PURGATORY–AN INVENTION OF RELIGION
by Ken Blue
It is said that this is a place where men must go after death to purge their sins, but purgatory is totally an invention of man’s religion. The word purgatory comes from the word purge, and the Bible says that Christ “by Himself purged our sins” without any help from us (Heb. 1:3). The Lord told the dying thief, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). This is significant, since the inspired Word of God calls this man a thief, and it was his own testimony to the other thief that “we receive the due reward of our deeds” (v. 41). That is, he was admitting he had not been framed or misjudged but had indeed committed crimes worthy of the death penalty. If there was a Purgatory, this man would have gone there, yet we have the Lord’s word on it that he did not. If anyone needed to go to Purgatory, it was the carnal Corinthians! Yet Paul told even these sinful believers that they could be “confident” that “to be absent from the body” is “to be present with the Lord” (II Cor. 5:8). R. K.

Ken Blue

Pastor Ken Blue was born in Boswell, Ark. In 1955 he accepted Christ as his Savior. He and his wife Joyce were married in 1955. They have 5 children. He graduated from Midwestern Baptist Bible College in 1969 and started the Open Door Baptist Church in Lynnwood, Wa. where he pastored for 39 years. Because of health issues (ALS) he was forced to resign as pastor. It is his desire to continue to be used of God to help pastors and believers through this ministry.