the one thing you can't do, and yet it's what they did. Now, why did God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there in the first place?

I mean, I think we're kind of getting into some speculation here, but the purpose for the tree is it was this sort of test for Adam and Eve there in the garden. We might refer to this as a period of probation, and the Lord is really saying, you know, is man going to follow me, is man going to obey my word? They were left to, Adam and Eve were left to the freedom of their own wills, and they chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and sin entered into the world, and the rest is history. You know, in the very next chapter you have the promise of the gospel in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, where we're told that the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent, and so I think one thing we can say is that God doesn't allow anything to take place, that he hasn't purposed how he's already going to resolve the issue, and we see that. We see the promise of the gospel in the very next chapter, but the Lord was testing Adam and Eve there. He left them to the freedom of their wills, and they chose to eat of it, and they fell, and we fell in them as well. Paul says this in Romans chapter 5 verses 12 and following, and so I don't know that there's a lot more that we can say about that, but one thing I do want to stress is God's generosity. This wasn't God, you know, setting them up for failure, that kind of a thing.

No, he said everything is yours. Every tree, go ahead and eat of it, but of this tree you shall not eat, and they fell. They sinned.

They chose to disobey the Lord, and so thank you again, Mike, for your question. Good to hear from you, brother, and may the Lord bless you. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We'd love to hear from you. 833, the core is the number. That's 1-833-843-2673. We had a voicemail come in from one of our listeners in New York State. Hi, my name is Janine from Ronkonkoma.

I love your show. My question is about purgatory. Is purgatory a thing that people go to, and we have to pray for them there, otherwise they're stuck there forever? Because I heard that people go to purgatory, and if nobody prays for them, they're stuck there. I think I read it in, like, a Fatima prophecy book.

Okay, I suppose I should look it up myself, but I wanted to see what you guys think about that. Thank you so much, God bless. Thank you for being there. Bye. Hey, Janine. One, let me just say thank you for your encouragement. I'm so glad to hear that you enjoy the broadcast. Keep listening.

We want to keep encouraging you. And purgatory, well, one, I don't believe that purgatory is a biblical doctrine. It's taught in some churches, like the Roman Catholic Church, and the idea is basically that an individual who dies in what we might call a state of grace, you know, they're truly a believer, but they have not yet been perfected to the point of being able to enter into the presence of God, and so they have to go through this sort of period of purgation, a period of cleansing, in order to get them ready to enter into the presence of God. And, you know, with that, you have had all sorts of doctrines that developed in the medieval church where, you know, you had people who were told that they needed to pray for their deceased relatives who were in purgatory so that they might enter into heaven.

That puts a huge burden on the family members of those who have died. The fact of the matter is, look, the Bible teaches that through Jesus's once for all sacrifice, you and I enter into the presence of God. And there's one verse that I want to point out for you. It's in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 14, and it's referring to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The author of the Hebrews said, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. That is, Jesus, by his single offering, the offering up of himself on the cross, through his blood he has perfected for all time the people of God, those who are being sanctified.

It's so important that we understand this. We're not perfected by our works and we're not perfected by our suffering here on earth or in heaven. And that word perfected, by the way, in the book of Hebrews, it's sort of this technical term. It means to be made fit to enter into the presence of God, to come before God in worship. Actually, in two chapters after that, in Hebrews, chapter 12, the author of the Hebrews talks about coming to God in worship and coming before the heavenly Jerusalem. And he says in Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 23, he says, we go to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

Again, there's that word again, perfect. Well, how are we made perfect? That is, how are we made fit to enter into God's presence? It's through the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus was sufficient to get us into the presence of God, to get us into heaven. And so that's what we rest in, sister.

That's our hope, ultimately. It's not my righteousness, it's not my suffering, it's the work of Jesus Christ. And so now I don't believe that purgatory is a biblical doctrine.

I think we can rest in the work of Jesus. And some people wonder, well, then where did this doctrine come from? It seems to have developed over time in some churches. A lot of people will appeal to what are known as the Apocrypha. That is these sort of extra biblical books that were written around the time of, after the book of Malachi and leading up into the time of the New Testament, these apocryphal books. And some people will appeal to those books in order to make a case for the doctrine of purgatory. But we don't view those books as a part of holy scripture. And so we want to make sure that we're getting our doctrine from the inspired word of God. And I think when you look at God's word, you don't get the doctrine of purgatory. Thank you so much for your question, and may the Lord bless you. And there were certainly some misuses of that doctrine back in the Middle Ages, where the church would actually have people paid to get people out of purgatory.

So if Uncle Bob was being toasted there, we would pay some alms to get him out, right? Yeah, well, you know, there certainly were abuses, and I think everyone is willing to admit that. And it is a tragic thing, you know, when you think of using doctrine or theology in order to take advantage of people. And that was happening in the medieval church as a part of why you had the Protestant Reformation, which was essentially a recovery of biblical doctrine, saying let's go back to the word of God. What does the scripture teach? And I think for each and every one of us, that's the question we have to ask ourselves when we're thinking through what it is that we believe about God. Let's not invent it, make it up in our minds. Let's go to what God has revealed in his word. And so that's what we want to do here on this program with you.

Give us a call, 833-843-2673. We've got an email from Marcy, and here's what she asks. Is having a prayer language biblical? Marcy, it sounds like you're probably referring to the gift of tongues that's described in the Bible. You know, sometimes people will call that a heavenly prayer language. And the first thing I would say is we just need to understand what the gift of tongues was.

There's a lot of confusion about this in the church today. The gift of tongues, I mean, you really see in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 2, the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God fell on the church and on the apostles there gathered together in the upper room, and they began to speak with new tongues. And Luke records the whole thing in Acts chapter 2, and he says that they were declaring, you know, the mighty works of God. And people were there gathered together for the feast, hearing the disciples speak in these languages that they had never heard as they're proclaiming God's praises. And so the gift of tongues there was these real languages given to these disciples of our Lord by the grace of the Holy Spirit, the ability to speak in a language that they had never heard to essentially communicate the truth of what God had done.

Now, other places talk about this gift as well. You see Paul with an extended discussion on spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14. There he refers to the gift of tongues in chapter 14, the importance of having an interpreter present if the gift was being used in the context of the local church. You know, Paul says if there's no interpreter, how are people going to say amen at your giving of thanks? And so again, it was this prayer language to God where the individual had never learned the language, but the Spirit of God was working in them miraculously to pray in this unknown tongue, and they're praising God, worshiping God, thanking God in this language they had never learned. And Paul says if it's happening in the church, there needs to be an interpreter so other people can say amen. Well, let me just say in a lot of charismatic churches today from what I've seen, you don't have interpreters when people are speaking in tongues, quote unquote.

And I think that that should cause us to ask some questions. Now, is it biblical for Christians today to have a heavenly prayer language? I believe that those languages, those gifts of the Holy Spirit were especially given for the early apostolic error of the church as a way of confirming and attesting to the reality of the gospel.

The signs and wonders were never an end in and of themselves. They were always meant to point us to the work of Jesus, what he had done for us on the cross. And this is absolutely clear in places like Hebrews chapter 2, beginning in verse 1. Listen again to what the author of the Hebrews said. He's talking about the importance of hearing the gospel, the word of God. He says, therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? And then he says this, it was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. You see what the author of the Hebrews is saying there. He's saying these sign gifts, these gifts of the Holy Spirit were given as a confirmation of the Holy Gospel to attest to the reality of what God had done in his son Jesus Christ. And so I take it that those gifts were in particular for that time and that now that the gospel has gone out, that we have the word of God, that ordinarily God doesn't do those things.

He doesn't need to. And so I think that we want to be really careful and ultimately, as I've been saying, go back to the scriptures in order to determine what it is that we believe about God's word and how we should live as Christians. And when we don't, there can be a lot of confusion. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And by the way, today we have a very special resource we want to tell you about. It's actually one that Adriel created himself and it's called Seeing Jesus. We want to help you fix your eyes on Jesus Christ through the scriptures. You know, there are all these stories in the gospels that I think believers have not dug deep enough into. Jesus in such a beautiful way reveals himself over and over and over again in the gospels. And so Seeing Jesus takes a number of these stories in the Bible and it unpacks them. We do a deep dive sort of in order to understand better who Jesus is. And one of the stories I get into in Seeing Jesus is when Jesus cleansed the temple.

I love that story because it's so shocking to me. You think of where Jesus would go and turn tables upside down if he was on earth today. We might say he would go to the bars, he would go to the strip clubs, that kind of a thing. Where did Jesus go to turn the tables upside down when he was on earth during his earthly ministry? He went to the temple.

It would have shocked everyone. He was essentially exposing the hypocrisy there. And I think sometimes we don't see Jesus as that mighty warrior who exposes hypocrisy and goes to war against sin. And it's important that we do because we need that today.

And so that's one of the things I talk about in Seeing Jesus. I hope you get a hold of this resource. It's yours for free. All you have to do to sign up to get the resource is head over to corechristianity.com forward slash jesus. That's corechristianity.com forward slash jesus. You can also call us at 833-843-2673 for help getting any one of our offers.

Again, that number is 833-The Core. By the way, one of the ways you can connect with us here at Core Christianity is through our YouTube channel. You can actually watch the broadcast live every day, 1130 a.m. Pacific time, 1 30 central time, 2 30 eastern time. You can check it out on YouTube and you can also check out previous episodes on our YouTube channel.

And Linda posted this on YouTube. She says, Does fasting have to be from all food? In our church, we say fasting can be giving up anything that we think we can't do without. I'm a diabetic on insulin, so I just fast from all junk food and wheat.

Thank you so much for that question, sister. I personally don't think that fasting just has to be, you know, fasting from food or even from all food. You know, there were different kinds of fasts in the Bible. Daniel, for example, when he fasted, he didn't fast from all food. He just fasted from the king's delicacies. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6 verse 16, When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces, that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret.

And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. I think it's important that we understand, you know, what fasting was and is. I think it's a legitimate spiritual practice that we're can do as Christians.

Typically, it was associated with times of great difficulty and trial when the people of God were suffering under some calamity or struggling with something. They would fix their faces on the Lord, and they would proclaim a fast. They would say, look, we need to focus on God and drawing near to him.

We're not going to be distracted by these other things. And so fasting is really an opportunity for us occasionally to draw near to the Lord. To fix our eyes upon him. We don't fast to, you know, lose weight. We don't, at least not as a spiritual practice, we fast first and foremost to commit ourselves to prayer and to drawing near to the Lord. And Jesus tells us right there how we ought to do it as his followers in in verse 16 of Matthew chapter 6. And so whether that's, you know, fasting from all food or some foods or maybe other things that distract you in your life, maybe it's social media. I think most of us could probably do without social media for some time to fix our eyes upon the Lord. And so that's what I would say to you.

Sister, thank you so much for your question and may the Lord bless you. How about ice cream? Should we be fasting from ice cream? Yeah, no, definitely not. Cookies and cream, you never want to set that aside, man. That's my favorite.

And so I would say no. All right, this is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Here is our phone number, it's 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Sheila from Omaha, Nebraska. Sheila, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hello, can you hear me?

I can hear you, Sheila. Okay, great. It kind of stems on the first question that was answered, but I didn't get to hear the whole answer. But my question is, God, Lord, He knows all, He knows the hairs on your head before you're born, He knows everything about you, your life. Now, you had touched on the choices that we can make from the tree, Adam and Eve.

That's right. If He knows, and the knowledge, if He knows these things ahead of time, then He knows what we're going to choose. Then He knows what we're going to choose. Then He knows all the shortcomings, all the sufferings. He knows that, if He already knows if man is going to choose or not Him.

Wouldn't that be correct? And also, how did He create that attitude that the devil has, that's like above all? So, Sheila, it sounds like it's sounds like you're asking, you know, like God knows everything. This is a good question.

It's one that we get all the time. God knows everything. Why would He allow these things to take place?

Why would God create a world in which He knew we were going to sin? And I sort of touched on it in the first question, like you said, but the fact of the matter is God is able, and this is the amazing thing about the God that we serve, God is able to use and to take even the sinful actions of God and sinful actions of people, like you and I, and turn them around for our good and His glory. I mean, this is wild, but it just shows us how powerful our God is, and I think the way we can prove this is by looking at passages like Acts chapter 2, where basically you have Peter preaching, and he says in Acts chapter 2 verse 22, men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. In other words, Jesus, the eternal Son of God, was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, and yet God is not guilty in the sins of the people, they crucified Jesus, and Peter says, you crucified and killed Him. A little bit later in Acts chapter 4, you have something similar, Peter says, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

Now let this just blow your mind for a second. Peter is saying here, as he's praying to the Lord, he's saying, God, you're in control. The crucifixion, it happened according to your definite plan, what you foreknew, what you predestined, and yet somehow God was using the sinful actions of people in order to accomplish the redemption of humanity. They crucified him, but it was the crucifixion of Jesus, Sheila, that led to the salvation of his people.

And so we can praise God because we can say, wow, God, you are so powerful, you are so in control, you can use our sins even for your glory. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.