“Does Jesus as the One Mediator Rule Out Invoking the Saints?”
Description: Does 1 Timothy 2:5 refute the Catholic practice of asking the saints to pray for us? In this episode, Karlo Broussard explains why Christ’s unique role as the one mediator is fully compatible with the intercession of the saints and shows how Scripture reveals creaturely intercessors participating in Christ’s heavenly ministry.
Some Protestants object to the Catholic practice of requesting the saints’ intercession on the grounds that it contradicts 1 Timothy 2:5, where Paul writes, “There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
If Christ is the one mediator, so the argument goes, then asking for the saints’ intercession would imply that Christ’s mediation isn’t good enough.
But is that true?
Stick around—because that’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s episode.
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Intro
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Alright! Here’s the first problem with this objection from 1 Timothy 2:5: it assumes Paul is talking about “mediation” in the sense of Christ’s ongoing role as our heavenly intercessor—like the author of Hebrews describes him in Hebrews 7:25.
But I don’t think that is what Paul has in mind here. Rather, he’s emphasizing the fact that Jesus is the only one who can give human beings access to God the Father. As Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.” And this is because Jesus alone is the God-man.
Also, it’s possible Paul envisions Jesus’ unique mediation in the sense of him being the only mediator of the New Covenant, like the author of Hebrews describes him in 8:6, 9:15, and 12:24. This interpretation actually has textual support in verse 6, where Paul describes Christ as having given himself as a “ransom for all.”
Nobody else—not even any other Christian—is a mediator in these senses.
Now, even if we concede for argument’s sake that Paul conceptualizes Jesus’ unique mediation as his heavenly intercession, the objection still doesn’t work against the invocation of the saints.
Before I explain why, I’d like to thank my patrons. Without your financial support, I wouldn’t be able to continue doing this video-podcast. And for those of you who aren’t patrons yet, I’d like to invite you to become one. You can sign up over at doctorkarlo.com.
Okay—back to the counter that Paul is speaking of Christ’s ongoing role as our heavenly intercessor.
First, the objection assumes our request of the saints to pray for us takes away from Christ’s unique mediation. But this line of reasoning contradicts Christian teaching and practice because it belongs to the Christian life to ask for the intercession of other Christians. If we were to follow the logic embedded in this challenge, then we would have to deny all forms of Christian intercession, which, from a Christian point of view, is absurd.
Even the context of the passage in question proves that intercessory prayer is essential to Christian life. In verse 1, Paul encourages Christian intercession: “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men.” Then, in verse 4, he says such prayers and intercessions are “acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.” Other such passages include Romans 15:30; 2 Corinthians 1:10; and Colossians 1:4, 9-10.
If asking for the intercession of Christians in heaven (the saints) takes away from Christ’s unique mediation or heavenly intercession, as the challenge proposes, then what is Paul doing encouraging intercession from Christians on earth? Wouldn’t that, too, detract from Christ’s unique mediation? It would! But no Christian wants to affirm that conclusion. Most Protestants, like Catholics, pray for and request prayers from their fellow Christians all the time. Since this biblical practice doesn’t conflict with Christ’s role as a unique intercessor, neither does requesting prayers from the saints in heaven.
A second reason why Jesus’ unique mediation as the God-man in the sense that we’re considering here doesn’t prevent us from asking the saints to intercede for us is that he is able to share that ministry of intercession with others, like he does other things. According to Matthew 23:8, Jesus is our unique “teacher,” (Greek, didaskalos), yet there are many who participate in his teaching ministry, as seen in Ephesians 4:11 and James 3:1. Jesus is our one “high priest,” as per Hebrews 3:1, yet, according to 1 Peter 2:5 and 9, we’re all priests (albeit of a different kind than ministerial priests) insofar as we are Christians.
The same principle could apply to the intercession of the saints. Of course, Jesus is the one mediator, and he “always lives to make intercession,” as Hebrews 7:25 says. But that doesn’t mean he can’t share that intercessory role with his saints.
In fact, we know that he does share that intercessory role with at least some of his saints: the Christians here on earth. (Saints is a word commonly used in the New Testament for all Christians, as seen, for example, in 2 Cor. 1:1, Eph. 1:1, Phil. 1:1). Paul urges Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:1 that “intercessions . . . be made for all men.”
Therefore, it’s at least possible that Jesus could share his intercessory ministry with Christians in heaven, too.
Third, according to Catholic teaching, the saints participate in Christ’s unique intercession because they’re members of the mystical body of Christ. Paul teaches in his first letter to the Corinthians that we as Christians are “baptized into one body” (v. 13), which he identifies as “the body of Christ” (v. 27). Christians are united with one another in the body by virtue of their union with the head, Jesus. This union with Christ enables the intercessory prayer of Christians to bring about effects in the lives of other members in the body. As the Catechism states in paragraph 2635, “Christian intercession participates in Christ’s.”
Viewed this way, we see that intercessory prayer of one member of Christ’s mystical body for another no more takes away from Christ’s unique mediation than the individual parts of my body take away from the overall function of my body. It is only because of my life that the different members of my natural body can aid one another for a proper functioning of the whole. Similarly, it’s because of Christ the head that different members of his body can intercede for one another.
Rather than detracting from the head, the intercession among members of his body manifests the head’s glory.
The saints in heaven are still members of Christ’s mystical body. We know this because Paul teaches in Romans 8:35 and 38 that death is among his list of things that cannot separate us from “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”
And the saints are not just average members of Christ’s body; they are “the spirits of just men made perfect,” as Hebrews 12:23 puts it. This matters because James tells us in James 5:16 that “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.” Since the saints in heaven are perfected in righteousness, their prayers will bear much fruit.
Now, there’s one last thing to say here: there is a sense in which Christ is unique even if we take “mediation” as referring to Christ’s ongoing role as our heavenly intercessor. As I just said, Christians intercede for one another only insofar as they participate in Christ’s intercession as members of his mystical body. No other intercessor can serve as the principle of intercession. That role belongs to Jesus and Jesus alone.
So, whether we interpret “mediation” in the sense of Jesus being the only one who gives us access to the Father, or Jesus as the mediator of the New Covenant, or as our ongoing heavenly intercessor, he is absolutely unique and our invocation of the saints doesn’t undermine that truth.
Alright! Some Protestants might counter my argumentation so far and say, “Your response misses the mark. We’re not concerned with earthly mediation taking away from Christ’s unique mediation. We’re concerned only with the claim that there are other heavenly intercessors.”
Take, for example, Lutheran pastor and professor of systematic theology Jordan Cooper. In his online video, “A Critique of Prayer to the Saints,” he argues that the Book of Hebrews’ description of what’s going on before the Father in the heavenly throne room doesn’t “leave room at all for a kind of other heavenly intercession.” Here’s Cooper:
[VIDEO]
39:21 things I would say what is this when you look at the broader just teaching in terms of mediation in Scripture and the 39:27 question of what is going on in the throne room of the father and what is 39:32 going on before the father is that we have especially the book of Hebrews which is so extensive in its discussions 39:40 of the mediator ship the intercession of Christ before his father that’s the 39:48 language that is there certainly does not I don’t think leave room at all for 39:55 a kind of other heavenly intercession that is not bad of the son.
There are two ways that we can respond to this argument. One is more general, which considers Cooper’s argument itself. The other is more specific to what Cooper says elsewhere in his video.
Here’s the general response. Recall, Cooper’s argument says there can be no other heavenly intercessor because that role belongs to Jesus alone, who has ascended into the heavenly sanctuary to minister as our high priest. But isn’t the Holy Spirit a heavenly intercessor as well? Paul says he is in Romans 8:26-27:
The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Cooper’s logic would have us deny the heavenly intercession of the Holy Spirit, which is something we can’t accept as Christians. Given that Cooper’s logic leads to a direct denial of Paul’s explicit teaching about the Holy Spirit’s heavenly intercession, his argument fails.
Now, Cooper might counter, “Of course the Holy Spirit can intercede for us because he’s consubstantial with the Son—that’s to say, he’s identical in being with the Son. The heavenly intercession that I’m concerned with is creaturely intercession.”
But if creaturely intercession in heaven is the problem, then we’d have to reject the heavenly intercession of the elders (human souls) in Revelation 5:8 and the angel in Revelation 8:3-4. Recall what John sees in Revelation 5:8:
And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
For an argument as to why we know these “elders” are human souls, check out my book The Saints Pray for You: How the Christians in Heaven Help Us Here on Earth.
In Revelation 8:3-4, John describes an angel doing the same thing:
And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God.
As I argue in my book, the term “prayers of the saints” in both passages refers to Christians on earth. And the elders and the angel are presenting their prayers to the Lamb, Jesus, in the heavenly throne room. That’s heavenly intercession, performed by creatures.
If the elders in Revelation 5:8 and the angel in Revelation 8:3-4 can be heavenly intercessors without taking away from Christ’s unique mediation as our heavenly high priest, then so can the saints. There is in fact enough “room” (to use Cooper’s words) in the heavenly throne room for multiple intercessors, especially when those other intercessors intercede with Christ by virtue of their union with Christ through grace.
Now, concerning our more specific response, Cooper contradicts himself in his video. In the previous argument, he restricts heavenly intercession to Christ. Yet, later in the video, when commenting on the elders in Revelation 5:8, he concedes that they intercede for us in a general way, saying,
[VIDEO]
“45:08 going on but in the midst of that what we don’t have is confirmation 45:14 that the saints can hear the thoughts of our heads and the intentions of our hearts 45:19 and can them respond in some way to that certainly they are before god it is likely that the saints in heaven pray 45:25 for the church and i’m sure they do why wouldn’t they.”
Notice Cooper says, “the saints in heaven pray for the church.”
So, which is it? Is it Christ alone who intercedes in heaven, or do the elders intercede as well? That’s something for Cooper to answer.
Alright! Let’s wrap things up.
1 Timothy 2:5 doesn’t block the invocation of the saints because most likely Paul isn’t conceiving of “mediation” in the sense of intercessory prayer. Rather, he’s teaching us that Jesus is the one mediator in the sense of being the only God-man who gives us access to the Father and the one who alone mediates the new Covenant.
And even if Paul were conceiving of mediation in the sense of intercessory prayer, 1 Timothy 2:5 still doesn’t disprove the invocation of the saints for the reasons I gave.
Finally, the counter that Paul is talking only about Christ’s heavenly intercession fails because the Bible reveals there are creaturely intercessors in heaven who participate in Christ’s unique role of heavenly intercession.
Well, my friends, that’s it for today.
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