Praying for others and Christ's mediatorship

[po18guy]

Moses was a mediator between God and man.

So they took up a position farther away and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we shall die.” Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid, for God has come only to test you and put the fear of him upon you so you do not sin.” So the people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the dark cloud where God was. The LORD said to Moses: This is what you will say to the Israelites: (Exodus 20:18-22)

Moses goes up and down the mountain at least five times that I could count, relaying messages between God and man, discussing it with each party, getting them to understand each other’s position, concerns and responsibilities under the covenant which is being proposed - mediating a covenant.

And that’s the point in Hebrews. Christ is the mediator of a covenant. That’s the whole point of Christ’s mediation - covenant. Christ can be the only one, perfect mediator of a covenant between God and man because only Christ is both God and man.

Whenever Scripture speaks of Christ’s mediation, it is always in the context of the covenant. That’s what Paul was talking about in 1 Timothy - the mediation of a covenant. Jews were covenant people. The covenant was everything to a Jew.

But Moses was also a mediator. The section heading above Exodus 20:18 in the NAB says “Moses accepted as mediator.” Moses mediated between God and man.

-Tim-

Isn’t our Lord sometimes referred to as the “new Moses” or “second Moses”?

Deuteronomy 18:15
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
A New Prophet Like Moses

15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet

 

[rbarcia]

Christ: Mediator
The Saints and us: Intercessors

Huge difference.

Christ also Intercessor.

Romans 8:34
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Hebrews 7:25
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Commands about praying for others is not a command for ME to ask others to pray (asking for intercession from people). It is a command for me to PRAY for others. Using verses that encourage prayer for others as justification for intercession from other people reverses the intent of the verse from thinking of others (I should pray for other people) to selfish (I should ask others to pray for me). So you cannot use verses that exhort us to pray for others as justification for praying to people who have died. They are all commands for the living.

If I as someone to pray to me, it is not because I am seeking intercession, but to uplift that person’s faith as I assume they are genuinely concerned for me.

1 Tim 2

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Old Testament prophets like Moses and Jeremiah (while they were alive) interceded for Israel because the Law demanded such.

But now under the New Covenant, Christ is our ONLY High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek, and therefore, we can:

What a great salvation and Savior Christ.

Hebrews 4:15-16
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

There is no longer a need to approach through any other way, except the way of Christ.

Christ is approachable, and loves us. No need to barter with someone who feel is closer because you lack faith enough to go to Him.

He already knows our Needs

Matthew 6
8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.

So to pray is to show your faithfulness, and to ask others is to help the other grow in their faith, not because I need some extra faith cause I do not have enough. Those in heaven live by sight, and do not need more faith.

 

[po18guy]

Christ also Intercessor.

Romans 8:34
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Hebrews 7:25
Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Commands about praying for others is not a command for ME to ask others to pray (asking for intercession from people). It is a command for me to PRAY for others. Using verses that encourage prayer for others as justification for intercession from other people reverses the intent of the verse from thinking of others (I should pray for other people) to selfish (I should ask others to pray for me). So you cannot use verses that exhort us to pray for others as justification for praying to people who have died. They are all commands for the living.

If I as someone to pray to me, it is not because I am seeking intercession, but to uplift that person’s faith as I assume they are genuinely concerned for me.

1 Tim 2

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Old Testament prophets like Moses and Jeremiah (while they were alive) interceded for Israel because the Law demanded such.

But now under the New Covenant, Christ is our ONLY High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek, and therefore, we can:

What a great salvation and Savior Christ.

Hebrews 4:15-16
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

There is no longer a need to approach through any other way, except the way of Christ.

Christ is approachable, and loves us. No need to barter with someone who feel is closer because you lack faith enough to go to Him.

He already knows our Needs

Matthew 6
8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.

So to pray is to show your faithfulness, and to ask others is to help the other grow in their faith, not because I need some extra faith cause I do not have enough. Those in heaven live by sight, and do not need more faith.

Christ is not limited. We are. He both mediates and intercedes, while we are limited to intercession. Just wondering: Who interpreted these scriptures for you?

 

[rbarcia]

Christ is not limited. We are. He both mediates and intercedes, while we are limited to intercession. Just wondering: Who interpreted these scriptures for you?

Interpret? I read English, so the Bible translators interpreted them.

Who interprets them for you. If you say the church, where do you go. Who interprets the words in the catechism (much more difficult to understand). What if I don’t understand the priest, who can interpret that.

All this notion of interpreting is silly. I don’t interpret the Bible and create my own meanings. I just obey what it plainly says. Interpreting scripture is something I don’t do:

2 Peter 1
20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God[c] spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

 

[po18guy]

Interpret? I read English, so the Bible translators interpreted them.

Who interprets them for you. If you say the church, where do you go. Who interprets the words in the catechism (much more difficult to understand). What if I don’t understand the priest, who can interpret that.

All this notion of interpreting is silly. I don’t interpret the Bible and create my own meanings. I just obey what it plainly says. Interpreting scripture is something I don’t do:

2 Peter 1
20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God[c] spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

I asked a simple question. No reason to be hostile. If interpretation is not needed, as you say, why is it spoken of in the very same bible?

 

[rbarcia]

I asked a simple question. No reason to be hostile. If interpretation is not needed, as you say, why is it spoken of in the very same bible?

Well, Peter’s context is prophecy in scripture and making up your own meaning. It is inline with what I am saying I don’t make up another meaning, I just listen to what it says. Many of Jesus’s parables are explained by Him after the fact.

When you interpret things not meant to be interpeted, you get silliness like people taking the creation story and trying to match it to evolution, when it plainly teaches the world being made in 6 days,

who is hostile, I answered your question.

 

[gnosisofthomas]

When you interpret things not meant to be interpeted, you get silliness like people taking the creation story and trying to match it to evolution, when it plainly teaches the world being made in 6 days,

There’s also something to be said for the silliness of taking a story that wasn’t meant to be taken literally, and treating it like a history lesson.

Anyway, I’m guessing from all the scriptural passages you posted, that you don’t believe we should ask the Saints to pray for us. But my question is, can I ask people at church to pray for me?

If so, what’s the difference?
If not, why?

 

[po18guy]

Well, Peter’s context is prophecy in scripture and making up your own meaning. It is inline with what I am saying I don’t make up another meaning, I just listen to what it says. Many of Jesus’s parables are explained by Him after the fact.

When you interpret things not meant to be interpeted, you get silliness like people taking the creation story and trying to match it to evolution, when it plainly teaches the world being made in 6 days,

who is hostile, I answered your question.

Example, what does the Hebrew word for “Days”, as used in Genesis, really mean?

 

[rbarcia]

There’s also something to be said for the silliness of taking a story that wasn’t meant to be taken literally, and treating it like a history lesson.

Anyway, I’m guessing from all the scriptural passages you posted, that you don’t believe we should ask the Saints to pray for us. But my question is, can I ask people at church to pray for me?

If so, what’s the difference?
If not, why?

If throw away literal creation, you throw away many other doctrines.

Verses like below then become meaningless since death would have entered the world billions of years before Adam sinned. Then Jesus’s salvation is also not literal?

Romans 5

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— 13 (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

 

[rbarcia]

Example, what does the Hebrew word for “Days”, as used in Genesis, really mean?

The Hebrew Word for Day is yom. The majority of uses in the old testament it is literal, and where it doesn’t, the context makes it clear.

The context of Genesis 1 clearly shows the days of creation were literal. yom is used with “evening” and “morning” Everywhere the Hebrew word for evening or morning is used with or withou yom, it is literal.

Whenever yom is modified with a number, one day, second day, etc… it is literal everywhere else in the Old Testament.

To deny the literal creation is to deny the work of Christ since all things were created through Him.

John 1:3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Jesus also affirms the existence of Adam.

Mark 10:6
But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’

Jesus is a descendant of Adam

Luke 3:38

the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Pretty clear

 

[gnosisofthomas]

If throw away literal creation, you throw away many other doctrines.

Verses like below then become meaningless since death would have entered the world billions of years before Adam sinned. Then Jesus’s salvation is also not literal?

Romans 5

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— 13 (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

I actually don’t believe Adam sinned, but that’s getting even more off topic than creationism… But, let’s look at this: “But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

If we take the plain meaning of St. Peter’s letter, then our concept of time means nothing to God. So the idea that the earth was created in six 24-hour days doesn’t make sense. Not to mention, the sun was created on the third day, so how could the length of a day be determined on days 1 and 2?

In any case, I’m still interested in whether you think it’s acceptable to ask other Christians to pray for me? That’s what this thread is really about.

 

[gnosisofthomas]

I actually don’t believe Adam sinned, but that’s getting even more off topic than creationism… But, let’s look at this: “But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

If we take the plain meaning of St. Peter’s letter, then our concept of time means nothing to God. So the idea that the earth was created in six 24-hour days doesn’t make sense. Not to mention, the sun was created on the third day, so how could the length of a day be determined on days 1 and 2?

In any case, I’m still interested in whether you think it’s acceptable to ask other Christians to pray for me? That’s what this thread is really about.

Sorry, the sun was apparently created on the fourth day, not the third. In any case, it says it was created to divide night from day, and mark sacred times, days, and months. Before the sun existed, how could determine the length of a day?

 

[TimothyH]

Isn’t our Lord sometimes referred to as the “new Moses” or “second Moses”?

Deuteronomy 18:15
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
A New Prophet Like Moses

15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet

Yes indeed.

***About eight days after he said this, he took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish *in Jerusalem. (Luke 9:28-31)

The exodus from Egypt was the defining moment in Jewish history. Many p3eopel miss this little detail which is only found in Luke’s version of the transfiguration. Jesus was to accomplish ***a new exodus ***which would be successful where the first exodus of Moses failed.

• The Israelites kept falling back into sin. Jesus gives mankind a way to escape the slavery of sin.
• Moses never crossed the Jordan. Moses never made it into the promised land. Jesus rose from the dead and entered heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father.
• The manna from heaven ceased after the exodus of Moses. The bread of angels, Jesus Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist continues after the exodus of Jesus.

You get the idea.

Jesus is indeed the new Moses. This is where we have to think like a Jew and remember that the Bible is a Jewish document through and through. The covenant was everything to the Jews. They were the people of the covenant with God.

Moses was mediator of a covenant, but his mediation was not perfect because Moses was just a man. Jesus was the perfect mediator of the perfect covenant between God and man because Jesus is both God and man.

As an aside, this is another reason why relegions which deny the divinity of Christ are not intepreting scripture correctly. Jesus is the one true mediator of the perfect covenant between God and man because Jesus ***is both ***God and man.

-Tim-

 

[TimothyH]

Interpret? I read English, so the Bible translators interpreted them.

Who interprets them for you. If you say the church, where do you go. Who interprets the words in the catechism (much more difficult to understand). What if I don’t understand the priest, who can interpret that.

All this notion of interpreting is silly. I don’t interpret the Bible and create my own meanings. I just obey what it plainly says. Interpreting scripture is something I don’t do:

2 Peter 1
20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God[c] spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

The Church does not interpret scripture for us but provides us with a framework for intepreting scripture correctly. We intepret scripture but we do so with ground rules which help prevent us from falling into error and when we do come up with an interpretation, we check it against the teachings of the Church, early Church Fathers, doctors of the Church, etc.

2 Peter 1:20 speaks about prophecy, intepreting prophecy. Not all scripture is prophetic.

To understand what scripture plainly says, you have to think like the Jews who wrote it and their intended audience. Scripture was written by Jews, mostly for Jews. This is where people go wrong. They don’t understand Jewish culture, politics, family life, social structures, economy, etc. and so they interpret scripture with a modern world-view and fall into grave error.

-Tim-

 

[CopticChristian]

**I actually don’t believe Adam sinned, but that’s getting even more off topic than creationism… **But, let’s look at this: “But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

If we take the plain meaning of St. Peter’s letter, then our concept of time means nothing to God. So the idea that the earth was created in six 24-hour days doesn’t make sense. Not to mention, the sun was created on the third day, so how could the length of a day be determined on days 1 and 2?

In any case, I’m still interested in whether you think it’s acceptable to ask other Christians to pray for me? That’s what this thread is really about.

Gnostic one,

If you deny that Adam sinned then you deny Holy Writ…

by one man’s disobedience sin entered the world…and if this is not true then there is no reason for one man’s obedience that has made us righteous and it then follows that

Our profession of Faith is for nothing
The Sacraments mean nothing
Life in Christ means nothing
and the topic of Prayer is a dead topic since if Adam did not sin and was not disobedient then there is no correlation with the obedience of Christ and the need to pray…

Your disavowing the sin of Adam creates difficulty with the notion of prayer for anything, after a God/man that died for what, if Adam did not sin?

Why are we praying for you if Adam did not sin?

 

[gnosisofthomas]

Gnostic one,

If you deny that Adam sinned then you deny Holy Writ…

by one man’s disobedience sin entered the world…and if this is not true then there is no reason for one man’s obedience that has made us righteous and it then follows that

Our profession of Faith is for nothing
The Sacraments mean nothing
Life in Christ means nothing
and the topic of Prayer is a dead topic since if Adam did not sin and was not disobedient then there is no correlation with the obedience of Christ and the need to pray…

Your disavowing the sin of Adam creates difficulty with the notion of prayer for anything, after a God/man that died for what, if Adam did not sin?

Why are we praying for you if Adam did not sin?

I don’t deny Holy Writ. But if by “Holy Writ” you mean your church’s interpretation of the Bible and the Genesis story, then yes, I deny it. However, if by “Holy Writ” you mean scripture, then scripture tells us that sin was not brought into the world by the act of man, but by the imperfection inherent in creation, and that eating of the Tree of Knowledge was the first act of Salvation (See the Apocryphon of John and/or the Hypostasis of the Archons).

Nobody had to die for anything. If you’re referring to Christ, His sacrifice was entering the limitations of matter for our sakes, not dying on a cross. He sacrificed His existence in the Fullness to save us from our existence in the imperfection of this world, from which sin is a result. This imperfection didn’t come about by the actions of a human being, it is a result of the flawed nature of the physical world.

Why would prayer depend on one man’s sins? When we live in a state of imperfection subject to disease, violence, and torment, prayer is a necessity.

And again I say, let’s not get off topic. The interpretation of the Genesis story has nothing to do with the intercession of saints. Although now that I think about it, it’s very relevant to Christ’s mediatorship, but I still think that’s a new and interesting topic entirely.

 

[po18guy]

The Hebrew Word for Day is yom. The majority of uses in the old testament it is literal, and where it doesn’t, the context makes it clear.

The context of Genesis 1 clearly shows the days of creation were literal. yom is used with “evening” and “morning” Everywhere the Hebrew word for evening or morning is used with or withou yom, it is literal.

Whenever yom is modified with a number, one day, second day, etc… it is literal everywhere else in the Old Testament.

To deny the literal creation is to deny the work of Christ since all things were created through Him.

John 1:3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Jesus also affirms the existence of Adam.

Mark 10:6
But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’

Jesus is a descendant of Adam

Luke 3:38

the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Pretty clear

What do Nehemiah 8:5-8 and Acts 8:26-35 mean?

 

[gnosisofthomas]

The Hebrew Word for Day is yom. The majority of uses in the old testament it is literal, and where it doesn’t, the context makes it clear.

The context of Genesis 1 clearly shows the days of creation were literal. yom is used with “evening” and “morning” Everywhere the Hebrew word for evening or morning is used with or withou yom, it is literal.

Whenever yom is modified with a number, one day, second day, etc… it is literal everywhere else in the Old Testament.

To deny the literal creation is to deny the work of Christ since all things were created through Him.

John 1:3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

How does evolution deny this? What if evolution is just what the process of creation looks like from our perspective, since we don’t have a bird’s eye view of eternity?

Jesus also affirms the existence of Adam.

Mark 10:6
But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’

Jesus is a descendant of Adam

This shows the creation of two sexes. That’s all. It’s a bit simplistic since it doesn’t account for people who are born hermaphroditic, but still…

Luke 3:38

the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Pretty clear

I still don’t see the connection between the necessity of a 6-day creation and Christ.

 

[rbarcia]

I actually don’t believe Adam sinned, but that’s getting even more off topic than creationism… But, let’s look at this: “But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

The Bible teaches Adam sinned. The fact that you do not believe it does not change it as the scriptures i posted teaches. You can look for secret meanings all you want, but it would be false.

If we take the plain meaning of St. Peter’s letter, then our concept of time means nothing to God. So the idea that the earth was created in six 24-hour days doesn’t make sense. Not to mention, the sun was created on the third day, so how could the length of a day be determined on days 1 and 2?

In any case, I’m still interested in whether you think it’s acceptable to ask other Christians to pray for me? That’s what this thread is really about.

Peter’s verses has to do with teaching that the Lord is patient, not wishing that any should perish. So you better repent of your false mysticism and your other sin, and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[rbarcia]

What do Nehemiah 8:5-8 and Acts 8:26-35 mean?

Ezra taught the people from the Law.

Acts 8:26-35 - Philip taught the Ethiopian eunuch that Jesus is the Messiah spoken of in Isaiah.

Who is denying the act of teaching? Especially during times where people had no access to the scriptures.

But the words of God, spoken or read mean what they mean.