“Marriage is a lot like purgatory, not many protestants seem to believe in it.”
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“Marriage is a lot like purgatory, everyone seems eager to end their suffering.”
This is how I facetiously began a recent sermon on Questions 108 and 109 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which address the commandment against adultery. The catechism emphasizes the call for every believer, married or single, “to keep ourselves pure and holy.”
In the context of the 16th-century Reformation, marriage and purgatory were hot-button issues. Christian marriage was central to Reformation theology—can we tell the story of Martin Luther without Katharina von Bora or Henry VIII without his six wives? In this post I’d like to explore how these two are related in some surprising ways.
On Purgatory and Reformation
The medieval doctrine of purgatory sought to address an important dilemma: How can we reconcile the extrinsic grace of God with the ongoing imperfection and sinfulness of individual Christians? In the medieval Roman system, God’s divine justice could purge or cleanse the souls of those who trusted in Jesus, removing their individual shortcomings in an intermediate state. However, Protestants like Luther insisted that our righteousness before God is already perfected—simul justus et peccator (“simultaneously justified and sinner”).
While the Protestant Reformers acknowledged that a process of increasing holiness, called sanctification, takes place throughout our mortal life, they rejected the idea of a post-mortem purgation. Sanctification, they argued, was only for the living. At death, the justification secured through Christ’s work on the cross becomes fully realized. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism states: “The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory” (Q37).
Unfortunately, the doctrine of sanctification is often confined to soteriological categories, limiting its connection to the “real-life” concerns that the fear of purgatory once addressed in the medieval mind. The much-abused and often corrupt system of indulgences and saintly intercession practices arose, in part, from a fear that one’s current life was inadequately sanctified.
Belief in purgatory was not necessarily rooted in distrust of Christ’s work, as believers did not fear being cast from purgatory into the pit of Hell. Rather, purgatory represented a doubt in the effectiveness of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation to fully transform the Christian life in the present. They felt the need for purgatory because true holiness seemed unattainable within the scope of ordinary Christian experience.
Christian Marriage and Holiness
Yet many aspects of the “normal” Christian life are intended to aid in our holiness. The Christian man, regenerated by the call of grace, is surrounded by God’s help in putting sin to death. The Spirit works through the Church, State, Family, School, and various other spheres to bring about holiness. It is through real people and the circumstances of our worldly environment that the believer is transformed—even if that work is not fully completed by the time of our mortal death.
One central and often overlooked channel of this purifying holiness is Christian marriage.
Today, however, marriage is under attack—both from within the Church and from the world. In the world’s view, marriage is reduced to a mere contract between consenting adults, centered around whatever carnal pleasures align with public opinion. Within the Church, fewer people are getting married, and even those who do often face dismal success rates. Meanwhile, cohabitation and declining birth rates continue to afflict both society and the Church.
Yet the catechism teaches that marriage does something. Christian marriage is a tool for sanctification. When two people take covenant vows, the Lord graciously equips them with His gifts to fulfill the purpose of this divinely ordained institution. We might even say that the God who works through human means also works out our salvation through marriage. God sanctifies and purifies us through marriage.
Or more simply: Marriage saves.
This is certainly true on the natural and carnal side of things. Men (and women) are saved from their fiery lusts by bringing their most base passions under godly order. St. Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 7:9 makes it clear: “It is better to marry than to burn.” There is also the man who finds the proper motivation to get his life together through the allure of a special woman. Many men have seen their lives transformed from listless, disorganized chaos into godly purpose through the influence of the right woman. How many men, only half-joking, refer to their wives as their “better half”? A helpmeet often saves men from themselves.
The Spiritual Blessing of Marriage
But does marriage also benefit the soul? Spiritually, marriage plays a special role in sanctification. The husband’s role as shepherd and head of his wife and household should certainly sober him to the seriousness of his calling. Yet, even deeper, marriage serves as a spiritual tool through which God shapes and sanctifies the believer. His relationship and calling, pictured in Christ and his Bride (Ephesian 5:25-27, Revelation 19:7-9). His habits are formed by his duty— both as husband and father. A husband who is faithful to his wife recognizes that this fidelity includes the responsibility to steward his family’s home with routines of holiness. This alone could serve an sufficient to demonstrate how marriage aids in the development of the soul.
But still there is more. Proverbs 18:22 promises, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favor from the Lord.” Perhaps part of the favor is the wife herself and joy of the marital union. Massachusetts Puritan Edward Taylor describes marital intimacy as a, “golden ball of pure fire rolling up and down my breast…” The ecstasy of marital sex with all of its various hormonal and neurotransmitting “feel good” sensations is designed to point the affections inward and to strengthen the union. The pleasure and joy of marriage itself is not the end of marriage, but a picture of its unity. When two become one, they change. Marriage transforms them to focus on their partners in ways that don’t match our potential gains from the partnership. Marriage and the grace it presents pictures a growing gift rather than some calculated exchanges of benefits.
Marriage and Blessing
When I think about how moderns have separated marriage from God’s purpose, a marriage from Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club comes to mind. A young couple begins their relationship in an architecture firm, where Harold is a partner and Lena is an associate. After getting married, despite Harold earning seven times Lena’s salary, they insist on dividing their expenses evenly for the sake of equality. Imagine a t-chart of expenses taped to their refrigerator door—itemized down to the ice cream, even though (as we discover later through her tears) Lena doesn’t even like ice cream. Their rigid division of finances overlooks how instrumental Lena was in Harold’s success. Resentment festers until the relationship unravels—fairness wasn’t enough. Marriage isn’t the combination of two economies or the mere division of roles and responsibilities. What Lena needed was not a ledger but the favor, grace, and blessing that marriage is meant to provide—the kind of love that causes cups to overflow (Psalm 23:5) and storehouses to burst with abundance (Mal. 3:10). Rather than growing in grace and embracing the sacrificial love marriage demands, Harold clings to a transactional framework, falling short of the deeper vocation of becoming a true husband.
Marriage: A Foretaste
Christian Marriage inspires a unique care from a husband toward his wife, giving him a foretaste of heavenly love. A Christian husband diligently supports, serves, and protects his wife, not for personal gain or out of marital calculation, but purely out of love. His commitment is demonstrated by small acts of sacrifice—like getting out of bed in the middle of the night to defend her from what bumps in the night—not because it’s “fair” but because love compels him. Or as Chesterton put it, “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” Marriage allows him to truly express his god-given manly identity in protector, provider, priest, and so on.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church define purgatory as the, “purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven…” in this sense, Marriage is a lot like Purgatory. May our husbands and wives continue to aid in our present sanctification.
