One of the most common objections Protestants raise against the Catholic doctrine of purgatory is that it seems to contradict what Jesus taught about the immediacy of heaven after death. In fact, well-known Protestant writers Norman Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie make this exact case in their book Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences.
Their argument is simple: Jesus teaches that people either go straight to heaven or straight to hell after death, leaving no room for an in-between purification like purgatory. They point to three passages in Luke’s Gospel as proof: Luke 23:43, Luke 16:26, and Luke 16:22-24.
But do these passages really close the door on purgatory? Let’s take a closer look.
The Good Thief and “Paradise” (Luke 23:43)
At first glance, Jesus’ words to the good thief on the cross—“Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”—sound like a slam dunk. If the thief is in heaven that very day, then what need is there for purgatory?
, as Jimmy Akin argues in A Daily Defense (Day 205), this could be a simple matter of punctuation. In the original Greek, there were no commas. So the verse could just as easily be read: “Truly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise.” On this reading, “today” emphasizes the timing of Jesus’ promise, not the thief’s arrival in paradise.
If we look deeper, the argument assumes that “paradise” means “heaven.” In Jewish thought, however, “paradise” (Greek, paradeisos) often referred to the blessed state of the righteous dead—what Jesus elsewhere calls “Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22, which we’ll cover too in just a second). Importantly, this exchange happened before Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, which means heaven itself wasn’t even open yet (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 661, 1023). So it’s reasonable to conclude that “paradise” here refers not to heaven proper, but to that intermediate place of blessedness where the righteous awaited Christ’s victory.
Even if we grant for argument’s sake that Jesus was speaking of heaven, it still doesn’t disprove purgatory. Catholic teaching allows for the possibility that someone, at the moment of death, may have such a deep love for God that it completely purifies the soul, eliminating any need for purgatory (CCC 1022, 1472). The good thief, suffering justly for his crimes and humbly uniting that suffering to Christ, could very well have been one such soul.
And don’t forget: the experience of purgatory isn’t measured by earthly time. Even if a soul must undergo purification, it can happen in what St. Paul calls “a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor. 15:52). So Jesus could promise the good thief paradise “today” without denying that purification might precede his entrance into heaven.
Whichever way you look at it, Luke 23:43 doesn’t undermine purgatory.
The Great Chasm (Luke 16:26)
Next, Geisler and MacKenzie point to Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In it, Abraham tells the rich man in torment: “Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed . . . none may cross from there to us.”
From this, they argue two things:
- No one can cross into heaven after death.
- Everyone goes immediately either to heaven or hell.
But notice: the passage is about someone in hell, not purgatory. It shows only that the damned cannot cross over into heaven—not that the saved cannot undergo purification before entering it.
What about Lazarus, the poor man in the story? He doesn’t go to heaven right away. Instead, he’s carried by angels to “Abraham’s bosom”—again, a Jewish way of describing the blessed state of the righteous dead before Christ opened heaven. That alone shows that the text doesn’t teach immediate entrance into heaven.
And even if you interpret “Abraham’s bosom” as heaven itself, there’s still an “in-between process” built right into the parable: Lazarus doesn’t arrive instantly, but is carried there by angels. Jesus seems to be encouraging us to imagine an intervening stage before the final arrival—something that fits perfectly with the idea of purgatory.
The Rich Man’s Fate (Luke 16:22-24)
Finally, Geisler and MacKenzie argue that when Jesus says the rich man went immediately into torment, it proves there’s no delay after death: unbelievers go straight to hell, believers go straight to heaven.
But that conclusion doesn’t follow. The parable says something about the fate of only the damned—not the righteous.
Think of it this way: imagine a race where the top three finishers are promised a banquet with the king, whereas everyone else is excluded immediately. The losers’ fate is decided on the spot. But that doesn’t mean the winners walk straight into the banquet hall without any preparation. They might first go wash up, change, or be escorted in.
In the same way, saying that unbelievers immediately go to hell doesn’t mean believers immediately enter heaven. There may well be an “interim stop” of purification.
When we take a closer look, none of the passages appealed to by Geisler and MacKenzie actually contradicts the Catholic teaching on purgatory. At most, they show that the damned enter hell —a point Catholics readily affirm (CCC 1035). But when it comes to the righteous, these texts leave plenty of room for, and even hint at, the possibility of an intervening purification before the soul’s final union with God.
Far from being an obstacle to faith, purgatory is a sign of God’s mercy. It reassures us that even if we die with lingering imperfections, God has provided a way to cleanse us completely so that we may stand before him in perfect holiness. As Scripture says, “nothing unclean shall enter ” heaven (Rev. 21:27). Purgatory is simply how God makes good on that promise.
So, rather than undermining purgatory, the words of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel actually fit comfortably alongside it. They remind us that heaven is indeed our destiny, and that God, in his love, prepares us perfectly for that eternal embrace.