Below is my email to Matt Slick, President of Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry found at http://www.carm.org.
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Matt Slick,
In one of your “dialogues” on Carm.org, http://www.carm.org/dialogues/cath_interpret.htm, I found a dialogue between you and a Catholic individual by the name of Dan – a “Discussion with a Catholic on Interpreting the Bible.”
Having read through the conversation, I immediately spotted something that I feel is a crucial error. I’ll post the entirety of the relevant excerpt, and my response, down below.
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“Matt: The Bible says there is ONE mediator, not two. Praying THRU her is just a way of saying you pray TO her...but without the obvious difficulties involved.
Dan: Do you ask other people to pray for you?
Matt: They are here with me. They are not dead. Jesus is risen, the one mediator. Others are not my mediator. Neither is Mary. Your praying through Mary is praying TO her. Where is this found in the Bible?
Dan: Do you ask others to pray for you?
Matt: Yes. I do. Are they my mediator between God and me? No. Where does it say we can pray to or through Mary?
Dan: I ask my spiritual mother to pray for me. That is all: I say Mary, pray for me. Not Mary, grant me this or that.
Matt: Okay, we're done.....”
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Okay, I have MANY, many problems with your approach here. In a response to someone else on facebook, I specifically dealt with what I felt was improper use of 1 Timothy 2:5 in a debate on praying to the saints - Why 1 Tim. 2:5 is not against Co-mediatorship, Why Hebrews 9:27 is not against Purgatory. This can be found at my blog at http://apolobot.blogspot.com.
Mr. Slick, I believe that you are clearly appealing to an interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:5 in this excerpt of his dialogue – and, in my opinion, taking it out of context. The issue of whether or not you have taken this verse out of context and misapplied it to the debate over praying to saints is not an issue about praying to the saints itself – it is primarily concerned with whether or not you have attempted to utilize an invalid prooftext in favor of your position on praying to the saints. I will, therefore, attempt to limit my response to specifically that issue.
I will also be making use of the New American translation of the Bible; if you have a preference for us both using the same translation, and a specific one, please let me know.
In 1 Timothy 2:5, we have Paul saying the following:
“For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human,”
Now, according to you, the Bible says that there is ONE mediator. I would absolutely have to agree with that assessment. However, I suggest we look at the context of 1 Timothy 2 to determine what exactly is meant by this.
In verses 1-2, Paul expresses his wish that supplications, prayers, and petitions be offered for everyone, and he provides a list of figures. In verses 3 and 4, Paul says that, “This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.”
The point, then, of Paul’s argument thus far is that everyone should pray for one another because that is what God desires. God desires everyone to be saved, to come to knowledge of the truth.
I am fully aware of your objection elsewhere on your website to Universalist usage of this passage, to the effect that God desires, and effects, the salvation of all men. I’m no proponent of universalism myself, so I think we can at least be in agreement there.
Only now does Paul introduce his point in which he mentions Jesus as mediator:
“For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all. This was the testimony at the proper time.”
It therefore appears clear to me that Paul’s argument is that we should not be partial in who we pray for, because Christ was not partial in whom He died for.
I’m willing to concede that “all” does not need to mean “every single one” here – especially in lieu of the fact that Romans 3:23 says that “all men” sinned when clearly, all men have not.
Additionally, as I wanted to limit the conversation as of now to 1 Timothy 2:5 specifically, and its usage, although I would be most happy to discuss Limited Atonement with you at some other juncture, if you would like.
In any event, the general gist of Paul’s argument is for us not to be partial in who we pray for. This leads us into verses 8 and 9:
“For this I was appointed preacher and apostle (I am speaking the truth, I am not lying), teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.”
So, Paul’s entire position can be summed up in one word: Pray.
I think this is a position that the two of us can most definitely agree upon!
Paul then continues onward concerning the proper behavior of women and then his discussion of Church leaders in chapter 3.
Now, here is the all-important question, one that I hope you understand the basis of, Mr. Slick…
…where in the text of 1 Timothy 2 does Paul indicate that Jesus is the sole mediator of prayer?
That’s the real question. Because if the answer to that question is false, Mr. Slick, then you took 1 Timothy 2:5 out of context in your debate with Dan. And as D.A. Carson made quite clear in Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, “A text without a context becomes a pretext for a prooftext.” It could be conceivably possible that you were right in objecting to prayer to the saints against Dan (I definitely don’t think so, of course), but you could have been wrong (this, I do think, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered writing this email, lol!) in using 1 Timothy 2:5 in order to do so.
When Dan asked, “Do you ask other people to pray for you?” he was in no way dodging your application of 1 Timothy 2:5. It very much appears to be the case that he was appealing to the context, whereas you were not. Your response to him appeared to be dodging the context of 1 Timothy 2 – you brought up the fact that the supposed saints are dead, not “with you”, but that hardly matters when discussing 1 Timothy 2. The objection on the basis that the saints are “dead” is completely separate from the objection that no saint, that no one, can act as a mediator other than Christ.
The idea that other human beings can be mediators of prayer is very much indicated by 1 Timothy 2. Otherwise, there is no way that Paul would express that it was his wish for individuals to pray for one another.
In principle, there is no difference between going to my next door neighbor and saying, “Pray for me” and asking Mary to pray for me. What I mean by this is that both of these examples are examples of someone asking someone else to pray for them. If you are going to use the “only one mediator…of prayer” argument against asking the saints to pray for us, then you must use that same argument against asking fellow Christians on earth to pray for us, if you in any way wish to be logically consistent.
Instead of address this core problem with your usage of 1 Timothy 2:5 head-on, it appears that you took two other approaches:
1.) The aforementioned argument that there is a difference between asking “dead” and live people to pray for us
2.) An argument to the effect that praying “to” a saint is different than praying “through” a saint.
#1 definitely addresses a key difference between asking intercession of “dead” saints and asking intercession of those on earth. But it doesn’t deal with 1 Timothy 2:5, so we can pass it over for right now. I would be more than happy to debate the ramifications of this assessment with you at a later time.
#2 is a different can ‘o worms. But even if you think that prayer is an act of worship and that praying “TO” saints is somehow idolatrous, or something to that effect, that doesn’t mean that asking saints to pray for us is wrong because Jesus is our mediator. Paul made quite a good argument for why we should pray for others (and why he could ASK this of them) in 1 Timothy 2, and Jesus being our mediator formed the basis of that argument.
With all this in mind, other issues aside, it appears that you have taken 1 Timothy 2:5 out of context.
Additionally, Jesus is not the sole mediator of prayer because Sacred Scripture, when speaking of Jesus as our mediator, is never talking about His mediation in terms of mediation through prayer. It always does so in terms of Christ’s sacrifice as the mediator of the New Covenant.
The only other place in the New Testament where Christ is described as “mediator” is in the Letter to the Hebrews, and there, it is quite clear that Christ is our “mediator” in a sacrificial sense. An analogy is drawn between Christ and Moses; Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant sacrifices, and Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant, of His own sacrifice. And even in 1 Timothy 2, it talks about Jesus as mediator in the immediate context of giving Himself as ransom for all – in a sacrificial context.
Now, because of the Protestant idea of “termination” – that Jesus’ sacrifice in its fullness is over and done with – it is thus probably the case that you do not think of Jesus’ role of mediator in an exclusively sacrificial sense.
I’ve noticed that Protestants who hold to this idea of “termination” tend to think of Jesus as mediator in a sense involving prayer as well – and this is because, in my opinion, Hebrews speaks of Christ as mediator in the present, not just in the past. Since many a Protestant thinks Christ’s sacrificial work was completed in its fullness on cavalry, and that there is no perpetual, continual offering in Heaven, Hebrews’ references to Jesus as mediator must therefore not be interpreted in solely a sacrificial sense.
I do not wish to engage in a debate concerning the Mass at this time. However, for now, I would like to stress that a close reading of Hebrews 7-9 will demonstrate that Jesus is described as mediator of the New Covenant in a most sacrificial sense, and therefore, 1 Timothy 2:5’s mention of Jesus as mediator should definitely not be taken as somehow indicating that Jesus is the sole mediator of prayer.
All of this amounts to my rather clear charge, Mr. Slick, that you should not have invoked 1 Timothy 2:5 in your criticism of the Catholic practice of praying to the saints. It is, quite simply, an invalid prooftext that has been taken out of context.
I think Scripture speaks of Christ as mediator in that sacrificial sense – but I would not in any way object to Christ spoken of as ‘a’ mediator of prayer, even the final mediator of prayer. In my opinion, Revelation depicts the angel and the other saints presenting prayers on the throne, before Christ, and He then presents these prayers before the Father. So, all prayer must ultimately pass through Him, anyways.
Please feel free to respond in full when you get the chance. As I said, I would be more than happy to discuss some of the “side” issues with you separately – here I just wanted to address the proper application of 1 Timothy 2:5.
I am posting the contents of this email on my blog after I email it to you. Once you provide a response, I would like to post that there as well. If that is not acceptable to you, please let me know.
Thank you very much for your time. I hope that our discussion will be fruitful.
God bless.
- Sean Hutton
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