Subject: "am I wrong in thinking that you pray to |
Bible Note: Which Church wrote the early Creeds and how did that Church interpret the communion of saints? Here is how a few members of that early Church understood the communion of saints. All predate 325 A.D. while the Church was still being persecuted and before Constantine declared the Edict of Milan. I do not think these were people who had abandoned the faith of the Apostles or who were unfamiliar with their writings in Scripture. Scriptures follow. You may disagree with the early fathers or the intreptation of the scripture as presented, but this is how I see it. Clement of Alexandria "In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer]" (Miscellanies 7:12 [A.D. 208]). Origen "But not the high priest [Christ] alone prays for those who pray sincerely, but also the angels . . . as also the souls of the saints who have already fallen asleep" (Prayer 11 [A.D. 233]). Cyprian of Carthage "Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides [of death] always pray for one another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father’s mercy" (Letters 56[60]:5 [A.D. 253]). Methodius "Hail to you for ever, Virgin Mother of God, our unceasing joy, for to you do I turn again. You are the beginning of our feast; you are its middle and end; the pearl of great price that belongs to the kingdom; the fat of every victim, the living altar of the Bread of Life [Jesus]. Hail, you treasure of the love of God. Hail, you fount of the Son’s love for man. . . . You gleamed, sweet gift-bestowing Mother, with the light of the sun; you gleamed with the insupportable fires of a most fervent charity, bringing forth in the end that which was conceived of you . . . making manifest the mystery hidden and unspeakable, the invisible Son of the Father—the Prince of Peace, who in a marvelous manner showed himself as less than all littleness" (Oration on Simeon and Anna 14 [A.D. 305]). "Therefore, we pray [ask] you, the most excellent among women, who glories in the confidence of your maternal honors, that you would unceasingly keep us in remembrance. O holy Mother of God, remember us, I say, who make our boast in you, and who in august hymns celebrate the memory, which will ever live, and never fade away" (ibid.). "And you also, O honored and venerable Simeon, you earliest host of our holy religion, and teacher of the resurrection of the faithful, do be our patron and advocate with that Savior God, whom you were deemed worthy to receive into your arms. We, together with you, sing our praises to Christ, who has the power of life and death, saying, ‘You are the true Light, proceeding from the true Light; the true God, begotten of the true God’" (ibid.). After the divisions of the Reformation some churches do interpret communion of saints as you do. Are we still alive in Christ after we die? Asleep is a euphemism that means we are not truly dead and without hope but are truly alive in Christ but are dead only in the flesh. It is true a few groups such as the Adventists and The Jehovah witnesses, I believe, who subscribe to the sleep theory as you appear to interpret sleep in Thessalonians. Moses and Elijah when they appeared with Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration did not seem asleep to the three apostles who were present. In Revelation, "the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints" (Rev. 5:8). This looks like the saints in heaven offering to God the prayers of the saints on earth. The elders look like the saints in heaven to me. " Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God" (Rev. 8:3–4). "See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 18:10). Looks like intercession by angels to me. The peace of Christ to you Bob. |