What About Purgatory and Limbo?

In my previous post, I wrote about the destination of dead infant souls. Some folks might object that either purgatory or limbo is where those spirits go. Does the Word of God really teach those doctrines?

When people compiled all the sacred writings into one book, The Bible, they used rules of canonicity. That means that every book had to adhere to a certain standard before it could be included in the Bible. I'll deal with this further in my next post.

Meanwhile, I need to explain that the seven apocryphal books in the Catholic Bible don't meet the canonical standards. They were written between Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament and Matthew in the New Testament. These cover the doings in Israel but aren't part of the cannon of scripture as determined by the Reformers.

Nowhere in the sixty-six canonical books of Scripture does purgatory or any sort of holding area appear. As the Apostle Paul plainly stated in 2 Corinthians 5:8 (KJV), "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

Furthermore, Paul knew that he would be immediately with Christ at his death. As he wrote in Philippians 1:23 (KJV), "For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:"

And what is the fate of sinners? The parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke chapter sixteen shows that the rich man went to hell and Lazarus went to be with Abraham. There was no spiritual waiting room mentioned. Neither can we buy people out of this unbiblical holding cell. That is a man-made doctrine and foreign to what the Bible declares.

In my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven?, I intend to explain in depth about the instantaneous transportation of our spirits to hell or heaven. The Bible, which we must consult in all matters of doctrine, is our measuring rod and all things must be compared with what  it says.