each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is. If any man’s work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.
Short answer
The word “purgatory” does not appear in the Bible. Catholics believe the teaching rests on passages such as 2 Maccabees 12, 1 Corinthians 3 and Matthew 12:32, read with the Church’s tradition of praying for the dead. Protestants read those passages differently and do not accept 2 Maccabees as Scripture.
The short answer
The word purgatory is not in the Bible, any more than the word Trinity is. The question is whether the teaching is. Catholics believe it is found in Scripture read together with the Church’s long practice of praying for the dead; Protestants believe it is not.
What Catholics mean by purgatory
Catholic teaching describes purgatory as a final purification for those who die in God’s grace and friendship but are not yet fully purified. Everyone in purgatory is saved; it is not a second chance after death, and it is entirely distinct from hell (Catechism of the Catholic Church §§1030–1031). The Church encourages prayer for the dead on that basis (§1032).
The passages Catholics cite
Prayer for the dead in 2 Maccabees. After a battle, Judas Maccabeus finds that his fallen soldiers had been wearing idolatrous tokens. He takes up a collection and sends it to Jerusalem for a sin offering on their behalf:
When he had made a collection man by man to the sum of two thousand drachmas of silver, he sent to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice for sin, doing very well and honorably in this, in that he took thought for the resurrection. For if he wasn’t expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would be superfluous and idle to pray for the dead. But if he was looking forward to an honorable memorial of gratitude laid up for those who die in godliness, then the thought was holy and godly. Therefore he made the atoning sacrifice for those who had died, that they might be released from their sin.
Many Bibles number the last sentence of this passage as 12:46.
Catholics read this as evidence that faithful Jews before Christ prayed for the dead, and that such prayer only makes sense if the dead can still be helped.
Saved “as through fire.” Paul describes the work of Christian builders being tested on “the Day”:
each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is. If any man’s work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.
Catholics see here a person who is saved yet passes through a purifying loss.
Forgiveness “in that which is to come.” Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven “either in this age, or in that which is to come” (Matthew 12:32). Some early Christian writers took this to imply that other sins can be forgiven after death.
Catholic interpreters also point to Jesus’ warning about not getting out of prison “until you have paid the last penny” (Matthew 5:25–26), and to Paul’s prayer that his friend Onesiphorus would “find the Lord’s mercy in that day” (2 Timothy 1:16–18), which some read as a prayer for a man who had died. Early Christian inscriptions and writers attest that Christians prayed for their dead, and Catholics see purgatory as the teaching that explains that practice.
Why Protestants disagree
Purgatory, and the indulgences connected with it, were at the center of the Reformation disputes. Protestant objections usually include:
- 2 Maccabees is not in Protestant Bibles. Protestants follow the shorter Hebrew canon, so they do not treat the passage as Scripture, though they may read it as history (see Why do Catholic Bibles have more books?).
- 1 Corinthians 3 is about work, not souls. Many read the fire as the judgment of each minister’s work on the last Day, not a process of purifying the person after death.
- Christ’s work is complete. They point to passages such as “by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14), “no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), Jesus’ promise to the thief, “today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43), and Paul’s hope to be “absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).
- Matthew 12:32 is an emphatic way of saying “never.” Many read in this age, or in that which is to come as a strong idiom, not a hint about forgiveness after death.
Catholics answer that purgatory does not add to Christ’s work but describes how His grace completes a person’s purification, and that all who are in purgatory are already saved through Him.
The Orthodox view
Eastern Orthodox Christians pray for the dead, including in their funeral services and memorial prayers, and believe those prayers help the departed. But they generally do not accept the Catholic teaching on purgatory as it was defined in the West, and speak more cautiously about the state of the soul between death and the final judgment.
What all agree on
Every tradition affirms that salvation is God’s gift through Christ and that those who belong to Him will see Him. The disagreement is about what happens between death and that final meeting, a subject on which Scripture says less than Christians might wish. If you are grieving and wondering what to pray, the Grief page gathers Scripture on hope for those who have died.