Defense of Prayer to the Saints

You wrote on Jul 6, 2007 at 6:30 AM.
You replied to Laura's post on Mar 31, 2007 at 6:14 PM
Laura,

Back as well. Hm, someone who makes long posts like myself? How long would you say your longest has been? The people I've spoken with in, for example, the facebook group "Theology Rocks" have put my posts into Microsoft Word and checked, haha. It's a fun group, you should join it.

"I'm still not really sure how prayers going THROUGH saints connects to prayers being said TO the saints. Also, do you ever pray to angels? Because in the Bible it says not to pray to the angels (I'll have to do some research to find where it says)."

Forgive me my crappy explanation. Lol lol.

I guess it is pretty simple and I should have explained it more simplistically?

Let's say I give you a letter and ask you to bring it to someone else. You are taking the role of a messenger (which, ironically, is what an angel is).

We often think of Gabriel being a messenger from God to Mary. But do we ever stop to think that Gabriel was ALSO a messenger from Mary to God? Her "Let it be done to me according to your Word", because of God's omniscience, would have been immediately known by God, but that doesn't mean that Gabriel didn't return to God's throne to tell Him the news. If we say that would be a waste of time, then to an extent, prayer would be as well since God already knows what we want (and yes, it is definitely the case that prayer is more so for our benefit than anything else).

When I read those examples from Revelation, I get an image in my head of saints, and angels, taking these prayers from others up to God, just like a messenger will take messages from one person to another.

This would be a form of intercession, of course.

Are you saying that it would be an assumption to say that the saints take our prayers, and then pray the same prayers to God?

When I think of prayer, I think of it as "asking God" for anything. If I say, God give me the strength to get through the day - that's a prayer.

Romans 8:26-27, "In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God's will."

The Spirit intercessing does not mean that the saints cannot?

Romans 8:34, "Who will condemn? It is Christ (Jesus) who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us."

I would encourage you to read my latest two posts in the Transubstantiation topic. For one thing, Christ's role as intercessor, as mediator, is CHIEFLY about Him eternally offering Himself to the Father in Heaven on our behalf. There is nothing to suggest that Christ is sitting at a desk, reading "emails" of all of our prayers and refusing to let any of the Heavenly saints read those emails first, or have their own email accounts - to use a dorky analogy.

Christ intercedes for us, yes...but so do the saints. The language of Revelation on this shows prayers getting to Christ by being "offered in bowls of incense" - and there is basis in the text for people to be presenting before Christ prayers of others.

"I also don’t think that by asking another person to pray for you is sending a prayer through them. They pray, I pray. Separate prayers with the same intent."

If I say, Laura, could you please pray for my grandmother? And then you do so, say, DIRECTLY to God - how is that not me sending a prayer through you? For, I have prayed - ASKED - you to pray to God - ASK God for something - for me.

So, I can pray directly to God for that, sure. And you can as well. I'm just saying that if I ask you to pray to God for my grandmother, that is no different than what a Catholic is trying to do when they "pray" to Mary for the same thing.

The problem with calling it "prayer to the saints" is because at the time of the Reformation, the Reformers were disgusted at the cult of the saints, wanted to emphasize Christ more, and they said the practice was not in the Bible in light of Sola Scriptura. As a result, "prayer" became something solely between God and the individual in Protestant thought. It thus acquired connotations of worship, when, in fact, ALL it used to, and still can, mean, is "to ask."

"Since God Himself (for that is who Jesus and the Spirit are, of course!) intercedes for us, takes our prayers Himself without having to speak to others (those in Heaven, including Mary), would it not make sense that we don’t need to pray to the dead? I would rather deal with the boss himself over a middle-man."

If God Himself always took our prayers without ever having "middle-men" then what about those examples in Revelation?

Would you say that Revelation 5:8 is those individuals offering their OWN prayers up to God, that were not previously given to them by others?

Revelation 8:3 I believe gets rid of this objection: "Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne."

There we have ONE INDIVIDUAL - ONE angel - offering the prayers of ALL the saints on the gold altar before the throne. So the angel would be offering prayers that came from another source, and acting as an intercessor. The angel in Revelation 8:3 IS acting as a "middle-man."

Sure, we'd all rather deal with the boss-man than the middle man. But that's not the way Scripture has typically worked.

The prophets? The judges? The kings? The evangelists, the Apostles? God doesn't use "middle-men?" See what I mean?

James 5:14-15, "Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven."

Dare I say, "middlemen?" Here, the priests of the Church annoint sick people with oil and their prayer of faith SAVES the sick person - not physically, obviously, but spiritually.

The same is with Baptism. God uses the "mediator" of the person baptizing, and the "medium" of the physical water to begin the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

My argument wasn't really that, every time I say the Our Father, a secretary-saint in Heaven "prints it out" and brings it up to God the Father. I wasn't willing to go that far. I believe that we CAN pray directly to God.

But I do believe that we CAN ask the saints in Heaven to pray for us, and being fully sanctified and full of love, they WILL pray for us, and that in this capacity they act as middle-men.

I feel that the Reformers took great issue with certain practices that they didn't feel were biblical and then attached all this, "one mediator, only Jesus 'n me" rhetoric to it - which, ironically, ISN'T how God works. The one mediator between God and man (in terms of the atonement!) is Jesus, but that does not mean that we do not have "subordinate mediators."

When I think of the term, "saint" I break it down into two groups:

1.) The saints (little s) which is a term that can be applied to every Christian, in Heaven and on earth.

2.) The Saints (big S) is a term that can be applied to 100% sanctified Christians. For example, the Saints in Heaven have been made perfectly holy - no sin, no sinful inclinations, remain. I believe that there have been other Saints on Earth that have attained that type of spiritual perfection/maturity while still on earth - although Catholic canonization says nothing specifically about that, speaking only of whether they are currently in Heaven or not.

Does that help?

"One more thing on this subject. When does Jesus speak to the dead? When He said “Eli, eli,” He was saying “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” He was not speaking to Elijah."

I think you misunderstood my argument. I WASN'T saying that Jesus WAS speaking to Elijah. I was saying that the Jews THOUGHT that Jesus was speaking to Elijah. The fact that this misunderstanding of them did NOT cause them to attack Jesus about it indicates that the Jews did not, apparently, regard ALL conversing with the dead as necromancy and forbidden.

- Sean