Friday, August 25, 2023

Seth Kasten (Lutheran) on Revelation 5, 6, and 8 and the Question of Praying To/Through the Saints in Heaven

  

Argument for the ability of saints to hear us:

 

1. Objection 1: Revelation 5, 6, and 8:

 

Three passages in Revelation are often brought up to prove the ability of saints to hear us: 5:8, 6:9-10, and 8:1-5. These are handled in order:

 

Revelation 5:8: Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

 

In this passage, we do not know to whom these prayers belong, apart from that they are form the saints broadly speaking; that is, we do not know if the saints mentioned in 5:8 are saints in heaven or on earth. The former is certainly a possibility as we see later in chapter 6 that the saints in heaven are praying to God prayers of their own. The immediate context before 5:8 lends no help to identifying these saints. Immediately after in verse 9-14, prayers are made by the entire company of heaven, and the saints on earth are not mentioned. If we make the assumption that the saints in 5:8 are the saints on earth, this still does not prove the capability of saints in heaven hearing what we pray on earth. For these prayers and offerings of the congregation to God and doesn’t know all the particular prayers spoken or the exact quantities of goods and currency or who brought them.

 

Revelation 6:9-10: When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

 

This passage mentions nothing of prayers of saints on earth, communication between worlds, or saints interceding for those on earth. It only mentions those in heaven praying to God for their own request, so it proves unrelated to the discussion at hand.

 

Revelation 8:1-5: When He opened the seventh sela, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God form the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightening, and an earthquake.

 

The 6th century bishop Primascius Hadrumetum interprets this to be Christ:

 

He is said to have received the same thing from the prayers of the saints, and to have offered it, because through him the process of all people can easily reach God. Hence the Apostle [writes] (Hebrews 13:15), “by Him let us continually offer the sacrifices of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” (Hadrumetum, Primascius, Commentary on Revelation, bk III. Original translation by Seth Kasel, PL 68:855)

 

And Primascius’ interpretation aligns well with Hebrews 9:24: “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us,” Malachi 3:1: “And the Lord whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger [Angel] of the covenant,” and Luke 12:41: “I [Christ] came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Further, this is the only description in Revelation in which prayers of all the saints are being offered at once; who should be more fittingly described here but Christ who intercedes and mediates for all the saints? But if it should not be taken to be Christ but instead an angel, there remains still the fact that these prayers are offered collectively as in chapter 5, so the prayers themselves need not be known by the one offering them.” (Seth Kasten, Against the Invocation of Saints: An Apology for the Protestant Doctrine of Prayer Over and Against the Doctrine of the Eastern Orthodox Church [Royal Oak, Mich.: Scholastic Lutherans, 2023], 130-32)