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Paul is one of the Staff Editors at Matthias Media. He is married to Cathy and has three fantastic kids. He loves student ministry, reading, writing music and playing the saxophone, and is looking forward to meeting Jesus face to face.
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What about Revelation chapter five,. there we have the image of 24 elders offering up bowls of incense, ” which are the prayers of the Saints.” the 24 elders represent the Old and New Testament Church.
If the prayer of a righteous man availeth much..how much more the prayers of just men made perfect, who encompass us as a cloud of
witnesses.
They are not dead , they are alive in Christ Jesus and nothing can separate them from us.
That is what Communion of Saints means in the Nicene Creed.
Go to the catacombs and see the inscriptions..right from the beginning the first Christians prayed to the Saints and for the
dead.
I believe, Robert, that the key word in your description of Revelation 5 is ‘image’. It’s picture language emphasising that the whole of creation and in particular the whole people of God (as represented by the 24 elders) are offering praise to God.
This is not the same as dead saints interceding on behalf of living Christians.
Dear Gordon,
Whilst I think your explantion is plausible..one has to look at the consistant exegesis of the Scripture in Christian history.Seems a strange God, who would allow prayers for the dead in the normative Judaism of Our lords day, and early Christianity and then wait 1500 years to abolish them.
Hi Robert
I think you’ve misunderstood Revelation 5. The prayers of the ‘saints’ are the prayers of Christian people, still living on earth. That is the way the NT consistently uses saints (or, ‘holy ones’).
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