Praying to Dead Saints?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Truthstalker
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
IHS said:
Heavenly Saints would have to be omnipresent in order for them to hear our prayers. Only God(Trinity) is omnipresent.
Click to expand...
Saints don’t need to be omnipresent any more than you need to be omnipresent for someone to contact you via telephone, fax or internet, or for you to contact them. All you need is a means to communicate and you can reach pretty much anyone anywhere any time, and they you.

Since the departed saints are still members of the body of christ, just as we are, his headship gives us the ability to communicate with the heavenly saints, and they with us. Just as the limbs and organs of a body communicate with each other via the central nervous system.
 
LilyM said:
Saints don’t need to be omnipresent any more than you need to be omnipresent for someone to contact you via telephone, fax or internet, or for you to contact them. All you need is a means to communicate and you can reach pretty much anyone anywhere any time, and they you.

Since the departed saints are still members of the body of christ, just as we are, his headship gives us the ability to communicate with the heavenly saints, and they with us. Just as the limbs and organs of a body communicate with each other via the central nervous system.
Click to expand...
Whats the purpose of communicating with the saints in heaven when we can go directly to Jesus. Jesus says whatever you ask my Father in my name it shall be granted to you. We have a direct line of communication with our Heavenly Father.😉
 
When you have a problem, do you ever ask your fellow church members to pray for you? How is that so different from asking those who are in heaven to pray for us?
 
geezerbob said:
When you have a problem, do you ever ask your fellow church members to pray for you? How is that so different from asking those who are in heaven to pray for us?
Click to expand...
Church members pray to the Father in Jesus name.Thats what Jesus told us to do.
 
IHS said:
Whats the purpose of communicating with the saints in heaven when we can go directly to Jesus. Jesus says whatever you ask my Father in my name it shall be granted to you. We have a direct line of communication with our Heavenly Father.😉
Click to expand...
First of all there simply is more power in a group of people praying for each other than in individuals praying for themselves - ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst’.

Christ teaches us to pray for each other - that’s why it’s the ‘Our Father’ and not the ‘My father’, because we are praying for the needs of all of God’s children and not just ourselves as individuals 😉

St Paul certainly teaches and requests us to pray for each other. St James commands those who are ill to seek the blessings and prayers of the elders in order to be healed - and also gives a reason why, for ‘the prayers of a righteous man availeth much’ (can’t find the cite, sorry).

Who is more righteous than the glorified saints in heaven?
 
LilyM said:
First of all there simply is more power in a group of people praying for each other than in individuals praying for themselves - ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst’.

Christ teaches us to pray for each other - that’s why it’s the ‘Our Father’ and not the ‘My father’, because we are praying for the needs of all of God’s children and not just ourselves as individuals 😉

St Paul certainly teaches and requests us to pray for each other. St James commands those who are ill to seek the blessings and prayers of the elders in order to be healed - and also gives a reason why, for ‘the prayers of a righteous man availeth much’ (can’t find the cite, sorry).

Who is more righteous than the glorified saints in heaven?
Click to expand...
Nowhere in scripture is one commanded to pray to saints in heaven.Whenever the word saints are mentioned in scripture it refers to earthly living saints.John14;13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,that will I do that my Father may be glorified in the Son. Is there any reason to go to any other when Christ tells us clearly to ask Him.
 
IHS said:
Nowhere in scripture is one commanded to pray to saints in heaven.Whenever the word saints are mentioned in scripture it refers to earthly living saints.John14;13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,that will I do that my Father may be glorified in the Son. Is there any reason to go to any other when Christ tells us clearly to ask Him.
Click to expand...
So you never ask others to pray for you, and you refuse to pray for others?
 
IHS said:
Heavenly Saints would have to be omnipresent in order for them to hear our prayers. Only God(Trinity) is omnipresent.
Click to expand...
What you claim, that saints would have to be omnipresent, is simply not true. For that to be true, people praying to saints would have to be everywhere, absolutely everywhere. But of course that isn’t the case. I know, for example, that there are no people on the moon praying to the saints.

But in fact, scripture records that God allows those in heaven to hear the prayers of every single creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth and in the sea. Kind of shoots your argument down.
 
Pax said:
Intercessory prayer by way of the heavenly saints is clearly different than necromancy. The use of the occult such as fortune tellers, augurs, séances and the like are far different from prayer to the saints. Saul’s use of a “medium” to “conjure up” Samuel is by its very nature different from intercessory prayer.

Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration and the apostles saw them and heard them. Surely, Jesus wasn’t breaking his own commandment. Angels communicate with people and we will be like angels. Surely, there is nothing evil in any of this.
Click to expand...

Saul was acting disobediently by consulting the “witch of Endor” in the first place - but our relationship with the Blessed in Heaven results from the working of the grace of Christ, Who brings life to those whom He redeems: His Life. Which is what unites all Christians in time & space (the damned are not Christians, so don’t count - they are not in the Church). Any Christian not in God’s grace is scarcely better off than a zombie - it is only those in God’s grace & Love on earth who can be in communion with the Church in Heaven. And there is no grace or love except from Christ.​

To compare conjuring up the dead - something most strictly prohibited to Catholics as a mortally sinful superstition - to the communion of the Church in Heaven & earth with God & one another, is like comparing cyanide to wine. One is deadly to the Christian who is guilty of it, the other renews and refreshes & brings health. Even to try conjuring up the dead, or to search into the future, is a human attempt to pry into those things which God has reserved to Himself - but to pray to the Blessed in Heaven, is for one part of the indivisible & unbroken Body of Christ to communicate with another part of that same Body, which is not a pile of disconnected parts, but a single living organism, living on earth, yet in no way limited to it; any more than the life of the individual Christian on earth, is limited to earth: he is a “sojourner on earth” - & “seated in the heavenlies in Christ”. Not one or other, but both, simultaneously. And what is true for one Christian on earth, is true for all.

As for those in heaven, in the very Presence of God which they can never lose but in Which is “fullness of joy at [His] right hand for ever” - to talk about them as “dead” is meaningless. It is sin that kills - not communion with God in Christ in Heaven. God does not have the same effects as sin - for a human being to be with God in heaven is to be eternally conformed to Jesus Christ. To talk of “dead” saints, implies that Jesus Christ brings death to those whom He loves, or that the very Presence of God is deadly to those who love Him.

The practice of praying to the Blessed whom we cannot see is in principle no different from praying for those Christians on earth of whom one knows nothing. We do not have to see, in order to love. If we can love Christ Whom we have not seen - why must it be necessary to see those who are His, whom we have not seen ? He cannot be separated from His own Body, for which while it on earth He does not cease to intercede.

And we also are to pray for other Christians on earth, even though we do not know whether this or that Christian is in the grace of Christ. The Blessed OTOH are beyond doubt wholly united with Christ, & cannot sin against Him; they are wholly in His Love, for eternity. They see God face to face. ##
 
VociMike said:
What you claim, that saints would have to be omnipresent, is simply not true. For that to be true, people praying to saints would have to be everywhere, absolutely everywhere. But of course that isn’t the case. I know, for example, that there are no people on the moon praying to the saints.

But in fact, scripture records that God allows those in heaven to hear the prayers of every single creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth and in the sea. Kind of shoots your argument down.
Click to expand...
If you call gathering the golden vails which are the prayers of the earthly saints and presenting them into the throne room hearing our prayers. Hearing and presenting are two different things.
 
IHS said:
If you call gathering the golden vails which are the prayers of the earthly saints and presenting them into the throne room hearing our prayers. Hearing and presenting are two different things.
Click to expand...
I think you are really working at making a distinction where there is none in order to hold to your position. Somehow they must present the prayers without hearing them? I don’t think so.

In Revelations there is the scene of the saints under the altar crying out to God concerning those on earth: interceding. Knowing what is happening. We pray for those we love. Those in heaven love those on earth. They pray. They know what is happening here. They pray for us. We can ask them to pray for us.
 
Truthstalker said:
I think you are really working at making a distinction where there is none in order to hold to your position. Somehow they must present the prayers without hearing them? I don’t think so.

In Revelations there is the scene of the saints under the altar crying out to God concerning those on earth: interceding. Knowing what is happening. We pray for those we love. Those in heaven love those on earth. They pray. They know what is happening here. They pray for us. We can ask them to pray for us.
Click to expand...
They know because the holy Angels record it and bring the news to them in heaven.
 
IHS said:
If you call gathering the golden vails which are the prayers of the earthly saints and presenting them into the throne room hearing our prayers. Hearing and presenting are two different things.
Click to expand...
Rev 5:13: And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all therein, saying, “To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!”

And the person who heard all this was somebody who wasn’t even perfected in heaven yet.
 
IHS said:
They know because the holy Angels record it and bring the news to them in heaven.
Click to expand...
Please supply backup, including a verse that says that those in heaven do not hear those who are on earth. Also the verse that states that the holy Angels record it and bring the news because the saints cannot hear it otherwise.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top