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| Q: | I noticed that Roman Catholics refer to Psalm 103:20 as a Scripture proof for invoking the saints (angels). How can one state that speaking to angels is wrong when Scripture gives an example of the Psalmist doing so? Thanks for your assistance. | ||||||
| A: | At the end of Psalm 103 David invites all God's works to join him in praising God. In Psalm 148 a similar invitation is given to angels, the sun, moon, and stars, clouds, lightening, hail, mountains, trees, wild animals, birds, and people. In Psalm 24 the psalmist invites the gates to lift up their heads in welcome of the Messiah. Psalm 19 says the heavens praise the Lord. Does this mean we are to pray to all of these, or even that the psalmist is directly speaking to trees and animals and gates? This is the poetic figure of apostrophe in which absent or even inanimate things are addressed. If Psalm 103 is grounds for praying to angels, Psalm 148 is grounds for praying to the sun, moon, and stars and to animals and birds. This is a laughable attempt to try to find scriptural sanction for a practice scripture condemns. Scripture warns us not to worship angels. Colossians 2:18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. Revelation 19:10 At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” The angels are interested in the welfare of the church and may pray for us in a general way, but we have no command to use them as mediators. Smalcald Articles, II, 26: "And although the angels in heaven pray for us (as Christ himself also does), as also do the saints on earth, and perhaps also in heaven, yet it does not follow thence that we should invoke and adore the angels and saints, and fast, hold festivals, celebrate Mass in their honor, make offerings, and establish churches, altars, divine worship, and in still other ways serve them, and regard them as helpers in need and divide among them all kinds of help, and ascribe to each one a particular form of assistance, as the Papists teach and do. For this is idolatry, and such honor belongs alone to God." | ||||||
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