by Standerinfamilycourt
“Because Christ also suffered on account of sins once for all, the righteous on behalf of the unrighteous that He might bring us to God; having been put to death, to be sure, in flesh but having been made alive in spirit; in which he also went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison who formerly were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, while the Ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls were brought safely through the water. This is an antitype of baptism that now saves us also…”
1 Peter 3:18-21 (per Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken” – 2013)
Among the strongest allies of the covenant marriage “stander” community, especially in our efforts to change both immoral laws and Christian culture is the Christ-following Roman Catholic community, with its outspoken journalists, authors and ministry leaders who have a national following. One such ally is Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, founder of The Ruth Institute. Dr. Morse recently observed (and we would tend to agree), that the common ground found by Catholic and Protestant members of the movement to expose and roll back the Sexual Revolution, as well as restore the institution of holy matrimony back to God’s definition, often causes us to have more in common with each other than with the churches we hail from.
There are some “agree to disagree” doctrinal differences that do crop up regularly, however. The validity of Roman Catholic “annulment” tribunals is one constant example. Recently, Dr. Morse triggered a bit of new debate when she made a video urging the Catholic supporters of The Ruth Institute to pray for the dead. If there was an occasion or triggering event that sparked this concern that prayers be offered for the dead, Dr. Morse only mentioned it in the second video (but, in fact there was – keep reading). Wisely, Dr. Morse first made a video addressing the non-Catholic supporters and explaining the basis for doctrine concerning “purgatory”, anticipating that some Ruth fans who are not Catholic might think she “flipped out” (as she put it) when we saw the video post on Facebook urging “Ruth’s” Catholic friends to do so. She graciously asked that comments from those who take biblical exception to this practice and doctrine limit their remarks to the explanatory post which she also posted to Ruth’s Facebook page. Fair enough.
“standerinfamilycourt” addressed this comment to Dr. Morse (no response so far):
“Dr. Morse, I’d say most evangelicals have been taught in their churches about the concept of purgatory, mainly due to the exodus of so many Catholics during the ’70’s, ’80’s and ’90’s into our churches. I don’t mean so much to argue but to pose a couple of questions, if that’s OK. I will honor your request to do it here and not on the other post.
First, it’s pretty widespread evangelical knowledge that the main scriptural authority seems to be the book of 2 Maccabbees, chapter 12 in the Apocrypha, a passage that reads as follows in the DRA version, and would have been written by a pre-Christ author:
“…39 And the day following Judas came with his company, to take away the bodies of them that were slain, and to bury them with their kinsmen, in the sepulchres of their fathers.
40 And they found under the coats of the slain some of the donaries of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbiddeth to the Jews: so that all plainly saw, that for this cause they were slain.
41 Then they all blessed the just judgment of the Lord, who had discovered the things that were hidden.
42 And so betaking themselves to prayers, they besought him, that the sin which had been committed might be forgotten. But the most valiant Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin, forasmuch as they saw before their eyes what had happened, because of the sins of those that were slain.
43 And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection,
44 (For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead,)
45 And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them.
46 It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins….”
“Is there any NT scripture you’re aware of that supports this?
“I ask for a pointed reason, actually. I have found that one of the best ways in the evangelical church to come against popular scripture abuse that seems to justify the abominably unscriptural practice of “remarriage” after man’s “divorce” is for “standers” to volunteer to teach a neutral class in the church on bible text history and handling, along with a technique called hermeneutics –principled interpretation of scripture through a neutral, disciplined process. (It’s along the lines of “catch me a fish and I eat today, but teach me to fish and I eat from now on.”) It’s not nearly as controversial as telling an ordained pastor straight-on that he is relying on a mistranslation of the Greek for a particularly crucial key word in a verse (very common), or that a bible committee in the 1880’s didn’t choose the soundest manuscript family to translate, or deliberately chose to leave off a phrase they didn’t like. This also gives an opportunity to unoffensively talk about to what extent OT scriptures can be relied upon today. After all, we probably don’t go to hell today for wearing mixed textiles or eating shellfish or failing to stone our children for disobedience.
“Done well, a good number of people come to a correct understanding of scripture concerning sexual ethics on their own, and in the process develop the courage of conviction to stand up against false teaching from the local pulpit or in media ministries (especially when and if they come under conviction to leave their adulterous remarriage and return to their God-joined spouse — an act requiring much intestinal fortitude against persecution in most evangelical churches). Ditto for coming to a supportable, correctly-balanced understanding of grace and eternal security. OSAS (once saved, always saved) is a horrendous heresy that seems to be sending millions to hell in willful, rebellious sin.
“standerinfamilycourt” writes all blogs taking issue with misuse of sexual ethics scriptures in this format – thoroughly demonstrating how each of the 5 basic principles: Content, Context, Culture, Comparison and Consultation apply to that scripture – so that others learn this discipline. (In a church class, to keep the learning neutral, I’d simply ask everyone to bring to class a scripture that seems to contradict other scriptures, and has been bothering them.)
“So far, I’m unaware of such a NT scripture supporting the doctrine of purgatory, but there’s always much to learn.”
Actually, there is a New Testament scripture that some theorize as supporting the concept of purgatory that’s worth drilling into with the same tried-and-true principles of hermeneutics, and it’s the
1 Peter 3 scripture in the opening of this post. SIFC believes it is more respectful of our many Catholic readers to take this step before tossing out several other scriptures that come to mind to contradict the purgatory concept. Other Protestant commenters on the Ruth facebook post did so that day, and SIFC suggested a few as a follow-up. We won’t get into a debate here about whether or not the Apocrypha should have been canonized. It is an historical fact that it was not canonized. Presumably, the forebears of today’s Catholic church leaders had an adequate say in the decisions of that 3rd century council who decided. There is evidence that some books in the Apocrypha were regarded by the Apostles and next generation church fathers as Holy Spirit-inspired, notably, The Shepherd of Hermas. However, the Maccabees books are primarily an historical account of how a colony of unregenerated Jews conducted combat, and reflects the thoughts of unregenerated souls. Which is why SIFC asked Dr. Morse for corroborating NT scripture.
A few days later, “standerinfamilycourt”, having not yet listened to the second video, caught up with the sad news that the husband of Moira Greyland Peat had suddenly had a fatal heart attack on Memorial Day. Moira was one of the riveting speakers at the Ruth Institute Survivors Summit one month earlier. She and her husband were also Catholic. Apparently, for whatever reason, there may have been doubts that Mr. Peat was sufficiently following Christ to arrive in the kingdom of God without additional prayers for his soul. All of this was evidently on Dr. Morse’s mind and heart when she made the two videos on May 30.
On June 7, another Catholic husband passed into eternity, this time, the estranged prodigal of a (formerly Catholic) stander – one who experienced the double heartbreak of having the church “annul” her parents’ marriage after many years, and then hers, in both cases to accommodate the legitimization of an adulterous relationship within that church. This prodigal had been on his way home in recent weeks preceding this, in a “false start”, torn between his true wife and the faux replacement who was now chasing other men, and had left him. He never made it all the way home due to a fatal drug overdose. This bereaved stander now has to suffer the worst agony of any Christian, knowing that their prodigal spouse died in his or her unrepentant sin (possibly even taking his own life), and also knowing that the Apostle was clear when he said, “Do not be deceived. No adulterer has any inheritance in the kingdom of God.” While it might once have seemed comforting to his covenant widow to hold out a hope that she can pray her deceased husband into the kingdom, she is a woman of the word of God, and knows quite firmly the only option given by scripture is to walk him in on this side of heaven. The promising chance to do that was suddenly taken from her after many years waiting on the Lord for it. Saddest of all, there’s some chance that satan used this unbiblical doctrine to deceive him into possibly accelerating his own death rather than persevering through the moral pain he was experiencing.
Oh, dear readers who have prodigals running from the Lord anywhere in your families: satan wishes to sift them like wheat and won’t let their darkened, deceived hearts turn back to the light easily. He will often get them to turn their own rage and shame on themselves when their house built on the sand starts crumbling, as it inevitably will. This requires spiritual warfare of the highest order to thwart, usually long distance under no-contact conditions, and often before there is the remotest sign the prodigal was thinking of their true home once in a while. This requires a spirit-filled Christ-follower praying a wall of fire around the very life and mind of their wayward prodigal, binding the spirit of suicide and binding the enemy of their prodigal’s soul, in the name of Jesus Christ. SIFC has attended only one Catholic funeral and cannot recall whether purgatory was mentioned in that mass many years ago. If it is mentioned at this one, it will be painful for this former Catholic who has lost enough already to the ravages of extrabiblical theology.
Is it at all possible that a “holding zone” was a pre-Christ provision to allow OT souls an opportunity to surrender to Christ?
There are many practices in the Judaism of the Old Testament that Christ’s arrival and ministry abrogated and did away with. The natural reason is that He was born to become the Way, the Truth and the Life…the more excellent way. Pre-Christ Jews earned their way into heaven by observing the Torah and especially by making the burnt offering sacrifices on a daily basis as atonement for their sins. Those sacrifices were done away with by historical events shortly after Christ’s death and resurrection. He was now the sacrifice already poured out, and no man comes to the Father except through Him. That entails faith in His death as our atonement, wiping the slate clean up to that point, and thereafter walking with a heart of obedience to His commandments and repentance when we fail. It seems clear that Christ did not ever intend to leave us with an “Option B”, much less an “Option B” that others could effect for us. In Christ, we don’t have to be perfect in our life choices, but we do have to behave like a people grateful for His atoning death which justifies us. We have to seek lifelong sanctification, and actively repent when we wander astray. Ultimate salvation is a process, with accepting our justification as the starting point, and our admission to the marriage supper of the Lamb its consummation point, another fact that casts the idea of a purgatory into considerable doubt, scripturally. Either we were moving toward that banquet with our heart and feet, or we were moving in the opposite direction at the point of our physical death.
The scripture in 1 Peter 3 points to Christ’s concern for a people who perished in the great flood before either the Abrahamic or Mosaic covenants were made by God. Their souls were being held somewhere because they did indeed form a congregation of souls whom Peter tells us Christ was able to address before ascending into heaven. The context seems fairly clear that these were the only souls for whom there was not a system of sin atonement provided, because their lives and deaths pre-dated those things. There was no question that their lives were sinful, for they all perished in the flood who were still alive at the time Noah sealed up the door of the ark, and the book of Genesis states that God regretted having made mankind because they were so evil. The reliable translation quoted above states that Jesus made a “proclamation” to these pre-flood souls who had perished, while several other popular contemporary English versions say that He “preached” to them (perhaps even imagining an “altar call”). It’s hard to say what the proclamation was, or whether it was a redemptive proclamation at all, since scripture doesn’t say. We do know that none of the Apostles nor the early church fathers ever urged Christ-followers to pray for the dead, or otherwise held out hope for salvation after one becomes worm food without having lived in Christ.
The words of the Apostle, Paul:
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
– 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
– Romans 8:1
If the dead in Christ will rise when the Bridegroom returns for His church, what will happen to the dead who weren’t in Christ? What about those (fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, the covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers who did not repent in this life) we’re told by Paul will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
– Galatians 5:19-21
The following is what the book of Revelation has to say about what happens to the dead who are not risen with Christ, raptured alive and admitted to the marriage supper of the Lamb:
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.
Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
– Revelation, chapter 20
When the dead are prayed for in the Roman Catholic Church, is the request for Jesus to write their names in the Lamb’s book, just in case they are in “purgatory”? There’s at least some scriptural evidence that everyone’s name is written in the book of life when they are born, and removed if they do not die in Christ:
“He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” – Revelation 3:5
“standerinfamilycourt” also recommends a close read of 1 Corinthians 15, from verse 12 through to the end of the chapter for further deep insight into these things. There is one more worthwhile point-out to highlight in this passage, however. It’s Paul’s discussion of being “baptized for the dead” (verse 29):
“Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?”
This sounds an awful lot like praying for the dead, does it not? This appears to be something (in context) that only a few Corinthians were actually practicing. Paul appears to have neither condoned nor condemned it, but used it to make a point of irony in addressing the larger Corinthian heresy afoot: the belief that the dead are not raised at all. Dr. Pickering (mentioned above) theorizes this passage to the contrary, in his bible commentary as follows:
“to be ‘dead’, they were once alive, and will be judged on the basis of what they did while they were alive; once dead their account is closed. So here Paul is presumably referring to those who are replacing the dead in the ranks of believers by being baptized. If there is no resurrection, what is the point of doing so, especially if all you’re going to get is persecution?”
(page 376, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken”)
The practice is mentioned nowhere else in the New Testament, nor in early church writings. The supreme irony of that Corinthian practice is what baptism actually represents: it is a symbolic burial, marking the death of the old, unregenerated self and the emergence of the regenerated new person in Christ, to Dr. Pickering’s point. Faith traditions that sprinkle rather than immerse may lose the significance of this, but the Corinthians most likely were immersers, after the still-fresh tradition of Jesus and John the Baptizer originating in the Jordan River. This Corinthian superstition created a proxy burial for the “benefit” of those already interred. One good theory is that this was being done for known believers who, for one reason or another, did not get baptized while alive. It doesn’t appear that Paul was very upset with the practice, because he was never shy about calling out and rebuking true spiritual hazards. It seems certain that if they were doing it in order to posthumously “save” the unregenerated, or the believing backsliders, Paul certainly would have called it out, as part of his consistent “do not be deceived” messaging.
Good faith, sincere Christians remain divided today about whether baptism is necessary for justification. “standerinfamilycourt” falls somewhere in the middle on this. Those who put their trust in Christ but didn’t get baptized for whatever still-obedient reason before dying are justified in Him, because this (by itself) is not enough to remove their name from the Lamb’s book of life. However, obedience is necessary to remain on the larger sanctification path that eventually arrives at the marriage supper, and since we are commanded to be baptized, willful refusal to be baptized creates additional obedience problems, and hinders ministry. SIFC was sprinkled as an infant, and for many years thought that plus my later conversion sufficed, until the Holy Spirit convicted me at age 52 or so to be immersed as an adult disciple, decades after surrendering my life to Christ. The Apostles never commanded parents to baptize their babies. They commanded those old enough to surrender their lives to Christ to repent and be baptized.
Who’s in the first resurrection, of those dead who don’t rise with the Rapture, then? Could some of the prayed-for dead be in this group, instead of in the universally-condemned second resurrection? Most likely, this first group will be those who die during the millennial reign of Christ, whose names are found in the aforesaid book.
And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. – Hebrews 9:27
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