Believer wrote:I've made an interesting argument that still needs to be commented on. That we are a community of believers united in Christ, Christians on earth and the believers in heaven. Heaven isn't necessarily a big barrier just because it's a spiritual dimension.
You have made an assumption, not an argument. A good argument would include Biblical examples of Peter, Paul, John, or James asking one of the OT saints the Lord took to heaven to pray for the living. Since John's epistles were written after all the other apostles were dead, if praying to the physically dead was part of the apostolic teaching he would surely have mentioned this detail.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. NAS
There is nothing in Scripture that tells us the dead in Christ are in heaven. The only saints portrayed in heaven are martyrs.
Revelation 6:9-11
9 And when He broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; 10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" 11 And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, should be completed also. NAS
Communicating with the spirits of the dead is an abomination to God and that did not change in the NT.