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Question 537

Where in the bible does it mention Saints and how they live eternally and have the power to hear our prays and perform miracles?   

 

Answer to Question 537

Your question has a very Bible only Protestant position. Not everything is in the Bible, it is not a manual that fell out from heaven giving us instructions on what to believe and if something is not mentioned then it must be rejected. 

 

The Protestants take Holy Scripture and say this is all we need, it teaches us pure Christianity as it was in the beginning before it was adulterated with various laws and doctrines made by men. But is Holy Scripture enough? The Gospels do not teach us everything for when the Lord was to leave this world He promised us another teacher: “And I will pray to the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of Truth” (John 14: 16) and “the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things” (John 14: 26).

 

Evidently then, there is a Christian teaching, which supplements the Gospels, and this teaching is found in Holy Tradition. But here we need to explain what Holy Tradition is, especially for those coming from a Protestant background. For the Protestants have completely rejected Holy Tradition and because they do not have Holy Tradition to guide them in interpreting Holy Scripture, they have fallen into a plethora of erroneous teachings and have separated into hundreds of denominations and sects. What the Protestants seem to forget is that Holy Scripture, which they claim to be the only authoritative source, was compiled and handed down by Holy Tradition. The oldest Gospel of the New Testament that according to St. Matthew was written between 42-65 A.D. In other words, some years after our Lord Jesus Christ’s Resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The Last Gospel, that according to St. John, was written between 85-95 A.D. Of the other books of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation being the last was written about the year 96 A.D. Until all these books [27 in all] had been written and the Canon [collection of books] of the New Testament compiled, the Lord’s teaching, and that of the Apostles’, were orally transmitted. Moreover, not all that the Lord taught, said or did is written in the Gospels and other books of the New Testament; as St. John writes, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21: 25).

 

By mouth alone then, were such teachings transmitted by the Apostles to their successors, who in turn transmitted them to their successors and thus they have come down to us. St. Paul clearly writes this to the Christians of his time when he says: “stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” [that is whether oral or written] (2 Thessalonians 2: 15). It was the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit that separated after careful examination, which books should be accepted as genuine and thus compiled the Canon of the New Testament. These unwritten and orally transmitted Apostolic teachings, along with the divinely inspired books written by the Lord’s disciples and Apostles, make up Sacred or Holy Tradition, which is the basis and the foundation of the doctrine of the Orthodox Faith.