Because Romanists accept church tradition as equal to the authority of the Bible, the first reason they cite for invoking the saints is “church tradition that is goes all the way back to the earliest days.” As we have seen previously, the early church, even the New Testament church, was filled with teaching that invoked censure by the Apostles. So I am not interested in appeals to traditions if those traditions contradict canonical Scripture.
The Anglo-Catholics use the book of Revelation to justify their notions of saints in heaven, specifically a misinterpretation of Revelation 4-5. Some equate the saints with the 24 elders sitting on the thrones while others refer to “the prayers of the saints rising like incense” (Rev 5:8) as justifying the intercession of saints on our behalf. It is interesting that many of these churchmen would take literally the words of Revelation 5 while spiritualizing the interpretation of the rest of the visions of the Book. In any case, there is no mention of saints in heaven communicating with the earth; their prayers are directed God-ward. Incense doesn't fall.
Let’s look more closely at what the text says. In the great worship scene of Revelation 5, the 24 elders (never identified in the Book) each carries a bowl of smoking incense. The author adds the interpretive phrase “which are the prayers of the saints,” a clear allusion to Psalm 141:2. Now immediately after this, in the very next verse, the elders sing a paean of praise to God for redeeming people from the entire world and making them “a kingdom of priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth (emphasis mine).” Most scholars understand that the visions of Revelation are not in a chronological order. The events of chapters 4&5 take place chronologically in the new heaven and new earth following the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment.
But even if that analysis of Revelation is wrong, one of the most basic lessons of Bible interpretation is you use the parts of the Bible you do understand to interpret the parts you don’t understand. Roman Catholics skip this step and if confused appeal to church traditions. Praying to saints grew out of the pagan custom of ancestor worship practiced by most cultures which some in the Church sanctified as a way of making converts. But what about the clear teachings of the Bible to help us interpret the teachings we may find confusing?
Here’s a pretty clear text from the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the young preacher, Timothy.
“There is one God and one mediator between God and people, the man, Jesus Christ…” (1 Tim. 2:5)
Wowzers – that’s pretty clear. There are not a bunch of mediators between us mortals and heaven, there is only one. Prayers directed heavenward are heard by only one set of ears, those of Jesus. We know from Colossians 2:18 there was a “tradition” of worshiping angels (spiritual beings) in the early church which was roundly condemned by the Apostolic tradition. Are we to believe that the Apostles would sanction prayer to dead Christians?
The Old Testament pronounced curses on those who practiced the sin of communicating with the dead as though they were alive and able to communicate with the living (Deuteronomy 18:10). These people are abominations before God (of course, the TEC has actually blessed some things God has called an abomination).
But at this point there's not much difference between the TEC and the Romanists. They both set aside the clear teaching of Scripture in favor of human traditions as an authority equal to the Bible (the TEC modern traditions, the Romanists older traditions).
In the next part of this article, we will look at how praying to saints and hagiolotry (worship of saints) compromises the doctrine of salvation and the hope of the resurrection.
No comments:
Post a Comment