Quote:
Originally posted by Chewbaccus
When I first heard of purgatory, I figured it was a dogmatic cop-out, and dismissed it from my mind. But after reading up and learning, I'm thinking that it's probably the core solution here. To infer from Matthew and Revelations, only those of a perfect soul can stand there and see God without turning into metaphysical goo. As follows, since no one is perfect, one spends some time to dust off the lint before stepping into the club.
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Great explanation of purgatory. It seems to me you've nicely summed up the relatively minor difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestants with this example.
For both Roman Catholic and Protestant, Jesus' death for us is critical to salvation and heaven. For the Roman Catholic, His death provides us opportunity to enter purgatory to be cleansed from minor unconfessed sins and thereby be made ready for heaven. For the protestant, Jesus' death on the cross makes us ready for heaven, not just ready for purgatory.
Protestants think of Jesus as having cleansed us of the penalty for all sin in His death for us; taking care of both hell and purgatory; removing the dirt and grime of sin as well as the lint and dust.