are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at
home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our
aim to please him.”
St. Paul in verse 6 says, “while we are in the body we are away from the
Lord.” No one doubts that while we are still on earth we are not in the
immediate presence of Christ. In verse 8 St. Paul states, “we would rather
be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” This is an expression
of a pious desire by St. Paul. All good Christians would rather be with
Christ than to continue on through this valley of tears. Nevertheless, what
follows after we leave this body and come before Christ is the particular
judgment, where we have to give an account for all our words and deeds
and have them tested by fire!
Fourth objection: “But purgatory is unnecessary, for Christ has paid
all debt of punishment for sin by His death on the Cross.”
One important reason why Protestants reject the doctrine of purgatory is
due to their belief in the unscriptural doctrines of total depravity and non-
imputation of sin formulated by Martin Luther and John Calvin. They
taught that the sin of Adam so damaged man that we are now nothing more
than wild beasts whose every action, no matter how good, is sinful. Since
we are incapable of good actions, there is nothing we can do to remit our
temporal punishments, either for ourselves or for anyone else. Only Christ,
therefore, is capable of achieving this and this He did on the Cross.
Furthermore, as our souls are already totally depraved, any additional sin
on our part cannot leave a ‘stain of sin’ which needs to be purified in
purgatory. When we accept Christ as our “personal Lord and Savior”, God
“covers up” our sinful natures, making us fit to enter the kingdom of
heaven.
Christ’s death on the Cross more than certainly sufficed to redeem
humanity and free us from both the eternal damnation of hell and any
additional temporal punishments. That being the case, why is there any
obligation on the part of Christians to do penance to remit temporal
punishment for sin? One reason is that God may choose to leave a temporal
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