Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Understanding Purgatory and Hell

Lets continue with our discussion on Purgatory and Hell.

Firstly, let us try and get a better understanding of God and our connection with him as living beings. To begin with, we have to try and unlearn the things we have learned, especially if we have been too entwined by Church teaching. We have to remember that the early Church Fathers were only men, and as such, subject to error. We should also remember that during the Church’s long history many self-seeking men have sat on the Pope’s chair. I won’t spent too much time on the errors of the Church and the Popes which ruled over it as this has been debated many times over. It behooves you to just do a brief revision of Church history and it’s Popes.


Simple question – what is God? The Bible quite distinctly points out that God is a Spirit. It also quite distinctly points out that man is created in his image and likeness. When you look in a mirror, the reflection shows you that you are a three dimensional physical man and lacking all conceptions of what is Spirit. Recognizing yourself as a physical man and the image the mirror projects back at you, you reach the definite conclusion that that image that you behold must henceforth also be the image of God who created you. You conclude that God must also have physical attributes, for example, head, eyes, arms and legs, and all the other elements that make up the physical man. I can understand why man can be so deluded in perceiving this conception while he is lacking spiritual perceptions of being, especially his own.  Anything of spirit perception makes absolutely no sense. You cannot possibly perceive yourself existing without these physical arms and legs and your mind boggles even trying to perceive what Spirit is, let alone how, where and why it exists. The existence of Spirit lays way outside our everyday physical, material existence on this planet. You may say we have been entirely brainwashed by our physical existence.

To keep things simple we must see God in the light of truth – that he is Spirit and, if we are created in his image and likeness, then we must also be Spirit. So if God is all powerful Spirit then he must exist in a realm of Spirit, a realm we have been taught to call heaven. The problem is, if God is Spirit living in a realm of Spirit, why aren’t we? What are we doing living in a physical reality when we are also Spirit, and thereby should also live in a spirit reality. Perceiving this truth made Paul teach his congregation that they are all citizens of heaven. And what was their main hope, desire and ambition, but to return to heaven to be with the Lord.

Paul made strong emphasis on the two aspects of fatherhood: he pointed out the responsibilities of our physical fathers, but he superseded their connection with us by referring to the Father of the Spirits. He taught that we, as individuals, had two fathers, one on the physical level, the other on the spiritual level. Jesus, also, emphasized the importance of developing a personal relationship with, not our physical fathers, but our heavenly father. So what are we actually considering? We are trying to comprehend the essence of two realities, one physical, the other spiritual.

Understanding that heaven is a sphere of many places we can conclude that there is a place we can call Purgatory and a place we can call Hell. Visionaries of the past, and probably of the present as well, have long proclaimed their visions of Hell and of Heaven. For instance, consider St. Paul’s journey to the 3rd Heaven. His experience alone indicates that there are probably many heavens and which cannot be disputed by the Church as it is part of the Christian scripture. Although Paul makes no comments concerning the 1st and 2nd heavens that he needed to pass to get to the 3rd, both John and Peter do make reference to these lower heavens during their experiences. They also were taken on a journey similar to Paul’s but they describe briefly the turmoil they became aware of while passing through the lower spheres. While we are on the subject of journeys, we must not forget Enoch who was taken on a journey of the seven worlds, or heavens. Due to the mystical contents found in the Book of Enoch the Church has deemed this work as “uninspired.” Personally, I fail to see why they have come to this conclusion seeing that the 1st century Christians used the writings of Enoch, as evidenced in the letter of, Jude, where he is directly quoting from the Book of Enoch.

So, as we can see, considering the witness of Peter and John, there are levels of Heaven where turmoil is experienced by any spirit that may be caught up there. Can we call these levels Purgatory or Hell? I say we can. There is further evidence in New Testament writings that is hardly ever emphasized, and that concerns, Jesus’ journey into hell during his three days of limbo after the crucifixion. It is stated that for three days he taught the Gospel to the imprisoned spirits and freed them from their dark torment. Now, these spirits had been trapped there ever since the time of Noah.

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