Mary: Mother of God?

This article is prompted by an ad in the Parade Magazine titled: "Mary Mother of God: What All Mankind Should Know." The offer was made for a free pamphlet entitled "Mary Mother of Jesus" with this explanation: "A clear, insightful pamphlet explains the importance of Mary and her role as Mother of God."

This is quite a claim, to say the least! Nowhere in the Bible is Mary said to be the mother of God. I touched on this subject in a series on "Mary Co-Redeemer with Christ" printed recently.

Question: If Mary is the Mother of God, Who, may I ask, is the Father of God? Does God have a Father, and if He does, Who is His Mother?

The phrase "Mother of God" originated in the Council of Ephesus, in the year 431 AD. It occurs in the Creed of Chalcedon, which was adopted by the council in 451 AD. This was the declaration given at that time: "Born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to the Manhood." The purpose of this statement originally was meant to emphasize the deity of Christ over against the teaching of the Nestorians whose teaching involved a dual-natured Jesus. Their teaching was that the person born of Mary was only a man who was then indwelt by God. The title "Mother of God" was used originally to counter this false doctrine. The doctrine now emphasizes the person of Mary rather than the deity of Jesus as God incarnate. Mary certainly did not give birth to God. In fact, Mary did not give birth to the divinity of Christ. Mary only gave birth to the humanity of Jesus. The only thing Jesus got from Mary was a body. Every Human Being has received a sinful nature from their parents with one exception: Jesus was not human. He was divine God in a flesh body. This is what Mary gave birth to. Read Hebrews 10:5 and Phil 2:5-11.

Please refer to Hebrews 10:5 where we see. "...Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me."

The body of Jesus was prepared by God. In Matthew 1:18, "she was found with child of the Holy Ghost."

The divine nature of Jesus existed from before eternity, and this cannot be said of Mary Jesus never called her "mother". He called her "woman".

This doctrine deifies Mary and humanizes Jesus. Mary is presented as stronger that Christ, more mature and more powerful that Christ. Listen to this statement by Rome: "He came to us through Mary, and we must go to Him through her." The Bible plainly states that God is the Creator of all things. It is a blasphemous attack on the eternity of God to ever teach that He has a mother. Mary had other children who were normal, physical, sinful human beings. In the case of Jesus Christ, "His human nature had no father and His divine nature had no mother."

It is probably no coincidence that this false doctrine surrounding Mary was born in Ephesus. Please read Acts 19:11-41 and see that Ephesus had a problem with goddess worship. Her name was Diana, Gk. Artemis. You will not have to study very deep to find the similarities between the goddess Diana and the Roman Catholic goddess, Mary. It should be noted that the Mary of the 1st century and the Mary of the 20th century are not the same. Mary of the 1st century was the virgin who gave birth to the Messiah. Mary of the 20th century is a goddess created by the Roman Catholic Church. A simple comparison of what the Bible teaches about Mary and what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about her will reveal two different Marys. Mary is not the "Mother of God." If she were she would be GOD! There is only one true, eternal God. He was not born of a woman. Any teaching on any subject should be backed up by the word of God. If it cannot be supported by Scriptures, it is false doctrine.

>>When Elizabeth said, "my Lord" was she referring to:<< Teacher, master, or any of the other translations of Lord. Elohim is a judge and one of the designations of God’s actions but was also used for earthly judges.

It's disappointing to see you with such alacrity so deeply reaching for the bottom of the barrel of least possible satisfactory answers. I already put Elizabeth's remarks in context in the multiple choice as did the writer of Luke, her husband Zechariah, and her cousin Mary.

There is no other way to understand Elizabeth's words without doing violence to the plain words of the text. Yeah, Elizabeth, miraculously pregnant with an infant foretold by Gabriel, is greeting her cousin whose pregnancy was also announced by Gabriel and saying, "Why am I so blessed that the mother of my future earthly judge should visit me?" or "Why am I so blessed that the mother of one of God's actions should visit me?"

And the introduction of Luke ends with the return to Zechariah who says this about his son John and his mission:

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

And to avoid appearing to give any support to something you feel wrong, you come up with something so lame and devoid of any exegetical support as:

>>When Elizabeth said, "my Lord" was she referring to:<<

Teacher, master, or any of the other translations of Lord. Elohim is a judge and one of the designations of God’s actions but was also used for earthly judges.

With blinders like this, you should be a Russellite.

18. Christianity grew fastest among Hellenistic Jewry of the cities of Asia Minor.

“Consequently there was a substantial Jewish population in virtually every town of any size in the lands bordering the Mediterranean. Estimates run from 10 to 15 percent of the total population of a city—in the case of Alexandria, perhaps even higher.”[Meeks, The First Urban Christians(Yale):34]

“archeological evidence shows that the early Christian churches outside Palestine were concentrated in the Jewish sections of cities” [Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton):63]

“There is recent physical evidence suggesting that the Christian and Jewish communicates remained closely linked—intertwined, even—until far later than is consistent with claims about the early and absolute break between church and synagogue.” [Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton):68]

C. How Christians came in contact with others:

19. Living arrangements, by ethnicity and by trade groupings

“While we have no remains of private homes of Jews or Christians in Rome, it seems clear that the majority of Jews and Christians of necessity would have lived either in tiny apartments several stories above ground floor, in the homes of their masters or former masters, or in tabernae where their shops were located. Did Jewish and Christian families practice religious rituals in such homes? If so, what kinds of rituals did they practice and what did their neighbors think of them? Christian house congregations which met in the homes of believers probably met in the first-floor “deluxe” apartments. If Jews were able to congregate in buildings with other Jews, they would have found it easier to practice the dietary and exclusivity demands of their religion. Jews who converted to Christianity would have found their apartment building a natural place to proselytize.” [Donfried/Richardson, Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome (Eerdmans):133]

“The ground floors appear to have been occupied by shops, and the upper levels by prosperous families. The connection of these buildings with the social world of craftsmen and artisans is suggestive in the light of reference to the church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (Rom. 16:5), whose property must have served as workshop, residence, and meeting place. As yet there has been no excavation of common housing from the days of the early empire in Rome, but the work of J. E. Packer and A. G. McKay on the insulae, or apartment buildings, points to the existence of amorphous blocks of tenements, one budding abutting another, that served the vast majority of people in the capital and other large cities of the Roman Empire…A typical insula contained a row of shops on the ground floor, facing the street, and provided living quarters for the owners and their families over the shops or in the rear. There would be space on the premises for the manufacture of goods sold in the shops, and accommodations for visiting clients, workers, servants, or slaves. The arrangement brought together a considerable cross section of a major group in society, consisting of manual workers and tradespeople. Such households were part of an intricate social network made up of other households to which they were tied by kinship, friendship, professional advantage, and other considerations. The strategy of situating the church in the home was sound, for it provided Christians with relative privacy; a setting where identity and intimacy could be experienced, a ready-made audience as well as a social network along which the influence of the Christian movement could spread. The conversion of households with their dependents helps to account for the growth of Roman Christianity.” [Donfried/Richardson, Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome (Eerdmans):209]

“Attention has recently been focused on the significance of the household and the workshop for Paul’s missionary activities. Households were not the private residences of today but were most likely to be large houses which provided shops at the front and living accommodations at the rear. There would also have been room for workshops and living quarters for dependents and visitors. Such an arrangement would have ideally suited Paul’s purposes by both enabling him to finance his mission through his work as a tentmaker (Acts 18:3; 20:34, 35; 1 Thess 2:9) and by providing him with a ready-made platform from which preaching and teaching could be conducted daily among the many who would have been around the workshop. The significance of the workshop has been brought into focus by research into the methods of other itinerant philosophers like the Cynics of Paul’s day. Rather than viewing manual labor as demeaning, the Cynics adopted it as an ideal way of life and as the means by which a teacher could model his philosophy to his disciples.” [Tidball, “Social Settings of Mission Churches”, in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (IVP)]
Organized settings, by ethnicity (synagogue) and by trade groupings (market)

“…Jews in most places were distributed through the whole range of statuses and occupations…The number of artisans who appear in inscriptions, papyri, and literary and legal texts is especially notable…”[Meeks, The First Urban Christians(Yale):39]

“In all the major centers of the empire were substantial settlements of diasporan Jews who were accustomed to receiving teachers from Jerusalem. Moreover, the missionaries were likely to have family and friendship connection within at least some of the diasporan communities.” [Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton):62]

unbelievers had free access to Christian meetings [Meeks, The First Urban Christians(Yale):106]

“…there is good reason to believe that Paul was initially accepted as a synagogue member in most locations. The thirty-nine lashes were discipline for a synagogue member, not quite the expulsion and ostracism which an officially designated apostate might receive.” [Esler, Modelling Early Christianity (Routledge):123]
http://christianthinktank.com/urbxctt.html

Jesus struggled under the weight of the cross, I would imagine Shaq could have carried it more easily. Here, I think it would be accurate to say Shaq would have been stronger than God, likely taller as well. Unless you don’t agree with the premises above. I’m not sure who would have felt pain less or fear less than God in the garden. We remember that He sweated blood. Likely there were faster runners than God also.
It is central to Christian theology that God choose to become flesh and walk among us with all that entails. Dust could choke, thirst, hunger were real in the desert, temptation was tempting. All of this is important to understand what God Incarnate means.

I’m not sure, but I believe it would be correct to say this was a choice of God’s, to have human strength, the human limitations of body, weaker than some, stronger than others, just like all humans. Just as God chose to incarnate and have a human mother.

Thank you for your honest and thoughtful answer.

So you confess that Shaq is stronger than God? If you cannot divide the divine and human nature of Jesus, how do you divide the triune God? Is Mary the mother of the triune God?

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen

Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum,
et exsultávit spíritus meus
in Deo salvatóre meo,
quia respéxit humilitátem
ancíllæ suæ.

Ecce enim ex hoc beátam
me dicent omnes generatiónes,
quia fecit mihi magna,
qui potens est,
et sanctum nomen eius,
et misericórdia eius in progénies
et progénies timéntibus eum.
Fecit poténtiam in bráchio suo,
dispérsit supérbos mente cordis sui;
depósuit poténtes de sede
et exaltávit húmiles.
Esuriéntes implévit bonis
et dívites dimísit inánes.
Suscépit Ísrael púerum suum,
recordátus misericórdiæ,
sicut locútus est ad patres nostros,
Ábraham et sémini eius in sæcula.

Glória Patri et Fílio
et Spirítui Sancto.
Sicut erat in princípio,
et nunc et semper,
et in sæcula sæculórum.

Amen.

She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child . . . Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God . . . None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.

(Commentary on the Magnificat, 1521; in Luther’s Works, Pelikan et al, vol. 21, 326)

The Roman Catholic Church does NOT teach that ‘deceased’ people are asked for prayers. Catholics believe all people have souls that will live for all eternity. The Catholic Church teaches that we ALL have the opportunity to be made alive in Jesus Christ & live with him.

I don't disagree that those who die in Christ are not truly dead.

Many Protestants will have a ‘prayer chain’ & ask people in that church to pray. Catholics believe there is only ONE church & it includes all the Saints in Heaven & all the people on Earth who are in God’s Grace. When Catholics pray, we also ask the >living Saints in Heaven to pray too.

When “saints” is used in the new testament, it always means believers. Is this what you mean? Can Catholics pray to their deceased relatives who died as believers? Would it be ok to make a statue of your own mother, bow down and pray to her if she had died as a believer?

How do you know that deceased Christians can even hear your prayers? If you bow down to a statue of the Pope and pray to him to pray for you, will he hear you? If prayers to the saints is truly the same as a prayer chain, how can they hear you unless they are omnipresent?

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