The Bible and Purgatory #1 (Selected Scriptures)

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in the Truth Pulpit. Well, it's quite important for you to have the words of those hymns echoing in your mind as we come to God's Word this evening. Jesus paid it all. He paid the debt and made me free.

We so gladly and joyfully sang before we began the message tonight. It's important for those things to be etched in your mind as we come near the conclusion of our series on the Bible and Roman Catholicism. You see, as we sang, and as you know, biblical Christianity is premised on a wonderful truth, the most wonderful truth, that Jesus Christ made a full payment for sinners at the cross of Calvary. Scripture says that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin in 1 John chapter 1 verse 7. And because of the complete and perfect and all-sufficient nature of the sacrifice of Christ, that is why God's Word says this about us as Christians despite our sin. Colossians 2 10 says that in Him you have been made complete. In chapter 2 verses 13 and 14 of Colossians, it says, When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, listen to it, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."

End quote. Christ has made a complete and permanent and effective sacrifice for sinners that has made us complete in the books of God, in the presence of God. He no longer sees us as being stained by sin. He has thoroughly, completely, forever cleansed us and made us pure and forgiven from all of our sins. Scripture says, having forgiven us all our transgressions, beloved, that means that there's no further payment to be made. You don't have to add to the works of Christ with your works, with your rituals, with your good deeds, in order to improve your standing with God or to make up for something that Christ didn't cover.

Jesus paid it all, and because of that, when a sinner trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, God declares him righteous, fully pardoned of all of his sins, and God counts to that sinner's behalf the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that's why we can sing. We can sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer.

With his blood he purchased me. You see, a Christian, for a Christian, those aren't simply external words to a hymn, that's the song of his heart. It's not just the song on his lips, it's the song that echoes and reverberates from his heart, because God places within our hearts a melody that assures us and conveys to us with certainty that our debt of sin has been completely paid by the Lord Jesus Christ. He has canceled the debt of sin, and that is the basis of our hope, that is the liberty of our heart, that is our confidence when we contemplate the end of life, and when we realize that we're coming to the end of our life, we realize that it's just the outer man that is decaying. Our inner man is renewed day by day by the wondrous, sensational news that Christ has paid all of our sins, and that there is no further account that we have to give to God for the way that we have sinned against him. We have a brother in heaven who represents us, we have a Savior who has paid it all, we have a Lord who not only has reigned over our life, but he has dealt with our soul with power and a way to make sure that we go straight to heaven when we die.

That's reason to sing. Those are glorious truths. And because it is so great, because it is so majestic, because it is the eternal knowledge and plan and intent of God that his children would be delivered from sin forever and ever, and we rest in that, and that is the greatest hope of our heart, beloved. Those truths, that truth of the sufficiency of Christ on the cross is utterly non-negotiable. There is no compromising with anything that attacks that central, basic, glorious truth. So that, we say, that anything that contradicts the finality of the work of Jesus Christ for sinners on the cross must be resisted and refuted with all of our might to the point that we would join with those who in the past have given their life blood in order to defend that truth.

That we would join and we would understand and we would affirm those that gave their life rather than to let that truth be contradicted on their watch. Now, beloved, that is why over the past few weeks we have taught a series titled The Bible and Roman Catholicism. At its root, Roman Catholicism denies everything that I just said. It denies the sufficiency of the work of Christ. To speak theologically, it denies the doctrine of justification by faith alone. We have taught two messages on the Bible and Catholic salvation last Sunday prior, two Sundays ago. We defined the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and in subsequent messages we have seen this. We have seen how Catholic insistence on baptism and the sacrament of penance denies the glorious truth of which we sing.

That was last Tuesday. There are two final matters that we need to address this evening, and perhaps for some of you these terms and Catholic doctrines will be new. Those of you that have grown up around the system or in the system will find some familiarity with what I'm about to say. We're going to talk about the Catholic system of indulgences and the Catholic doctrine of purgatory this evening and kind of draw this series to a close with one final climactic message on this coming Sunday. But beloved, here's the thing, and one of the things that I hope that you've seen as we've gone through this series is that as the weight of Catholic error, Catholic false teaching, as the weight of that sinks down further and further as it is exposed to the light of Scripture, what I trust you found in your heart is raising up and being elevated in your mind the greatness of the doctrine of and the proclamation of salvation by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone based on the Scriptures alone to the glory of God alone.

And the glory of the gospel shines in brilliant whiteness, in glorious truth, especially when it is placed against the black backdrop of Catholic doctrine. Look, those of us that are Christians, and tonight most of us are, maybe some aren't, but most of us are Christians in this room gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ certainly, we glory in the fact that all of our sins are forgiven and there's no payment that we have to make for them. Nothing is left to be done to assure our full, complete, final, immediate forgiveness before God of all of our many transgressions against Him. Our sins have been removed from us. God has released us completely from the punishment that our sins deserve based on the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, those things are glorious. What you're going to see tonight as we look at this Catholic system of indulgences and their doctrine of purgatory, you're going to see how ugly it is by contrast that they deny these things with the things that they teach and the things that they require the so-called faithful to do. And so we're going to finish this series off. When I started this series, I thought it was going to be five messages. It turned out to be five messages times two.

It's going to be ten by the time we're finished on this coming Sunday. But that's all right. Let's consider, first of all, the Catholic system of indulgences. And remember, we're seeing how these things contradict the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Here's what you need to know. Catholicism teaches that sin brings two kinds of punishment. There is the eternal punishment of hell that sin would bring, and there is also a temporal punishment, a punishment that is confined in time but that also attaches to the consequences of sin for the sinner. They say, Catholics do, that those who die in mortal sin will inevitably and certainly suffer eternal punishment, as we would say would be true of every sinner who dies without Christ. But Catholics add to that, and they say this. They say that lesser sins, they make distinction between serious sin called mortal sin and less serious sin called venial sin, they say that lesser sins require temporal punishment to cleanse away sin even though, even under their system, you've already received forgiveness. You've been forgiven in baptism, Catholics say, of the eternal punishment of sin as long as you don't fall into mortal sin. But even if you're in a state of grace, you still have to pay a temporal punishment to cleanse away your sins. That all sounds very perverse to us that are saturated in biblical truth, but this is what they teach.

No need to let the Bible get into the way of a good gig. Paragraph 1472 of the Catholic Catechism says this, and I'm supporting the summary statement that I just made. This is their teaching of double punishment on sin.

Paragraph 1472. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the deprivation of which is called the eternal punishment of sin. On the other hand, every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth or after death in the state called purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the quote, temporal punishment of sin, end quote.

That's paragraph 1472 of the officially approved Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. So there's grave sin, there's this eternal punishment, there's this temporal punishment, so that even if you're in a state of grace, you're still facing punishment for your sin. Even if you've been forgiven, you still face punishment. What kind of forgiveness is that?

Paragraph 1473 says this, the forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. Now, as I've said throughout this series, I realize quoting these things makes it very difficult to take notes. If you contact us through the church website, we'll be happy to share the notes which document everything for you. You just ask and we're glad to share this with you.

It's all meticulously documented. For us tonight, can you imagine a system, those of you that understand something about the nature of true forgiveness that God has given to us through faith in Christ, and the wonderful joy that we have of saying, I don't face any punishment for my sin because, as we sang, Jesus paid it all. There's nothing left for me to do. A faithful Catholic could never sing that song from the depths of their heart.

They can't say Jesus paid it all because the official teaching of their church says that even after the forgiveness of sin, there's a temporal punishment of sin that remains. Do you want anything to do with a system like that? Do you?

I don't. Does that sound anything like what Colossians said, in Him you have been made complete? Does that sound anything like Colossians that says He has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross?

Doesn't sound anything like that, does it? Well, the nature of the Catholic system is, is that they have a system of indulgences, what they call indulgences, that can help you get out from under this temporal aspect of the punishment for your sins. Here's what they say an indulgence is at paragraph 1471 of the Catholic Catechism. And I'm so glad I'm not Catholic. And I'm so glad even more that I don't teach Catholic doctrine. I would be embarrassed.

I would be ashamed. I would be so distraught to teach as truth these things that I described to you only long enough to refute them. Here's what Catholics say an indulgence is in paragraph 1471. I've never been more glad to be a Christian. I've never felt more privileged to be a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ than I have at the end of this series on Roman Catholicism. Because the distinction is so clear and it is so sharp and to be able to promise sinners full and free immediate forgiveness if they will come to Christ is glorious. Catholics can't do what I do. Catholics have all kinds of conditions attached to everything that they say about any promise that they would ever make about forgiveness. Here's what they say about indulgences. And I quote, an indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the church. The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead, end quote. That's paragraph 1471 of the Catholic Catechism.

So here's what they're saying. They say you have this temporal punishment that you're still facing even though you're forgiven. This is just insanity. You've been forgiven but you're going to be punished but we have a way for you to get out from under that punishment if you would like to avoid it. We as the church, the Catholic Church says, we prescribe the conditions upon which you can receive that forgiveness. And once we give it to you, you can either apply it to your own account or if you want, you could apply it to a dead loved one and help them.

This is just insanity. So the idea of an indulgence is this to make it simple. An indulgence is like a credit that you can use to pay down the temporal punishment of your sins. You have to suffer, you have to pay for it and indulgence will reduce the debt. It's like somebody coming along and making a payment on your credit card so that you can reduce the debt that you owe on your credit card, something like that. A Protestant writer named Ron Rhodes who in what I'm about to quote is apparently referring to an older practice of the Catholic Church.

I don't think this is their current status but it helps just by way of illustration. Here's what he says about this. He says, what kinds of things must a person do for an indulgence? One of the most common is merely doing the sign of the cross which grants an indulgence of three years less time in purgatory. Reciting the rosary in a family group can grant a partial indulgence of 10 years. Visiting a Catholic shrine can also grant an indulgence. Close quote, I'm gonna pick up on it in a little bit. When you hear, if you read about Catholics going to these Catholic shrines where visions of Mary have been seen and all of this, it's not just a tourist attraction for them, this is a way of remitting some of the temporal punishment of sin for them. They travel to these places so that they can reduce the punishment that still remains for them to suffer for their sins. Returning to the quote. When a person performs the specific requirements for an indulgence, the Roman Catholic Church then has the power to grant that indulgence based on the merits of Christ and the earned merits of Mary and Catholic saints. This is insanity.

I'll explain more about the merit system in a moment. Now, there's a more recent Catholic source that I believe indicates that the time credits that Rhodes refers to are now outdated. And I want to quote from this. Kathy Caridi, a name that I'm sure you don't know.

I would be shocked if you did. But Kathy Caridi holds a law degree in Catholic canon law. And she wrote in an article in 2014, what are the church's current rules on indulgences? She says this. And you'll see how these things and the time frames all kind of fit together.

Ms. Caridi says this. And I quote, older Catholics are usually quite familiar with prayers to which the church had in previous years attached an indulgence described in terms of time. 100 days, 300 days, seven years, et cetera. She goes on to say, the links pertain to the number of days of penance which Christians used to be required to perform. Remember, this is a Catholic writer. Thus, for example, Pope Pius IX decreed in 1854 that whenever a Catholic devoutly said, Jesus, my God, I love thee above all things, he gained an indulgence of 50 days. So this was the pope, the infallible pope, saying that if you say this prayer, we'll give you 50 days less punishment than what you previously were facing. Ms. Caridi goes on to say, but today Catholics won't see the apostolic penitentiary. That's not a joke.

That's one of their tribunals. Catholics won't see the apostolic penitentiary granting indulgences for set time periods like the above example of 50 days. That's because the church's system of granting indulgences was revised in 1967 by Pope Paul VI.

He greatly simplified the system and among other things did away with the previous time measurements for partial indulgences. The pope indicated that it is preferable to concentrate on the spiritual significance of the indulgences work itself rather than focusing on numerical calculations. Let me put this in English for you. Catholics would tell you you are forgiven but you're still facing punishment. You say in response, I'd like to get out from some punishment.

Catholics say here you go. You do these things and we'll grant you an indulgence. Now we're kind of used, speaking us here in this room, we're kind of used of thinking of an indulgence as a permission to do something in the future.

You know, I'm going to indulge in my love for chocolate cake or something like that but that's not the right way to think about it. The indulgence is reducing the debt of punishment that you owe. So Catholic Church says we'll make a deal with you. You do what we tell you and we'll drop the debt of punishment for you. Back in the 19th century and up until 1967, they would assign specific chronological periods of reduction if you just did it.

Saw it by quote from a Catholic author themselves. 50 days, seven years, whatever it might be. You do this and we'll reduce the sentence for you. But 1967, the then pope said this is too complicated. Let's do away with the math on it and we're not going to tell you how long it is.

We'll just tell you it's partial and you can, you know, do the thing and we'll just tell you that you've got a partial reduction in payment that's required. And then I'm not even getting into the fact that there are other things that you can do that you can get a full indulgence. Let's step way back and say this. With all due respect to Ms. Caridi, Pope Pius VI, I'm sorry, Pope Pius IX and Pope Paul VI, with all due respect to them and others like them, this would be funny, like a bunch of clowns trying to pile into a Volkswagen. This would be funny to think that anybody thinks this reflects anything of truth, that this has anything to do with the Bible or anything to do with Jesus Christ, that little external prayers, that there's actually a system by which you could reduce it by a fixed numerical calculation and this is by decree of the Pope, but then a later Pope comes along and says, now that's too complicated, let's simplify it.

This would be a riot. Except that we're talking about an invented religion that keeps the souls of men in darkness and contradicts and robs the glory of the cross in exchange for this petty system of do this and we'll give you that. It's despicable. Now, I've got a little bit more to say to you about this before we come to grips with it. On what basis, you might ask, on what basis would the church say that they can reduce the punishment?

On what basis do you do that? Well, they have what they call the treasury of the church. The treasury of the church. Now, that is not a financial treasury like the US Treasury. Catholics believe that the church oversees a spiritual treasury that supposedly holds the merit of Jesus Christ, the merit of Mary, and the merit of saints who were more righteous than they needed to be in order to enter into the presence of God.

They were so good that they built up a surplus. And you as a meager sinful person and you're not righteous enough, we as the Catholic Church will draw upon this treasury that's been given to us and we'll share a little bit of it with you if you do what we tell you to do. How does that help the sinner and how does it relate to indulgences? I hope you understand now why I quote directly from their catechism. If I just told you that this is what they believe, you would rightly wonder if I had gone bonkers and you would question whether I was telling you the truth and whether I was being fair in my summary of it. You say, this is so ridiculous, I'm not sure you're telling me the truth.

You would question me before you would question what they actually teach. So that's why we quote from paragraph 1478 of the Catholic Catechism. The Church intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins.

We open up the treasury, we take out a couple of gold bars from Mary and we apply those gold bars to your account and it goes down. Of course the catch is that when you sin tomorrow you're building it back up. They go on in paragraph 1479 and say, since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, in other words the dead Catholics that are in purgatory, since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them so that the temporal punishments due to their sins may be remitted, end quote. So you've got a loved one, you're pretty sure he's in purgatory because the guy was a jerk. But you still got a sense of compassion for him, well you go and get an indulgence for him and you can shorten the punishment that he's facing in purgatory which we'll face in a moment.

Or which we'll describe here tonight in a moment. So what the Catholic Church does is they make a withdrawal from this treasury of merit and they give it to the one seeking the indulgence to reduce the punishment for their sins. Now you can see the utter falsehood of this and you can see a biblical perspective on it with one simple statement here. Beloved, the only reason you would need anything like this crazy, insane system of indulgences is if the work of Jesus Christ on the cross was incomplete to pay the debt of sin. If Christ, as the Bible teaches, made a full and complete satisfaction for sin, you don't need any system to remit any further punishment because, as we sang, Jesus paid it all.

And so that means there's nothing left to pay. It's not that complicated, is it? You see the beautiful simplicity of the gospel compared to this complex, changing system the Catholics are in bondage to?

No. No, there's no truth in it at all. No truth in it at all. That's Don Green here on The Truth Pulpit. And here's Don again with some closing thoughts. Well, my friend, thank you for joining us for yet another podcast from The Truth Pulpit. And we wanted to let you know that in addition to these audio resources that you are enjoying, that there are also written resources from my ministry. The Lord has given us opportunity to put some of the things that I've taught over the years in print.

And I have one book in particular that I would want to call your attention to. It's the most popular book that I've published so far called Trusting God in Trying Times. It's a book born out of deep personal sorrow and is brought into context, you might say, through the Word of God. How to trust God when you are going through the deepest valleys and the most sorrowful things in life. How do you trust God through those times when you can't see your way forward?

I've been there, my friend. And the book Trusting God in Trying Times speaks to that spiritual experience in the life of the believer. You can find all of my books at thetruthpulpit.com. That's thetruthpulpit.com. Just click on the link there.

You'll find links to different books and you will find that they take you to an easy place to purchase them for your reading enjoyment. So thank you once again for joining us on The Truth Pulpit. We'll see you next time as we continue to study God's Word together. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.