THE doctrine that after death there will be a state, in which men’s souls shall be purified and made fit for heaven, is on the increase. The doctrine is an exceedingly old one, and one which is spread over a great part of the earth. It certainly does not come from the Bible, for in the word of God we read in the clearest terms that the spirits of His people upon leaving the body forthwith go to be with Christ. Jesus said to the thief upon the cross, who trusted in Him, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:4343And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Luke 23:43)), therefore, that man, whose life had been so evil, and who was saved at the eleventh hour, had no purgatory to pass through. As Stephen died, he cried, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:5959And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. (Acts 7:59)), and the Apostle Paul, in the prospect of his own martyrdom, says, “Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ.” (Phil. 1:2323For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: (Philippians 1:23)). Neither he nor Stephen looked on to a state into which they should enter before coming into Christ’s own blessed presence. When instructing the church of God at Corinth, and “all the saints in all Achaia,” the apostle, inspired by God the Holy Ghost, shows that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The believer passes from the state of being here on earth in the body, into the state of being out of the body, and with Christ in paradise. “Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord ... we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:6, 86Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (2 Corinthians 5:6)
8We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:8)). Thus God teaches us the very opposite to the belief, now growing to be common in our land, that after death there is a state preparatory to that in which the spirit will enter the presence of Christ.
When the resurrection to life occurs, the bodies of the holy will be raised, and the holy will be, spirit, soul, and body, fitted for eternal glory, and, saith the Scripture, “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.” (Rev. 20:66Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. (Revelation 20:6)). All who partake in it will be like Christ, and with Christ. (See John 3:22The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. (John 3:2), and 1 Thess. 4:1717Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17): “We shall be like Him”; “so shall we ever be with the Lord.”) Therefore, their state will be perfect, and it will also be everlasting, for they will “ever be with the Lord.” Thus God makes it clear to us that upon dying, the spirit of the believer is present with the Lord, and that at the resurrection, his spirit, soul, and body will be forever with the Lord. There is no purgatory for the believer.
As regards such as die out of Christ, the Scripture plainly tells us that after death comes the judgment. “As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” (Heb. 9:27, 2827And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: 28So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:27‑28)). The spirits of such as die out of Christ, the Apostle Peter teaches, are in prison (1 Pet. 3:1919By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; (1 Peter 3:19)), not in purgatory! They are in a place where they are awaiting the judgment.
When the judgment comes its decision will be final and everlasting. Sinners will be “judged every man according to their works” (Rev. 20:1313And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. (Revelation 20:13)), and it is expressly said of that judgment, “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (ver. 15).
Not one word does the Bible breathe about a place where the souls of the wicked may obtain purification after this life is over. Such a doctrine is utterly opposed to the plain word of God. There is no purgatory for the unbeliever.
It is here, in this lifetime, that the purging takes place, and the purging, the cleansing, the fitting for glory, are accomplished by what Christ on the cross suffered in the stead of sinners; He alone is able to make sinful man fit for God’s presence. The blood of Christ purges the conscience (Heb. 9:1414How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:14)); it cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)), and God the Father has made us, who believe, in this lifetime fit for the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1:1212Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: (Colossians 1:12)).
Whence, then, we ask, comes the doctrine of a state after this lifetime in which the souls of men will be made fit for future bliss? It is found among the heathen of both ancient and modern times. The ancient Egyptians held it; so did the heathen Greeks; while it is common among the Chinese and other heathen to this day. The same evil spirit who perverted men’s souls and taught them to worship idols perverted their minds to believe in purgatory. The terrible doctrine comes from the Father of lies.
When the belief in purgatory was first accepted by men we cannot tell; that the notion is a very ancient one is well known. In the religion of Egypt, at the time of the exodus, the belief was present. Those people recognized that the soul lived after death, and apart from the body. The familiar illustration of the winged soul hovering over the corpse happily indicates this belief.
Below lies the body in its mummy case; above hovers the soul, having in its two hands the emblem of life—the sail representing life’s transient character; the cross and circle representing life in its enduring essence.
Moses must have often witnessed the performance of the rites attending the burial of the Egyptian dead.
If the deceased was accepted to have lived a good life, praises would be poured upon his memory, amid the acclamations of the multitude, and his remains would be conveyed to the tomb. This was done when the virtues of the departed, according to the belief of those people, had entitled him to bliss. In other cases, an accuser would come forward, and lay such charges against the departed as hindered the relations from burying the body. Perhaps the man had been a glutton—maybe he had not paid his debts—anyway, he had offended against the laws of right living as accepted in Egypt. When the voice of the accuser prevailed, the body of the departed was denied the tomb; and then “the grief and shame felt by the family when the rites of burial had been refused were excessive... the awful sentence foretold the misery which had befallen the soul of the deceased in a future state. They beheld him excluded from those mansions of the blessed, to which it was the primary object of everyone to be admitted; his memory was stained in. this world with indelible disgrace. It is true that the duration of this punishment was limited according to the extent of the crimes of which the accused had been guilty, and when the devotion of friends, aided by liberal donations in the service of religion and the influential prayers of the priests, had sufficiently softened the otherwise inexorable nature of the gods, the period of this state of purgatory was, doubtless, shortened” (Wilkinson). Is it not remarkable that now, just as in those old days, living men professed to be able to determine whither the soul of the departed had gone, and priests then as now were ready to “soften” the gods, and to lessen “the period of the state of purgatory” by their “influential prayers” when they received “liberal donations” for the service? There is little to choose between the two religions so far as purgatory is concerned.
Some of the gods of the Egyptians (for their gods were many) superintended the judgment of men. We see here a picture of them so engaged. They are weighing a man’s heart contained in a case, against a weight emblematic of truth. The scales are even, therefore all is well with the individual whose life has been weighed. Indeed, one of the gods compliments him upon his good works and life.
Such as read the Bible know that in this life a man’s future is determined, and that it is determined by his acceptance of Christ, the Life and Saviour, or by his non-acceptance of Him. “He that believeth not is judged already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:1818He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18)).
The idea of purgatorial judgment meted out to such as had fallen short of the standard of good required by Egyptian belief was of a most debasing kind. Like others who hold the same belief, they had no notion of the nature of God, who is light. For, as an example, they believed that the soul of a man who had been a glutton, was sent back to this world again to enter the body of a pig, and so to exist in punishment for his former habits.
The above picture taken from the monuments expresses this belief. A man with a hatchet cuts off the connection of the boat with the sacred shore whither the soul had been conducted for judgment, and under the custody of the two monkey-like looking demons it is led back to this world to live a while in the purgatory of the body of a pig.
The wise teachers of India, whose views are being accepted by many who once were Christians, have similar beliefs. Such are the follies to which the minds of men become subject, when the faith in God is thrown aside. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Rom. 1:2222Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, (Romans 1:22)).
The pagan Greeks and Romans believed in their purgatory. The poet Virgil describes how the souls of the departed are exposed to various penances to render them pure—some being hung to bleach upon the wind, some being plunged in water, others purged in fire—until by length of time the scurf of each committed crime is worn away, and so at length no speck of the stains of sin remains.
The natural conscience of the heathen tells them their lives fall short of what they know should be; they recognize they are sinners. But not knowing how God cleanses away sin, and not knowing that He gives such as believe a new nature capable of delighting in holiness, they reason, as do the unbelieving philosophers of Christian lands, that there will be a state of existence following that of life on this earth, in which the soul will become purified by punishment for a condition of holiness and bliss. Alas, that Protestants, as well as Catholics should teach the purifying powers of purgatory, and thus practically deny the efficacy of the atonement of Christ for bringing a sinner to God. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” (1 Pet. 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)).
What the heathen poet Virgil wrote is remarkably like the sentiments of the Christian poet Dante. Many of our readers have doubtless seen the pictures illustrating his poem, with demons punishing human beings for their crimes during life.
We add a description of a large Buddhist temple in China, in the city of Yung tsi Hien, He-nan province. Our friend thus writes to us:— “After passing through large halls, around each of which stood huge idols of Buddha, with burning incense before each, as well as lighted candles, and groups of shaven-headed priests chanting their prayers and counting their beads, we passed through a long succession of small rooms, each filled with the most hideous figures the depraved mind of the heathen could imagine. This we soon learned was a representation of the Buddhists’ hell. There was one large image, six or eight feet high, seated on a throne in the center of each recess, representing the prince or king of some special department of torture, with his name and office written on a strip of calico over his head on the wall. Each of these demon kings was surrounded by a host of most ugly attendants, some of them red and some black, whilst in front of the presiding demon kneeled some imaginary wretch waiting to receive judgment.
“In other departments the sentences of punishment were represented as being carried out, and most awfully real did the large, lifelike painted images appear! In one case the sinner was tied to a wooden post, and was being sawn through vertically by two demons who appeared greatly to relish their work. In another the sinner was being forced into a common mill and being ground to powder by two heavy stones, turned one upon the other, by the efforts of a donkey and a number of demons. Red paint smeared on the stones represented the miscreant’s blood oozing out. In other departments demons were pushing men into immense jars of boiling oil, or roasting them on hot irons. Many other revolting things were represented as being done in those infernal regions.”
This graphic description would apply to the horrible pictures of hell and purgatory common in very many chapels and mortuaries in Christian villages. How vain are such thoughts, but how painfully alike is much of so-called Christianity to heathenism. Among the rules given to the first Jesuits sent to China was the following:— “Rule V.—He (the missionary) must make use of whatever has the appearance of truth and piety in the religion of the country where he preaches, and endeavor to reconcile it to his own doctrine. It is not material that this cannot be done without distorting the heathen as well as the Christian religion. The little sin committed upon such an occasion is amply atoned for by the benefit it produces.”
There is but a step between heathenism and very much of what is called Christianity in our day! And under cover of the liberal teaching and the Romish teaching in vogue in so many churches and chapels, Satan is steadily introducing heathenism into the country. God, arouse His people to the reality of things.