Purgatory defined by Catholics
In accordance with Catholic teaching, it is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions, or sins.
What is Temporal punishment?
According to Catholics, Temporal punishment is due to sin, even after the sin itself has been pardoned by God, is clearly the teaching of Scripture. God indeed brought man out of his first
disobedience and gave him power to govern all things, but still condemned him "to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow" until he returned unto dust. God forgave the incredulity of Moses and Aaron, but in punishment kept them from the "land of promise". The Lord took away the sin of David, but the life of the child was forfeited because David had made God's enemies blaspheme His Holy Name. In the New Testament as well as in the Old, almsgiving and fasting, and in general penitential acts are the real fruits of repentance. The whole penitential system of the Church testifies that the voluntary assumption of penitential works has always been part of true repentance and the Council of Trent reminds the faithful that God does not always remit the whole punishment due to sin together with the guilt. God requires satisfaction, and will punish sin, and this doctrine involves as its necessary consequence a belief that the sinner failing to do penance in this life may be punished in another world, and so not be cast off eternally
from God.
What is Venial sin?
According to Catholics,All sins are not equal before God, nor dare anyone assert that the daily faults of human frailty will be punished with the same severity that is meted out to serious violation of God's law. On the other hand whosoever comes into God's presence must be perfectly pure for in the strictest sense His "eyes are too pure, to behold evil". For unrepented venial faults for the payment of temporal punishment due to sin at time of death, the Church has always taught the doctrine of purgatory.
If we are to seek the true teachings from the Holy Scriptures, what does the Bible say about the doctrine taught by the Catholics regarding purgatory?
"For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; Nevermore will they have a share In anything done under the sun."
ECCLESIASTES 9:5-6 NKJV
We cannot read it in the Bible: such idea is against the teachings of God. So what is the essence of praying the rosary for the dead?
But why can't the dead benefit from whatever the living do?
"His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish"
PSALMS 146:4 KJV
Let us remember that the dead have no more thoughts, so Biblically speaking, the dead can not benefit from whatever we do under the sun.So it is wrong to say that men will receive his reward right after he ceases his breath.
When will the rewarding of men take place?
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:"Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: MATTHEW 25:31-34, 41 NKJV
Let us remember that the rewarding of men will take place only on the second coming of Christ, there is no third place or purgatory.
The doctrine about Purgatory is indeed against the teachings of the Bible. Adding such is against God's will like what is writen in:
"Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it." - DEUTERONOMY 12:32 NKJV
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