Sunday, October 19, 2025

Purgatory and Hell (Both Real, Not The Same, Not Equally Important)


I Tested Banned Church Teachings About Heaven or Hell
Off The Kirb Ministries | 18 Oct. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujOV0xjE_HM


1:18 The problem is a bit different than you painted it.

It's more like Universalists are saying God will convert even Satan in the end (and everyone else), so the actual problem is more like one of freewill. It's one form of Calvinism.

8:32 Salvation couldn't be bought. There are very cheap ways, available back then too, to gain a plenary indulgence.

1) A rosary (if you pray it every day, one rosary per month, I think);
2) A pilgrimage.

Oh, a journey, wasn't that expensive? Not if you didn't bring any luggage and if you were allowed to beg, as long as you were somewhere else next evening (begging was for certain friars, for pilgrims, for disabled, for not disabled but out of work).

Apart from shortening your own or a loved one's stay in Purgatory, you also got a nice vacation basically for free. Your employer had right to some time to make arrangements, but he had no right to stop you. (On the other hand, he didn't have to pay you). This is ONE of the things that angered Martin Luther. People, he thought, should work hard for their employers, unless they were employers or had some public office (he also made clergy a public office controlled by the state: fewer priests, more in the pew each Mass, and in 2020, a Pentecostal meeting gathering 5000 came to be one of the hotspots for Covid 19).

So no, you are gravely misrepresenting Purgatory. And especially Indulgences.

9:29 Biblical sufficiency in that sense is not in the Bible.

Now, there are Catholics who claim no important truths exist that are not found in the Bible. St. Augustine and whether William of Occam was one or not, he at least mentioned the position and as not banned. This doesn't mean "traditionibus non scriptis" isn't a thing, just that if so it would cover much the same ground at least in theory (some practises would not be directly in the Bible, like Sunday worship or Sign of the Cross).

But even they say we need to submit to the Church when teaching with severity from the Bible, and that one Church being visible, the Catholic Church. With severity = banning people who disagree.

There is a very different question if the truth is in the Bible in such a manner that an unprepared modern or just un-Christian reader can just open the book and on each item find it.

In that sense, it would be contrary to 2 Tim:

But continue thou in those things which thou hast learned, and which have been committed to thee: knowing of whom thou hast learned them And because from thy infancy thou hast known the holy scriptures, which can instruct thee to salvation, by the faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work [2 Timothy 3:14-17]

1) All Scripture is useful to the "man of God"
2) who has known them for a long time (since childhood in St. Tim's case)
3) if he also learns from someone (in St. Tim's case probably St. Paul)
4) and adds sth not explicitly in the text (like faith in Christ Jesus as to the OT text).

9:56 There is no verse in the Bible saying 66 books.

Two verses between them would suggest an OT of 45~46 and an overall Bible of 72~73 (the wiggle room is about whether one of the books of the Jeremian corpus is just an extension of Jeremias or a separate book, I first heard Baruch).

But the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea. Who, when they were come thither, went into the synagogue of the Jews Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, who received the word with all eagerness, daily searching the scriptures, whether these things were so [Acts Of Apostles 17:10-11]

And you became followers of us, and of the Lord; receiving the word in much tribulation, with joy of the Holy Ghost So that you were made a pattern to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia [1 Thessalonians 1:6-7]

The distance between Verria (Berea) and Saloniki (Thessalonica) is 45 miles (45 OT books) or 73 km (73 OT+NT). 45+27 is only 72, 73-27 = 46, but there is that wiggleroom that affects the counts.

10:38 Jesus never disagreed with the Jewish stance, arguably very popular, that's expressed in II Maccabees.

Canon or not canon is not all that over important. The story is history. Jews to this day believe in post-death purification. Calvin pretended this only came about after rabbi Akiba, but II Maccabees proves him wrong, even if it isn't canon.

Now, you could argue, this is the priest, so he could have been a Sadducee, but as you know Sadducees didn't believe in the afterlife. The author very clearly writes when Sadducees were starting to creep in into the temple, and uses this to suggest that Judas Maccabaeus doctrinally was a Pharisee (as St. Paul said he still was before Festus).

There are very many things Jesus didn't give specific instructions on. Is Hell fire or darkness or both? (The correct answer is both, but there is not one specific place where Jesus says so).

Is Heaven for men "like angels" or with resurrected bodies? (The correct answer is both ... and in fact, in this case the answer is directly given, it is Heaven as such that is missing from the blessed afterlife in that verse).

I would find it very safe to say Jesus agreed with a Jewish stance unless we are specifically told He or His disciples disagreed with it. He celebrated Hannukah, according to:

And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: and it was winter.
[John 10:22]

But Hanukkah is found in a book you just called uncanonic, and in no OT book you call canonic. How do we know He cared about the feast? Well, it's a feast about the Temple:

And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch
[John 10:23]

So, unless a Jewish belief or practise is directly contradicted (like kashrut obliging even after Calvary, see Galatians, or like the temple being part of the correct worship after Calvary, see Hebrews, or about continuing to divorce and remarry, see Mark 10), we may presume Jesus was for it.

That goes for post-death purification too.

11:37 There is a saying about Purgatory and saints among Catholics.

"Already had Purgatory in this life" = hint someone went directly to Heaven, because on Earth he went through the narrow gate and didn't sqeeze to widen it a bit ....

However, there is a wording in St. Paul that says it's post-death:

Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is [1 Corinthians 3:13]

The "day of the Lord" = post-death or post-rapture judgement. It could be the general judgement, in the valley of Josaphat, or it could be the individual judgement, straight after death.

Here is a kicker that it really means sth after this life:

Every man's work shall be manifest

In this life we usually keep many secrets, and especially marginal or unimportant moral failures are usually easy to keep secret.

So, St. Paul is talking about sth after the normal mortal life.

11:54 He very much doesn't say final salvation on the day of death is by faith not works.

He says initial justification is by faith not works:

For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God Not of works, that no man may glory For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them [Ephesians 2:8-10]

When the Bible uses "saved" about people who are here on earth, we understand it of justification, saved from sin, saved from a guarantee of going to Hell if one already died. When the Bible uses "saved" about the future ("he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.") we understand it of final salvation, dying in a state of grace, saved from any risk of ever going to Hell, guaranteed to be in Heaven either straight away or after Purgatory.

12:11 The good robber did good works in his final hour.

1) He repented. Both of his robberies and of the mockery he had just previously done (Mark 15:32, confer v. 27)
2) He opened his mouth to speak with effort for two good purposes.
3) He broke with and reprimanded his longstanding companion, probably, or at least a recognised colleague.
4) He made an appeal to Jesus' mercy.

12:22 It proves there was no purification left for the good thief.

With that crucifixion and a traumatic roundabout, he had his purgatory on earth.

12:57 I'm well placed to know students sometimes do ace exams without properly having done all of the homework.

My exam on Aeneid VI was brilliant. But if I wanted to use it to teach Latin, I think I'd very certainly need to read all of it. I basically just read the parts that we went over in class. Plus the passage gone over in the exam.

So, instead of teaching Latin, I "major" on Virgil proving possessed mediums are a thing ... if you want to know how St. Paul knew the girl in Lydda had a Pythonic spirit, read that scene in Aeneid VI.

Doing Classics (Aeneid VI and Greek tragedy, even Homer) changed my mind on what pagan mythologies are in cases like Greek myth. No, they aren't Mythopoeia, like Tolkien imagined. They are pretty well preserved accounts of how people encountered demons or demon possessed people.

Point is, yes, there are cases where the examinor is going easy on the final exam, but on condition the examinand is prepared to do some more work after it.

13:40 How about Sunday worship?

I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
[Apocalypse (Revelation) 1:10]

7DA would argue, are these hints sufficient to build a system that for centuries tells us to rest and worship on Sunday rather than Saturday?

Well, not if the Bible was meant as a manual. Was the OT meant as a manual about Jesus' life death and resurrection? Yet, they are there in hints.

Sunday worship and Purgatory aren't all that big deals in doctrine. After all, anyone who makes it to Purgatory is already saved and there are situation when one is excused from weekly worship, but still going to Heaven.

It's not as big a doctrine as give alms, or fear Hell (Matthew 25).

Praying for the souls in Purgatory, like burying the dead, is just one of the alms you can give. Neither of them is an excuse for not giving to the living (are not directly mentioned in Matth. 25).

14:17 "as many godly Christians and Theologians down the ages held this view"

Saying "many" relieves you of the irksome duty of mentioning even one of them. At least the duty would be irksome to a Catholic. We would not agree that Charles Taze Russell for one was a godly Christian or Theologian.

After looking up, we also don't agree that about Ellen Gould White.

17:30 I didn't know Arnobius was at least considering annihilationism.

His disciple Lactantius was condemned by the Gelasian decree.

19:50 or before ... even if one says, as I think the Catholic Church does, that after death, time for merit and demerit has ceased, one could still argue for eternal conscious Hell, because neither God nor the damned wants the damned annihilated and keeping in existence but getting out of Hell would take a repentance the damned cannot want.

The latter is because, after a time of testing, the will is confirmed in its finally chosen bent. The same firmness that prevents the damned from repenting also preserves the blessed from falling.

21:43 See what I mean with the Bible not spelling out the doctrine of Hell?

You mentioned flames. I look up Luke 16 and do not find them. I do find "torments" ... but Jesus doesn't say which ones.

Sola Scriptura doesn't as a method set anyone up for one error in particular.

Universalism and annihilationism are things which some Bible readers got from Scripture without taking full advantage of the guidance of the Church.

Because, Hell isn't described in full detail in any one place.

23:02 No, He absolutely didn't take Hell on Himself on the Cross.

Penal substitution may be OK on the side of the body, like we can Resurrect, because the Deathless Died, but we are NOT saved "because He was damned" because in fact He wasn't.

On Calvary He was the unblemished lamb, and the Father once again could say, as over Jordan:

Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased[Mark 1:11 b]

Why so?

1) With God, there is a difference between accepting and rejecting a sacrifice:

Abel also offered of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat: and the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offerings But to Cain and his offerings he had no respect: and Cain was exceedingly angry, and his countenance fell
[Genesis 4:4-5]

Christ's was fully accepted, therefore God was fully pleased with Christ on the Cross, not "fully angry" ...

2) If when dying He knew you and me and whoever is saved, this is impossible for man in this life, beyond man in this life as a prophet, irrelavant as to His being God, since we talk of His death, and so only explicable about Him as already enjoying Heaven, which He did all of His days, including conception, including birth, including death on Calvary, as much as anything after Resurrection. The Man Who promised Paradise was in Paradise, the Good Thief was going to be in Paradise, because He was going to be with Him.

Therefore, Christ was in Heaven, not in Hell, on Calvary.

3) Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in his death?
[Romans 6:3]

But we are baptised in the likeness of what happened at the Jordan, therefore His Death and His Baptism are one. Therefore Mark 1:11 also speaks of Calvary.

25:18 Jesus actually had a reason of His own not to send them to the company of Satan.

They, unlike Satan, knew He was God. Satan had concluded He wasn't after seeing Him not turn stones to bread. They weren't conferring with Satan at least prior to Calvary.

That's why Satan dared to plot Jesus' death.

29:49 I'm not sure why you are putting the file "Purgatory" along the files "Universalism, Annihilationism, the Doctrine of Hell" ...

The Doctrine of Hell doesn't contradict Purgatory any more than it contradicts Heaven. Because Purgatory is the antechamber of Heaven (that's why it's less important than Heaven) and all who are in Purgatory will be in Heaven.




Some Bridget of Sweden?

How to Avoid the Wrath of God and Be Caught Up With Jesus - A Divine Revelation by Saint Bridget
Penance Podcast | 23 Sept. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s38I_088dw

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