Does the Bible Teach Purgatory and Hell? Isaiah, Hebrews & Luke

Episode 144: 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

In today’s episode, we look at details that relate to apologetics in all three readings for this upcoming 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. One detail in the first reading, which is taken from Isaiah 66:18-21, pertains to Jesus’ divinity, and the Church as the New Israel. The other detail in the first reading pertains to the New Covenant ministerial priesthood. The detail in the second reading, which is Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13, pertains to the doctrine of purgatory and the nature of justification. Finally, the detail in the Gospel reading, taken from Luke 13:22-30, relates to the topic of hell.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.

I’m Dr. Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.

In today’s episode, we’re going to look at details that relate to apologetics in all three readings for this upcoming 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. One detail in the first reading, which is taken from Isaiah 66:18-21, pertains to Jesus’ divinity, and the Church as the New Israel. The other detail in the first reading pertains to the New Covenant ministerial priesthood. The detail in the second reading, which is Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13, pertains to the doctrine of purgatory and the nature of justification. Finally, the detail in the Gospel reading, taken from Luke 13:22-30, relates to the topic of hell.

Let’s start with the first reading, which, again, is taken from Isaiah 66:18-21. Isaiah writes,

Thus says the LORD:
I know their works and their thoughts,
and I come to gather nations of every language;
they shall come and see my glory.
I will set a sign among them;
from them I will send fugitives to the nations:
to Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan,
to the distant coastlands
that have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory;
and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations.
They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations
as an offering to the LORD,
on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries,
to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the LORD,
just as the Israelites bring their offering
to the house of the LORD in clean vessels.
Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the LORD.

Notice the prophecy of God “gather[ing] the nations of every language” and his glory being proclaimed “among the nations.” And these nations will be brought “to Jerusalem.”

The first thing to note is that this theme of gathering the nations comes to the fore in Jesus’ great commission of the apostles in Matthew 28:19-20, where Jesus says, “19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

Here Jesus sends the apostles out to make disciples of the nations by baptizing them and teaching them what he taught them. By making them disciples, then enter into union with Christ who dwells in the heavenly Jerusalem, heaven itself, and thereby dwell there with him in some sense. Hence, the Christian people are the New Israel of God, which is what Paul teaches in Galatians 6:16.

Furthermore, Jesus tells the apostles to teach the nations about him, which implies they will come to “see” his glory. Recall what Jesus says in John 17:5, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory which I had with you before the world was made.” So, if the prophecy speaks of the nations seeing the glory of Yahweh, and Jesus sends the apostles out to the nations to come to know his glory, then it follows that he views himself to be divine.

The next detail in this first reading that has apologetical significance is the last line: “Some of these [Gentiles] I will take as priests and Levites, says the Lord.” Many have appealed to this text as biblical evidence for the New Covenant ministerial priesthood. Although I do in fact think this prophecy is referring to the New Covenant ministerial priesthood, I don’t think it’s strong enough to stand alone to convince a Protestant. The reason is that it can just as easily be interpreted as a reference to the universal priesthood of believers in Christ, which St. Peter teaches in 1 Peter 2:5, 9.

So, this detail has apologetical significance, but perhaps not in the way that we’d expect.

Let’s now turn to the second reading, which, again, is taken from Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13. The author writes,

Brothers and sisters,
You have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children:
“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord
or lose heart when reproved by him;
for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;
he scourges every son he acknowledges.”
Endure your trials as “discipline”;
God treats you as sons.
For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?
At the time,
all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.

So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

The detail that I want to focus on is the author’s teaching that God “disciplines” his children. Why is this apologetically significant?

Well, whenever we have discussions about purgatory the topic of the debt of temporal punishment naturally comes up, since one of the purposes of purgatory is to discharge any remaining debt of temporal punishment due to past forgiven sins. But for many Protestants, this is antithetical to the sufficiency of Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus’ death on the cross, so they argue, is sufficient to remit the debt of all whether temporal or eternal. To say that we must undergo a final purification to discharge some remaining debt of temporal punishment is to say that Jesus’ death wasn’t good enough.

How should we respond?

Note that everything I say here comes from my book Purgatory is for Real: Good News About the Afterlife for those Who Aren’t Perfect Yet.

First, it’s important to note that the Catholic Church teaches that Christ’s death is sufficient to atone for all debt of punishment due for sin, both eternal and temporal. In paragraph 411, the Catechism teaches that Christ, as the New Adam, “makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience, of Adam.” St. Thomas Aquinas is well known for his similar teaching in his Summa Theologiae III:48:2. He teaches that “by suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race,” and that “Christ’s Passion was not only a suf¬ficient but a superabundant atonement for the sins of the human race.”

So the doctrine of purgatory in and of itself, at least from the perspective of the Catholic Church, doesn’t entail that Christ’s death on the cross was insufficient. The real issue is what Christ intended concerning the application of the merits of his death on the cross. Does he will to apply them such that once a person is justified, he no longer has to temporarily suffer on account of his sins? Or does he will that the justified (“born again” Christians) still incur a debt of temporal punishment for sins committed after initial justification and thus have to undergo suffering on account of their sins?

If we affirm the former view, then purgatory is an insult to Jesus’ death because it contradicts Jesus as to how he intends to apply the merits of his death on the cross. However, if we affirm the latter view, then purgatory isn’t an insult to Jesus’ death on the cross and coheres with Jesus’ revelation as to how he intends to apply the merits of his death on the cross. So which is it? We argue the latter.

A key passage is found in Hebrews 12:6: “For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (RSVCE). Notice that God chastises “every son whom he receives”—that’s to say, God chastises Christians.

Moreover, being “chastised” involves some sort of suffering for bad behavior. The Greek word for “chastise,” mastigoō, literally means “to punish severely, implying whipping.”

Almost every other time mastigoō is used in the Bible, it refers to punishment in some form or manner, the inflicting of pain on account of wrongdoing. A cluster of passages uses the word with reference to servants being “beaten” as a form of punishment (Exod. 5:14, 16; Deut. 25:2, 3). The Greek version of Judith 8:27 reads, “The Lord scourges [Greek, mastigoi] those who draw near to him, in order to admonish them.” Similarly, Tobit 13:5 reads, “He [God] will afflict [Greek, mastigōsei] us for our iniquities.” As to the other passages where mastigoō appears and it’s not used for punishment (Job 30:21; Ps. 73:5, 14; Sir. 30:14), they all refer to some sort of physical suffering.

Hebrews 12:5 provides further support that the chastisement spoken of in verse six is in response to wrongdoing. It reads, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him” (RSVCE).

The phrase “when you are punished” translates the Greek word elenchomenos (the present passive participle of elenchō), which necessarily is tied up with the idea of fault or wrongdoing. For example, the word itself means “to state that someone had done wrong, with the implication that there is adequate proof of such wrongdoing—to rebuke, to reproach” (Louw and Nida, 490).

Elenchō is used elsewhere in Scripture in a way that’s connected to wrongdoing. For example, in 1 Timothy 5:20, Paul instructs Timothy, “As for those who persist in sin, rebuke [Greek, elenche] them in the presence of all.” It’s used in a similar way in Titus 1:13 in reference to rebuking Cretans, who Paul affirms are “always liars, evil beasts, [and] lazy gluttons” (v.12-13). In all the other ways elenchō is used (“expose,” “convince,” “tell,” confute,” “convict”), it’s tied up with wrongdoing of some sort (see my book endnote 88 for citations).

Since Hebrews 12:5-6 reveals that God “disciplines” and “chastises” his children, who are Christians (the justified), and such chastisement is retributive in nature (on account of wrongdoing), we know that God wills this order of providence to include Christians, even though saved in Christ, to still incur debts of temporal punishment for sins committed after initial justification and suffer in some way (whether embracing unintended suffering faced in life or self-imposed suffering) for that debt to be discharged.

This gives us reason to conclude that Christ didn’t will to apply the merits of his death on the cross in such a way that Christians never have to temporarily suffer on account of their sins committed after they were initially justified. Christ wills that we participate in his atoning work, at least with regard to discharging the debt of temporal punishment due for sin. And by voluntarily embracing our suffering for the sake of discharging our debts of temporal punishment, we imitate Christ, who voluntarily embraced suffering to make satisfaction for the debt of sin.

Our above exegesis of Hebrews 12:5-6 serves yet another purpose: it refutes the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ. It’s believed by many Protestants that the grounds for our justification is Christ’s righteousness itself, which is imputed to us (credited to our account) when we first believe in him. On this view, there is no debt of punishment for any sin at any time for us as Christians because the righteousness of Christ that’s imputed to us initially when we first have faith in him remits all such debt.

One can see how this goes against the doctrine of purgatory, since purgatory entails the discharge of any leftover debt of temporary punishment for past forgiven sins that a Christian may have at death. But since it’s divinely revealed to us that Christians still have to undergo temporary suffering on account of their sins, as Hebrews 12:5-6 shows, it follows that the imputed doctrine of Christ’s righteousness is false and thus poses no problem to belief in purgatory.

Now, some Protestants counter our reading of Hebrews 12:5-6 and argue that it’s not God’s justice that brings chastisement, but God’s love and fatherhood. This is similar to John Calvin’s claim in his Institutes that God chastises his children not in vengeance for sins committed, but as a remedy for future sins.

But this counter misses the point. The issue at hand is not whether the chastisement has its source in God’s justice or fatherly love, as if somehow these two were mutually exclusive. The issue is whether the New Testament reveals that Christians suffer something contrary to their will on account of wrongdoing. Given our exegesis of Hebrews 12:5-6, we can affirm that it does.

Moreover, Calvin’s counter exegesis assumes that vengeance and fatherly love are mutually exclusive. But this just rises from a misunderstanding of the nature of punishment, and its good when proportioned to wrongdoing. For more information on the good of punishment, I recommend Ed Feser and Joseph Besette’s book By Man shall His Blood Be Shed.

God’s fatherly love is manifest both in his justice (the infliction of suffering on account of sin) and in his desire to remedy our sin and bring us to perfection. The author of Hebrews spells out the end goal for which God chastises his children: “for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Heb. 12:10, emphasis added). Then, in verse 11, he writes, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” Sanctification is the end goal. And the enduring of suffering on account of sins is a means that God wills for us to achieve that goal.

Thus, God punishes his children in accordance with the “order of justice” so that they may be conformed to his holiness. That’s a fatherly love! That the chastisement is on account of wrongdoing puts it in the order of justice. But that just chastisement is ordered to a further goal: making us holy like him.

Let’s now turn to the Gospel reading, which, again, is taken from Luke 13:22-30. Here’s what we read:

Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”

The detail that I want to highlight here is Jesus’ teaching that many will strive or attempt to enter the narrow gate but will not. What is the gate? It’s the gate that leads to heaven. This is evident from the immediate context because Jesus goes on to describe what these individuals are excluded from: the master’s house in which a great feast is partaken of from people of all nations, harkening back to the first reading. Jesus describes the heavenly kingdom this way in Matthew 8:11.

Now, for someone to be excluded from heaven would seem to indicate hell. “But,” someone might counter, “this doesn’t necessarily entail that the exclusion is permanent. You need permanency to get hell out of this.”

First, Jesus never says anything about the ones excluded as later entering back through the gate and thus entering the house. Nor does he give us any sort of hint to make such a conclusion. So, to say that this is a temporary exclusion is simply attempt to try and make the biblical text fit a preconceived theology.

Secondly, Jesus says the door to the house from which individuals are excluded is “locked.” Moreover, Jesus says the master will say, “I do not know you.” If the exclusion were temporary with later admittance anticipated, then the Master would indeed “know the person” because he knows that later the person will be admitted. To say “I don’t know you” implies that the friendship is not present.

Finally, this teaching implies that some have rejected Christ as they stand before him in judgment. And given the metaphysics of how choices work for angels and separated souls, such exclusion must be permanent. For more information on this, check out my article “Why We Can’t Change Our Soul After Death” at catholic.com.

There’s one last counter that may come up here. It might be argued that this passage doesn’t necessarily get you factual population of hell but only the possibility of hell, since Jesus could be employing conditional prophecy—that’s to say, Jesus could be saying that on condition that there are some to do not enter the gate they will be excluded from the master’s house.

The problem here is that we would also have to apply the same logic to those who do enter the gate and thus partake of the feast in the Master’s house. But surely, we don’t want to do that, since that would mean Jesus is employing conditional prophecy for heaven too—and thus be saying merely on condition that some enter the gate they will partake of the heavenly feast.

If a Christian wouldn’t appeal to conditional prophecy here for those who are not excluded from the heavenly banquet, then why would we employ it for those who are excluded?

Thus, I conclude that we have evidence here of Jesus revealing the reality of hell. And not just the possibility of hell, but the factual population of hell as well.

Conclusion

Well, my friends, that’s all I have for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. All three readings provide us material for our apologetical treasurechest.

• We have material that helps us make a case for Jesus’ divinity,
• We have material that pertains to discussions about the New Covenant Ministerial priesthood,
• The author of Hebrews gives us a teaching that’s central to the Catholic understanding of purgatory, and
• We have Jesus teaching us about the factual population of hell, or so I argue.

As always, I want to thank you for subscribing to the podcast. And please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well through any podcast platform that they use. You can also access the archived episodes of the Sunday Catholic Word at sundaycatholicword.com.

You might also want to check out the other great podcasts in our Catholic Answers podcast network: Trent Horn’s The Counsel of Trent, Joe Heschmeyer’s Shameless Popery, and Jimmy Akin’s The Jimmy Akin podcast,” all of which can be found at catholic.com. And if you want to follow more of my own work, check out my website at karlobroussard.com

One last thing: if you’re interested in getting some cool mugs and stickers with my logo, “Mr. Sunday podcast,” go to shop.catholic.com.

I hope you have a blessed 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. Until next time, God Bless.