As far as I understand it, the Roman and Eastern practice of praying to the saints in heaven is built on four biblical concepts.

1. That saints intercede for each other in prayer.
2. That all who die in Christ are alive with Christ in heaven.
3. That the saints in heaven mediate prayers to God.
4. That saints are instrumental in the salvation of others.

Let us proceed by showing love for our neighbor in presenting the best explanation for why some Christians engage in this practice.

Intercession of the Saints

A popular Roman or Eastern apologetic is to ask Protestants if they ask fellow Christians, on the earth, to pray for them. When the Protestant says “yes,” the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox says, “well, we’re just asking fellow Christians in heaven to pray for us.” They extend the intercession of the saints on earth, which all Christians affirm, to include the saints in heaven. All faithful Christians ask others, who are alive in the body, to pray for them. And all faithful Christians believe it is effectual. In this sense, virtually all Christians believe in the intercession of the saints.

Charismatics, in particular, relish and practice this. My pastor was part of the charismatic revival of the 70’s and in that movement was a recovery of monastic piety, though they weren’t consciously recovering this, it is what they were doing. They would have all night prayer vigils, where the members of the church would take shifts praying for various people and things. It was a form of medieval monastic liturgy of the hours or divine office. They did this, and continue to do this because, like our medieval fathers, they believe in intercessory prayer of the saints.

All Protestants believe in the intercession of the saints. And not a single Protestant thinks they are compromising Christ’s unique mediatorial, intercessory, role by affirming this. As Paul says, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5) This is a popular proof-text brought up by Protestants to push against the mediation of the saints in heaven, but yet it’s not problematic with mediation of the saints on earth.

Protestants are selectively applying this one Mediator principle, and we shouldn’t do that. Therefore I do not believe it is the best response to Rome and the East when comes to the intercession of the saints in heaven. This doesn’t mean one has to affirm the intercession of the saints in heaven by praying to them, but it does mean that appealing to Christ’s unique intercession and mediation is not the best counter-argument. Because all Christians have to affirm that Christ truly is the One Mediator, but that we as the body of Christ, participate in that mediation. Not in an ultimate sense, but in a participatory sense, only made possible by Christ and in Christ. This is biblical. It’s apostolic. It’s traditional. Whatever buzzword you want to use to affirm it as good and true.

We see Paul encourages lower forms of mediation through prayers, intercessions, etc., ” “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good, and pleasing to God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:1–4) Paul affirms the intercession of the saints. James says, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.” (James 5:16-18) There are numerous passages which affirm the orthodoxy of intercessory prayer. And Protestants believe these things harmonize with Christ being the One Mediator between God and men. So, since Protestants, like Papists and Eastern Christians acknowledge sub-mediators beside Christ, the Protestant appeal to Christ as the One Mediator against the practice of prayers to saints in heaven fails to land as a powerful objection.

I take no issue with saints interceding on our behalf and in Christ, the One Mediator. No problems so far. We are still in the realm of lower c catholic belief. We are still in the realm of affirming a truth that all small o orthodox Christians believe.

Alive in Christ

Paul indicates that when we die our souls go to be with the Lord. “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:8) This is said in a passage mainly on the resurrection, but I think it probably means that the souls of the elect go to heaven in the intermediate state of death and resurrection. We see that the souls of the martyrs are in heaven in Revelation. So, we can say that all those who die in Christ are alive in Christ. That they are alive with Christ in heaven. Sometimes, Romanist and Easterners will affirm this and then quote Jesus who said, “For He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (Luke 20:38, parallel passage in Mark 12:18-27). However, Jesus is clearly talking about the resurrection in this passage. So, while the thrust of these passages is really focused more on the resurrection, when paired with Revelation, I think it is correct to believe the souls of the faithful are with the Lord in heaven while we are absent from our bodies. The point is, we are alive with Christ in heaven after we die.

Some might think about the thief on the cross being together with Jesus in paradise after he died, but paradise at that point is part of Hades. That may sound strange to you. But Jesus isn’t referencing heaven there. The realm of the afterlife between death and resurrection is complicated and not totally clear in Scripture, especially because Scripture appears to teach that things are reorganized after Christ’s death, descent into Hades, resurrection, and ascension. We won’t get into all that now. But the bottom line is that I think all can reasonably affirm that our souls go to be in heaven with Christ immediately after parting from our bodies in death.

The Communion of the Saints

Things get tricky once we start getting into the realm of the communion of the saints. The Roman and Eastern churches, along with many other Protestant traditions (Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presybterians, and others), acknowledge the fullest expression of the communion of the saints. That the saints on earth and in heaven are joined together in the mystical unity of Christ’s body. And Christians on earth, along with the angels and Christians in heaven, are joined together in the worship of Christ, especially in corporate worship on the Lord’s Day.

The main texts for this come from Hebrews and Revelation. In Hebrews, Paul says, “We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” (Hebrews 12:1) presumably referencing all the faithful old covenant saints he just finished listing, and most likely all faithful believers who have finished the race. And in speaking to a worshiping Christian body, he says, “you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant.” (Hebrews 12:22-24) Traditionally, to my understanding, the letter to the Hebrews is thought to have been a sermon delivered at the church assembly, and this passage is in reference specifically to the spiritual ascent into heaven during corporate worship. The ancient call and response of the sursum corda is an acknowledgement of this reality. “Lift up your hearts!,” the minister says. “We lift them up to the Lord!,” the people say, signifying their ascent and union with the heavenly hosts in worship.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says women should wear a covering on their head, a symbol of the man’s authority over her, for the sake of the angels. (1 Corinthians 11:10) This comes in a passage where Paul is ordering the liturgical structure and symbolism of corporate worship. It is perhaps suggested as a response to the intermingling of fallen angels and women of Genesis 6, but it may not be. Either way, if the angels are taken to be heavenly angels, and not human messengers of the gospel, it makes a connection between earthly and heavenly worship. He appears to be ordering the woman to cover their heads to signal a message to angels in heaven of who their covering is, of who is in authority over them. This practice of women covering their heads in worship was practiced for 1900 years, and then we stopped in the last century, a century characterized by remarkable expressions of female submission to the patriarchy. *sarcasm*

The worship of heaven is further revealed in Revelation. It’s interesting that Revelation has been used in the past century for wild and false speculation about the end of the world. But traditionally, the book of Revelation, while having an inherent eschatological purpose and message, has also been used as a liturgical text. After all, John tells us in the opening sentences, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” (Revelation 1:10) This has been interpreted to mean all kinds of things, but I take it to mean he was worshiping on Sunday indicated by “on the Lord’s Day” and I would also push it further and say that he was in some kind of charismatic manifestation, not unlike the ones many Christians sneer at, indicated by being “in the Spirit.” He then sees Jesus who gives guidance, commendation, and threats of violence to the seven churches in Asia minor. By chapter 4 John begins seeing into heaven, and seeing what the worship in heaven looks like, which you might rightly describe as high church, or liturgical. There is an altar, and incense, and robes, and antiphonals. Upon entering the pearly gates, I think the Puritans will be (were) in for a shock!

In the midst of all this, we see that saints and angels have some kind of mediating role in offering up the prayers of the saints, presumably the prayers of the saints on earth, or the prayers of the saints in heaven, or both, at the altar in heaven before the throne of God.

 John says, “Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Revelation 5:8)

The incense handled by these creatures and the elders is the prayers of the saints, presumably the prayers of the saints on earth. Later we see incense offered up with the prayers of the saints at the altar by an angel.

“Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.” (Revelation 8:2-4)

We also see that the souls of the martyrs seem to be aware of what is happening on earth to an extent, or at least God’s interactions, in this case judgments, on the earth.

 “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?'” (Revelation 6:9-10)

So, the Roman and Eastern churches string together these biblical observations. Saints prayerfully intercede on behalf of others. The prayers of a righteous man effect much. The righteous who die are alive with Christ in heaven. In heaven, the saints mediate our prayers. Therefore, we can ask the saints in heaven to pray for us, just like Protestants ask the saints in their earthly churches to pray for them.

Mediators of Salvation

There might be something to this, but then we see that not only do Romanists and Easternists ask the departed saints to pray for them, they ask the departed saints to save them. “O, Mary, Mother of God, save us!” is a prayer in those churches.

The justification for such prayers comes from several passages describing saints saving others.

We see Paul trying to save his Jewish brothers.

“For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.” (Romans 11:13-14)

We see Paul speaking of his attempt to identify with whoever he is evangelizing so that he might save as many people as possible.

“I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” (I Cor. 9:22)

Paul speaks of believing husbands and wives possibly saving their estranged non-believing spouses by remaining single and waiting for reconciliation.

“For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?” (I Corinthians 7:16)

Paul exhorts Timothy to save himself and others through sound living and doctrine.

“Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” (I Timothy 4:16)

James says the prayers of faith will save the sick.

“The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” (James 5:15)

Jude makes a distinction between ministering with compassion on some and ministering with fear on others, and that by doing so, one can save them from fire.

“On some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.” (Jude 22)

I can envision a biblically illiterate Protestant taking issue with these statements. If their friend said something like Paul, “I do all I can, so that by all means I might save some!” I can easily imagine a Protestant rebuking him and saying, “Only Christ saves people. You don’t do anything!” A kind of holier than the Bible for Calvinism maybe. But the Bible does affirm that saints and their efforts are instrumental, though not the final cause, in the salvation of others.

So, these verses inform why these traditions ask the saints in heaven to save them through their prayers. In addition to this, there is a long history of the practice, that we won’t go into here. But if you survey this practice in history, it appears to develop over time from an acknowledgement and honoring of the saints in heaven, especially the early martyrs, and their union with the church on earth. This then becomes more and more embellished in various devotional practices as time goes on.

A Reformed Catholic Evaluation

The strength of the Roman and Eastern tradition is that it highlights the entirety of the Church on earth and heaven. I would affirm this. We are united in the mystical body of Christ. And I would affirm that God uses means, or mediators in salvation, and that this finds its ultimate source of mediation in Christ, who is the one Mediator between God and man. We cannot do anything apart from Christ. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) And Christ is pleased to use branches, to use human instruments and sacramental means to bring about that salvation. Preaching, teaching, prayer, baptism, the Lord’s Supper are all means of grace, means of salvation. I even also affirm that John saw the saints, and angels, and fantastical creatures mediating prayers by their censing of the altar in heaven.

However, I do not think the Biblical witness is strong enough to justify prayers to the saints in heaven. What happens to particular souls in the time between death and resurrection, what the soul is capable of knowing, and doing, is largely unknown in Scripture and to us. We simply are not given a lot of information about it. I am not a regulative principle guy. I am a normative principle guy. So even though I do not believe we need explicit command for all worship practices, we do need reasonable biblical precedent and principles to justify them. And nowhere in Scripture do we see anyone praying to departed saints. All prayers are directed toward God alone. And the passages used to justify the practice, to my mind, are not strong enough to outweigh the regular mode of prayer found in Scripture. Especially because the passages used to justify prayers to the saints in heaven are not passages about prayers to the saints in heaven. It’s just not there. Even the scenes in Revelation of the altar being censed by angels and saints does not indicate the prayers were to those saints or angels. They may be mediating prayers, but those prayers are in all likelihood, if we consider the entire flow of Scripture, directed toward God. The practice is so far removed from the original intent and context of these few passages that it gives me a great amount of pause, and I simply cannot endorse the enthusiastic and prominent role it plays in the Roman and Eastern traditions. They come to me and say, “This is really important!” But I just don’t think it is.

When Jesus teaches us to pray, He directs our prayers to the Father (Matthew 6:5-15; Luke 11:1-13). “When you pray, pray like this: Our Father, who is in heaven…” Furthermore, Jesus affirms that it is the Father who sees you pray in secret. “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” (Matthew 6:6) Jesus is instructing us not to pray ostentatiously in public so as to be seen by and receive the accolades of men. That is His main point. But the point also affirms that it is the Father who sees us in secret. He makes no mention of the saints in heaven seeing or hearing our prayers. Perhaps they do, but Jesus doesn’t think they are important enough to mention when he teaches on prayer. What he does mention and affirms as fact is that the Father does. No speculation or possibilities here. He does hear and see us in our private prayers.

All the prayers we see in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. From the prophets of the Old Testament to the Apostles in the New is directed to God. There is no petitioning of the saints in heaven, except for maybe one or two instances in the Apocrypha, if I remember correctly. What we see over and over is petitioning and mediation of saints who are alive in the body. Time would fail me if I were to show all these examples, but any regular Bible reader knows this is the regular mode of prayer and mediation throughout all of Scripture. This focus is also profoundly incarnational. In Scripture, we see God’s working in history finds its source in heaven, but works itself out in flesh and blood, with living breathing saints, who have dirt under their fingernails and sweat on their brow. Asking your pastor or your Christian brother to pray for you, who knows you, who rebukes you, who encourages you, who labors for the edification of your soul, whose faults and weaknesses can be seen by you is very different than asking an idealized, and most likely false conception of Mary or the departed saints to pray for you.

From a pastoral perspective, the reality on the ground, is that people do not pray much, or frequently, or fervently. And so as a pastor, the wise move is to direct people, who don’t often pray, to pray to God alone when they do, who we know for a fact hears our prayers. We know that Christ wants us to pray to the Father. We know that this is in fact who all the saints in Scripture directed their prayers to. Why would we substitute that for a possibility? Why would we add another practice that may not even be effective? Why would we want to crowd out what is certain with what is thinly derived speculation? I think the balance is overwhelmingly in favor of doing what we know rather than hoisting possible distractions and what is most likely vain prayers onto the people of God.

Paul says that “In [Jesus] and through faith in Him we may enter God’s presence with boldness and confidence.” (Ephesians 3:12) He is exhorting us to approach God ourselves with confidence. He says this all over the place in Hebrews. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16) Let us! Let US draw near. Paul tells us of the realities of the New Covenant for all believers, “I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them…” (Hebrews 10:16) The law of God is on our hearts and in our minds. Paul is putting this on us. He goes on, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:19-25) Again, he is exhorting the Christian to approach God himself through Christ and in holiness. And then he encourages the faithful to engage with each other in exhortations and stirring each other up in love and good works. God has placed us in communion with living, breathing, saints in time and place. And Paul is concerned with those relationships, that mediation, that communion. Of course, Rome and the East would affirm all of this, too. But then they add this aspect of saints in heaven and their mediation for us, which is simply not a primary concern of practical piety for Jesus and the Apostles and Prophets. The overwhelming testimony of Scripture is that prayers always go to God alone, and that our secondary mediation is with the saints on earth.

With respect to the prayers of righteous man availing much and the prayers of faith healing the sick. The context is about elders in the church praying for the sick. Not departed elders. The context is about Elijah praying for drought and rain while he was alive in the body, not about his prayers after he was taken into heaven. These particular principles may be applied to saints in heaven, but that isn’t what James is talking about. And it isn’t what we see anywhere in Scripture.

The main takeaway I believe we need to derive from these passages is that we must be holy. We must be righteous. We must strive to become those righteous men whose prayers effect much. To bring in this endless petitioning of saints in heaven is a distraction that cultivates lazy spirituality. Instead of striving and wrestling in prayer yourself with God, you basically delegate it to someone else. Hey do this work for me. Wrestle with God for me. But God is warrior who delights in the violence of your wrestling with Him. He wants you to wrestle Him like Jacob wrestled Him and receive His blessing. He doesn’t want you deflecting to others constantly. Of course, we can ask others to pray for us. But the way we see this happen in Scripture is that others who are alive in the body are the ones who pray for us, and minister to us. And the reason for that, in part, is because those people will wrestle with you, too. They will argue with you, counsel you, exhort you, rebuke you, encourage you. The blessed souls of the faithful in heaven don’t do that. The blessed souls of the faithful on earth do.

Lastly, the passages about saints saving people are all about living embodied saints. The thrust of all these passages, the main take-away is not to beg others to save us, but to become the kind of person that saves others. If your spouse leaves you, remain single and pray for reconciliation yourself, so that you might save the spouse who deserted you. Exercise discretion in using compassion and fear in order to save people. Be accommodating with the weaknesses of others so that by all means you might save others. You do all YOU can to save others. Paul says imitate me as I imitate Christ. That means when Paul says I become all things to all men that I might save some, then you should become all things to all men that you might save some. Not, well Paul and others are so righteous, let me develop a speculative piety that relies on others to save me. Paul’s command to Timothy is to guard sound doctrine so that he might save himself and other. It wasn’t guard sound doctrine which begs for the saints in heaven to save you through their prayers. It’s such a deviation from the essence of these passages. And I think it is a less manly form of practical holiness. The manly thing God calls us to is to be that righteous man. To be a powerful saint. To interact with people who will push back.

Each of these four concepts in Scripture are true on their own and in reference to embodied saints. Intercession, being alive in Christ after death, the communion of the saints, and the instrumentality of salvation. But the application of these truths in praying to the saints in heaven is, to my mind, a distraction and deviation from how the Scriptures intend these truths to be applied. And so I think the best and wisest way to move forward is to recognize the full communion of the saints in the mystical body of Christ in heaven and on earth. But that we ought to focus our energies in prayer to God alone, in our own holiness and sanctification so that we will become effective intercessors in Christ, and in ministries to embodied people in time and place, so that we may save as many people as possible.