Latter-day Saints (based on D&C 76:104-7) and other traditions hold that there will be, at least for some, posthumous (fatherly) punishment before they are fully forgiven. One text that hints at this doctrine is that of Matt 12:32:
And whosoever
speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this
world, neither in the world to come.
The phrase "in the world/age to
come" (ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι) hints that there are some sins, excluding the
blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 12:10), that could be forgiven in the hereafter.
Commenting on this, Catholic apologist
Karlo Broussard noted:
There are good
reasons to think the “age” (or “world” as the Douay-Rheims Bible translates it)
Jesus refers to is the afterlife. One is that Jesus uses “the age to come”
elsewhere in the Gospels in this way.
Consider, for
example, Mark 10:29-30 (see also Luke 18:30), where Jesus says those who leave
house, brother, sister, mother, father, and land for his sake will receive a
hundred-fold return “in this time . . . and in the age to come eternal life.”
Jesus speaks of “this time” and “the age to come” as two distinct states of
existence (this life and the next), both of which consist of people receiving rewards
for giving up everything for him . . . This reading is further supported by the
fact that mellō is used elsewhere in Scripture to refer to the
afterlife. Take Ephesians 1:21, for example. Here Paul says Christ’s name is
above every name that is named, “not only in this age [Greek, aiōni toutō]
but also in that which is to come [Greek, tō mellonti]” (emphasis
added).
Here Paul clearly is referring
to the age to come as an age distinct from the present one and is saying Christ’s
name is above every name in both ages.
Moreover, the Greek
in Ephesians 1:21 is almost exactly the same as that used in Matthew 12:32. In
Ephesians 1:21, the phrase “not only in this age but also in that which is to
come” translates “ou monon en tō aiōni toutō alla kai en tō melonti.”
The key phrase in Matthew 12:32, “either in this age or the age to come,”
translates “oute en toutō tō aiōni oute en tō mellonti.”
Given that Paul uses mellonti
to refer to the afterlife in
Ephesians 1:21, and Paul uses this word in a phrase that’s almost exactly the
same as the Greek found in Matthew 12:32, it’s reasonable to conclude that mellonti,
or “the age to come,” in Matthew 12:32 is used to refer to the afterlife.
Other passages where mellō
is used to refer to the afterlife are 1 Timothy 4:8, Hebrews 2:5, Hebrews
6:5, and Hebrews 13:14. (Karlo Broussard, Purgatory is for Real: Good News
About the Afterlife for Those Who Aren’t Perfect Yet [El Cajon, Calif.:
Catholic Answers Press, 2020], 71, 72)
Other texts in the New Testament that
teach this (as well as soundly refute the presuppositions of the Protestant
doctrine of justification) include Matt 18:23-35 and 1 Cor 3:15. For articles
discussing these pericopes, see:
Christina
Darlington, D&C 82:7, and the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
