Why shouldn't Christians pray to saints or angels?
Praying to saints or angels is a practice performed by a few different sects of Christians. People who do it will tell you that they are seeking the saint’s intercession, they hope the person they’re praying to will petition God on their behalf which they think will improve the chances that their prayer will be heard by God. Here is a small sample of the reasons this is wrong and Christians shouldn’t do it.
God is impartial and unchanging
People who pray to saints or angels seem to think that perhaps if God’s answer to their prayer is “no” that if a saint intercedes on their behalf, that God will have his mind changed and answer the prayer differently. God, however, is unchanging.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t work with conditions, though. There are several instances where God makes it known that he will allow an affliction of some sort to happen to a person or group unless they repent. If they repent, God withholds the affliction. This doesn’t mean that God changed his mind. It means that we (or the subject of the condition) changed.
God treats us all with equality. He does not show favor to one person or another as we would understand partiality. God puts us on different paths and the world treats us differently, but God loves us all the same.
For God shows no partiality.
God is sovereign and omniscient
There’s no reason to think that God doesn’t hear your prayers. God is all-powerful and omniscient. He knows your thoughts. He knows your prayers before your mouth can even form them. If you think that God doesn’t hear some prayers, then you misunderstand the Lord. Some instances in scripture refer to God not hearing prayers of evil people, but this language artistically means that God does not fulfil those prayers, not that he doesn’t hear them.
The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
You don’t know who’s in heaven
Praying to a saint implies that you know with certainty that they are in heaven. Scripture makes it clear that only God is able to judge whether a person goes to heaven or not. Surely you don’t want to be caught accidentally praying to a person you thought was in heaven but turned out not to be, right? What about angels? Well… Lucifer was an angel… we shouldn’t make assumptions.
For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us.
There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
People who pray to saints will often respond to this point with statements like “well I pray to Mary, she’s Jesus’ mother, of course she’s saved.” I agree that everything I know would indicate that Mary is saved, but since I’m not God, I can’t know. Scripture doesn’t reveal it and I have no divine revelation on the matter, so it would be sinful for me to infringe on God’s almighty sovereignty and claim to know his judgement that he hasn’t disclosed. Since you’re not God, you cannot be certain of any other person’s salvation, no matter who they are, and it’s sinful to assume you do.
God says we should not communicate with the dead
Scripture makes it abundantly clear that it is a sin to try to communicate with anybody who’s dead. If a person is no longer alive on earth, we are strictly forbidden from trying to communicate with them.
So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord , and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance from the Lord . Therefore the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.
or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord . And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
You already have the perfect mediator
Scripture reveals the perfect mediator, the only one Christians would ever need.
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus
It’s truly foolish to elevate anybody to this position that is rightly held by Jesus.