Hi, from a Lutheran perspective, I wanted to point out a few thoughts.
You said to read the book of Hebrews as a refresher on all things Saints. But what about Hebrews as the book which establishes Christ as our High Priest? The High Priest made intercession for the people of Israel atoning for their sins and standing in the most Holy Place, where the very presence of God was. Hebrews 7:25 "Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." I would argue that the book of Hebrews is more about Jesus being our high priest and intercessor rather than the book being about saints.
I would counter your citation of 1 Tim. 2:1-4 by going to 1 Tim 2:5 "...For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." I would argue that 1 Timothy 2:1-5 supports a Lutheran view rather than an Orthodox view of prayer to the saints.
Concerning the healing of the paralytic, it is unclear whether in Mark 2:5 when it said "And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic..." whether the "their" refers to the faith of only the paralytic's friends or the paralytic and his friends.
Also, does not John 16:23-26 advocate for direct prayer to the Father in the name of Jesus?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the Orthodox view of the saints is that you're basically "crowdsourcing" prayer to the cloud of witnesses. I don't mean that in a mean way, but as the best way to describe my understanding of what you're saying.
I think the Lutheran rebuttal to that is, we already have the Holy Spirit interceding for us (Rom 8:26-27), as well as Christ as our High Priest praying for us before the Father, so why go to the saints who are secondary to God Himself? We would also make a distinction between asking our living Christian friends to pray for us and asking our deceased Christian friends to pray for us. I hope this helps contribute to the conversation!
You said to read the book of Hebrews as a refresher on all things Saints. But what about Hebrews as the book which establishes Christ as our High Priest? The High Priest made intercession for the people of Israel atoning for their sins and standing in the most Holy Place, where the very presence of God was. Hebrews 7:25 "Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." I would argue that the book of Hebrews is more about Jesus being our high priest and intercessor rather than the book being about saints.
I would counter your citation of 1 Tim. 2:1-4 by going to 1 Tim 2:5 "...For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." I would argue that 1 Timothy 2:1-5 supports a Lutheran view rather than an Orthodox view of prayer to the saints.
Concerning the healing of the paralytic, it is unclear whether in Mark 2:5 when it said "And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic..." whether the "their" refers to the faith of only the paralytic's friends or the paralytic and his friends.
Also, does not John 16:23-26 advocate for direct prayer to the Father in the name of Jesus?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the Orthodox view of the saints is that you're basically "crowdsourcing" prayer to the cloud of witnesses. I don't mean that in a mean way, but as the best way to describe my understanding of what you're saying.
I think the Lutheran rebuttal to that is, we already have the Holy Spirit interceding for us (Rom 8:26-27), as well as Christ as our High Priest praying for us before the Father, so why go to the saints who are secondary to God Himself? We would also make a distinction between asking our living Christian friends to pray for us and asking our deceased Christian friends to pray for us. I hope this helps contribute to the conversation!
-Jacob
Dear Jacob,
First, let me thank you for your prompt well thought out response. As this is still a new venture for me, I wasn't quite sure how it was going to go and I'm happy this is the direction it went. Here we go!
Concerning Hebrews, you are absolutely correct. I went back and looked it over again and I really should've said Hebrews 12, not the whole of the book. Thank you for pointing that out! Hebrews is absolutely about Christ being the high priest, but we find some good things in there about the saints as well. A thought has also recently come to mind: If Christ is our High Priest and chief intercessor, could not the saints be priests--that is not a fully formed thought, and I'll explain why shortly. Either way, I'd like to do some research into the heirarchy of priests and high priests in ancient times. First I have to come up with a good translation of Flavius Josephus's writings, as I believe his histories may be able to shed some additional light on that subject. More on that on another date. Or perhaps not. If it doesn't come to fruition, I'll consider it a dead end and an ill-placed argument.
I'd have to agree with Josef on the point about 1 Timothy 2:1-5. I think when viewed as a whole they support the Orthodox view. For while Christ is the "one God and one Mediator between God and men," that fact does not mean that we should not pray for others, nor should we not ask them to pray for us. I see that particular verse as a statement of faith. It seems to me that Paul is saying, "Prayers and intercessions should be made for all men, including those in authority so that we can all lead a quiet and godly life. This is pleasing to God, and here's why. Because he wants everyone to be saved and know that Christ is truly God and truly man, our one link to the father, who gave himself for our sins. That's why I was appointed to teach you." In my mind that works a lot better than I am able to articulate it in text, but I'm hoping you understand what I'm saying.
Concerning the healing of the paralytic, at this point we're quibbling over word choice. Who knows if "their" is inclusive or not. One would assume that "their" in this context at least refers to a group of people, since if it only referred to the paralytic, the pronoun "he" would be used. And if it refers to a group, then it is still the collective prayers of the people, regardless of whether or not the paralytic is included in this statement.
Concerning John 16:23, again, you are absolutely correct. We should ask all things in His name. Soon I will share a letter that I wrote regarding the word "pray" and I hope that will clear a few things up there.
Finally, I don't think I would call it crowd-sourcing. Just as asking a congregation to pray for you is not crowd-sourcing. We're not saying that God doesn't hear each individual prayer or that he only pays attention to a group of people. But, "where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them" Matthew 18:20. I would argue that this includes the saints. And yes, I am fully aware of the controversy surrounding that passage, but I think the statement rings true even outside of judgement. In either case, this argument still doesn't hold any water if I don't explain why we see no distinction between the living and the dead in matters of prayer. That will come soon.
You may have noticed that I'm pushing a lot of things back to a later date. This is because I didn't think when I started this blog and picked the worst possible week to do so. Now that I am in the thick of Holy Week, I have very little time for anything. Rest assured, I will have more time to be thorough after Pascha.
Best,
Jacque
Dear Jacob,
First, let me thank you for your prompt well thought out response. As this is still a new venture for me, I wasn't quite sure how it was going to go and I'm happy this is the direction it went. Here we go!
Concerning Hebrews, you are absolutely correct. I went back and looked it over again and I really should've said Hebrews 12, not the whole of the book. Thank you for pointing that out! Hebrews is absolutely about Christ being the high priest, but we find some good things in there about the saints as well. A thought has also recently come to mind: If Christ is our High Priest and chief intercessor, could not the saints be priests--that is not a fully formed thought, and I'll explain why shortly. Either way, I'd like to do some research into the heirarchy of priests and high priests in ancient times. First I have to come up with a good translation of Flavius Josephus's writings, as I believe his histories may be able to shed some additional light on that subject. More on that on another date. Or perhaps not. If it doesn't come to fruition, I'll consider it a dead end and an ill-placed argument.
I'd have to agree with Josef on the point about 1 Timothy 2:1-5. I think when viewed as a whole they support the Orthodox view. For while Christ is the "one God and one Mediator between God and men," that fact does not mean that we should not pray for others, nor should we not ask them to pray for us. I see that particular verse as a statement of faith. It seems to me that Paul is saying, "Prayers and intercessions should be made for all men, including those in authority so that we can all lead a quiet and godly life. This is pleasing to God, and here's why. Because he wants everyone to be saved and know that Christ is truly God and truly man, our one link to the father, who gave himself for our sins. That's why I was appointed to teach you." In my mind that works a lot better than I am able to articulate it in text, but I'm hoping you understand what I'm saying.
Concerning the healing of the paralytic, at this point we're quibbling over word choice. Who knows if "their" is inclusive or not. One would assume that "their" in this context at least refers to a group of people, since if it only referred to the paralytic, the pronoun "he" would be used. And if it refers to a group, then it is still the collective prayers of the people, regardless of whether or not the paralytic is included in this statement.
Concerning John 16:23, again, you are absolutely correct. We should ask all things in His name. Soon I will share a letter that I wrote regarding the word "pray" and I hope that will clear a few things up there.
Finally, I don't think I would call it crowd-sourcing. Just as asking a congregation to pray for you is not crowd-sourcing. We're not saying that God doesn't hear each individual prayer or that he only pays attention to a group of people. But, "where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them" Matthew 18:20. I would argue that this includes the saints. And yes, I am fully aware of the controversy surrounding that passage, but I think the statement rings true even outside of judgement. In either case, this argument still doesn't hold any water if I don't explain why we see no distinction between the living and the dead in matters of prayer. That will come soon.
You may have noticed that I'm pushing a lot of things back to a later date. This is because I didn't think when I started this blog and picked the worst possible week to do so. Now that I am in the thick of Holy Week, I have very little time for anything. Rest assured, I will have more time to be thorough after Pascha.
Best,
Jacque
I would also like to thank you for your well-thought out and respectful response.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that we can and should pray for one another as saints here on this earth. I also agree with the communion of saints as per the Apostle's Creed. But I think that there are perhaps some logical jumps made that I with which I would not agree.
Admittedly, I have not done a thorough investigation of the interpretation of the phrase "communion of saints." But my understanding is that it refers primarily to the community of saints here on Earth, and secondarily to the community of saints in the church universal. Although communion and communication are similar in nature, I think they are two different words. "Communion of saints" is not interchangeable with "communication of saints" if by that you mean between the saints both living here on this earth and glorified in heaven. I think that certainly there is a unity of saints both living and glorified, but I still think there is an evident disconnect comparing living saints and each other, with living and glorified saints. E.g. I can call you and talk to you on the phone, I can't call my sainted grandfather and talk to him on the phone. Yes, we cannot talk to Jesus on the phone either, but then again, the Scriptures affirm that He hears us when we pray.
You have proven through many and various verses that we should pray for each other, and I agree. However, the only verse I could think of that explicitly supports the intercession of glorified saints would be 2 Maccabees 15:12-14. I'm not sure how the Orthodox consider the books included in the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) but not the Masoretic Text (Hebrew Old Testament) (e.g. Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, etc.). However, Lutherans consider those books to be apocryphal and do not give much weight to their claims.
Although we have reason to believe that the saints in heaven are praying. We have no assurances from Scripture that they hear us when we pray or are praying for us in the same way I pray for fellow Christians here on Earth.
However, the Scriptures are abundantly clear that Christ is the mediator between us and the Father. Many of these verses we have been citing speak of Christ as the mediator (1 Tim 2:5, Hebrews 7:25, Romans 8:34). Even James 5:16, who is the one righteous man who makes all righteous? Jesus Christ, our mediator, His prayers are powerful as they are working. Saints are nothing without the one who makes us holy, Jesus Christ.
I think to sum up my arguments, I would say that we as Lutherans deny that you can make (what I argue) is a logical jump from, 'If we pray for one another as saints here on earth, why can't the saints in heaven pray for us in a similar fashion?' If pressed, I would admit, that it could be possible that saints do intercede for us as you write because Scripture doesn't explicitly deny that. However, Scripture also doesn't explicitly affirm that, so why not stick with what we know, which is that Christ, God Himself, listens to our prayers and is our advocate before the Father. Why maybe interact with the priests (saints in heaven) when you are promised an audience with the High Priest (Jesus Christ)?
Quick rebuttal:
ReplyDelete"If pressed, I would admit, that it could be possible that saints do intercede for us as you write because Scripture doesn't explicitly deny that. However, Scripture also doesn't explicitly affirm that, so why not stick with what we know, which is that Christ, God Himself, listens to our prayers and is our advocate before the Father."
I think part of the problem here is that you and I view the world in different ways. You look at the fact that it's not explicitly affirmed and say, "stick with what we know." I look at the fact that it's not explicitly denied and say, "Well, the extra prayers couldn't hurt." And I continue to pray to God Himself while asking that the saints also pray for me. This is not the official stance of the Orthodox church, just my way of looking at it.
I think that's a fair assessment.
ReplyDeleteWe do know that the saints can hear us. As per the bible passage Luke (Luke 16:19–31), the rich man talks to Abraham, who is in heaven. Angels also talk to people in the bible (Gabriel to Mary). Abraham is a saint, he is in heaven, the angels are in heaven, God is in heaven. It seems that communication from heaven is not just reserved for God. If other saints are in heaven, they can communicate with us in the same way Abraham was able to talk to the rich man.
ReplyDeleteJoe, I like your thinking. I know that some would counter with the fact that the story of Abraham found in Luke is a parable, so I'm doing a little bit more digging. But I agree.
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