“According to Romish theology, all past sins both as respects their eternal and temporal punishment are blotted out in baptism and also the eternal punishment of the future sins of the faithful. But for the temporal punishment of post-baptismal sins the faithful must make satisfaction either in this life or in purgatory. In opposition to every such notion of human satisfaction Protestants rightly contend that the satisfaction of Christ is the only satisfaction for sin and is so perfect and final that it leaves no penal liability for any sin of the believer” (John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, 51).

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We live in strange times. Belief in purgatory within Protestantism is currently on the rise, see Christianity Today’s guest column – “Purgatory is Hope” – by Kevin Timpe. The column begins:

A recent study suggests that belief in purgatory among Catholics in the United States is on the decline. But there is also reason for thinking that belief in purgatory is on the rise among Protestants. My own attraction to the doctrine comes primarily from the work of a Wesleyan philosopher, Jerry Walls. While Walls’ Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame, 1992) is one of numerous extended philosophical treatments of hell, his Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy (Oxford, 2002) is a rare book-length treatment of the philosophical issues surrounding heaven. Heaven also contains a chapter providing the best philosophical defense of purgatory that I’m aware of. Walls there argues that the Christian doctrine of “salvation must involve changing us to love God as we ought [for] the aim of salvation is to make us holy, and this is what fits us for heaven.” Walls completed his trilogy with Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford, 2011). It is dedicated to defending the doctrine of purgatory “as a rational theological inference from other important biblical and theological commitments … for those who take seriously the role of human freedom in salvation.”

 Wesleyan-Arminian theology and Romish theology are kissing cousins: both advocate an imperfect atonement. Since their understanding of the atonement is not fully biblical, so too inferred doctrines, e.g. purgatory, human participation in salvation, etc., are not fully biblical.

“We must view sin and evil in its larger proportions as a kingdom that embraces the subtlety, craft, ingenuity, power, and unremitting activity of Satan and his legions – “the principalities, and the powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies” (Eph. 6:12)” (John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, 50).

“Doctrine must be taught formally in the home, but it is also caught while hearing stories and receiving instruction at the table and the bedside. Christian teaching must be a life style not an event. Diligence is paramount if any success is to be expected” (Donald W. Schanzenbach, Faithful Parents – Faithful Children: Why We Homeschool, 6).

The same could be said regarding the Lord’s Service: doctrine must be formally taught by the Liturgy and through sermonizing, but it is also “caught” at the Table. Liturgy is a life style, not a bare fact or event.

“I have no desire to make an idol of holiness. I do not wish to dethrone Christ, and put holiness in His place. But I must candidly say, I wish sanctification was more thought of in this day than it seems to be, and I therefore take occasion to press the subject on all believers into whose hands these pages may fall. I fear it is sometimes forgotten that God has married together justification and sanctification. They are distinct and different things, beyond question, but one is never found without the other. All justified people are sanctified, and all sanctified people are justified. What God has joined together let no man dare to put asunder. Tell me not of your justification, unless you have also some marks of sanctification. Boast not of Christ’s work for you, unless you can show us the Spirit’s work in you. Think not that Christ and the Spirit can be divided” (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 47).

“Though clearly distinguished, sanctification is not separated from the new birth and justification but utterly dependent on both. Too often, we assume that the gospel of free salvation in Jesus Christ, apart from our own efforts, is good news for unbelievers but that believers no longer need it. They “got saved,” after all, and now what they need are exhortations to live for Jesus. Sanctification, then, becomes unhinged from justification and the new birth, so that we easily confuse our performance in the Christian life with the gospel. Instead, sanctification must be seen as the outworking of our justification and union with Christ. Obedience is often difficult and demanding – it doesn’t just happen to us but is something that we work out with fear and trembling. As essential as this new obedience is to Christian identity, if our acceptance before God were founded on it there could be absolutely no hope” (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 71).

John Piper dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the doctrine of justification:

If Paul had just spent three chapters teaching that justification means God’s powerful salvific activity in liberating people from the mastery of sin, why would the question arise: So shall we sin that grace may abound? . . . what gives some measure of plausibility to these rhetorical questions in Romans 6:1 and 6:15 is the doctrine of Romans 3 – 5 that justification is emphatically not liberation from the mastery of sin. It does not include sanctification. That is precisely what creates the need for Paul to write in Romans 6 – 8: to show why God’s imputing his own righteousness to us by faith apart from works does not result in lawlessness, but in fact necessarily leads to righteous living. Therefore we are not at all encouraged to blur the relationship between sanctification and justification that Paul preserves in Romans 6:6-7: Justification is the necessary and prior basis of sanctification (“for,” v. 7) (John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness?, 77-78).

“That we make mistakes and give in to our imaginations is only human; anyone who wants to live in perfection ought to look for a desert. Every man’s virtues have to be weighed alongside his vices, and we must take his measure according to which side of his character is stronger” (Petrus Canaeus, The Hebrew Republic, 180).

“The existence of faith does not depend upon intellectual distinctions” (Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, 18).

“I’ve known people in as many as six Bible studies per week who grew only in knowledge but not in Christlikeness because they were not applying what they were learning. Their prayer life wasn’t strong, they weren’t influencing lost people with the gospel, their family life was strained. If we will begin to discipline ourselves to determine at least one specific response to the text before walking away from it [Whitney is referring to devotional Bible reading/Bible intake], we will much more rapidly grow in grace. Without this kind of application, we aren’t doers of God’s Word” (Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 61).

Whitney makes a great point about the pro-active approach to reading one’s Bible in private devotions. But the point he makes is just as applicable to the Lord’s Service, which occurs one day in seven.

A sermon should be both thought provoking and convicting enough for one to dwell and meditate on its message the other six days of the week. But meditating for six days on one sermon takes discipline, it takes a pro-active response to hearing God’s Word.

“Providence,” wrote the seraphic Samuel Rutherford, “hath a thousand keys to open a thousand sundry doors for the deliverance of his own, when it is even come to a conclamatum est [“when it is all over with us”]. Let us be faithful, and care for our own part, which is to do and suffer for Him, and lay Christ’s part on Himself, and leave it there. Duties are ours, events are the Lord’s.” The Lord will establish His kingdom in His own time and in His own way. Our task is that of obedience to His revealed word and will (Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Communicator’s Commentary Series, Vol. 19: Daniel, 80-81).