How Can True Saints Help You?

Invocation and Intercession of Saints

In the belief that "saints" can bestow special power on believers, millions venerate them by using relics or by invoking them as intercessors. Is this a Bible teaching? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught his followers how to approach God, saying: "You 'Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.' " (Matthew 6:9) Prayers are properly addressed to Jehovah God alone.

In an effort to support the intercession of "saint," some theologians cite Romans 15:30, where we read: "I exhort you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the spirit, that you exert yourselves with me in prayers to God for me." Was Paul encouraging those believers to pray to Him or invoke his name in approach to God? No. While prayers offered in behalf of the truth saints, or holy ones, are encouraged in the Bible, nowhere does God command us to pray to or through such holy ones. -Philippians 1:1,3, 4.

However, God has appointed an Intercessor for our prayers. "I am the way and the truth and the life," said Jesus Christ. "No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus also stated: "Whatever it is that you ask in my name, I will do this,in order that the Father may be glorified in connection with the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." (John 14:6, 13, 14) We can be confident of Jehovah's willingness to hear prayers offered in Jesus' name. Concerning Jesus, the Bible says: "He is able also to save completely those who are approaching God through him, because he is always alive to plead ["be interceding,"] for them." -Hebrews 7:25.

If Jesus is willing to intercede in our behalf, why are "saints"often invoked in prayer by worshipers in Christendom? In his book The Age of Faith, historian Will Durant traces the origin of this practice. While noting that Almighty God was feared and Jesus seemed more accessible, Durant states: "One hardly ventured to speak to [Jesus] face to face after so thoroughly ignoring His Beatitudes. It seemed wiser to lay one's prayers before a saint certified by canonization to be in heaven, and to beg his or her intercession with Christ." Are these concerns justified?

The Bible teaches us that through Jesus we can have "freeness of speech and an approach with confidence" in prayer to God. (Ephesians 3:11, 12) Almighty god is not too distant or removed from mankind to hear our prayers. The psalmist David confidently prayed: "O Hearer of prayer, even to you people of all flesh will come." (Psalm 65:2) Rather than transmitting power through the relics of deceased "saints," Jehovah pours out his holy spirit upon those asking for it in faith. Jesus reasoned: "If you, although being wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will the Father in heaven give holy spirit to those asking him! -Luke 11:13.

Next time: The Role of the Holy Ones

Watchtower, 2002