Did JESUS go to purgatory

Answer 1

No, no, no - for several reasons. The two primary reasons are as follows: 1. Jesus lived a sinless life but at his death took the whole of sin on his shoulders as the sacrificial lamb of God. If Jesus had to go to 'purgatory' to be cleansed of this sin he would still be there now. As Jesus was God incarnate, to end up in purgatory being cleansed of sin would mean thata perfect God himself had to be cleansed of sin, which does not make much sense. Jesus died, took our sin, went to hell and after the resurrection conquered death once and for all, and subsequently ascended to heaven. No purgatory was necessary. 2. More importantly and fundamentally, purgatory does not exist. In scripture we are told that we are saved through the blood of Christ, and not by some sort of 'cleansing' place. Jesus made this perfectlyclear when he promised the thief who was crucified with him that 'this very day you will be with me - in Paradise'. Not in 'purgatory' for some time before going to Paradise, but that very day. Purgatory was a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church which was the primary cause of the schism between the Protestant Church and Catholicism. Martin Luther was concerned about the corruption in the Catholic Church as the concept of purgatory enabled priests to get paid for saying masses to pray for the souls of the dead in 'chantry' chapels. Payment of large sums of money meant that they could 'guarantee' a certain time off the time in purgatory (say reducing it from 1000 to 500 years). These guarantees were known as 'indulgences' and were sold all over Europe in the Middle Ages. Thus, the rich could 'guarantee' going to heaven by paying large sums whilst the poor had to go through 'purgatory', contrary to all Christ stood for. This scam was a very nice earner by the Catholic Church and netted them huge revenues, and is regarded nowadays as one of the most shameful episodes of Church history. Martin Luther, in his well publicised conversion after reading Paul's letter to the Romans, realised that he was saved, not by payment of money, but by Grace, through Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, and therefore nailed his 'theses' to the door of the church at Wittenberg indicting the Catholic Church as corrupt. The result was his formation of the Protestant Church and his excommunication from Rome. To be fair to Rome, the Catholics also underwent their own Reformation after this wake-up call and the selling of indulgences was stopped but the concept of purgatory stayed. There is a movement in the modern Catholic Church to remove purgatory from the doctrine of the Church, and rightly so, as it is clearly and utterly against God's will and Christ's teaching, being sinfully the main cause of the Protestand split from Rome and against everything that Paul - and Christ himself - taught.

Answer 2

Christians believe that Jesus went down to hell, where he preached to the condemned souls; afterwards he ascended to heaven. Luke's Gospel says that the disciples actually saw Jesus drawn up into heaven.

Answer 3

nothing. The idea comes entirely from Old Testament Apocrypha.