I might add 2 other points Catholics can make to ground their doctrine of Purgatory in Scripture/ (
(1) In a parable Jesus uses the image of a debtor's prison as an allusion to Gehenna: "In anger his Lord handed him over to be tortured
until he would pay all his debt (
Matthew 18:34)." The implication is that the debt can theoretically be paid to secure release.
(2) Catholics refer to 2 Maccabees in their OT for the initial principle that justifies the concept of Purgatory. It was discovered that Jewish freedom fighters had committed idolatry and it was thought that their deaths in battle were a punishment for this sin. The righteous Jewish soldiers believed in praying for the dead. So they sent a sin offering to the Jerusalem Temple and prayed for these dead soldiers "that the sin that had been committed would be wholly blotted out. 12:42, 44)." In this way, they attest the belief that prayer and godly ritual can change the status of dead sinners in the eyes of God.
#3 Deadworm,
Jul 12, 2018
