Praying to the Saints in heaven

The Book of Revelation gives us a mystical picture of our prayers delivered at the throne of God:

“The Lamb came forward to take the scroll from the right hand of the One sitting on the throne, and when he took it, the four animals prostrated themselves before him and with them the twenty-four elders; each one of them was holding a harp and had a golden bowl full of incense made of the prayers of the saints.”

The heavenly ones hear our prayers and appeal on our behalf because the body of Christ, those ascended and those of us living here are in communion with each other by the power and grace of God.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jesus Ignores Sola Fide; Prefers Loving Care For Community

Jesse is making heavy weather of 16th century theological notions that contributed to the formation of protestantism. Especially, lately, the principle known as sola fide, coined by Martin Luther. There are a few serious misreadings that Jesse has inherited but remains ignorant of: he’s not an educated scholar. Principally that Paul’s totalizing concern in the 1st century church was the escalating tension between the increasingly dominant gentile christian community and the original Jerusalem church of Jews. Paul was adamant that Christian gentiles not be made to observe Jewish law as necessary for redemption. 16th century Protestant reformation used this discourse of St Paul’s to critique the Roman emphasis on the call of faith to all christians to be actively willing disciples and join in the caring for community that is at the heart of Christian practice. Luther began the effort to elasticize St Paul’s dialectic of Law into an attack on 16th century Catholic moral systems of casuist...
Read more

Not a book

In John 14, Jesus makes clear that after him the Holy Spirit will come to us, as his disciples, to “teach us everything” and to build us up in love. No mention of a book. A lot of bible worshippers love idolatry. So what is scripture for? Exactly what it does: to point us to the Incarnation of God, Jesus the Christ, and to the sustainer of faith and love, God the Holy Spirit. With God the Father, then, scripture tells us to worship the Holy Trinity. Not itself. Scripture even itself encodes the teaching that faithful attention to God’s revelation will build wisdom beyond scripture: In Acts 11, Peter rushes back to Jerusalem to explain to the elders that he accepted Gentiles Christians only after the Holy Spirit has to berate him 3 times to so. “Now the apostles and the brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.  So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him,   saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men an...
Read more