Did Old Testament holy figures bypass Purgatory, and is there time and suffering in the afterlife?
A viewer, responding to Robert's position that holy figures before Christ went straight to heaven with no limbo, asks whether that means no Purgatory for them, and whether their time and suffering in the afterlife differ since they are outside time.
Answer
I do not mean that Old Testament saints bypassed Purgatory; Purgatory is always involved for those who must go there because of the life they led, if there is any spot or wrinkle left on the soul. But I would not say that because there is no time in the afterlife they are not suffering as we would. That is not a good equivalence. When we say time, we mean a beginning, an end, and a moment-by-moment sequence in between, usually incorporating change; suffering is by nature a moment-by-moment experience, so it is not all at once. It is too glib to say there is no time in eternity; eternity just means that time never stops, that it has no end. Even with God you have to be careful, because at the Incarnation God became a God-man at a certain time, and the Trinity communicated and shared love before creation, which implies a sequence of thought, and when God converses with Moses or Abraham, giving and receiving logical responses, that too takes a sequence, which is time. So there is much to investigate here; what we can safely say is only that eternity has no end.