Saints Intercession: Look at Lazarus?

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Montie_Claunch

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I was talking to a fundamentalist gentaleman andhe pointed to the parable in Luke 16 with Lazarus and the rich man saying that Lazarus who was in heaven couldn’t help those on earth making the Intercession of Saints antibiblical. How should I respond to this? Thanks and God bless.
 
Montie_Claunch said:
I was talking to a fundamentalist gentaleman andhe pointed to the parable in Luke 16 with Lazarus and the rich man saying that Lazarus who was in heaven couldn’t help those on earth making the Intercession of Saints antibiblical. How should I respond to this? Thanks and God bless.
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Aside from the fact that the Rich Man was not appealing from Earth, that’s not what the passage says. Abraham says two other things:
  1. That Lazarus couldn’t cross over to where the Rich Man was.
  2. It would not have done any good for Lazarus to go warn the Rich Man’s brothers because they wouldn’t have believed him anyway.
 
Fidelis said:
Aside from the fact that the Rich Man was not appealing from Earth, that’s not what the passage says. Abraham says two other things:
  1. That Lazarus couldn’t cross over to where the Rich Man was.
  2. It would not have done any good for Lazarus to go warn the Rich Man’s brothers because they wouldn’t have believed him anyway.
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Also, from what the passage is implying, Lazarus wan’t in heaven anyway. It says that he was “carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham.” The gates of heaven were not yet open to human souls because Jesus’ perfect sacrifice hadn’t happened yet.
 
also, abraham flatly says that he *can’t *help the suffering rich man, because of the “great gulf” separating them (the rich man appears to be in hell, although this is not 100% clear).

BUT when the rich man then asks abraham to intercede on behalf of his still-living brothers, abraham doesn’t say, “i can’t,” but rather “i wouldn’t, because they have the prophets,” etc. (paraphrase).

the point being that the text suggests that abraham could have interceded on behalf of the rich man’s brothers, but simply chose not to for the reasons stated.
 
How do we know the gates of heaven were not opened yet? And how do we know that Abraham was not in heaven?
 
it’s the teaching of the catholic church that the gates of heaven were opened by Christ only after His death, as explained here.
 
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