Can the Saints Hear Us?

DEFENSE

We have evidence they are aware of our prayers.

You don’t have to know everything to know some things, so the saints don’t have to be omniscient to be aware of our prayer requests.

We do not know much about how the human intellect works in heaven, but the fact that heaven is a higher state than this life suggests we will have more rather than less awareness. This is also suggested because we will be made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4) and transformed to be like God by virtue of the beatific vision (1 John 3:2).

Scripture does not give many pictures of what life in heaven is like, but it shows saints and angels aware of what is happening on earth (Rev. 6:9–11, 7:13–14, 11:15–18, 16:5–6, 18:20).

The common understanding is that the saints are aware of our prayer requests through union with God. It is reasonable to suppose that, in the perfect state of heaven, people will have whatever information is relevant to them. Thus God can make a saint aware that someone is asking for his intercession.

However saints and angels are aware of our prayer requests, Scripture indicates that they are. In Revelation 5:8, the twenty-four elders, who appear to represent the leaders of the people of God in heaven, offer incense to God. We are told that the incense is “the prayers of the saints.” In Revelation 8:3–4, an angel offers incense that is mingled with “the prayers of all the saints.”

At that time, the term “saint” was commonly used to refer to liv- ing Christians (2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:1). It is natural to see these passages as depicting the inhabitants of heaven presenting the prayer requests of the saints on earth to God. This is surely part of what 8:3 means by the reference to the prayers of “all the saints.”
TIP
If it is suggested that these passages don’t deal with prayer requests made to those in heaven, then our point is made even stronger, for the passages would show that those in heaven were aware of prayer requests that weren’t even addressed to them!