G. C. Jeffers

In this post I defend the doctrine of the Communion of Saints using Mike Heiser’s work on the Divine Council.

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Dr. Mike Heiser in his book The Unseen Realm synthesizes what scholarship has known for some time about the way that Ancient Israelites, Second Temple Jews, and First Century Christians would have understood the spiritual realm. Go read the book (or the popular level version Supernatural) if you want the juicy details; I will only summarize a bit here:

What is elohim?

The Hebrew word elohim (God/gods) is a grammatically plural noun (like the English moose) and, like moose, can be used both as a singular noun or as a plural noun. For example, I can say “there are three moose over there” or I can say “there is a moose over there.” But what about a more ambiguous phrase like “The moose attacked me.” I could mean that only a single moose attacked me, or I could mean that a herd (flock?) of moose attacked me. 

Similarly, in the Old Testament, the word elohim regularly appears and can legitimately be translated as “God” or as “gods.” The word elohim, then, (unlike the English GOD) does not refer to a particular set of divine attributes (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc), but instead has the same semantic range as the greek words theos or daimon, basically any disembodied intelligence. 

In Genesis 1 when Elohim creates, he speaks in the plural–”let us create humankind in our image”–and seems to be operating as the chief of a group. This group is usually known as the Divine Council (Heiser’s website has all of the details). Two explicit accounts of the divine council in the Old Testament are in Job 1:6 “Now there was a day when the ben elohim (sons of God; other translations have “heavenly beings” or, following the Septuagint, have “angels of God”) came to present themselves before the YHWH, and hasatan (lit. the accuser; the fully developed account of God’s primary enemy–known in the New Testament as Satan–did not yet exist in Job; here hasatan is more like a public prosecutor) also came among them.” Similarly,  Psalm 82:1 says “God (elohim) stands in the divine assembly; he administers judgment in the midst of the gods (elohim).” 

The translators of the Septuagint picked up on this and often translated elohim (where “gods” was meant) as angeloi (angels) because they wanted to make the ontological distinction between YHWH (GOD) and the gods. Relatedly, the phrase “sons of God” (b’nai elohim) is only ever used in the Old Testament to refer to powerful spiritual beings and never to humans. In Genesis 6:2 the traditional Hebrew text has “Then the sons of God, seeing that the daughters of men were beautiful . . .” while the Septuagint has “the angels of God, having seen the daughters of humans, that they were beautiful . . .” 

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The Falls

The first fall is the fall of the being eventually known as Satan in the New Testament. In Ezekiel 28:1-19 and Isaiah 14:12-15, the primordial fall of Satan is described (while these passages are officially addressed to the Kings of Tyre (Ezekiel) and Babylon (Isaiah), it is clear that the prophets veer into primordial history; for more see Heiser’s podcast on Ezekiel 28). From Ezekiel 28:12-15 (addressed to Satan):

“You were the signet of perfection,
    full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God;
    every precious stone was your covering,
carnelian, chrysolite, and moonstone,
    beryl, onyx, and jasper,
sapphire, turquoise, and emerald;
    and worked in gold were your settings
    and your engravings.
On the day that you were created
    they were prepared.
With an anointed cherub as guardian I placed you;
    you were on the holy mountain of God;
    you walked among the stones of fire.
You were blameless in your ways
    from the day that you were created,
    until iniquity was found in you.”

Ezekiel goes on to describe Satan’s problem as pride and a desire to take over the throne from YHWH. 

The second fall is the one we all know about, the fall of humanity in Genesis 3. Humanity, enticed by the serpent (which later tradition connects to Satan from the first fall), violates God’s command to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and thus introduces human sin into the cosmos. Humans, previously immortal, will now die. 

The third fall is the fall of the sons of God (angels) in Genesis 6:1-4. 

The Masoretic Text has the following: 

“When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went into the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.” (MT)

The Septuagint has the following: 

“And it happened, when humans began to become numerous upon the land, and they had daughters, the angels of God, having seen the daughters of humans, that they were beautiful, took for themselves women from all whom they picked out. The Lord God said, “My breath will not at all reside in these humans for very long because they are flesh, but their days will be one hundred and twenty years.” Now giants were upon the land in those days, and after that, whenever the sons of God visited the daughters of humans, they fathered children for themselves; those were the giants who were from long ago, the people of renown.” (LXX)

This cryptic (to us) story is the well-known account of how the gods (angels) mated with human women and produced demi-gods (men of renown; nephilim; giants). This story is extremely common in the Ancient Near East and the wider Mediterranean world. The Greeks had it in spades–just look at all of the stories in Greek mythology about the gods having sex with human women and producing great heroes. There are heroes like Hercules or Achilles, for example. The word nephilim is often glossed in English as “fallen ones” based on the Hebrew lemma nāp̄al which means to fall. But the actual etymology of the word comes either from the Aramaic word naphila or the etymological ancestor of both words and means “giants.” If you want to get into the linguistic weeds on this one, please see this article from Heiser. 

Furthermore, as is indicated above, the LXX translates nephilim as gigantes (giants). This story was so well known that it was enshrined in multiple Second Temple Jewish texts, most importantly the book known as 1 Enoch. While only the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Churches take 1 Enoch to be canonical, the basic story it tells is assumed in the New Testament and the early Church Fathers. Both 2 Peter and Jude quote the book of Enoch. Jude quotes something Enoch said (Jude 14) and alludes to the imprisonment and punishment of the fallen sons of God (Jude 6-7). 2 Peter 2:4 also alludes to the imprisonment of the fallen sons of God, who both Jude and Peter call “angels” following the LXX treatment. In both the Enochan tradition and in the book of Jubilees, these same fallen sons of God are the ones who bring forbidden knowledge to humanity–this well parallels the primordial fall in Eden when the serpent tempts Eve with forbidden knowledge. 

First Enoch 8:1-3: 

“And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all coloring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjaza taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, ‘Armaros the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal (taught) astrology, Kokabel the constellations, Ezeqeel the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiel the signs of the earth, Shamsiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven.”

Though the Ancient Near East in general viewed this disclosure of knowledge as good (c.f. The Babylonian apkallu and the Greek Prometheus), clearly ancient Israelites and Jews had a different view of things.

The fourth fall is when the sons of God rebel sometime after being appointed to their stations as rulers of the nations after the Babel event. 

Deuteronomy 32:7-9: 

“Remember the days of old,
    consider the years long past;
ask your father, and he will inform you;
    your elders, and they will tell you.
When the Most High apportioned the nations,
    when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
    according to the number of the gods;
the Lord’s own portion was his people,
    Jacob his allotted share.”

Here Deuteronomy mentions a time at some point in the past when God scattered the nations and appointed gods (LXX reads “angels”) over each nation. That this refers to God’s disinheriting the nations after the babel event is clear because of the context–when else did God scatter the peoples of the earth? Additionally, Genesis 10 (right before the Babel event) lays out the table of nations. There are 70 (MT) or 72 (LXX) (teaser: this is why Jesus sends out 72 disciples in Luke 10–God is going to reclaim the nations for himself). At some point these gods (angels) fall and treat their people badly and, among other things, solicit worship from humans. For this, YHWH will judge them. In Exodus 12:12 YHWH says that “on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments” in the tenth plague. Additionally, Psalm 82 includes a judgment scene in which YHWH judges the fallen gods (angels) and sentences them to death. 

Here is Psalm 82:

  “God has taken his place in the divine council;
    in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly
    and show partiality to the wicked?Selah
Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
    maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
    they walk around in darkness;
    all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I say, “You are gods,
    children of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, you shall die like mortals,
    and fall like any prince.”
Rise up, O God, judge the earth;
    for all the nations belong to you!

We thus have YHWH specifically condemning the gods of the nations for leading their nations astray and for tolerating, and in fact encouraging, injustice. We also see the gods of the nations at work in other ways. In Daniel 10, Daniel is visited by an angel who explains that he was delayed for three weeks because he was in a battle with “the prince of Persia” and it was only when Michael, “one of the chief princes” came to help, that this angel was permitted to continue to visit Daniel. He warns, however, that when he departs he will have to face the prince of Greece. In context, calling Michael a prince makes it clear that these other entities, like Michael, are angels. Furthermore, why would an angel sent to speak with Daniel be delayed by a human prince? Daniel 10 thus explicitly supports the view that there are territorial gods (angels) over the various nations. Two other biblical stories come to mind.

First, there is the story of Naaman from Aram who came to see Elisha because he heard that Elisha was capable of miraculous healing (2 Kings 5). After he is successfully healed, Naaman asks for a cart-load of Israelite dirt to bring back home because he “will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except YHWH.” Because Naaman believed that certain gods were assigned to certain lands, he believed it necessary to bring back part of YHWH’s land on which he could worship. 

Second, in 2 Kings 17:24-28, the king of Assyria, who had just conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, had a problem. The newly placed transplants from around the assyrian empire in northern Israel keep getting attacked by lions. It is discerned that the lion attacks are happening “because they do not know the law of the god of the land.” That is, the Assyrians believe that the god of the land of Israel is sending lions to attack people because they are not giving him due reverence. Again, this demonstrates a clear belief in the geographical significance of the gods (angels). 

Finally, it is Israel’s apostasy–Israel’s going after other gods–that leads to the exile. This is also clarified by Deuteronomy 32:15-18:

Jacob ate his fill;
    Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked.
    You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!
He abandoned God who made him,
    and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They made him jealous with strange gods,
    with abhorrent things they provoked him.
They sacrificed to demons, not God,
    to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
    whom your ancestors had not feared.
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;
    you forgot the God who gave you birth.

Here it is clarified that though Israel was well loved and well cared for by God, he nevertheless chose to abandon God and to go off with other gods. This passage refers to these gods as “strange gods” and “demons” and as “deities they had never known.” The core problem for Israel is the switching of allegiance from YHWH to other gods. Ezekiel 16 (if you have the stomach for it) gets into this with gruesome detail in comparing Israel’s worshiping of other gods to a wife delighting in stepping out on her husband. St. Paul in the New Testament makes a similar point when he warns the believers in Corinth to avoid eating meat sacrificed to idols (when dining publicly) because “what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:20-21).

There are dozens of other passages we could look at, but I think I have made my point about the role of these fallen gods in the political geography of the world. 

The ultimate point about all of these falls is that “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). 

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What does God want?

In short, God wants the reconciliation of all things (Co1 1). He created in order to share the abundance of himself with other beings, beings that are and are becoming his family. The hosts of heaven (the angels) are God’s sons.The nation of Israel, corporately, was referred to as God’s son (Ex 4:22, Hos 11:1) as was the king of Israel, particularly David (Psalm 2:7, 2 Samuel 7:14). Human believers are adopted as sons into God’s family via faith in Christ (Rom 8, etc.). And, of course, Jesus is God’s son (no citations needed). God’s goal, then, is the repair and uniting of his heavenly and earthly family. In order for this to happen, God has to accomplish a few things. 

First, he must deal with angelic sin because sin by the sons of God is what precipitated the crisis in God’s family.

He must deal with Satan. The problem with Satan (as the serpent from Genesis 1 and the divine rebel in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 eventually comes to be known) is that he was a trusted member of the divine council and he committed a vile and treacherous act when he actively worked against the purpose for which he was designed. As a throne guardian (often depicted in the Ancient Near East as serpents with a human face), he had access to all of sacred space. One example from mythology: Ningishzida is a sumerian god whose job it was to guard the throne room of Anu, the sumerian god of the sky, and was depicted as a serpent with the head of a man. He was also called the “guardian of the good tree.” The serpent is a trusted guardian of the sacred space, the sacred tree, in the garden of the gods and is himself a god. Satan’s betrayal is thus deep and painful, the evil and spite in his heart is unparalleled. Having led humanity into sin, he wounds YHWH even further and finds himself prophesied to be executed by a descendant of Adam and Eve.

Right now, those who are not in Christ are children of Satan, not children of God. John writes in 1 John 3:8: “Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” That is, the whole reason Jesus came into the world was to undo Satan’s work and free us from being Satan’s children and equip us to be God’s children. We see Satan finally dealt with in Revelation 20:10 when he is tossed into the lake of fire. 

He must deal with the transgressors of Genesis 6. The problem with the angels who father the nephilim is spelled out clearly by Jude who notes in verse 6 that “the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day.” It seems that the sin that the angels of Genesis 6 commit is the sin of transgressing against nature. By leaving behind their “proper dwelling,” and lusting after “strange flesh” (in that case, it is humans lusting after angelic flesh) as the violators in Sodom do, these angels have returned chaos to the world by blurring the careful distinctions that God made in the creation narrative of Genesis 1. 

Furthermore, these fallen angels aid and abet Satan in his quest to corrupt humans with forbidden knowledge, so these fallen angels (in the non-canonical Enochan tradition) are the source of knowledge about things like weapons, cosmetics, and drugs. God initially deals with them by tossing them into tartarus and holding them in chains until the judgment (2 Peter 2:4). At the last judgment they will face the music. 

This event, wherein the fallen angels are defeated and locked up in Tartarus is mirrored in other Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean myths. In Greek mythology, for example, the gods defeat the titans and lock them up in Tartarus. Similar theomachies (wars between the gods) happen, often on a grander scale, where chaos is defeated and order imposed. In the Enuma Elish the babylonian god Marduk defeats the dragonish sea monster Tiamat. In the Baal Cycle, Baal defeats Yom (the god of the sea) and later Mot (the god of death) in order to impose order. Baal even undergoes a kind of resurrection to accomplish this. 

Most significantly for the metanarrative of the Bible, God must deal with the fallen gods of the nations. The problem with the gods of the nations is that they sank into corruption and abandoned YHWH’s charge to govern the nations well. Power seems to have gone to their heads. Psalm 82 (quoted above) clarifies the nature of their transgressions. They reward wickedness and lack impartiality. They refuse to help the weak and needy. They prop up systems of oppression that harm the most vulnerable. But perhaps worst of all they solicit worship for themselves that is due only to YHWH. Much of the worship of these gods involved deviant sexuality and violence (Molech, in particular, demanded child sacrifice), but often it was simply the false transactional system wherein one gave of one’s resources and in return would receive the blessing of the god. But these gods over-promised and under-fulfilled. 

YHWH begins the systematic defeat of these fallen gods first in Egypt (Ex 12:12) and then in Canaan (see this article for a good account). Once Canaan was cleared out, the plan was for God to reach outward from Israel to reclaim the other nations. Indeed, this is the regular and repeated promise in the Old Testament. The gentiles (a word that means “nations”) will be brought into relationship with God. Here is a representative passage of dozens of similar references in the Old Testament. Jeremiah 3:17: “At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will.” Indeed, at the cleansing of the temple in Mark 11:17, Jesus shouts “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers,” thus combining Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11. Jesus, in symbolic judgment of the Temple, is focused on the injustice of the way that God’s people are fleeced and how the gentiles are kept from coming to worship YHWH in the temple. Israel had failed to carry out their version of the Great Commision. Thus, God will now graft in the gentiles (Romans 11). And as the LXX rendering of Psalm 82:8 has it: “Stand up, O God, judge the earth, because you will inherit among all the nations.” Part of the judgment of these fallen gods is that their nations will now be returned to YHWH so that “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” would, “standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands” shout “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10). 

Second, of course, he must deal with human sin. I won’t go into tons of detail here because soteriology is one of the best known and well studied fields of theology. I will simply say that, humans sin, sin separates us from God and ultimately terminates in eternal death–legally, we belong to Satan as he is the lord of the Dead. In order to rectify the problem, Jesus lives a perfect life and thus satisfies the just demands of the law on our behalf, dies in order to ransom us from Satan (the price Satan demanded was Jesus’s death), defeats the powers & principalities in battle on their turf (the grave), rises to new life to finally defeat death. On the cross, Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus absorbs the sin and violence and pain of the world and expiates it just like the scapegoat who carries away the sins of the people into the wilderness to give to Azazel (aka Satan) (Leviticus 16:8-10, 21-22). 

The way it all ends is depicted throughout the prophets, but the most striking picture is from Revelation 21 and 22. An excerpt from 21:1-8:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place[a] of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,[b] and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”

The final result is eternal adoption by God as a son, entry into God’s family. 

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The Communion of Saints

But what is God’s family?

In the final section of the Apostles Creed, we say “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” According to the Catechism of the Anglican Church in North America, the communion of saints is “the fellowship of all those, in heaven and on earth, who are united in Christ as one Body, through one Spirit, in Holy Baptism. (Psalm 149; Ephesians 2:13–22; Hebrews 12:1–3).” 

Etymologically, the English word “saint” derives from Latin sanctus which means “holy.” Thus a saint is a “holy one.” 

Eventually the Roman Catholic Church defined a saint (in the technical sense) as a dead Christian who is in heaven, but of course in the non-technical sense all who are in Christ are saints or holy ones. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes “The communion of saints is the spiritual solidarity which binds together the faithful on earth, the souls in purgatory, and the saints in heaven in the organic unity of the same mystical body under Christ its head . . . The participants in that solidarity are called saints by reason of their destination and of their partaking of the fruits of the Redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:2). 

The word translated “saint” in Greek is hagios and qāḏôš in Hebrew, plus a noun. The Old Testament uses qāḏôš/hagios to refer both to heavenly beings and to humans. Of the eleven times that qāḏôš is translated “holy ones” in the Old Testament, six of those are a reference to God’s heavenly host or council (angels) (Job 5:1, Job 15:15, Psa 89:5, Psa 89:7, Dan 8:13, and Zec 14:5). The other five instances refer to Moses and Aaron (Psa 106:16), a scheme proposed by the korahite rebels to identify who God really favored (Num 16:7), and to the Israelites as a community (Deut 33:3, Psa 16:3, Psalm 34:9). Thus, it is quite clear that in the Old Testament the holy ones (or “saints”) overlapped substantially with the gods/sons of God (angels). 

So, when the New Testament takes over the use of the word hagios, it is doing so in this specific context. In the New Testament, hagios is used of people twenty times and, except for Matthew 27:52, which refers to believers who had been dead who returned to life, every one of those uses refers to living believers in Christ (Act 9:13, Rom 1:7, Rom 15:25, Rom 15:31, 1 Cor 1:2, 1 Cor 16:15, 2 Cor 1:1, Eph 1:1, Eph 1:18, Eph 3:5, Eph 3:18, Eph 5:3, Php 1:1, Col 1:2, Col 1:26, 2 Thes 1:10, Heb 6:10, Jud 3, and Rev 11:18). 

Finally, Hebrews 12:1 notes that “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run the race . . .” Now, what witnesses could the author of Hebrews be referencing? He could certainly be referencing the Old Testament saints who were just named in Hebrews 11 (the hall of faith as it is sometimes called–folks like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, etc) and by extension any who die in faith, or he could be referencing the heavenly beings described in the Old Testament as holy ones. As holy ones can semantically cover both Old Testament saints (and, by extension, dead believers in the New Testament) as well as heavenly beings, then this reference to the great cloud of witnesses could certainly refer to both. That is, this could be a reference to the complete family of God–angelic and human–who are cheering on those of us on earth who are still running the race of faith. 

So, given all of this biblical data, what are we to make of it? 

First, it seems clear that humans are in every way just as much members of God’s holy family as are angels. Both the Old and New Testaments attest to the fact that covenant members of God’s people–those (to borrow a Heiserism) who have a relationship of believing loyalty to YHWH–are holy ones. And we know that human holy ones will one day have resurrected bodies that far outstrip our current bodies (1 Cor 15:35-58), we will possess eternal life (both in quality and in quantity), we will even have spiritual authority to judge the angels (1 Cor 6:3), we will be co-heirs with Christ (Rom 8:7), and we will reign with him (2 Tim 2:12). Well aware of the Old Testament use of “holy ones,” the writers of the New Testament universally apply the term to human followers of Jesus. 

Second, it is clear from a couple of verses that those who have died are aware of what transpires on earth and intercede with God. We see this, for example, in the account of Christ’s transfiguration when Moses and Elijah show up and speak with him (Matt 17:3). Additionally, Revelation 6:10 reports the souls of the martyrs as asking God to intervene on the earth. And, in the Old Testament, Samuel appears as a ghost and has a chat with Saul (1 Samuel 28:12). Though necromancy is forbidden (Deut 18:11), so too is divination (Deut 18:10). And yet God also permits divination when done according to his strictures (Num 27:21). Similarly, God permitted Saul to speak with Samuel even though the means by which he did so was (consulting the medium) was untoward. Even the parable of the rich man and Lazarus involves the invoked possibility of sending Lazarus back to earth to warn the rich man’s family (Luke 16:27-28). Abraham doesn’t reject the idea because “that sort of thing doesn’t/shouldn’t happen,” but because such a warning would carry no more weight than the law and the prophets which his family already possessed (Luke 16:31). Finally, back to Revelation, we see in chapter five vs 8 that the twenty-four presbyteroi that surround God’s throne are holding bowls of incense for the worship of God, and John tells us that these bowls of incense were the prayers of the saints. In some sense, then, the twenty-four presbyteroi are described as mediating the prayers of those on earth to God. 

Third, the communion of saints, then, can be understood as the unity of God’s entire family, angelic and human. And this family, like all functioning families, is ordered toward a single goal–the cooperation with God in extending his reign over all things. Jesus notes in passing in Matthew 18:10 that one should not “despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.” The idea of a personal guardian angel is well attested in Second Temple Judaism and Jesus seems to have accepted it. It is interesting that the reason why little ones should not be despised is because the angels of the little ones “see the face of” God. The implication here seems to be intercession by the angels on behalf of their charges. Further, there are several biblical references to angels receiving reverence and obedience as higher members of the family of God (Dan 8:18-19, Dan 10:9, Luke 2:9, and Acts 12:7-8). If human holy ones are glorified once going to be with God, there is no reason why they should not be treated similarly to angels. But perhaps the best example of the conceptual overlap between human holy ones and angelic holy ones is the account of the celestial woman in Revelation 12:1-2. Here is the passage:

“A great portent (sēmeion) appeared in heaven (ouranos): a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.”

A few notes on interpreting a passage like this:

First, since Revelation is written in the genre of apocalyptic (which I address some here), it is important to understand at the outset that the text is highly symbolic. 

Second, perhaps more than any other New Testament book, Revelation alludes to the Old Testament constantly. This point is repeatedly made by Heiser in his dense, long, and excellent podcast series on the uses of the Old Testament in Revelation. Indeed, by some estimates, there are over 500 allusions to the Old Testament in Revelation (here is a good list)! That is more than one allusion per verse! But, as Dr. Fruchtenbaum notes on this previously linked list, “Some of these references back to the Old Testament do speak of the very same thing as the Revelation. However, in others, the Revelation merely borrows a phrase or motif for the purpose of developing a new area.” 

Third, by implication, then, of highly symbolic language and large numbers of mixed and matched Old Testament allusions, we should expect any given text in Revelation to be polysemous. Here are some examples:

• The four living creatures (Rev 4:6-8) draw from the descriptions of cherubim in Ezekiel 10:1-14 and the seraphim in Isaiah 6:1-5. 
• The presbyteroi in Revelation 4:4 are a dual reference to the twelve apostles and the twelve tribes, a connection made explicit in Revelation 21:12-14. 
• The Beast in Revelation 13 has elements of all of the beasts from Daniel 7. 
• The seven heads of the Beast are referred two both as mountains (17:9) and kings (17:10). 

Thus, when considering Revelation 12 and the identity of the woman, we should expect there to be multiple, overlapping identities. It seems to me that there are four overlapping meanings for the woman: Mary, Eve, Israel, and the Church. 

First, she is Israel because of her association with the sun, moon, and 12 stars, all of which, taken together, represent Israel (Gen 37:9-11). 

Second, she is clearly the Church because the rest of her offspring are those who bear witness to Jesus (Rev 12:17).

Third, she is also Eve in that the dragon is identified with the serpent from the Garden of Eden (Rev 12:9) who is at war with her offspring (Gen 3:15; Rev 12:4).

Fourth, she is also Mary the mother of Jesus because she gives birth to the one who will rule the nations with a rod of iron (Luke 2:5-7, Rev 12:5, Rev 19:11-16). 

The woman in heaven is described in much the same way as the angelic beings from Revelation, in particular the mighty angel in Rev 10:1-3 who was “wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He held a little scroll open in his hand. Setting his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, he gave a great shout, like a lion roaring. And when he shouted, the seven thunders sounded.” Like the woman from Revelation 12, the angel in Revelation 10 is related to various celestial objects (the sun, clouds, rainbow) and is visible to many. We therefore have clear evidence of not only conceptual overlap between human holy ones and angelic holy ones, but we also have that overlap made explicit when Mary is depicted as crowned with stars in Heaven. She has been glorified and already reigns with Christ.

In addition to the woman from Revelation 12’s crown, there are many such promises of receiving crowns in the bible. The Greek word that is usually translated by “crown” is stephanos and its relatives. Stephanos (or its relatives) is used twenty-six times in the LXX. Eighteen of those times the meaning is clearly a royal crown, whether literal or figurative (2 Sam 12:30, 1 Ch 20:2, Est 8:15, Job 19:9, Job 31:36, Psa 21:3, Song 3:11, Isa 22:17, Isa 22:21, Isa 62:3, Jer 13:18, Lam 2:14, Lam 5:10, Eze 16:12, Eze 23:42, Eze 28:12, Zec 6:11, Zec 6:14). The other eight times the meaning is split between “garland/victor’s crown” (Psa 65:11, Isa 28:3 Isa 28:5) and, in the book of Proverbs, a figurative “final/complete” (e.g. a crowning achievement) (Pro 1:9, Pro 4:9, Pro 14:24, Pro 12:4, Pro 17:6). 

Furthermore, stephanos is used eighteen times in the New Testament. Ten of those times the meaning is clearly a royal crown (Mat 27:29, Mark 15:17, John 19:2, John 19:5, Rev 4:4, Rev 4:10, Rev 6:2, Rev 9:7, Rev 12:1, Rev 14:14). It is also used six times to mean “garland/victor’s crown” (1 Cor 9:25, 2 Tim 4:8, James 1:12, 1 Peter 5:14, Rev 2:10, Rev 3:11) and twice to mean “complete” (Php 4:1, 1 Thess 2:19). 

All uses of the word stephanos, aside from the ones in the Gospels talking about the crown of thorns or a couple in Revelation talking about the glorified Son of Man wearing a crown, refer to human believers in YHWH. Sometimes the referent in the Old Testament is an earthly crown for an earthly office (like king), but most of the references have spiritual significance. Given these data, and given the previous discussion of the saints ruling and reigning with Christ, is it any surprise that covenant member’s of YHWH’s people would receive crowns as signs and seals of their offices? And, given that Mary in Revelation 12 is shown receiving hers in the midst of history, and given the above information about there being human holy ones in heaven right now ruling and reigning with God, then it seems that we can decisively conclude that the Church triumphant is already cooperating with God in the ruling and reigning project that we will all be a part of.

Let’s regroup: 

First, the Communion of Saints is the unity of all members of the Body of Christ whether alive on the earth or alive with God in Heaven. 

Second, given the vast conceptual overlap between believing humans and angels (both are “holy ones) and given multiple examples from scripture as to how the angelic holy ones and the human holy ones act, it seems that the human holy ones that have been glorified are due the same kind of deference and respect accorded to angels. 

Third, given the interactions between humans and angels throughout the bible, and given the role of intercession that angels played throughout the bible, it seems clear that the human holy ones also interact with humans on earth and intercede for them. 

Fourth, given that those who have died but now live with Christ care about the rest of the body of believers, and given that Christ only has one body that cannot be divided, it seems fitting that we would be able to interact with the holy ones who have gone before us, asking them to pray for us. 

Answering Objections

The two typical objections raised to the doctrine of the Communion of Saints as I have articulated it here are the following:

Objection one: Consulting the dead is forbidden and praying to the saints is consulting the dead. 

The problem with this objection is that it doesn’t make sense of the contrary evidence I presented above, namely that even though consulting the dead is generally wrong, it is only wrong because of its source. Necromancy is an attempt to circumvent God in order to gain secret knowledge. This is the same problem with divination. But if God permitted divination (the use of the urim and the thummim) on his terms, then there seems to be no reason for him to not permit contacting the dead on his terms (which he explicitly permits at least once (1 Samuel 28ff) and implies is not illicit elsewhere. 

• • There is the belief that Peter had died and his angel came by for a chat (Acts 12:15).
  • The assumption that the dead could be sent to visit the living (Luke 16:27-28).
  • The disciple’s mistaken belief about whether Jesus was a ghost or not (Matt 14:26). 
  • The great cloud of witnesses cheering us on (Heb 12:1). It would be a very odd cheering section if we couldn’t hear them. 

  Objection two: There is only one mediator between us and God, and that is Jesus. Praying to the saints interferes with the exclusivity of Christ’s mediatorial work. This objection lacks coherence for a few reasons.

  First, it fails to understand different kinds of mediation. It is quite true and undisputed in all branches of Christianity that Jesus’s mediation is absolutely necessary for our ultimate salvation and that no one else could have done so. That does not mean that other mediation is not possible. 

  Second, the proof text for this objection is 1 Timothy 2:5-6a which reads “there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.” But just four verses prior in 1 Timothy 2:1, Paul commands “that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone.” And indeed, the fact that there is only one mediator who is Jesus is the very reason that Paul gives for why we should pray for everyone. If intercession by humans on earth is not a violation of the mediatorial work of Christ, then I can’t see how intercession by a human in heaven is such a violation. 

  Third, James commands that those who are sick should call for the prebyteroi to anoint them with oil and pray for them because “the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (James 5:16b). If the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective, then who is more righteous than those who are with God in heaven? Surely any human holy one with God has become more righteous than the holiest person on earth. 

  Fourth, and finally, this objection seems to be undergirded by a fear that in praying to the saints we may be worshiping them or giving them honor due only to God. I do think this can happen in folk religion, but that is not an argument against the practice of praying to the saints. Rather, it is all the more reason to do so rightly. St. Augustine actually anticipated this objection and wrote the following in City of God Book XXIII Chapter 10 (and with it I conclude this already over-long article!):

  Here perhaps our adversaries will say that their gods also have done some wonderful things, if now they begin to compare their gods to our dead men. Or will they also say that they have gods taken from among dead men, such as Hercules, Romulus, and many others whom they fancy to have been received into the number of the gods? But our martyrs are not our gods; for we know that the martyrs and we have both but one God, and that the same. Nor yet are the miracles which they maintain to have been done by means of their temples at all comparable to those which are done by the tombs of our martyrs. If they seem similar, their gods have been defeated by our martyrs as Pharaoh’s magi were by Moses. In reality, the demons wrought these marvels with the same impure pride with which they aspired to be the gods of the nations; but the martyrs do these wonders, or rather God does them while they pray and assist, in order that an impulse may be given to the faith by which we believe that they are not our gods, but have, together with ourselves, one God. In fine, they built temples to these gods of theirs, and set up altars, and ordained priests, and appointed sacrifices; but to our martyrs we build, not temples as if they were gods, but monuments as to dead men whose spirits live with God. Neither do we erect altars at these monuments that we may sacrifice to the martyrs, but to the one God of the martyrs and of ourselves; and in this sacrifice they are named in their own place and rank as men of God who conquered the world by confessing Him, but they are not invoked by the sacrificing priest. For it is to God, not to them, he sacrifices, though he sacrifices at their monument; for he is God’s priest, not theirs. The sacrifice itself, too, is the body of Christ, which is not offered to them, because they themselves are this body. Which then can more readily be believed to work miracles? They who wish themselves to be reckoned gods by those on whom they work miracles, or those whose sole object in working any miracle is to induce faith in God, and in Christ also as God? They who wished to turn even their crimes into sacred rites, or those who are unwilling that even their own praises be consecrated, and seek that everything for which they are justly praised be ascribed to the glory of Him in whom they are praised? For in the Lord their souls are praised. Let us therefore believe those who both speak the truth and work wonders. For by speaking the truth they suffered, and so won the power of working wonders. And the leading truth they professed is that Christ rose from the dead, and first showed in His own flesh the immortality of the resurrection which He promised should be ours, either in the beginning of the world to come, or in the end of this world.