Jay Dyer, pressed on the intercession of the saints and Mary as the Ark of the Covenant
Asked whether the Bible anywhere shows Mary interceding, Dyer answers from the shape of the heavenly scenes: in Hebrews 11 and Revelation 5–8 and 12 he finds the saints alive in heaven, praying for the church on earth and offering the prayers of the saints to God — one “heavenly family” on both sides of death. He then pushes the root deeper than those passages: intercession of the righteous for the righteous is older than Christianity — Amos pleads and God relents — and James’s rule that the prayer of a righteous man “availeth much” only concentrates in the saints made perfect, whose nearness to God makes their prayers avail the more. Asking a saint’s prayers, he argues, differs in nothing from asking your mother’s or your wife’s.
Peterson objects from Cana: why exalt a mother her own Son seemed to rebuff? Dyer answers with progressive revelation — “it is not my time yet” defers rather than denies, as Jesus elsewhere withholds what the disciples “cannot handle yet” — and then lays out the typology: as the Old Covenant Ark carried the law, God’s presence among his people, so Mary carried God incarnate; the Ark’s three months in the hill country answer her three months with Zechariah and Elizabeth, the Shekinah overshadowing the tabernacle answers the Spirit overshadowing her — and Revelation 12, on his reading, crowns the type: the woman as Queen of Heaven. To the final protest that Jesus “barely mentioned” Mary, Dyer answers that the Jesus who inspired all the New Testament speaks also in Revelation’s presentation of her.
Dyer’s first move is exegetical: Hebrews 11 (with the “cloud of witnesses” of 12:1) shows the departed righteous as one family with the living, and the throne-room scenes of Revelation show them active — the elders with bowls of incense that are the prayers of the saints, the souls under the altar crying out, the angel offering the saints’ prayers on the golden altar.
The practice does not rest on those passages alone: before the church, Israel already believed the righteous intercede for the righteous. Dyer’s example is Amos, who pleads “God, don’t destroy Israel” and is answered — the Lord relents because the prophet prayed.
James’s rule — the prayer of a righteous man “availeth much” — is the hinge. The saints in heaven are more righteous than we, Dyer argues, because they stand in the presence of God; so their prayers avail the more. Asking their prayers is therefore “no different than asking my mom or my wife to pray for me.”
To Peterson’s objection that Jesus rebuffed his mother, Dyer answers first that the text records no rebuke, then that “it is not my time yet” marks deferral, not denial: many things awaited their hour of revealing, as Jesus says elsewhere — “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
The center of the clip is typology — the Old Testament foreshadowing the New. The Ark carried the law, God’s presence among the Jews; in the incarnation, God chose Mary as a new Ark, her womb carrying Emmanuel himself. Dyer names the parallels: the Ark three months in the hill country of Judea, Mary three months in the hill country with Zechariah and Elizabeth; the Shekinah glory-cloud overshadowing the Ark, the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary. Mary, he concludes, “is a fulfillment of all those things.”
The typology lands in the Apocalypse: the woman clothed with the sun, crowned with twelve stars — appearing on the heels of the Ark seen in God’s temple — is, on Dyer’s reading, Mary presented as Queen of Heaven. And since Jesus inspired all the New Testament, “that’s also Jesus saying she is the Queen of Heaven” — his answer to the claim that Jesus never made Mary “a big deal.”
Speakers: Peterson (host) and Dyer (guest). Lightly punctuated for readability; wording preserved from the audio.
Have you read in the Bible that Mary was interceding for you?
Yes. If you look at Hebrews 11, and you look at Revelation 12, and you look at Revelation 5, 6, 7, 8 — you can see that the saints are in heaven. They’re praying for the saints on earth, the church on earth. They intercede, and they offer the prayers of the saints to God. And we’re all one heavenly family, according to Hebrews 11. So, yes.
That’s why you came up with this idea that Mary’s praying for you — from those, because they’re saints in heaven?
It’s not just from those passages. It’s also — before Christianity came, they believed that righteous men could intercede for other righteous men. So if you read the book of Amos — Amos, for example, prays, and he says, “God, don’t destroy Israel.” And God says, “Because you prayed, Amos, I will not destroy Israel — even though I was going to; but had you not prayed, I would have.” So we would say the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, as James says. And so the saints in heaven — they’re more righteous than we are, because they’re in the presence of God — their prayers availeth much. So if I can ask my mom or my wife to pray for me — no different than asking a righteous man or a righteous saint to pray for me.
That’s amazing. But why y’all make Mary so important, when Jesus told Mary to go sit down and be quiet? “If you have been seeking the Father, you would have known what I was doing.” Why he yell at her, if she was so important?
Well, it doesn’t say he yelled at her.
But I know about it. That’s not amazing.
At that passage he also says, “It is not my time yet. It’s not my revealing.” So a lot of things that were later to be revealed, we believe, were not yet revealed. And he also didn’t want the apostles — for whatever reason, at that time — knowing exactly what he was up to. Probably because they weren’t able yet to handle it — because he says elsewhere in the gospels, “I have many things to say to you, but you’re not able to handle it yet.” So there’s a perfect time for those things to be revealed. So we believe in what’s called typology, which is the idea that there’s a lot of things in the Old Testament that are foreshadowing what would come in the New Testament. And one of those things is the idea that Mary is also the Ark of the Covenant. So in the Old Testament you have the Ark of the Covenant; you have God’s law inside of that. That’s Emmanuel — God with us — the presence of God amongst the Jews. And we believe that when Jesus went down into becoming incarnate in the womb of Mary, he chose her as a new Ark of the Covenant, fulfilling the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant. That’s why, if you look in the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant spends three months in the hill country of Judea; Mary goes and spends three months in the hill country with Zechariah and Elizabeth. And then the Shekinah, the glory cloud, would overshadow the Ark of the Covenant — and then you have the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary. So there’s a parallel between these two things, and we think Mary is a fulfillment of all those things. And that’s why, in Revelation 12, you see Mary presented as the Queen of Heaven, we believe.
Amazing. The reason I ask that: because nowhere in the scriptures where Jesus made Mary a big deal. He barely mentioned her. And yet she has been turned into a saint, and you pray to her.
We believe that Jesus is the one that inspired all the New Testament. So if the Book of Revelation presents her in chapter 12 as Queen of Heaven, that’s also Jesus saying she’s the Queen of Heaven.
Heard whole, the source sets the study’s agenda — without settling it:
Do the throne-room scenes describe the saints praying for the church, or bearing witness while the prayers are the church’s own (Revelation 5:8; 8:3–4)?
Granting that the living rightly ask the living to pray (James 5:16) — does Scripture anywhere show the living asking the departed, and does the difference matter?
Is the woman of Revelation 12 Mary, Israel, the Church — or deliberately more than one at once (Revelation 12:1–6, 17)?
How far does the Ark typology hold when the texts are set side by side — the three months (2 Samuel 6:11; Luke 1:56), the overshadowing (Exodus 40:35; Luke 1:35), David’s question and Elizabeth’s (2 Samuel 6:9; Luke 1:43)?
What does the intercession of the saints leave — or take — from the confession of “one mediator between God and men” (1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 7:25)?