JOB 33:21 His flesh wastes away to nothing, and his bones, once hidden, now stick out. JOB 33:22 His soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the messengers of death. JOB 33:23 "Yet if there is an angel on his side as a mediator, one out of a thousand, to tell a man what is right for him, JOB 33:24 to be gracious to him and say, Spare him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom for him'-- JOB 33:25 then his flesh is renewed like a child's; it is restored as in the days of his youth . JOB 33:26 He prays to God and finds favor with him, he sees God's face and shouts for joy, he is restored by God to his righteous state.
Clearly here we have an example of an Angel acting as a mediator for a man who is about to die from sickness and sin and yet by the Angels mediation the man is restored to his health and his righteous state. By virtue of the Angels persuading intercessory prayer to God to have mercy on the man, the man was spared death.
JER 15:1 Then the LORD said to me: "Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go!
This is in the negative but clearly shows that departed saints go before the very throne of God and make intercessory prayer for those of us on earth.
The unique Mediatorship of Christ thus no more prevents our brother and sister Christians in heaven from praying for us than it prevents our brother and sister Christians here on earth from praying for us. It is intercessory prayer in both cases.
Talking to those in heaven is not forbidden. In fact, it is encouraged, for in the Psalms we pray to the angels to ask them to join us in worshipping God:
JN 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" ( Guess not.)
John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace {be} unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne."??????? {cf. Rev 3:1; 4:5; 5:6} The seven angels participate in the giving of "grace" and peace by God . Some Protestant commentators, aware of a certain difficulty here for their position, seek to redefine the "seven Spirits" as the Holy Spirit, but a check with the cross-references above (inc. Tobit) make this implausible. Other commentators accept these spirits as the seven archangels of Jewish angelology, as indeed they appear to be. 3) Revelation 5:8 and 8:3-4?? "And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four {and} twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints." ? "And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer {it} with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. (4) And the smoke of the incense, {which came} with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand." The saints (he 24 elders are regarded as dead Christians) and angels lay the prayers of the Christians on earth at the feet of God; that is, they are praying for them and acting as intercessory intermediaries. Thus, the propriety of invoking them logically follows from the plain fact of their intercession. This is identical to the Catholic teaching. Protestant commentaries scramble to come up with some alternate version of what is taking place here, straining at gnats, rationalizing, and splitting hairs. It is amusing to find that often these Protestant works will vehemently maintain that the Catholic view is definitely not taught in a particular Bible verse, while rarely offering a plausible or coherent alternate explanation! Protestantism accepts the superior knowledge of angels and their ability to understand and influence our thoughts (see 1 Cor 4:9), yet illogically deny that we could ever ask them for their aid, since they construct a false dichotomy whereby invocation of any being beside God is somehow always and necessarily idolatrous. Here, in these passages, dead saints are also exercising the same function as the angels. Yet, if we can't ask either type of being for their intercession, it seems that we could not pray for each other either, since the "invocation" of a saint or angel simply means asking them for their prayers to God, not as beings who are capable of answering the prayers in and of themselves. The Protestant argument, then, proves too much and must be discarded. 4) Revelation 6:9-10??? "And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: (10) And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"? {cf. Zech 1:12} These dead Christian martyrs are uttering what are known as "imprecatory prayers," pleas for God's judgment of the wicked and vindication of the righteous (e.g., see Ps 35;69;79;109;139; Jer 11:18 ff.; 15:15 ff.; 18:19 ff.; Jesus in Mt 26:53). Thus, dead saints are praying for Christians on earth, and, by logical extension, can be asked for prayers. They are aware of earthly events (Heb 12:1), and are more alive, unfathomably more righteous (Jas 5:16), and obviously closer to God than we are. They need not be omniscient to hear our prayers, but merely out of time. It makes no less sense to ask for their prayers than to request those of any person on earth. In fact, the prayer above was answered by God who hastens the end of the age (8:1-5). Therefore, if the prayers of the Christians in heaven is so important in this instance, one can only imagine their immense weightiness in the overall scheme of things. 5) Matthew 18:10?? "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." The notion that every person has their own guardian angel, who has direct access to God, is strongly implied. If Jesus said He could have asked for the assistance of an angel (Mt 26:53) - and He certainly would not have been worshiping them in so doing - then we, who need their help infinitely more than He, can do the same without necessarily engaging in idolatry (anything can become an idol if we let it). Nor will it do for Protestants to equate the Intercession of the Saints with the communication with evil spirits by means of a medium or other occultic techniques. This is nonsense. The Communion of the Saints is nothing more than the recognition that saints after death (and angels) are more alive than us, aware of happenings on earth, desirous of aiding us, and able to be asked for help and to assist us with their prayer and intercession. 6) Dead Saints Appear on Earth to Interact With Men Not only does God not want a prohibition of contact between saints in heaven and on earth, but He goes so far as to allow, on several occasions as recorded in the Bible, dead saints to return to earth for this very purpose! These are instances accepted by Protestants, but their implications are only fully developed within Catholicism. We find, for example, Moses and Elijah appearing on the Mount of Transfiguration to talk to Jesus, while Peter, James, and John were present (Mt 17:1-3 / Mk 9:4 / Lk 9:30-31). Likewise, the two "witnesses" of Rev 11:3-13 are saints who had come back to life, thought by many commentators to be, again, Moses and Elijah, and by others, Enoch and Elijah. Thirdly, the prophet Samuel (not just a demon impersonating him) appears in 1 Sam 28:7-20,? as the great majority of commentators hold (the "Apocryphal" book Ecclesiasticus makes this clear - 46:13,20). "Many bodies of the saints" came out of their graves after Jesus' Resurrection and went into Jerusalem, appearing to many (Mt 27:50-53). Lastly, Jeremiah returns to earth (2 Maccabees 15:13-16). All of these occurrences involve long-dead figures (as op-posed to other resurrections such as Lazarus and Jairus' daughter), and demolish the notion of Protestantism that there is an unbridgeable gulf between heaven and earth - a sort of spiritual "Berlin wall." There is no such bridge, according to the Bible, because there is only one Church and Mystical Body of Christ, and death cannot affect the communion between its members of whatever estate. It's interesting to note that Moses and Samuel, who together appear in two and perhaps three of the five examples above, are renowned among Jews and Christians for their powerful intercession (Ex 32:11-12; 1 Sam 7:9; Ps 99:6; Jer 15:1 - implied after-death prayer). In all cases, much communication takes place with people on earth. Samuel talks to Saul and Saul replies; Peter, James, and John may have heard Moses and Elijah talking to Jesus (it's unclear); the two witnesses prophesy for three and a half years (obviously including conversation), the resurrected saints of Mt 27 "appeared unto many," presumably talking with them as did Jesus in His post-Resurrection appearances; and Jeremiah spoke to Judas Maccabeus. In light of these scriptural facts, how could anyone contend that God forbids such interaction, allowing only that between man and God, and men with men on earth? God could easily have disallowed any of these occurrences if they were indeed "contrary to the unique mediatorship of Jesus Christ." In conclusion, we find, then, that all the elements of the Catholic doctrines of the Communion of Saints are undoubtedly found in the Bible, and not just in the Deutero-canonical books, for all to see. 7) The Veneration of Saints? Devotions to angels and saints no more interfere and corrupt the incommunicable Glory of the Eternal God and Creator than does the love we have towards friends and relatives. A tender and healthy attachment to the saints will give vent to feelings in the language of hyperbole, just as human lovers wax eloquent in their romantic praises of each other, never intending to literally worship the object of love and affection.
