Thursday, October 18, 2018

Nels L. Nelson's appeal to angelic mediation to explain how God hears prayers


Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening peace. (Psa 141:2)

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. (Rev 8:3-4)

In his book Scientific Aspects of Mormonism (1904), Nels. L. Nelson offered his opinion about how God receives our prayers. This is a rare instance of a Latter-day Saint appealing to the concept of angels literally bringing our prayers up to God and tying that into a concept of a guardian angel. As this is rare, at least from my reading of historical and modern Latter-day Saint theological works, I am reproducing his comments here:

I do not pretend to know how God answers all the prayers that should be answered; nor has Mormonism spoken definitely on this point. But the following conclusion may safely be inferred from well-established premises in our religion: Ninety-nine per cent. of our prayers are probably passed upon by our guardian angels; the rest by councils of greater wisdom,--by Jesus Christ, or God himself, if need be. (Nels L. Nelson, Scientific Aspects of Mormonism or Religion in Terms of Life [New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904], 43-44)