DOES A BIBLE TEXT TELL US TO GO FOR HELP TO JESUS ONLY?
1 TIMOTHY 2:5,6
The First Epistle to Timothy tells us to pray for others for God wishes all
people to be saved and to know the truth for “there [is only] one God, and
[only] one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself
as a ransom for all”.
The New Testament shows a problem was arising with people in the Church becoming the slaves of angels. John in Revelation is warned by an angel not to kneel before him. As John was a committed believer in Jesus, don't buy the argument that he was guilty of treating the angel as a god. The text does not say that. John would not have slipped into idolatry that easily. If he did then everybody must be an idolater.
It is safe to argue that one big aim of the Timothy text was to do something about the increasing devotion to angels.
Bible teaching is that humans are higher than angels. Jesus said that Hell eternal punishment is for the Devil and his angels not for humans and if humans choose it they will go there. Hebrews writes that Jesus was temporarily lower than the angels. Paul says that we are to judge angels. Clearly invoking angels to pray for you or to help is a sin. This says nothing about praying to saints. Catholic tradition has always prayed to angels and thus shows it is really engaging in occultism.
If Jesus were truly man how could he ever be lower than an angel?
If Jesus were truly God he could never be lower than an angel.
I don't know what Hebrews is getting at. But notice how the
Timothy text says, that the man Jesus is the mediator. So
Jesus is the one mediator for he is a man and also because he was
designated to die as a ransom to free sinners. Angels are ruled out
as mediators just because they are angels.
Protestants say that the Timothy text excludes and forbids praying to saints.
Catholics say it does not for “the context is about people praying for one
another. When intercession is allowed then the verses cannot disprove the notion
of saints doing it for us”. But the Bible advises prayer not to change God or to
ask God to make some change for it defines all prayer as a manifestation of one
law: “Thy will be done”. Biblical prayer is for pleasing God and nothing else
not even intercession in the sense of trying to influence God to do something
for another person or in any real sense.
When one does not know Bible teaching one can easily assume that the Catholics
are talking sense and are right.
The Bible says that when we pray, our prayer has to be inspired by the Spirit of
God to be real prayer (Romans 8:26, 27). The Spirit of God prays in us and the
words we say are just inspired by him. God would not influence himself so since
prayer is the Spirit's work prayer is not meant to influence God but is the
person opening up to God. The Bible says that Jesus is the only mediator of
intercession. Anybody who prays without the Spirit’s prompting is not really
praying at all but just trying to insult and fool God. So, if I pray for my flu
to be healed soon and the prayer is answered then it is not because I prayed but
because the Holy Spirit prayed for me. My prayers just coincided with his or its
but the petitions of the Spirit brought the answer. The Bible says we are all
sinners and that for that reason our prayers are fruitless in themselves (James
3:9-12) so we are dependent on the Holy Spirit and the sinless Jesus to pray for
us. James 3:12 says that we all make mistakes but these mistakes are sins for he
says that they will be treated as worthy of divine judgement. Yet the Bible
commands us to pray but it is better than nothing even coming from sinners.
The Bible at Romans 8:26 states that we are too weak to know how to pray as we
ought so the Holy Spirit intercedes for us to make up for that. Praying to the
saints undermines that idea totally. It's trying to ignore the Spirit so as to
get lesser beings to do the interceding. If you believe the Spirit patches up
what you do wrong in prayer, you will not invoke a saint. If you pray to a
saint, then is the Holy Spirit fixing the faults so that the prayer will reach
the saint perfected and persuasive? So the Holy Spirit then virtually prays to
saints too! The Holy Spirit is not going to pray to the saints for us to pray to
him for us so this refutes saint worship.
So, the Timothy verses are really instructing us to pray to God but not to
intercede with him. The Catholic argument is wrong. Christians do not pray to
change God or to tell him what to do for he knows but to humble themselves
before him. That is what it is all about. Therefore intercession is immoral.
Jesus does all the interceding necessary because though the Catholic Church
denies this (Question 1320, Radio Replies 3) no prayer can be answered according
to the Bible unless it is made through Jesus - ie given to Jesus to give it to
God for you with his own input - and God is asked to listen to Jesus praying for
us (Hebrews 4:14-16).
Jesus prayed that God would look after Jesus' followers and that God's will be
done. It is quality of prayer not quantity that counts. Therefore if he was as
perfect as Christians say, he made intercession for all and no other
intercession is necessary. Praying to the saints would be denying his
perfection.
Catholics would then argue that there are two kinds of mediation. The mediation
of redemption is Jesus suffering on the cross to make up for our sins while the
mediation of intercession is somebody praying to God to influence him for us.
They are saying the verses do not refute saintly intercession for they are not
concerned with that kind of mediation.
They think that the verses are stating that there is only one mediator of
redemption. Jesus redeemed us from the guilt and much of the punishment due to
sin. The saints who take on some of the punishment for our sins are allegedly
not redeemers because it is Jesus working in them that enables them to merit
blessings. But to choose infinite or X good is to do something of infinite merit
or of X value. Yet Rome says we cannot deserve grace which is ridiculous if we
choose it freely. They must be redeemers. All the saints offered their deaths to
God to save the world and to make atonement like Jesus so nobody can argue the
verses only mean that Jesus was the only mediator who died for us. That would be
stupid.
By the way, there are two kinds of mediators of redemption, those who take away
the sin by atoning for it in doing good in its place and cancelling the guilt
and those who did just take on the punishment for sin.
The Bible says that Jesus saved us from sin by enabling God to pardon us and
that he saved us from divine retribution so Jesus is the mediator of redemption
both ways.
The verses present Jesus as the sole human mediator of intercession because they
are not saying he is our mediator because he saved us by atoning for sin but
because he offered himself and the only way he could offer himself was by
prayer. The words “gave himself” are grammatically what the mediator statement
is about. The prayer was what saved us and made the death able to save. The
verses ARE saying that Jesus alone intercedes for us.
Saint-worship and dependence on anything other than Jesus and God alone is
condemned.
WRONG ANTI-DULIA ARGUMENTS
Be wary of bad refutations of Catholicism from the Bible.
“Elijah asked Elisha what he could do for him before he ascended into the sky
which proves that once he was in Heaven he could do no favours.” The Bible does
not say that Elijah went to the heaven of God then. If he did not gain the power
to answer prayers after he went up then this does not prove that the saints with
God are unable to hear and answer prayers. Perhaps the prophet made a mistake
and merely thought he could no longer be of service to his friend after he was
taken from him. Perhaps the prophet did not have praying for him in mind at all
for he had done it often enough before.
“Paul declared that David had served God’s purpose in his own generation so he
cannot help us with his prayers now.” Does a Catholic saying that a priest lived
his vocation well mean that he or she believes that he cannot be prayed to now?
In Jeremiah 15:1 God says that even if Moses and Samuel stood before him to
intercede he would not bless the people of Judah. God may mean that if they
opposed his will and prayed for him to change he wouldn’t. He is not saying that
they do not pray and cannot hear prayers or that they can either.
If those verses that say the dead know nothing and do not get involved in life
under the sun really proved that the dead are non-existent and that their souls
did not survive (which they do not) they still wouldn’t oppose saint-worship.
The Bible says that the dead will rise but it never says that dead will be out
of existence until then. God could immediately re-create those who have gone out
of existence at death.
CONCLUSION
The Catholic practice of praying to saints is not Christian. It is idolatry –
the sin that is most savagely condemned in the Bible. The Bible says these
things are seriously wrong and God finds them very offensive. It condemns
idolatry as the worst sin. It even ridicules those who commit it so it forbids
respecting Catholic idolatry.
BOOKS CONSULTED
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME, Michael de Semlyen, Dorchester House Publications,
Bucks, 1993
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS CATHOLICS ARE ASKING Tony Coffey, Harvest House, Eugene,
Oregon, 2006
BORN FUNDAMENTALIST, BORN-AGAIN CATHOLIC, David B Currie, Ignatius Press, San
Francisco, 1996
COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES Benjamin B Warfield, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1995
FROM FASTING SAINTS TO ANOREXIC GIRLS, Walter Vandereycken and Ron van Deth,
Athlone Press, London, 1996
MAKING SAINTS, Kenneth K Woodward, Chatto & Windus, London, 1991
OBJECTIONS TO ROMAN CATHOLICISM, Ed by Michael de la Bedoyere, Constable,
London, 1964
PURGATORY, Rev W E Kenny BD, Church of Ireland Printing, Co Dublin, 1939
SERMONS OF ST ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, Tan Books, Illinois, 1982
THE BANNER OF THE TRUTH IN IRELAND, Winter 1997, Irish Church Missions, Dublin
THE GREAT MEANS OF SALVATION AND PERFECTION, St Alphonsus De Ligouri,
Redemptorist Fathers, Brooklyn, 1988
THE LEGENDS OF THE SAINTS, by Hippolyde Delehaye, Four Courts Press, Dublin,
1998
THE MISSIONARY POSITION, Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, Christopher
Hitchens, Verso, London, 1995
THE PRIMITIVE FAITH AND ROMAN CATHOLIC DEVELOPMENTS, Rev John A F Gregg, BD,
APCK, Dublin, 1928
THE VIRGIN, Geoffrey Ashe, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. London, 1976
VICARS OF CHRIST, Peter de Rosa, Corgi, London, 1995
THE WWW
The following two sites show just what a liar Mother Teresa was and her callous
heart is laid bare. They show the deceit of Pope John Paul II who is eager to
make a saint of her.
OPEN LETTER TO MOTHER TERESA, Aroup Chaterjee
http://website.lineone.net/~bajuu/chatlet.htm
MOTHER TERESA THE FINAL VERDICT Aroup Chaterjee
http://www.meteorbooks.com/index.html
This fascinating book reveals shockers such as that the pope has beatified
Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb who stood idly by as Jews and Communists were
hounded to their deaths and the notorious fascist Cardinal Schuster of Milan.
BIBLE VERSION USED
The Amplified Bible
