Should You Ask the Dead
to Pray For You?
I
will now describe from Scripture how the practice of asking the faithful departed
to pray for us was a common and valid ancient practice and continues to be a source
of spiritual blessing for us today.
I
myself grew up in a Christian community that did not approve of asking the
departed to pray for us. In the course of my scriptural and historical studies,
I discovered that the practice had been largely misunderstood by us Protestants
and was supported by both the Bible and early Jewish and Christian writers. I
will present for you the arguments for and against the practice and let you
make up your own mind.
If
you are part of the Protestant tradition (as I also once was), your religious
leaders will tell you that the practices I describe in this book are wrong.
They may even tell you they are demonic. I will treat in this chapter all the
various verses of Holy Scripture they are likely to quote as they attempt to
refute my claims. And I will tell you why they are simply wrong.
But
I do want, out of Christian charity, to tell you that your leaders assert what
they do out of a concern for your spiritual wellbeing. They sincerely care for
you and want you to avoid practices they believe are wrong. They are, however
and unfortunately, defending a position that has cut itself off from the
life-blood of ancient and historical Christian practice as it was passed down
from Jesus to the Apostles. I will explain all of these things in this chapter.
Prayers for the Dead
I’ve
focused on addressing the deceased and asking them to pray for us. But I have
also mentioned the practice of praying for them in this book. The Western
Church has tended to view praying for the dead as something primarily
associated with helping our loved ones through a state of purification called
Purgatory. The Eastern Church also prays for the dead but is inclined to
describe prayer for the dead as simply an act of love for them. I will not address
the wider topic of Purgatory here, but I do want to show readers not acquainted
with the concept that praying for the dead is fully biblical.
In
2nd Timothy 1:16-18, St. Paul makes mention of Onesiphorus, who seems from
context to have died. Here is what he writes:
May the Lord grant mercy
to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me. He was not ashamed
of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he looked for me eagerly and he found
me. May the Lord grant him mercy from
the Lord on that day.
St.
Paul here makes a simple prayer that God grant mercy to the soul of a loved one
who has fallen asleep. And I make that same simple prayer for all my ancestors,
following his example.
I
have not quoted in this book any of the books that the Christian Church
traditionally included in her Canon but which were removed by Protestant
Churches at the time of the Reformation. If you are interested in seeing yet
another defense of praying for the dead, see 2nd Maccabees 12:40-45.
The Argument Against Saint
Intercession
The
condemnation of Saint (and Ancestral) Intercession has historically involved
the following claims.
1) Saint Intercession is
wrong because we should only pray to God
2) We cannot know
whether the dead hear our prayers
3) The practice is not
described in the Bible
4) The practice is
actually directly condemned in the Bible
5) We should not ask the
departed to pray for us because we should have no mediator except Christ
I
will demonstrate, from the Bible as my primary source, that none of these five
claims are true. After addressing each of these claims directly, I will then
explain why, in the end, we may safely accept the practice of Saint
Intercession simply because the
Historical Church practiced it. In the end, after all the biblical arguments, I
will show that rejecting the practice of the Historical Church is a rejection
of the Bible itself. And so, let’s look now at the claims against Saint
Intercession.
1) Saint Intercession is wrong because we should
only pray to God
When
early Jews and Christians asked their ancestors to “seek mercies” on their
behalf, they were not “praying” to them in the modern sense of that word.
Protestants
in particular bristle at hearing people use the term “pray to saints” because
the verb “to pray” has evolved in English to mean “speak to God.” And so on
their ears the phrase “pray to saints” sounds like Catholic and Orthodox have
made the saints into minor deities, which is not at all the case.
In
older English, “to pray” merely meant “to ask.” Shakespeare repeatedly used the
phrase “I pray thee” in dialogue between two humans, with the meaning simply of
“I ask you.”[1]
Even
so, clearly the verb “to pray” has now taken on a divine connotation, and that
is why in this book I carefully describe asking the deceased to pray for us
using exactly those words “asking the deceased to pray for us.”
And
so, for the record, Saint Intercession is not prayer to a deity. There is One
God. If someone’s understanding of English insists that the verb “to pray”
means only “to talk to God,” then we do not “pray” to Saints! When we ask the
departed to pray for us, we are doing the same thing as when we ask a living
person to pray for us. A valid criticism would indeed involve whether that dead
human can even hear the request for prayer. But it is not fair to condemn Saint
Intercession on the grounds that it is turning the dead into gods.
2) We cannot know whether the dead hear our
prayers
Before
I do present biblical passages that tell us that the departed can indeed hear
us when we ask them to pray for us, I would ask how do we know whether God even
hears our prayers? We don’t. But we must have faith. My point is, it is a
natural and comfortable impulse to speak to our beloved dead who have gone to
sleep in the Lord. Is it really so easy to believe in God and to believe He
hears our prayers, but then difficult to believe in a God who grants us, out of
Love, a continual communion with those we love but have gone to their reward?
The
faithful departed are not gods. They are not omnipotent or omniscient by their
own nature, so the only way they can hear us ask them to pray for us is if God
grants them this blessing.
Fortunately,
the Bible teaches us quite clearly that God has indeed granted them this
precious gift, which deepens the Communion of the Saints, both living and dead.
Those
who condemn Saint Intercession claim that the Bible does not provide any evidence whatsoever that those in
heaven can hear our prayers or know what is happening on the earth. Let’s see
if this claim is true.
Scripture Teaches That
The Angels in Heaven Can
Hear Us!
Consider
the following.
Jesus said, “There is
joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10)
And
so, the angels are indeed aware of what goes on in the human realm.
Here’s
another verse that proves the angels are well aware of what happens on Earth:
See that you do not
despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels
always behold the face of my Father who is in Heaven. (Matt 18:19).
Now,
Jesus told us that those who have died will be “like angels in heaven.” (Matt
22:30) And so, if the faithful departed are like angels, and the angels clearly
do know what happens on earth, then it follows logically that the faithful
departed know what happens here as well.
While
this logical argument is valid, it would still be nice to find verses in the
Bible directly describing the faithful departed as being aware of the prayers
of those still on earth.
Scripture Teaches That
The Saints in Heaven Can
Hear Us!
In
the Book of Revelation, we read:
Each of the elders held
a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy
ones. (Rev 5:8)
The
“holy ones” here is evidently referring to the prayers of the “saints” of the
Church, at this period still a reference to all Christians, living or deceased. [2] So the
prayers of the “holy ones,” visible to those in heaven, are the prayers of the
living.
We
also read in the Book of Revelation:
Another angel came and
stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a large amount of
incense to offer, along with the prayers
of all the holy ones, on the gold altar which was before the throne. The
smoke of the incense along with the
prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel.
(Rev 8:3-4)
The
Book of Revelation further describes the early Christian martyrs as asking God
when they would receive justice. They ask Him:
How long will it be,
holy and true master, before you sit in judgment and avenge our blood upon the
inhabitants of the earth? (Rev 6:10)
This
passage implies that the early Christian martyrs, in the presence of God, are
well aware that they have not yet received the justice they feel they are due.
How do they know this unless the faithful departed are, by the grace of God,
allowed to know what happens on earth?
Yet More Evidence
The
Rich Man asked Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his still living five brothers.
Abraham replied:
They
have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them. (Luke 16:29)
Abraham
in this parable is apparently well versed in the lives and activities of Moses
and the Prophets, men who lived and served God hundreds of years after Abraham’s
own life and death.
The Most
Important Evidence of All That
The
Faithful Departed Can Hear Us
Finally,
and perhaps most importantly, St. Paul proves quite definitively that the
faithful departed know what happens in the earthly realm when he teaches us:
Now I know in part. Then
I shall know just as I also am known. (1 Cor. 13:12)
When
St. Paul writes, “just as I am known,” he of course means just as God knows
him. And if he is claiming that in the afterlife he will know “just as he is
known,” he is indeed claiming that the faithful departed will enjoy secondary
omniscience of the world they have left.
What
I mean by secondary omniscience, is that the faithful departed know all,
not by their own power, but by the power of God.
And
so, Holy Scripture describes the Faithful Departed (as well as the angels) as
being aware of the world they have left. We may confidently say that, if we ask
one of them to pray for us, they know of our request. Again, the Faithful
Departed are not gods. They know nothing of their own power. By the grace of
God they are made aware of communications to them.
And
so, the claim that the Bible contains no evidence whatsoever that the faithful
departed know what happens on earth is quite clearly wrong.
And
so, let’s examine the next claim against Saint Intercession.
3) The practice is not described in the Bible
Again,
those who condemn Saint Intercession live in a world of absolutes. They are
claiming the position that the Bible contains
no reference whatsoever to addressing the angels or the faithful departed.
And so, if we can find even one example
of it in the Bible, this claim is disproven.
We
read in Psalm 103:20:
Bless the LORD, O you
His angels, you mighty ones who do His word.
One
could argue that an address to the angels in the book of Psalms is purely
poetic, with no theological implication to be implied. Indeed, we also read in
Psalm 148:2-3 another invocation of angels but also of inanimate objects:
Praise Him, all His
angels, praise Him, all His host! Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all you
shining stars!
Once
again we face the issue that those who condemn Saint Intercession start by
claiming there is no reference whatsoever on a certain topic. And then, when an
example is shown, then some might decide there must be some reason to ignore it
and declare that this particular example doesn’t count.
The Faithful Departed
Are Addressed
in the New Testament!
What
if the Bible itself gave us an example of addressing, not just the angels, but
the blessed departed of our faith?
Read
the following from the Book of Revelation 18:20, which describes the scene
after the destruction of Babylon:
Be glad over her, O heaven, O saints, apostles, and prophets,
for God has given judgment for you against her.
This
a clear example in the Bible advocating a direct address, not of angels
poetically, but of the faithful dead of the Church. The parallel between “O
heaven” and “O saints, apostles, and prophets” makes it unmistakable that this
passage is depicting a direct address to the departed heroes of our faith.
So,
far from providing absolutely no
evidence whatsoever that those in heaven should be directly addressed, the
Bible abounds in it.
On
to the fourth claim condemning Saint Intercession.
4) The practice is actually directly condemned
in the Bible
This
claim is true if, and only if, Saint Intercession, as it is practiced in the
Catholic and Orthodox Churches, is accurately described and then specifically
condemned. In fact, the verses quoted by those who make this assertion are
clear that they are not referring to Saint Intercession but something
altogether different.
The
Bible does indeed condemn the practice of necromancy, that is to say,
consulting dead spirits in order to gain supernatural knowledge. This
condemnation is found in Isaiah 8:19-20:
When they say to you,
“Consult (דרשו; dirshu) the mediums and
the wizards who chirp and mutter.” Should not a people consult (ידרש; yidrosh) their God
instead of the dead on behalf of the living?
The
Hebrew original of this passage makes it clear that what is condemned is
specifically the practice of “consulting” the dead, that is to say, seeking (darash)
knowledge and information from them.
The
Hebrew Bible elsewhere condemns any contact with other practitioners of black
magic who presumably engage in the same forbidden practices (Ex 22:18; Lev
19:26; Deut 18:10-11).
But
addressing someone who is dead, asking them to pray for us, is simply not the
same thing as practicing necromancy, seeking information from the realm of the
dead.
If
merely speaking to the dead is the
same thing as the necromancy condemned in the Bible, then Jesus Himself would
be guilty of the sin of necromancy (and liable to execution by stoning, Lev
20:27).
At
the Transfiguration, Jesus spoke with Elijah and Moses (Matt 17:3). Elijah had been
assumed into heaven and was arguably not dead. But Moses died (Deut 34:5). And
then Jesus spoke with him. If merely speaking to the dead, under any
circumstances, is necromancy, then Jesus would a necromancer.
Look,
he’s obviously not. And that’s the point. The assertion that asking the
faithful departed to pray for us is the necromancy condemned by the Bible is
simply not true.
So,
let’s examine the final argument traditionally put forth as to why we should
not ask the faithful departed to pray for us.
5) We should not ask the departed to pray for us
because we should have no mediator except Christ
This
claim stems from the same misunderstanding of the term “praying to Saints” we
explored earlier. Let me state again. Saint Intercession is one human asking
another human to pray for them. Granted, it is a living human asking a dead
human to pray. But we discovered that the Bible itself explains why death
should not prevent us from asking a loved one or a Saint from praying for us.
It
is true that the Bible describes Jesus as the only Mediator between Man and
God:
For there
is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a
ransom for all. (1 Timothy 2:5-6)
If
one human asking another human to pray is a rejection of Jesus’ role as our
sole Mediator, let’s call out those who are guilty of this error.
St. Paul himself, in 1
Timothy 2:1.
That’s
right, just four verses before he declared that there is only one mediator
between God and men, Jesus Christ, St. Paul, a human, asked other humans to
pray:
First of all, then, I
ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for
everyone. (1 Timothy 2:1)
The
fact that St. Paul himself, a human, asked other humans to pray just four verses
before the statement that Jesus is the only Mediator between God and Man should
convince all readers that asking another human to pray has nothing at all to do
with Jesus as Mediator.
Here
are yet other verses in which he asked people to pray, thereby, some would say,
rejecting the concept of Jesus as Sole Mediator which he himself asserted in 1
Tim 2:5-6:
Brethren, pray for us.
(1 Thess 5:25)
Be steadfast in prayer,
being watchful in it with thanksgiving; and pray for us also.
(Col 4:2-3)
Again,
my point is that St. Paul himself abundantly asks people to pray for other
people. One human asking another human to pray for them is not a rejection of
the concept that Jesus is the Sole Mediator between God and Man. A human asking
a deceased human for prayer is no more a violation of this than the next
candidate guilty as charged.
Moses. When the people of
Israel sinned, and God sent snakes among them, they came to Moses and declared:
We sinned when we spoke
against the LORD and against you. Pray
that the LORD will take away the snakes. (Numbers 21:7)
And
Moses prayed for them. And then God declared:
Make a snake and put it
on a pole. If anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will live. (Numbers
21:8)
Notice
that Moses does not reply to their request for prayer that he should not
be a mediator between them and God. And notice that God hears Moses’ prayer and
grants the people grace within their punishment. God does not tell Moses that he
will not hear his prayer because the people should have only prayed directly to
him.
In
other words, God does not at all reject the idea that one human should be the prayer intermediary for other humans. Whether the deceased can hear us is
a separate matter I discussed earlier. But that the fact that someone is deceased
does not somehow make asking them to pray for us a denial of Jesus’ unique
mediation.
Safety in the Pillar and
Base of the Truth
We’ve
just explored the common criticisms of Saint Intercession asserted by those who
reject the practice. And I started this chapter by running through those verses
because I know that readers from communities that don’t practice Saint
Intercession do need to see an alternative view of the passages quoted to claim
that Saint Intercession is unbiblical.
But
now I want to explain why all of that was ultimately unnecessary. The Church in
the earliest centuries of Christian history supported and practiced Saint Intercession.
I’ve shown that the Bible does not condemn this practice and contains verses
that establish the possibility that those in heaven can hear us and would pray
for us if asked. But there is an even more trustworthy way to confidently
accept this practice.
It
is a matter of historical record that the entire Christian Church in, say, the
year AD 800 practiced Saint Intercession. If someone teaches that the Church should
not practice Saint Intercession, they presumably believe that the
earliest Christian Church did not practice it and that Saint Intercession crept
into the Church’s practice as an error somewhere between the Day of Pentecost
and AD 800. But the implication of that
belief is that the entire Christian Church could
fall into error. Let’s explore whether the Bible would allow us to hold
that belief.
What does the Bible have
to say
about the Church?
The
word “Church” (εκκλησια: ekklesia) occurs numerous times in the Epistles, but
only twice in the Gospels. Yet these two references from the Gospels tell us
much about the nature of the Church which Jesus founded.
Peter
proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus responds:
You are Peter (Petros),
and on this Rock (petra) I will build my Church. And the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt 16:18)
Jesus
says here that the Gates of Hell shall
not prevail against the Church. He does not say here that the Church will
remain in the truth by following the Bible.
If
the Church did fall into horrible errors for centuries, how could we
believe that the Gates of Hell did not prevail against it?
Where
was Jesus during the centuries in which the Church supposedly taught the errors
that Protestants believe were corrected only starting in the 1500’s? Why did
the Germans in the 1500’s deserve to get the True Church restored and not the
Italians in the 700’s?
Here’s
the other use of the word “Church” in the Gospels. In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus
describes a scenario in which a Christian brother or sister is in sin. He says
that first you are to tell them about their fault alone. And if they listen
(and repent), then you have gained back your brother or sister. If they do not
listen, you are to go back with two or three witnesses. And if they still do
not listen:
Tell it to
the Church;
and if he refuses to listen even to the
Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18:17)
Notice
here that Jesus describes “The Church” as something capable of having an
authoritative opinion. According to Jesus, the process of confronting a sinful
member of the community is not going to them and quoting the Bible. The Church, in Jesus’ description, has the
ability to speak authoritatively.
There is no way “The Church” could have this unless “The Church” has leaders
authorized to decide and act for it.
And
so, “The Church” that Jesus describes in the Gospels has the promise of victory
over the Gates of Hell and the ability to speak with authority in the face of
sin.
That’s
a far cry from the error-ridden Church some believe existed for over a thousand
years.
Through the Church...
I
have stated in this book that I was raised in the Lutheran Church. After
college, I attended a Lutheran seminary with the intention of becoming a
Lutheran minister. But I discovered, in the course of my studies, two verses of
the Bible that shook me to the core. They have to do with the Church and
whether it is the Church or the Bible that has the authority to teach us how to
practice the Christian faith.
I
had committed myself while at seminary to the discipline of reading the entire
Bible, a thing I had never done, even though I was a seminary student. I had
finished reading the Old Testament, I had finished the Gospels, and had entered
the Epistles of St. Paul. That’s when I stumbled on the following verse:
That the manifold wisdom
of God may now be made known through the
Church.” (Ephesians 3:10)
I
can remember shaking my head, assuming, believing, even hoping that the
original Greek of this passage somehow meant something other than what the
English translation had said. I mean, if the Church is really the
means through which the manifold wisdom of God is
made known, well, that would mean the Church would have to be preserved in
truth. That would mean that the belief of my Lutheran Church that the
historical Church fell into many errors would be impossible.
I
grabbed my Greek New Testament and took a look:
Through
the Church
δια
της εκκλησιας (dia tes ekklesias)
It
was exactly what I feared. The Greek preposition δια (dia) simply means ‘through’,
‘by means of’. For instance, we read in John 17:20:
I do not ask on behalf
of these alone, but for those also who will believe in Me through their word (δια του λογου αυτων; dia tou logou auton)
Through.
By means of.
I
expected the Bible to teach me that the manifold wisdom of God would be made
know through the Bible! But instead
the Bible itself teaches that it is made known through the Church!
I
set this problem aside and went on with my life. And I continued my reading.
And after just a few days, I stumbled on yet another land mine.
In
my reading, I had reached 1st Timothy. And St. Paul wrote to St. Timothy the
purpose of his letter was so that, in case he was delayed in making a personal
visit:
...so that you will know
how one ought to conduct himself in the
household of God, which is the
church of the living God, the pillar
and base of the truth. (1 Tim 3:15)
I
read these words and I was initially confused. What’s the pillar and bulwark of
the truth here? It must be God, right? I mean, that would make sense. “The
church of the living God, (who is) the Pillar and Base of the Truth.”
And
then I suddenly realized that the original Greek of this passage would be clear
as to who or what was that Pillar and Base. I knew from the English that the
Greek for “Church” must be in the Nominative Case, since it was the subject of
the verb “is.” And I knew that the phrase “of the living God” would be in what
is called the Genitive Case. (Languages like Greek and Latin have special
endings used to express the subjects of verbs and possession called the
Genitive Case.)
And
I knew that if God was the “Pillar and Base of the Truth,” the words for that
in Greek would have to also be in the Genitive Case. But if they were in the
Nominative Case, then they were describing an attribute of the Church.
I
can still remember the scene. My hands were shaking as I reached for my Greek
New Testament. I needed those words to be in the Genitive.
But
they weren’t.
the church
of the living God,
the pillar and base of the truth. (1
Tim 3:15)
εκκλησια θεου ζωντος στυλος και εδραιωμα της αληθειας (ekklesia theou zontos stylos kai edraioma tes alethias)
Those
words were in the Nominative Case, and so they were describing an attribute of
the Church. St. Paul described the Church as the “Pillar and Base
of the Truth.”
Does the Bible describe the Church anywhere else
as being incapable of falling into error?
The
Bible clearly teaches that the Church is the New Covenant described in the Book
of Jeremiah. The Epistle to the Hebrews makes this clear when it quotes from
Jeremiah as fulfilled in the Church:
I will make a New Covenant
with the House of Israel (Hebrews 8:8, quoting Jeremiah 31:31)
And
Hebrews explains that, in this New Covenant, the Church will be an institution
in which the Truth will be instilled within the hearts of the believers:
I will put my laws into
their minds, and write them on their hearts (Hebrews 8:10, quoting Jeremiah
31:33)
Jeremiah
further describes the nature of this New Covenant community as being unable to
turn away from God and falling into error:
I will give them one heart and one way. I will make with
them an Everlasting Covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to
them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they will not turn
away from me. (Jeremiah 32:39-40)
How
can any Christian read these verses and then imagine that the Church could fall
systematically into error for centuries?
And
so, if the Church did not fall into error, what are the implications of this?
Simple. The practices that may not have been openly stated in Scripture, but
which emerged as universal Christian practice, things like prayers for the dead
and asking the faithful departed to pray for us, are a part of the Christian
tradition and are validated as proper to our Faith.
So,
have no worries as you follow the love in your heart and speak to your beloved
dead. The Bible does not forbid it. Indeed, the Bible supports it. The Church
does not forbid it. Indeed, the Church from the earliest centuries practiced it
and endorsed it. And the teaching of the Church is the pillar and base upon
which you can confidently rest your faith.
[1] A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 3, Scene
1; Romeo and Juliet Act 3, Scene 1; Henry V Act 4, Scene 3.
[2] For instance, we read in 2 Corinthians
1:1, “Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our
brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, with all the saints throughout Achaia.
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