Posted on 04/22/2015 2:34:02 PM PDT by RnMomof7
Within Roman Catholicism (and within some other churches as well) there are prayers that are made for, through, and to the dead. We, as Reformed believers, reject all three of these categories but on different grounds. In discussing these issues with Roman Catholics it may be useful to be able to understand the different categories and to explain why it is that we reject each. We should pray for the living, to the living and true God, through the merits and intercession of Christ alone.
1. Prayers For the Dead
In Roman Catholicism, there is a belief in Purgatory. Although Roman Catholics give varying explanations, a popular perception is that purgatory is a place where, through a period of suffering, the soul is purged of sin (it's worth noting that some Roman Catholics today deny that Purgatory is either an actual place or that it has actual time, but we'll leave that for another discussion).
Those within Purgatory want to be purged of their sins (in Roman Catholic theology) but they also want to get out of there and on to heaven. So people are encouraged to pray for the souls of the deceased, for relief/escape from Purgatory. After all, apparently, this suffering can be alleviated through the granting of an indulgence to the person in purgatory.
The Bible, however, teaches that the souls of believers are, at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory. (See Thomas Watson's discussion, for a more detailed discussion.) Given this, prayers for dead believers are useless, since believers are already in heaven.
Furthermore, while certain folks have (from time to time) suggested that salvation is still possible in hell, it is not. Of course, this itself is not normally disputed by Roman Catholics, who recognize that there is no escape from hell itself. Thus, prayers for dead unbelievers are also useless, since unbelievers are already in hell, from which they cannot escape.
Thus, there is no third category - no third option that exists, where prayers for the deceased would have any value. Accordingly, we reject prayers for the dead as vain and superstitious, and we do not engage in such prayers.
2. Prayers To the Dead
In Roman Catholicism there are, from time to time, prayers to the dead. I would be quick to point out Mary, but this doctrine they have of the Assumption of Mary leaves it unclear whether they really consider Mary to be dead or resurrected (although, of course, as a matter of objective fact, she is dead and awaits the resurrection of the faithful). Aside from Mary, however, other saints are sometimes prayed to within Catholicism. One particularly popular saint in English-speaking countries is St. Jude (aka Judas not Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles), the patron saint of lost causes.
We, Reformed Christians, reject such prayers for several reasons. First, there is no reason at all to think that such prayers will be heard and understood by the dead. Second, not only does Scripture not encourage attempted communication with the dead, it condemns such attempts as witchcraft and necromancy. Third, the use of such prayers suggests a lack of faith in the efficacy of prayers directly to the Father. Fourth, the use of such prayers suggests a desire for the mediation of someone other than Christ, an issue that flows over into the next section, below.
This is one of those areas where Roman Catholic apologists are very eager these days to recast the issue in terms like "we're just asking our fellow believers to pray for us, are you saying that's wrong?" The answer to that question is that we do not object to asking fellow believers to pray for us. In fact, we ought to do so. James 5:16 Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
However, while many of the prayers to the dead are explicitly prayers that the dead would hear the person and pray to God for the person, that simply avoids the most grotesque abuses of the practice, such as when things are requested specifically from the saints or Mary, which are not theirs to give (such as success, grace, salvation, etc.). Those prayers (meta-prayers that request prayer by the saint to whom the prayers are offered) suffer from the objections as to the lack of warrant or example from the Scriptures as well as from the apparent view that these saints are to serve as mediators rather than Christ. As this is not a direct answer to the Romanist objections, I won't go on at greater length here.
3. Prayers Through the Dead
Roman Catholics sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, offer up prayers that are through the dead. For example, the "Approved Prayer for the intercession of Pope John Paul II" (link) is a prayer that is not for John Paul II (JP2) or to JP2 but it is through JP2. It is addressed to God, "O Holy Trinity," but it requests that something be granted "Grant us," via the intercession of JP2 "through his intercession ... ."
Other times the request is more indirect. For example, sometimes when Mary (or others) are entreated it is suggested (as a justification) that since "the prayer of a righteous man availeth much" that the more righteous a person is, the more their prayer will avail (although, of course, the Scriptures do not teach such any such formula). Consequently, the idea is that we are asking these creatures to intercede before God on the basis of the merits that are theirs.
The connection between the two can be seen in this prayer to God pleading the merit and intercession of Rita of Cascia:
O God! who didst deign to confer on St. Rita for imitating Thee in love of her enemies, the favor of bearing her heart and brow the marks of Thy Love and Passion, grant we beseech Thee, that through her intercession and merit, we may, pierced by the thorns of compunction, ever contemplate the sufferings of Thy Passion, who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen.(emphasis added - source)
(emphasis added - source)Prayer to Our Lady of Light
O radiant beam of celestial clarity,
O spotless Mother of infinite purity,
O seat of Wisdom and divine reliquary
of the Word Incarnate,
Hear my prayer,
O Queen of Light!
O Blessed Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
You glorified my Mother, Mary,
as Queen of heaven and earth
and gave to her the gift of holding
Your Omnipotence in her holy hands,
Graciously grant what I seek
through her merits and intercession.
Amen.
956 The intercession of the saints. "Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness.... They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus.... So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped."(emphases and elipses in original - footnote omitted - source)
Thank you caw! Nice to see you!
What makes someone a Christian?
Is it a very particular belief, or is it the result of baptism and the following of very specific actions?
The point I'm getting to is in my understanding of Scripture what makes you a Christian is believing The Gospel. There are other churches that claim to believe The Gospel but they add to it, or don't acknowledge who Jesus Christ is. Even though they claim to be Christians Born Again Christians won't acknowledge them as such. We don't do this because of hatred. We do this because Truth matters.
Amen and Amen!
What a marvelous sentence that last one is. Selah!
Please see my tagline, thank-you!
Please see my tagline. Thank-you!
AMEN!
It is so nice to see someone post who understands Sheol and Abraham's Bosom. I suspect that not understanding this and what the gates of hell refers to has led to thinking there is a purgatory.
I hear you!
John 14:6, John 6:29, Romans 10:9-10, 1 John 4:15
Well...some follow a leader...others follow Jesus.
This isn’t a Catholic bashing thread.
But this thread does show again why Catholics are the weak partners in the faith and culture wars going on. Catholics can’t defend their doctrine or merely discuss it. They have to personally attack those who don’t agree with their church’s doctrine, and cry victim. The same strategy as the left. Anyone who disagrees with the Catholic Church and says so is a “hater,” and they shouldn’t be allowed to speak. Have you looked up the definition of “bashing,” what you accuse people of being motivated by, a desire to bash?
I know what motivates most of the Protestants posting here. Love for Jesus, and pain at Catholic doctrine that gets people only just so close to Him, and no further. That love for Him makes it impossible for us to pray to anyone else, or glorify anyone else, and doctrines that teach otherwise are painfully repellant to us. We are going by what the Bible reveals, and while the Catholic Church justifies teachings on the grounds of “what the Bible might have left out,” the Bible doesn’t contradict itself and wouldn’t contradict any truth revealed outside of itself, and it also has a completeness. When the same lesson is taught over and over, giving the same message, there has to be a very compelling reason to modify it. And it is never just wholly violated, either.
If you go back to Genesis, where the Bible begins to talk about Noah, it says at that time man “began to call on the name of the Lord.” Just the name of the Lord. The Bible is about Him. The Alpha and the Omega. It drums home the point again, and again, and again, and again, and so on, that NO ONE is like Him and is in any way to be treated like Him when it comes to the things that belong to GOD alone.
If you look at Mary and the apostles, whenever someone tried to credit them, they gave the glory to GOD instead. And that is true fellowship with them, then, doing as they did. Would they want us looking to them, as examples? Yes! As they were inspired and strengthened by hearing about other people’s faith.
But if they only exalted the Lord, and didn’t want people to exalt them, why would anyone think they’d ever be pleased with being exalted? And if that exaltation had been in the original church, then they would have been exalted right then. We would have a long history of all that happened to Mary after Jesus’ ascension, for example. And the church would have regarded Jesus’ brothers as royalty, and those lines would have been acknowledged all the way down to this day. Jesus and the church came from the Jews, and the Jews kept just such records of genealogy. Yet almost all of that knowledge about Mary, Jesus’ brothers, and the apostles was deliberately lost, and that’s because it would have taken away from glorifying Jesus alone.
....”respect the different ways it is done”....
Well not necessarily. There’s nothing about false teaching that needs to be respected. One might understand why someone believes what they do.....but that doesn’t mean you need to respect it nor the source of those teachings.
And those who follow Jesus Christ accept the entire Old Testament as it existed at the time of Christ with no comment from Christ about it containing error while those who follow men throw books of the Bible in the garbage in order to make it easier to defend their heresy.
People have good reason for disagreeing with the Catholic Church. If you look at any city’s religion data on CityData.com, or the state statistics, you have a pretty good idea of how much Christianity is left there just by seeing how many evangelicals, mainline Protestants and Catholics there are there.
Not at all, truth matters.
Goin’ on 13?
It seems that Catholic apostates hate the Church more than cradle Protestants.
Not too dissimilar than Lucifer and his own personal rebellion.
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