Our God is a perfect God, so perfect that His judgment is altogether absolutely perfect. For this reason, the justice of God is dreadful as He punishes with extreme rigour even the most trivial faults that we commit. The reason is that these faults though light in our eyes are very serious in the perfect and faultless eyes of our God. A typical example is found in the words of Jesus that anyone who even looks at a woman lustfully is already guilty of the sin of adultery (Matt.5:28). It is for this that Eliphaz, a friend of Job, the servant of God, the Psalmist, the letter to the Hebrews and the Prophet Habakkuk say:
i. Job 4:17 “If God places no trust in His servants, if He charges His angels with error, how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth”.
ii. Psalm 143:- “Do not bring your servant to judgment for no one is righteous before you”.
iii. Hebrew 10:31:- It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”.
iv. Hab.1:13:- “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, you cannot tolerate wrong”.
The same God is also abundantly merciful:
i. Psalm 25:6 “Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old”.
ii. Psalm 103:11 “for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him”.
iii. Psalm 116:5 “The Lord is gracious and righteous, our God is full of compassion”.
iv. Psalm 130:3 “If you, O Lord, keep a record of sins, O Lord, who will stand”.
Thus, the doctrine of purgatory contains the double mystery of God’s justice and mercy: of justice, which punishes and of mercy, which pardons.
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