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I was visiting at an Assembly of God Sunday school class.  The lesson was on "sanctification".  The class was taught by the pastor who, having been an engineer prior to ordination, drew a graph depicting "holiness" over time.  The idea was that holiness increases from the moment of new birth until physical death, but doesn't achieve 100%.  The graph showed a gap after death, and then 100% holiness in the new Heavens and new Earth with new resurrected body.  Raising my hand, I asked (because I actually track the varying terms people use for theological concepts), "what do you call the gap between death and 100% holiness?"  That stumped the pastor, and everyone else there, and the discussion was thoroughly sidetracked.  After a few minutes, I volunteered, "The Catholics call it Purgatory".

Dead silence for about 10 seconds.  Then pandemonium broke loose with everyone talking at once.  The pastor excused himself to get ready for the next sermon.

While that denomination did not have a term, other terms used in Protestant camps are "glorification" (baptist), "final purification" (bible church).

While visions of Catholic Purgatory are colored by the works of Dante, the actual doctrine says nothing about a place or length of time - only what Protestants agree must take place after death: "there I'll be cleansed and free from sin" (Bible Church hymn: "Lord I Believe").

Apparently, the list of papally infallible dogmas is quite small, with at most 7 decrees.  Those two are not among them.  

I am a member of the Assemblies of God and my Pastor is an Assemblies of God Minister.  We most certainly would not have been stumped by your question.

Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit, in union with our cooperation during our lifetime on Earth, with what He says to do through the Word of God. Thus, Paul continually exhorts in Ephesians 4:24 "And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. . . . and verse 30 "And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."

I cannot find this hymn on any search engine. I would like to read it all and compare it against The Bible.

The Roman Catholiic teaching therefore of purgatory is heresy.

Moreover, I do not see why the the Moderators are allowing the heresy of purgatory  to be discussed on this thread which is "The Roman Catholic Church: Its Persecution of the Jews."  The heresy of purgatory is way off topic!

DavidJ

Wikipedia is not the most reliable source to determine such matters. For example, your link it does not mention the papal so called 'infallibility' of flat earth and the papal 'Bulls' condemning Copernicanism.

Again, I cannot see what this has to do with the Roman Catholic Church's Persection of the Jews - which is the topic of this thread.

DavidJ

The Wikipedia page in question provides the source of the list:
Creative Fidelity by Francis A Sullivan.  It states that other lists are even shorter, and gives references for sources should you wish to check.  I think you main confusion is over the Catholic definition of "infallible".  Protestants tend to use the word as equivalent to "inerrant", and the Popes were hardly inerrant.  In fact, one Pope was struck dead by God for heresy according to Catholic tradition.

Papal Infallibility is a rather narrow doctrine - so much so that the primary criticism (from those that actually bother to find out what it is) is that it is irrelevant.  R.C. Sproul admitted that Protestants base their theology on "a fallible collection of infallible books" (meaning inerrant in this Protestant context).  Roman Catholics insist they don't have that problem since the canon of Scripture was determined infallibly by the Council of Trent.  My retort is that Roman Catholics depend on "a fallible collection of Infallible Dogmas", since they admit that the list of Authoritative Councils and Papal Ex Cathedra decrees is fallible.  In fact, the Vatican has so far failed to provide a definitive list of Ex Cathedra decrees, leaving the construction of such lists to historians like Francis Sullivan.

So are you admitting that Papal Bulls are fallible?  If so I think we are in agreement!

[quote] You are correct and I have always accepted this is truth.  However, you are the only Roman Catholic here whilst I have been posting who has been gracious enough to confess this sad truth about the Roman Catholic Church.

DavidJ

The correct word is 'cleansed'.  So, what do *you* call what happens between your imperfect holiness at death, and the perfect holiness required to stand in the presence of God?  Or do you plan to become a perfect before you die?  By your own words, you believe that you will be finally clean.  You are welcome to have your own word for it.  I prefer 'final purification' myself.  

It may be that what you really have a problem with is the Roman Catholic doctrine of prayers for the dead.  You would be correct in noting that there is no precedence for this in Scripture (and there is only one obscure supporting passage in the "Apochrypa").  This would be a real disagreement for you to attack.   No matter how much you dislike the Roman Catholic Church, it is just silly to keep attacking a doctrine that you believe in yourself - just because the Romans Catholic word for it has bad historical connotations (prayers for the dead, simony, etc).


It is only in contradiction to your mythical concept of what Roman Catholic Purgatory is - apparently extracted from Cliffs Notes on Dante.  Hint - it is not a place or even a length of time.   It is only final purification.

Roman Catholic descriptions will talk about "temporal punishment".  This means it is temporary, and it might sting a little, but is nothing to be afraid of.  It is called punishment because any sting is a temporal consequence of sin.  If you murder someone, God forgives and cleanses you, but you still face jail and execution temporally.  When David sinned with Bathsheba, God forgave him, but still meted out temporal punishment, starting with the death of the baby.  But when you know God has forgiven you, that electric chair or lethal injection is "but a momentary light affliction compared to the glory that awaits".  In the case of raptured believers, it will happen "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye".

I do not have a 'mythical concept' of what Roman Catholic Purgatory is. It is what you say it is - Roman Catholicism pure and simple and nowhere to be found in the Bible.

It is interesting you resort to the example of David and Bethsheba to justify the Roman Catholic purgatory. In England we have a term which I think is very apt for your analogy; "scraping the bottom of the barrel".

David J

No one, not me, not the Catholic Church, not you, has ever said Papal Bulls were infallible.  That is why it is pointless to go on pointing out the outrageous ones.


I am not Catholic, having grown up in the Grace Brethren church, and I currently attend a Nigerian Anglican church.  I'm just trying to move the arguments to real disagreements with Roman Catholics, and away from straw men and "striving about words to no profit" I Tim 2:14.

If you are trying to discredit the Roman Catholic Church as the one true Visible Church, then pointing out sin does not help.  The Church, Roman and otherwise, is for sinners.  In fact, why bother with anti-semitism (other than that this is a Jews for Jesus board)?  There is a huge sexual sin scandal in the US Catholic church that will reverberate for the next hundred years.  Just as many similar scandals occur in individual Protestant churches, but pass under the media radar because they dispersed through so many organizations.  In the Grace Brethren church I grew up in, I liked a girl.  But her father one day announced that God had called him to marry another woman.   A car-bomb attack on our house of living stones 1 Peter 2:5.

While presumably striving against sin, at present you might slip up - you are not yet totally free from the influence of sin.  When you enter heaven, by your own words, you will be "clean from sin".  Basic English lesson: moving from a state of "not clean" to "clean" is called being "cleansed".   What is your name for this process?  "Final cleansing"?  "Final purification"? "Glorification"?  These are all Protestant terms.  "Purgatory" is the Catholic term.  You really have to get past the language and into the meat of Catholics doctrines.

While incredibly offensive to Protestants for historical reasons, the Catholic doctrine states only two things:

1. We will be cleansed (purged).
   
2. There will be earthly (temporal) consequences for sin.
   

That is it.  Protestants believe the same things.  David and Bathsheba is just one very direct Scriptural example of 2.  Are you saying you will never never suffer earthly consequences for sin?  Do I really need to compile a huge list of Bible passages to the contrary?  Are you saying you will never be fully cleansed from sin, not even in Heaven?  Luther actually said at one point that in Heaven we will be "dung hills covered by the snow of Christ's righteousness".  Is that your position?