Purgatory and the Work of Christ

DEFENSE

Christ’s work is finished, but it’s not applied all at once.

Christ died on the cross “once for all” (Heb. 10:10), but the resulting grace is applied to us over the course of the Christian life.

Sometimes, a grace is given to us instantaneously. When we first come to God to be forgiven and justified, we receive these graces in-stantaneously.

But even after being forgiven and justified, we still struggle with sin and its consequences. Although it is God’s will that the eternal consequences of our sins be forgiven, Christian experience shows that it is not his will that we be made perfect all in a flash.

Throughout the Christian life, we continue to struggle with sin and, by God’s grace, to grow in holiness. This happens through the process known as sanctification. Thus Paul prays, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23).

Many people die in God’s friendship rather than in mortal sin, but few of us have been fully freed from sin and its consequences. Consequently, we need to be purified before we enter heaven—for Scripture tells us that “nothing unclean shall enter it” (Rev. 21:27).

Heaven is being fully united with God, and since he is infinitely holy, nothing that is still impure can be fully united with him. Consequently, Scripture exhorts us to seek “the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).

If nothing impure enters heaven then, between death and heaven, there must be a purification. As the final purification of the elect, purgatory can be thought of as simply the final stage of sanctification, where we are fully freed and liberated from sin and its consequences.

Rather than conflicting with the finished work of Christ, the pro- cess of sanctification—and its final stage, purgatory—is an outgrowth of Christ’s work. It is one of the ways his grace is applied to us.