# Douglas Kelly on the Martyrs



## greenbaggins (Feb 20, 2015)

This is a fascinating take on the martyrs, and not one that I had thought of in quite that way before.


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## Pergamum (Mar 6, 2015)

This seems to indicate that the saints see and are aware and intercede on behalf of events happening on the earth. Is this why the Catholics might have went even further with this concept and developed the practice of petitioning the departed saints for aid on our behalf?


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## VictorBravo (Mar 7, 2015)

I was thinking something similar is expressed in Hebrews 12--the great cloud of witnesses, and Hebrews 11:4, Abel "being dead, yet speaks."

These are true expressions of martyrs--"witnesses." Because they are a present-tense cloud of witnesses, in essence they cheer believers on by their testimony recorded in God's eternal word.

And, as noted by Kelly, they continuously convict the wickedness of the world in which we are running a race.


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 7, 2015)

Pergamum said:


> This seems to indicate that the saints see and are aware and intercede on behalf of events happening on the earth. Is this why the Catholics might have went even further with this concept and developed the practice of petitioning the departed saints for aid on our behalf?



I don't think the commentary necessarily indicates awareness of the saints in heaven of events happening on earth. I suppose it could but the scene is one of the saints praying for the vindication of their suffering. I think Rev 6 complements Rev 16 where the filling up of the blessing of the Christ's own coincides with the filling up of the bowls of wrath against those whom Christ will judge. I don't have the commentary but I think his comments can be construed as noting that there is a sense in which the saints in heaven still pray for the vindication of their suffering but it doesn't mean that they're necessarily praying on behalf of the saints who are still suffering on earth.

You are correct that some Roman Catholics appeal to this verse as support for their notion of saintly intercession. Of course that appeal is mostly retrospective to support a doctrinal conclusion they've already arrived at. The Roman Catholic teaching is that saints have earned an excess of congruent merit that is ours for the receiving in penance. They also have a sense that Mary and the saints can relate to us better and are better objects of intercession because God is more likely to listen and grant their intercession than their own. This pericope doesn't come anywhere near that idea but, like most Roman Catholics who want to "prove" that their doctrine is in the Bible, they don't really care much about exegesis.


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