Dear Brother,
In your last
letter to me, you asked how the process of sanctification that Dante proposes
in his Divine Comedy compares to the
Biblical process of sanctification. This letter is my attempt to answer that
question.
First off, Dante
believes that we are sanctified in Purgatory by acts of penance. In Purgatory IX.94-102, Dante the Pilgrim
has arrived at the gates of Purgatory proper. Leading up to the gates are three
steps, each of a different color: the first is polished white marble, like a
looking glass; the second is black, crumbling and cracking; and the third is
blood red. These steps represent the three stages of repentance. The white
step, which is polished like a mirror, represents self-inspection, searching
for the sin in your life. The second step, the rough black one, represents
contrition for sin. Finally, the third step, which “appeared to be of flaming
porphyry,” represents penance and Christ’s blood that covers our sin.[1]
Self-inspection,
the first step in repentance, is a biblical concept. However, blindness to sin
is one of the Enemy’s greatest weapons against us. If you were to ask a
non-Christian whether he or she were a good person, ninety-nine percent of the
time he would say yes. He is blind to his sin. It is only through the power of
the Holy Spirit working in us that the scales over our eyes can be removed.
King David is a
poignant example of this. After he committed both the sins of murder and
adultery, he thought he had done nothing wrong. It was not until the prophet
Nathan, moved by the Spirit of God, came to him and showed him his sin that
David realized that what he had done was sinful.[2]
This leads us to
Dante's second step: contrition for the sin. Once God revealed David’s sin to
him, David changed immediately, as evidenced in Psalms 51, where he confessed
his sin and plead with God to reveal any other sins to him: “Wash me thoroughly
from my iniquity, and cleanse me of my sin! For I know my transgressions, and
my sin is ever before me…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me.”[3]
A vital part of
overcoming strongholds of sin is confession: first, confession to God, and
second, confession to a good friend or mentor. “For godly grief produces a
repentance that leads to salvation without regret.”[4]
Now, don’t think I am advocating the Catholics’ practice of confession to a
priest so that he will absolve you of the sin by telling you to say so many
Hail Marys—God alone has the power to absolve you of sin, and He did that on
the Cross once for all.
No, I am only
saying that it is incredibly beneficial to confess your sin to a Christian
friend. "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another,
that you may be healed."[5]
Your friends cannot cleanse you of sin any more than a turtle can, but they can
keep you accountable. If you know that someone is going to be asking you if you
gave in to temptation when you see them next, you are much more likely to
resist that temptation. As humans, we hate having to tell people that we
failed, which makes accountability partners invaluable in the process of
sanctification.
And now we come to
the third step, the blood-red step of penance. Let me first clear something up:
the Catholic idea of penance, or doing good things to blot out the bad, is
unbiblical. While it is true that in the Old Testament the Jews were required
under the Law to give payment to those harmed by their sins, this act did not
cleanse them of the sin. They were cleansed of the sin by offering sacrifices
to God. These sacrifices were only temporary, however, so God sent Christ as
the sacrificial lamb to cover our sins once for all. You don’t have to say
fifty prayers, or buy absolution slips, or work at a homeless shelter. As a
Christian, you are already righteous in the sight of God.
You were purged of
the blemish of sin by Christ’s blood. Therefore, there is no need for such
place as Purgatory. The very second you die your soul will go straight to
heaven.
You have asked
what the purpose of sanctification is. As Ephesians 2:8-9 says, it is by grace
we have been saved through faith, and “it is the gift of God, not a result of
works, so that no one may boast.”[6]
If we have been saved already, then why do we still struggle with sin?
Dante’s examples
of penance in Purgatory are not quite
in line with the Bible. He believed that we were sanctified by the removal of
sin, which was accomplished by the removal of temptation. For example, Purgatory XIII.70-72 shows the penance
of the Avaricious, saying, “[T]he eyelids of these shades (the Avaricious) had
been sewn shut with iron threads, like falcons newly caught, whose eyes we
stitch to tame their restlessness.”
With their eyes
sewn shut, the shades of the avaricious could no longer look at what others
had, and therefore could not commit the sin of avarice. I don’t want you to stitch
your eyes closed the next time you want something that someone else has. The
absolute removal of temptation is not only impossible, but goes against God's
will. James says that it is through
the withstanding of temptation that we are made more holy.[7]
There is a
difference between justification and sanctification. The moment you believe
that Christ is the Savior of the world and the Lord of your life, you are
justified, or made righteous. However, sanctification only begins when you are justified. It is a process that is continually
ongoing until the day you are taken to His arms and glorified. Like Paul says
in Romans 6, we should not go on sinning “so that grace may abound.”[8]
On the contrary, “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death…in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”[9]
We are called to live holy lives that bring glory to God.
Contrary to what
numerous televangelists and pastors may tell you, life is not supposed to be
peachy after you have accepted Christ. Christ himself said that "In the
world [we] will have tribulation."[10]
Christians struggle just as much if not more so than those outside the church.
But the beauty of it is that, unlike those who do not believe in Christ, we
have been given the power to overcome temptation. Jesus doesn't stop by saying
that we will have tribulation; in the same verse, he gives us a message of
hope: "but take heart; I have overcome the world." God didn’t leave
us to fend for ourselves. Instead, in His infinite love for us, He provided His
Holy Spirit to help us through those trials of many kinds, and gave us a
promise that we will never be tempted beyond what we can bear.[11]
We have hope.
However, this does
not mean that it will be easy to overcome sin. The Holy Spirit is not like the
Tooth Fairy; you don’t pull your sin out of your heart, stick it under your
pillow, and find a fat wad of instant holiness in its place when you wake up.
Sanctification is a life-long process, and a difficult one.
We don’t have to
fight the Enemy alone. God has sent us the Holy Spirit to help us. Christ said,
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will
teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to
you.”[12]
In times of trial, the Holy Spirit will empower you with “the sword of the
Spirit, which is the Word of God.”[13]
It’s going to be
hard. You’ll stumble, fall, break down, but don’t ever give up. You’re not
alone. Even Paul, author of over half of the New Testament, struggled with sin.
“I do not understand my own actions,” he said. “For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate…I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do
not want is what I keep on doing.”[14]
But don’t be discouraged. In the very next verse, Paul says, “Now if I do what
I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”[15]
Never think that because you struggle with sin, you are not a Christian. “You
were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”[16]
The struggle with sin just shows that you are human.
Two of the most
important things you can do to undo patterns of sin in your life are prayer and
staying in God’s Word. Because we are Christians, we have been given a desire
to do good and to please God. In his book The
Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges says, “The Holy Spirit creates this
desire, not only by showing us our sins, but also by showing us God’s standard
of holiness. He does this through the Scriptures…Even though His standard may
seem far beyond us, we recognize and respond to that which is holy, righteous,
and good.”[17]
We also need to
read Scripture to defend ourselves against temptation. “Do not be conformed to
this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you
may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”[18]
When Christ was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness[19],
he overcame the temptation with Scripture.
Humans have an
incredible knack for rationalizing our actions, even if we know that the
actions are wrong. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure;
who can understand it?”[20]
Satan has had since the beginning of time to learn our human tendencies, and he
uses them to his advantage. Satan is crafty. He "prowls around like a
roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."[21]
He will even try to rationalize things by using Scripture, like he did with
Jesus in Matthew 4. God’s Word will never contradict His Will, however, and the
passages that the Enemy uses are taken out of context. They may seem
reasonable, but they are not. But how can you tell whether or not the Scripture
is from Satan if you are never in the true
Word and cannot test it? Once again, our minds must be renewed so that we may
discern the will of God.
In Paradise I.131-135, after their
ascension to the sphere of the Sun, Beatrice explains to Dante that “God’s
creature, even though impelled toward the true goal, having the power to
swerve, may sometimes go astray along his course; and just as fire can be seen
as falling down from a cloud, so too man’s primal drive, twisted by false
desire, may bring him down.”[22]
But Beatrice
doesn’t stop there. After having been sanctified through Purgatory, she tells
Dante not to be surprised that he is now in Heaven. “You should, in all truth,
be no more amazed at your flight up than at the sight of water that rushes down
a mountain to its base. If you, free as you are of every weight, had stayed
below, then that would be as strange as living flame on earth remaining still.”[23]
The trials of this
world are our Purgatory, and life is our journey through it. Recall Paul’s
words in Ephesians 5:25-27: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed
her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church
to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she
might be holy and without blemish.” When we die, the process of sanctification
is completed with our glorification and we are brought in to the presence of
God. Though we fight with sin now, a day is coming where we will fight no
longer. And what a beautiful day that will be!
As I finish up
this letter, I can think of no better way to end it than Paul did in his own
letter to the Thessalonians. “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you
completely, and may your whole spirit and body be kept blameless at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[24]
Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: Paradise. Translated
by Mark Musa. Penguin Books, New York, NY, 1986.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: Purgatory.
Translated by Mark Musa. Penguin Books, New York, NY, 1986.
Bridges, Jerry. The Pursuit of Holiness. NavPress,
Colorado Springs, CO, 1978.
The
Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL,
2001.
[1] Purgatory, p. 99
[2] 2 Samuel
11:1-12:15
[3] Psalms
51:2-3, 10
[4] 1
Corinthians 7:10
[5] James 5:16
[6] Ephesians
2:8-9
[7] James 1:2-4
[8] Romans 6:1
[9] Romans 6:3-4
[10] John 16:33
[11] 1
Corinthians 10:13
[12] John 14:26
[13] Ephesians
6:17
[14] Romans
7:15, 19
[15] Romans 7:20
[16] 1 Cor 6:1
[17] The Pursuit of Holiness, p. 77
[18] Romans 12:2
[19] Matthew
4:1-11
[20] Jeremiah
17:9
[21] 1 Peter 5:8
[22] Paradise, p. 5
[23] Paradise, p. 5
[24] 1
Thessalonians 5:23
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