Christophany: "The very idea of Purgatory and the doctrines that are often attached to it...fail to recognize that Jesus’ death was sufficient to pay the penalty for ALL of our sins."
You forget that this all-sufficiency depends on our responding as required and you speak as if postbaptismal confession of sins and repentance are merely optional! You don't grasp the fact that in both Hebrew ("amunah") and Greek ("pistis") the word translated "faith" also means "faithfulness," so that we are saved by a faith-based way of being, not by just getting our ticket punched to heaven, regardless of how we live. Nor do you recognize the essential distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions for salvation. Faithfulness is not a sufficient condition for salvation because we are saved by grace. But it is a necessary condition (see eg. James 2:14; Matthew 25:41-45). If deeply flawed Christians die common sense and Scripture dictat that they might need postmortem purfication to be ready for Heaven without poisoning the atmosphere with their carnal conduct.
You also need to consider these 3 NT texts that nicely compliment the equivalent of Purgatory as taught by Jesus' image of Hell as a debtor's prison from which release is possible and Paul's teaching that apostate Christians can still be "saved, yet so as by fire," the image used by ancient rabbis to describe the purgative and purifying role of Gehenna:
(1) In a teaching included in the Catholic Apostles' Creed, Peter teaches that Jesus preached to the unrighteous dead from Noah's time. Peter focuses on Noah's time because he wants to stress the role of the Flood as a type of Baptism:
"He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also
He made a proclamation to the spirits in prison (= Hades), who in former times did not obey...(
1 Peter 3:19-20)."
The damned by implication have a chance to respond positively to this preaching and get saved. In 4:6 the phrase "the Gospel was preached" picks up this proclamation to deceased human spirits and generalizes it:
"For this is the reason
the Gospel was preached even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might
live in the spirit as God does (4:6)."
(2) Later Catholics follow Paul's example of embracing prayers for deceased sinners in his ritual of proxy baptism for the unrighteous dead. The new Corinthian church is in mourning for deceased family members and friends who died before having a chance to hear Paul's Gospel. Paul accepts proxy baptisms as part of the process by which God is destined to become "all in all" (panta en pasin) or "everything to everyone:"
"...so that God might be everything to everyone"). Otherwise, (i. e. if God will not be everything to everyone), what will those people do who receive baptism (by proxy) in behalf of the (unrighteous) dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized in their behalf (
1 Corinthians 15:28-29)."
(3) The Book of Revelation offers this structure of the afterlife process: first death--"first resurrection" after the millennium (20:5-6)--"second death" in the lake of fire" (20:6, 14; 21:8)--and by implication 2nd resurrection after the first. But John does not identify the 2nd resurrection. Its identity is implied by the declaration that the gates of the hovering New Jerusalem will remain eternally open: "Its gates will never be shut by day--and there is no night there (21:25)." The symbol of Heaven's eternally open gate implies traffic coming and going. But coming and going on what missions? Those "outside" the gates hold the answer:
"
Outside [the gates] are the...fornicators, murderers, idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood (22:15)."
Preaching missions outside the gates to these sinners provide the opportunity for them to hear the Gospel, repent, get saved and enter the gates. This is their 2nd resurrection out of torment. As evangelical author, C. S. Lewis famously puts it: "The gates of Hell are locked from the inside." This glorious prospect sheds light on John's vision of everyone in all creation--in heaven, on earth, and in Hades--worshiping God and Christ:
"Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and
under the earth (i. e. in Hades)...singing, "To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever (5:13)!""
They are not singing hymns of praise, only for some angel to pull a lever, so that they are sucked back down again to Hell!
The hymn in
Philippians 2:6-11 shares the same glorious vision of salvation out of Hades:
"....so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and
under the earth (i. e. in Hades) and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (
Philippians 2:10-11)."
What most Evangelicals don't get is the source of inspiration of this hymn in
Isaiah 45:22-23: "
Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth...To me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear." In other words, the Philippian hymn is inspired by God's invitation to universal salvation of the living and dead. The hymn's confession "Jesus Christ is Lord" is a saving confession (
Romans 10:9-10) and cannot sincerely be uttered apart from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (
1 Corinthians 12:3).
In my view, this vision does not necessarily mean universal salvation because there is no guarantee that all denizens of Hell will ultimately respond to the Gospel, but they will be given chances to respond after death.
After Revelation, the next 2 Christian apocalypses--the Apocalypse of Peter 14 (125 AD) and Sibylline Oracles II:331-335 (150 AD) still preserve this glorious vision of the righteous dead praying for and receiving soul retrievals of their unsaved loved ones in Hell. Though these apocalypses are noncanonical, they nevertheless bear witness to the attitude expressed in the Book of Revelation. Hope this helps.