>>17992317
No, there is every reason to deny that if you understand the biblical gospel and the nature of covenant. The passage you're citing makes no reference to the damned spirits repenting, only being preached to (that is, He declared His triumph over them). When the Lord rescued the spirits of the old covenant saints He did so as covenant faithfulness to His people. Ergo, those which were strangers from the covenant of promise then as well as know were excluded from the promise of the covenant. If He had any intention to save them, they would have repented while they lived. Nor is there some great difference between now and the time of their lives whereby they receive special treatment, but that covenant of grace which was established in Christ is according to substance the very same as that of Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, differing only in their external accidents (they circumcised, we baptize). Thus no man has ever been justified before God in any way besides mere faith in Christ.
>>17992866
You are conflating the communion of saints with the idea of your good deeds meriting some kind of blessing for the dead. Also you were mistaken about the reasoning for the indulgences, which was not that your good work lessened their suffering of purgatory but that it was rewarded with a withdrawal of saintly merit from the thesaurus meritorum (which is called an indulgence). Good luck finding a Protestant confession that taught that.
>purgatory is the cleansing encounter with Jesus Christ
Purgatory is satisfaction for the temporal punishments of your own sins, and thus nothing but a denial of the satisfaction of Christ.
