1 Corinthians 3:15

1 Corinthians 3:15. If any man's work shall be burned as consisting of the inflammable “wood, hay, stubble,”

he shall suffer loss loss of his time, his pains, his hopes, his credit; his whole ministry, even though right at bottom, yet all of it which is of this character, disappearing.

but he himself shall be saved a statement of vast importance, as showing that the apostle is not speaking here of false teachers, but of the true servants of Christ.

yet so as by fire as of one who escapes from the fire by a rush, or is plucked out of it, his naked person alone saved.

Note. That the Church of Rome should deem such a passage any justification of their dogma of a purgatorial fire in the intermediate state is strange. For everything said of “the fire” here would seem to preclude any such interpretation.

(1) This fire is to “try every man's work;” but no Romanist believes that of the purgatorial fire.

(2) The purgatorial fire precedes the judgment, being designed to prepare the imperfectly sanctified to abide it, whereas this fire is the judgment itself

(3) Those here spoken of are saved in the judgment, “ so ashy fire,” not by means of the fire, but simply with difficulty; whereas the Romish doctrine is that a purifying process by means of fire will have to be gone through to fit those in it for heaven a totally different idea.