WHY GO TO PURGATORY?

WHY would anyone go to Purgatory? To be cleansed. "But nothing unclean shall enter [heaven]" (Rev. 21:27). Anyone who has not completely expiated his sins – that is, not just had them forgiven, but "made up" for them in this life – is , to some extent, "unclean". Through repentance he may have gained the grace needed to qualify for heaven (which is to say, his soul is spiritually alive), but that’s not enough. He needs to be cleansed completely.

Fundamentalists claim, as an article in Jimmy Swaggart’s magazine, The Evangelist, put it, that "Scripture clearly reveals that all the demands of divine justice on the sinner have been completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It also reveals that Christ has totally redeemed, or purchased back, that which was lost. The advocates of a purgatory and the necessity of prayer for the dead say, in effect, that the redemption of Christ was incomplete… It has all been done for us by Jesus Christ, there is nothing to be added or done by man."

It is entirely correct to say that Christ accomplished all of our salvation for us on the cross. But that does not settle the question of how this redemption is applied to us. Scripture reveals to us that it is applied to us over the course of time through, among other things, the process of sanctification through which the Christian is made holy. Sanctification involves suffering (Rom. 5:3-5), and purgatory is simply the "finishing touches" stage of sanctification that some of us need to undergo before we enter heaven – required since "nothing unclean can ever enter heaven". Purgatory is the final phase of Christ applying to us the purifying redemption that he accomplished for us by his death on the cross.