Communion of the Church "Militant" with the Church "Triumphant"

[wturri78]

I work at a Catholic university, and I always seem to end up talking about religion with someone around here when they find out with shock and amazement that I'm not Catholic. Recently the matter of prayer to saints came up with a coworker, and he defended it using the oft-repeated claim that they're not really praying to the saint, but more praying through the saint by asking them to interceded for us here on earth. And of course, the claim was given that it's no different than asking the person in the pew next to you for prayer. In the past I've always approached that from the angle of purgatory and merits, because that's inseparably bound up with prayer to the saints (and we don't typically seek merits from the guy in the pew!). However I was recently reading some material from an Eastern Orthodox perspective that also discussed prayers to saints, but in their case, they do not believe in purgatory, indulgences, treasuries and transfers of merit, or other such things. Yet the still make the claim that asking departed saints for prayer is the same as asking the saints on earth. "After all," one article said, "they aren't dead, just crossed over." So that really got me thinking...

They paint a picture of worship as involving the entire church, both here and in heaven--I believe I've read Reformed writers who describe our worship as taking place in heaven, or at least together with those glorified saints who are already there. Certainly there's some connection between those on earth and in heaven, and all are part of the body of Christ, and all worship (in fact, we could say they worship better because they are no longer corrupted by sin). Revelation paints some images of those in heaven worshipping God, and (possibly) interceding in some way in 6:9-11 (some see here a petition to end the suffering of those who still are being persecuted on Earth). I see nothing else in the NT that would definitively answer the question of whether those in heaven are aware of what goes on here on earth, or whether they do in fact interceded for us here in any way.

I guess my big problem with asking departed saints for intercession would be the plain fact that they're dead, at least to us, and cannot hear our petitions unless we grant to them (as creatures) some measure of omnipotence...yet, if we do have some "mystic sweet communion" with them (to quote a hymn) and worship together with them, it would seem as though some connection exists. Yet in the OT, attempts to communicate with the departed were punished quite severely and were considered divination. Reformer kings drove out spirit mediums when they brought true religion back to Israel. The story of King Saul communicating with the spirit of Samuel certainly didn't go well.

So my question for you all (or y'all, if we have any Southern Baptists here ) is: is there any reason to believe that it's possible or permissible to ask departed saints for prayer? To what extent can we consider ourselves in communion and fellowship with them? I'll admit, there's something more grand about the idea that our worship isn't just happening in a particular building on a Sunday morning, but is united to that of all other saints around the world, and to those who are worshipping the Lamb in heaven.

 

[Ivan]

...if we have any Southern Baptists here...

Oh, we do, indeed, we do.

 

[panta dokimazete]

Why do we need the intercession of saints when we have the intercession of Christ?

 

[rjlynam]

Why do we need the intercession of saints when we have the intercession of Christ?

that !

 

[Ivan]

Why do we need the intercession of saints when we have the intercession of Christ?

Exactly!

 

[Stomata leontôn]

is there any reason to believe that it's possible or permissible to ask departed saints for prayer? To what extent can we consider ourselves in communion and fellowship with them?

Read church history. Read historically accurate saints' lives. They are role models for us, we are members of the one body of Christ. But as others have already said, there is no need to pray to them when we can pray to God himself. Our trust is in him alone. That to me is more grand.

Is there a Bible verse that says the saints in Abraham's bosom can be aware of and answer the requests of thousands or millions of people over thousands of years?

And that's assuming that they can even see us and hear our prayers like God, the Infinite, can.

The following occurs to me. If millions around the world request Mary to "pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death" and she heard them all, wouldn't that make her omniscient?

 

[wturri78]

Why do we need the intercession of saints when we have the intercession of Christ?

Devil's advocate time...

Why do we need the intercession of the people in our churches when we have the intercession of Christ? Why ask anyone on earth or in heaven to pray for us when we have the intercession of Christ?

I think we'll need to go deeper with this one

(Boy, those little smiley faces are worth a thousand words, huh?)

 

[wturri78]

Read church history. Read historically accurate saints' lives. They are role models for us, we are members of the one body of Christ.

Agreed. In fact, this would be agreed to by RC and EO faithful also, many of whom really do study lives of saints for inspiration and guidance in the Christian life.

But as others have already said, there is no need to pray to them when we can pray to God himself. Our trust is in him alone. That to me is more grand.

Maybe not a need to pray to them, but maybe there's not a need for us to intercede for each other's needs here in the church, either...but Christ still commands us to make intercession for one another, and I can't help but wonder if that command still applies to saints who've gone to be with the Lord...why wouldn't they still be interceding for their brothers and sisters? Here's where the issue seems to get back to whether they're capable of knowing what to pray for, i.e. can they have any knowledge of what's going on down on earth (during election years, for their sakes, I hope not). We ask friends to pray for us, we ask family, we ask pastors and elders and deacons to intercede for us...it seems the "why would you want to anyway?" answer doesn't suffice by itself.

The following occurs to me. If millions around the world request Mary to "pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death" and she heard them all, wouldn't that make her omniscient?

I think that it would, in some way at least--RCs can and will speculate about departed saints being "outside of time" and before long start talking about mystery. I find that "mystery" often is a backdoor out of a logical difficulty.

 

[panta dokimazete]

We pray together and for each other to align our hope with the will of God and edify one another. It is also the commanded means by which we demonstrate our obedience and one means God has ordained to accomplish His will on earth.

 

[wturri78]

Is there a Bible verse that says the saints in Abraham's bosom can be aware of and answer the requests of thousands or millions of people over thousands of years?

Not that I'm aware of. Here's another place the RC (and maybe EO, dunno) claim to just be asking for their prayers also gets weak...you hit on whether they can "answer the requests," and those requests usually aren't just for prayer, but for things like "help me find my lost car keys (St. Anthony)" or "keep me safe while I'm driving to work (St. Christopher)." Here they're being called upon to actually act on our behalf, not just intercede so that God will act.

Regarding Abraham's bosom, it reminds me of the parable in Luke of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man finds himself in Hades, looking up to see the poor beggar at "Abraham's bosom" and they're depicted as communicating. A "great chasm" is fixed such that none can cross over, but evidently they can communicate...yeah, I know it's a parable and it probably can't be used to determine this issue, but still it makes one wonder...

 

[DTK]

I like very much what Chrysostom once said on the topic of "communion with the saints"...

Chrysostom (349-407): Praise the Lord, my soul. Let us sing this together with David: if he is not present in body, at least he is in spirit. For proof that the righteous are present with us, and sing along with us, listen to what Abraham says to the rich man: when he said, “Send Lazarus so that my brothers may learn what happens in Hades and put their affairs in order,” he replied to him, “They have Moses and the prophets.” Actually, Moses and all the prophets were long dead in the body, but in their writings they had them. After all, if a person sets up a lifeless image of son or dear one and thinks that person, though dead, is present, and through the lifeless image he imagines him, much more do we enjoy the communion of the saints through the divine Scriptures, having in them images not of their bodies but of their souls, the words spoken by them being of their very souls. Robert Charles Hill, trans., St. John Chrysostom, Old Testament Homilies, Volume Three: Homilies on the Psalms (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2003), Homily on Psalm 146.1, p. 116.

DTK

 

[wturri78]

We pray together and for each other to align our hope with the will of God and edify one another. It is also the commanded means by which we demonstrate our obedience and one means God has ordained to accomplish His will on earth.

You raise a very interesting point here that I hadn't considered...this issue is affected by how we view the nature and purpose of prayer itself. If the mindset is that God can be persuaded by more or longer prayers (which seems to be an almost universal view, at least in practice, among many people who pray), then the more people you have praying for you, the more likely God will be to answer your prayer or grant your request. I have heard a few Catholics say that prayers of saints in heaven are "more powerful" because they're "closer to God" (I assume they mean "closer" in terms of holiness, not proximity in heaven!). Maybe the more fundamental issue here is the nature and purpose of prayer.

If we pray to align our wills with God's will, there's little point in glorified saints praying at all--by definition their wills are already perfectly aligned with God's, right? Ala Augustine's non posse peccare .

Thanks for making this point...I really hadn't viewed it from this angle before.

 

[wturri78]

Here's an interesting quote from last Thursday's "Tabletalk" devotional:

"When we come into worship we enter into the heavenly sanctuary and join with the "spirits of the righteous made perfect" (Heb. 12:2-24). Though this reality is not apparent to our eyes, our worship includes not only the members of our individual church but Moses, Esther, Augustine, Calvin, and every other believer from histry are worshipping as well."

worshipping together...would this not include praying together? Hmmm...

Looks like Calvin is in some exclusive company!

 

[wturri78]

Summary of my thinking on this topic--your thoughts are appreciated!

After doing a lot more thinking, considering what’s been posted here, and talking to some brothers over the weekend, I think I’ve clarified my position on this topic of asking glorified saints to intercede for us. I’d really appreciate any feedback on my points here, since I’m sure this topic will come up again with people I work with.

1) Approaching any saint, living or dead, as another mediator is absolutely contrary to Scripture. There is but one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus Christ. There can be no other mediator between ourselves and the Father, nor between ourselves and the Son. Any Catholic who considers Mary to be a “co-mediatrix” with Christ is espousing extreme heresy.

2) Prayer is directed to nobody other than God in either the OT or NT, and we have no grounds on which to infer that prayer can be offered to anyone other than God. Asking a fellow believer to pray for us is NOT prayer to that believer, and therefore any request of a departed saint must be something other than prayer, which would imply there is some other means of communicating with the spirits of those who have died. They must be capable of hearing our requests for prayer, and of acting on them.

3) Any communication with a spirit other than God is strictly forbidden in the OT, and those who practiced such things were expelled from Israel if not executed. Such practices were the occupation of spirit mediums and necromancers, not of anyone among God’s chosen people. It was mixed into the pure worship of God by false prophets and wicked kings who sought to follow after other gods, or to achieve some sort of syncretism with the pagans. Reformer kings drove such practices back out of Israel.

4) The NT in no way implies that such practices are condoned (or even possible) in the age of the New Covenant, and the Church has no warrant for communicating with the dead for any reason.

5) Glimpses into heaven, such as the appearance of Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration, or of the glorified saints interceding for the suffering church in Revelation, show that those saints are conscious and are actively worshipping in the presence of God—we join with them in our own worship through a single and common mediator, Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the very “holy of holies” so that we may approach God. However, they do not allow us to conclude that these saints have specific knowledge of our needs on Earth, nor that they have some measure of omniscience to hear our requests.

6) The motive behind asking glorified saints to pray for us may betray a skewed understanding of prayer itself. It appears to flow from a “more the merrier” belief that God will be more likely persuaded to our cause if more people are praying for us (the same misunderstanding can occur with living saints, I suppose). It's also tied to an understanding that God is more persuaded by those who are more sanctified—that the prayers of those in heaven will carry more weight than the prayers of those on earth.

The whole matter of prayer probably belongs on a separate thread! I won’t go there now, but I think I have a clear enough understanding of why we are not to pray to, or through, the saints in heaven.

 

[Pergamum]

Even if we are not to pray TO or THROUGH the saints, cannot it not be said that the church in heaven prays FOR us as they worship God?

In John's Revelation the martyrs ask "How long oh Lord" as they seem to watch the world events unfold and wait for the Judge to judge the earth. God tells them to wait a little while until the full number of the martyrs is complete and gives them a robe to wear (not sure what they were wearing before....).

 

[wturri78]

It would seem as though the church in heaven does intercede for us (may intercede is probably a better way to say it) in a general sense...whether it can be any more specific than that seems iffy to me. So perhaps they pray for the church on earth while not praying for individuals. I still would conclude that there is no means by which they could be aware of our specific needs unless they have some manner of omniscience, as they cannot rightly be the objects of prayer. Anything beyond that basic contour would be speculation that goes beyond what we're told in Scripture.

I get the impression that "prayer" to saints arose pretty early in Christian history, but it seems likely that converted pagans would have continued in those practices (ancestor worship, etc.). It certainly wouldn't have been the first time in the history of God's people that syncretism snuck into Scriptural worship (high places, anyone?)

Any historians here care to comment?