What's the consensus?

IMHO, they do, because the great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12 cannot be deaf if they are to witness for us to the Lord...

swimmerbabe11 said:

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shrug.. I'll find out when I get there.
When I was a child, I would pray that God with hand the phone off to my Meme so that i could talk to her for a bit.
But, I know her heart would hurt knowing some of the things her kids and grandkids have been through. Maybe. Maybe not.

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I am with you.

I think they do not. They aren't omnipresent like God so they can't hear everything that is going on. They might know some of what is going on. (Heavenly gossip, haha)

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They aren't omnipresent like God so they can't hear everything that is going on

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1 Corinthians 6:17 says that they are united with Jesus, and 2 Peter 1:4 says that they are partakers in the divine nature..

Thaddeus73 said:

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They aren't omnipresent like God so they can't hear everything that is going on

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1 Corinthians 6:17 says that they are united with Jesus, and 2 Peter 1:4 says that they are partakers in the divine nature..

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Both of those passages address Christians still alive. Are you omnipresent?

Frok said:

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I think they do not. They aren't omnipresent like God so they can't hear everything that is going on. They might know some of what is going on. (Heavenly gossip, haha)

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Plus they don't have ears until the resurrection.

Thaddeus73 said:

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Both of those passages address Christians still alive. Are you omnipresent?

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Saints in heaven are not dead..Luke 20:38...Those passages don't make the claim that they are only for those of us embodied here on earth..You make that claim...

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Claim: those who are united with Jesus, such as the Corinthians, and those who are partakers in the divine nature, such as the recipients of 2 Peter, are omnipresent.

So I ask again, are you omnipresent?

Luke 16

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 "There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,

21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.[f] The rich man also died and was buried,

23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.

24 And he called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.'

25 But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.

26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.'

27 And he said, 'Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house

28 for I have five brothersso he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.'

29 But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'

30 And he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'

31 He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'"

The majority of those who have passed are in a deep sleep. The are a few exceptions. (Enoch, Elijah, Jesus)

Observations from the Lords Prayer. Note: Jesus wasn't giving us a prayer to repeatedly recite but an example as to how we should pray.


5 "When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
7 "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
9 "Pray, then, in this way:
'Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 'Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
11 'Give us this day our daily bread.
12 'And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 'And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.']

To the points about confessing our sins one to another I wouldn't say this is prayer.

nortex97 said:

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This is one of those fair questions for a Christian, but in general I think it will break down along denominational lines.

I think the RCC/Orthodox will largely agree that they do:

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THE INTERCESSION OF THE SAINTS

The intercession of the saints and Mary on behalf of Christians on earth was easily rejected. "That isn't in the Bible," he says, without further elaboration.

In saying this, John actually posits a fundamental distinction that is unbiblical. It is clear that living believers are to pray for each other:

(1 Timothy 2:1) First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,

It is also clear that the prayer of righteous people is powerful:

(James 5:16) Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

In order to say that the Saints cannot pray for us, one must argue that (1) They are totally dead and unconscious or at least (2) They are alive in Christ but are unaware of what is happening on Earth.
The first point (known as soul sleep, held to by Jehovah's Witnesses and a minority of Protestants) is easily rejected. The Lord says:

(John 11:25-26) Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
St. Paul speaks of his state after death and before the resurrection on the Last Day in this fashion:

(Philippians 1:23) My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

We know then, that the Saints are conscious. The question is whether they are conscious of what we are doing on Earth. St. Paul seems to answer in the affirmative:

(Hebrews 12:1) Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
The great "witnesses" of the faith "surround" us and encourage us to run the Christian race. This is inexplicable if the Saints are not aware of our progress in the Christian race. St. John in his Apocalypse records:

(Revelation 6:9-10) When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"

If the martyrs are aware of the judgments being poured out on Earth, then they must be aware of the business of Earth.

So, if (1) We are to pray for one another, (2) The prayers of righteous people are effectual in a special manner, (3) and those "with Christ" in Heaven are conscious of our progress in the Christian race and know what we are doing, then why would we not ask for their prayers as well? Why would we split the Body of Christ into two? In fact, when the Book of Revelation shows us what the Saints seem to be doing in Heaven, it accords perfectly with the Orthodox practice.

(Revelation 5:8) And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. [saints, in this context, means all Christians]

All prayer, even that offered through a Saint, is ultimately offered to God. A Saint can do nothing of his or her own power, but only by the power of God. We ask for the intercession of the Saints. In this passage, we see "the prayers of the saints" being offered to God is offered by the twenty-four elders, understood by most exegetes to be the Twelve Patriarchs of the Old Covenant and the Twelve Apostles of the New.

Revelation then says:

(Revelation 8:3) And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne,
Hence, we see what the Church teaches: The Saints of both Covenants, along with the Angels, offer the prayers of Christians on Earth to God.

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Contrarily, the protestant posters/members will likely believe otherwise, regarding intercessory prayer to the deceased/saints, often also citing Revelation. The (relatively) old doctrine of 'soul sleep' is really the underpinning, imho, outside of the textual biblical references:

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A final reason for denying prayer to the saints is the idea of soul sleep, historically a very important Protestant doctrine. (William Tyndale and Martin Luther in particular.) This is the belief that the souls of the departed are not conscious between death and the Last Day, and so they are incapable of intervening by prayer on our behalf.

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both the Old Testament Hebrew sheol and the New Testament Greek term Hades refer to the common grave of mankind. Thus, they do not infer any concept of natural immortality of the soul at physical death. Old Testament passages like Ecclesiastes 3:19-21; 9:5, 6; 12:7; Job 14:10-12; Psalm 115:17; and others are often quoted to buttress this position.

New Testament passages such as Matthew 9:24; Mark 5:39; John 11:11-14; Acts 7:20; 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; and 2 Peter 3:4, where dead people are referred to as "sleeping" or "asleep", are also utilized as proof that the dead are now in a sort of unconscious state of nonbeing. The term "sleep" (Greek: Koimao or Katheudo) was a common biblical euphemism for death. Paul used it only in reference to believers in Christ who had died.

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Many recognize that the Bible teaches a coming resurrection. The traditional argument is that the immortal soul departs into bodiless yet conscious existence at death and that the resurrection is the raising up of a renewed body in the future for the soul to reinhabit. This concerns what is called the intermediate state of the deadthe nature of existence between the death of the body and the future resurrection.

Given the biblical comparisons to sleep, some disparagingly refer to belief in this intermediate state of unconsciousness as "soul sleep." Yet this is simply taking Scripture for what it says, whereas belief in a disembodied soul in the afterlife came not from the Bible but from pagan religion and philosophy.

Some have recognized the truth of this matter for centuries. It would no doubt greatly surprise many of today's Protestants to learn that key figures they view as heroes of the faithnamely Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation, and William Tyndale, who suffered martyrdom for his monumental work of translating the Bible into Englishwrote against the immortality of the soul and against the idea of conscious awareness in death. These men were teachers of soul sleepas were the inspired writers of Scripture, such as the apostle Paul.

In 1517 Martin Luther posted his famous 95 Theses regarding the errors of the Catholic Church. In defending many of these later in 1520 he listed the idea "that the soul is immortal" as among "all these endless monstrosities in the Roman dunghill of decretals" (Assertion of All the Articles of M. Luther Condemned by the Latest Bull of Leo X, Art. 27, Works of Luther, Weimar ed., Vol. 7). Luther's main concern in this was the Catholic conception of the conscious torment of souls in purgatory, which he rejected.

Not long afterward he wrote: "It is probable, in my opinion, that, with very few exceptions indeed, the dead sleep in utter insensibility till the day of judgment . . . On what authority can it be said that the souls of the dead may not sleep . . . in the same way that the living pass in profound slumber the interval between their downlying at night and their uprising in the morning?" (Letter to Nicholas Amsdorf, Jan. 13, 1522, quoted by Jules Michelet, The Life of Luther, translated by William Hazlitt, 1862, p. 133).

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Both sides have good arguments, imho, so hopefully this can remain a civil discussion.

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