What about prayer to the saints, asking them to pray for us to God?
Bishop Wright gives us part of the answer in his book For All the Saints. He explains that the idea of praying to the saints as if they are representatives for us before the throne of God came out of the medieval idea of the royal court. Someone living in a rural area, miles away from where the royal court may be held, could not petition the king for his needs. However, if he had a friend at the court, he could ask that friend to plead his cause for him. You can see how this could lead people to think about the divine court; a friend or a relative has now died and gone to the court of heaven and, perhaps if we ask them to, they will pray for us there.
The problem is that this idea of needing others to address God for us in his court is wholly unnecessary. The biblical doctrine is plain that all the saints, either those militant or triumphant, have the same access to God the Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, we read in Hebrews 10:
19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21 And having an high priest over the house of God; 22 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.
Also, when Jesus told us how to pray, he always said to pray to God himself, and to call Him our Father, and to pray in His name. Prayer is to be made only to God because only God is omniscient and omnipresent and in a position to hear prayer.
The saints are still finite beings like ourselves - it's part of being human. How can we know they even hear us? The whole tenor of Holy Scripture leads us to pray to God, and God alone - and with full confidence of being heard through Jesus' name. May He be exalted - our Great, Perfect, and All Sufficient Mediator!
Bishop Wright gives us part of the answer in his book For All the Saints. He explains that the idea of praying to the saints as if they are representatives for us before the throne of God came out of the medieval idea of the royal court. Someone living in a rural area, miles away from where the royal court may be held, could not petition the king for his needs. However, if he had a friend at the court, he could ask that friend to plead his cause for him. You can see how this could lead people to think about the divine court; a friend or a relative has now died and gone to the court of heaven and, perhaps if we ask them to, they will pray for us there.
The problem is that this idea of needing others to address God for us in his court is wholly unnecessary. The biblical doctrine is plain that all the saints, either those militant or triumphant, have the same access to God the Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, we read in Hebrews 10:
19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21 And having an high priest over the house of God; 22 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.
Also, when Jesus told us how to pray, he always said to pray to God himself, and to call Him our Father, and to pray in His name. Prayer is to be made only to God because only God is omniscient and omnipresent and in a position to hear prayer.
The saints are still finite beings like ourselves - it's part of being human. How can we know they even hear us? The whole tenor of Holy Scripture leads us to pray to God, and God alone - and with full confidence of being heard through Jesus' name. May He be exalted - our Great, Perfect, and All Sufficient Mediator!
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