bookofconcord.org/smalcald.php#invocationofsaints
Luther’s complaint here has more to do with abuses, it seems, than of invocation itself. Regarding invocation, here essentially repeating Melanchthon’s comment in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession that:
Moreover, even supposing that the saints pray for the Church ever so much, 10] yet it does not follow that they are to be invoked; although our Confession affirms only this, that Scripture does not teach the invocation of the saints, or that we are to ask the saints for aid. But since neither a command, nor a promise, nor an example can be produced from the Scriptures concerning the invocation of saints, it follows that conscience can have nothing concerning this invocation that is certain.
The concern is the requirement to invoke the saints, without a command, promise, or example from scripture. Were the requirement to believe and/or practice removed, EC’s position is not in contradiction to the confessions, IMO. In many ways, I share it.
Jon
Let’s examine if there is biblical support for the invocation of Saints…
OK, so if agree that it is a useful and salutary practice to pray for one another; fully aware that there is but one mediator (1Tim2:5), we understand that when we are praying to Jesus for one another, we are not violating this biblical rule because Christ is still the one mediator. Where we disagree is whether it’s appropriate to pray to Saints in heaven. I am confident, that what I have given you from scripture will be appropriate for you to see, that an institution that has been around for 2,000 years did not last that long (with no standing army) by being fraudulent and allow us to pray in vein to people that have no hope of hearing our prayers.
As a Catholic, I believe in the communion of Saints as we profess in our Creed. As Christians we believe in life after death. In fact, we believe that you are never more alive than when you are in heaven. So we first have to look at whether or not they could even hear us. Looking to Rev 5: 8, where John depicts the saints in heaven offering our prayers to God under the form of “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints”. But if the saints in heaven are offering our prayers to God, then they must be aware of our prayers. They are aware of our petitions and present them to God by interceding for us. Prayers aren’t a tangible item, they are offered to God mentally, which means the Saints are praying and they CAN hear our petitions.
Rev 5:8 is plenty of proof that the invocation of Saints is practical and biblical. Further, contact with the dead is biblical (Matt 17:3). What God has forbidden is the necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits (Deut 18: 10-15). Of course there was Gen 48 when the holy Patriarch Jacob, on his deathbed, prayed for his two grandchildren: “ May the angel that delivers me from all evils bless these boys”. Here he is asking the angel in heaven to obtain a blessing for his grandchildren. We certainly can’t expect that he’d be so ignorant as to pray to one that could not hear him. Further, we have the angel Raphael, after having disclosed himself to Tobias, said to him: “Tobit, when you and Sarah prayed to the Lord, I was the one who brought your prayers into his glorious presence.”(Tob 12:12). This was an example of an Angel, but Jesus declared that the saints in heaven shall be like the angels (Matt 22:30).
Some other examples of Saints intercession: Abraham interceding for Sodom and Gomorrha, Moses interceding for Israel against the Amalekites, the story of Job: Jobs friends were commanded by God to intercede: “Go to My servant Job and offer for yourselves a holocaust, and My servant Job will pray for you and his face will I accept”.
The Israelites believed, like us, that the saints after their death were occupied with praying for us. In 2Macc 15:14 we read that Judas Maccabeus, the night before he was engaged in battle with the army of Nicanor, had a vision, in which he beheld Onias, the High-Priest, and the prophet Jeremiah, both of whom had been long dead. Onias appeared to him with outstretched arms, praying for the people of God. Pointing to Jeremiah he said to Judas Maccabeus: “This is a lover of his brethren and the people of Israel. This is he that prays much for the people and for the holy city, Jeremiah, the Prophet of God”. In the sequel vision, Jeremiah(long dead) handed his sword to Maccabeus, with which the prophet predicted that Maccabeus would conquer his enemies. In Zech 1:12-13 we see the prophet Zachariah recording a prayer that was offered by the angel for the people of God, and the favorable answer which came from heaven.
