Men of tremendous drive frequently do not take time to remember the men around them. The apostle Paul was an exception. He had a kind remembrance for ... many of his fellow workers.
Onesiphorus, mentioned only twice in the New Testament but otherwise one of the unknown, is selected by Paul in 2 Timothy 1:16-18 (see also chap. 4:9) for a mention that has become famous not only because of the man but also because of a famous doctrine derived or supported in part from it:
"The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain: but, when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me. The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well."
Onesiphorus had been kind to Paul during his Roman incarceration, searching him out when he visited there, ministering encouragement to the great Christian warrior. Then Paul expresses a benediction:
"The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day."
"In that day" to us is a simple reference to the great day when the day shall dawn and the shadows of this sinful life shall flee away. But the Roman Catholic Church has attempted to show (1) that "mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus" implies a blessing upon a family which had departed this life, which is uncertain; and (2) that this is an instance of prayer for departed saints. Which brings us at once into the arena of controversy over the famous phrase in the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in . .. The communion of saints."
Prayers for and to the saints became an integral part of the Roman system. Some of the grossest doctrinal errors grew out of the belief in, and practice of, prayers for the dead. It was from this error that Rome derived the practice of prayers to deliver the dead from purgatory, and all the lucrative system of paid masses for the dead.
The New Testament has no word to say on the departed believer's need for the prayers of the living, nor on any ritualistic observances as necessary to purge the departed from their sins before entering heaven.
Paul spoke of his decease when he said that he had a desire "to depart, and to be with Christ" (Phil. 1:23), and there is not the slightest hint of any intermediate purgatorial pause. For him to be "absent from the body" was to be "present with the Lord" with no conscious intervening stages (2 Cor. 5:8). Time to the saints resting unconscious in death has no meaning. Their next conscious experience is in eternal day.
The phrase "communion of saints" was probably a late addition to the creed, for it cannot be traced back beyond the fifth century A.D., and was not widely accepted till the eighth. No reason can be found to prove that it at first meant other than that believers shared common faith and common blessings in this life. The idea of "the blessed departed" and of class distinctions among them—for example, eminent martyrs and dignitaries—came along later. It "grew to its height in the twelfth century," says Hallam's History of Europe, vol. 3, p. 32.
The Heidelberg Confession, drawn up by Calvin's followers shortly after his death, says this on the communion of saints: "First, that believers, all and several, have communion in Christ and all His blessings, as His members; then that each member, is bound promptly and gladly to contribute the blessings he has received to the common good and to the salvation of all."
The saints are not our haloed dead. They are the living believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. To us the communion of saints is not "mystic communion with the perfect and the just in heaven," but the communion of good men on earth, who love God and therefore love one another. Saints who died in Christ will arise at the trump of God—"the dead in Christ shall rise first" —to join the eternal communion of saints in heaven and in earth.
Paul commends the Ephesian saints for their "love unto all the saints" (Eph. 1:1, 15). He declares that they were "Fellow-citizens with the saints" (chap. 2:19). He bids us "salute every saint in Christ Jesus," meaning men on earth, not departed saints in heaven (Phil. 4:21). "The saints and faithful brethren" in Colossians were those who shared his faith, and who loved all their fellow saints (Col. 1:2, 4).
Strictly speaking, saints are believers whose very faith in the Lord Jesus Christ separates them from unbelievers. Saints in the New Testament sense are neither departed nor beatified. They are not inherently perfect, for perfection is in God only. By their faith in the atoning sacrifice of our blessed Lord, they are covered with the robe of His righteousness. As God looks upon this covering, they are "perfect in Christ Jesus," and they are so only as their faith appropriates the merits of the Redeemer.
Today the saints of God are hard pressed in an unbelieving world, and they need to press together. The battles of faith grow fiercer, and we need one another as never before in a fellowship that leads each of us nearer to God. There will be no saints in heaven who have not first been saints on earth. (See Testimonies to Ministers, p. 145.)
I believe in the communion of saints!
H. W. L.
