Posted on 01/11/2012 7:34:56 PM PST by RnMomof7
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.
So now you are saying that Mary was taken out of Jesus?
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
At what point would you say “the Word was made flesh”? Was it prior to conception or at conception?
He's saying the opposite, but I suppose for the obtuse his point is lost.
My father always used the line “it’s better to allow people to think you are uneducated then to open your mouth and prove them right”.
You just proved him right.
You tell me. One thing we do know for sure is that he wasn’t talking about “tradition” or the word of mouth “doctrines of man”. It would be rather ludicrous to think he meant anything other then the written word wouldn’t it.
You know, the kind of OPINION that grows and is fed with more of man's OPINION over the years, that someone as obviously genius as the Roman Catholic Church come to believe the most astounding genius doctrines. Like Mary is Queen of the Universe, that Mary is Co-Redeemer with Christ, like Mary is, at this very moment, standing beside Christ as He sits on the right hand of God. That Mary was Immaculately conceived and bodily Assumed into Heaven. That prayers to her expected, as she is the mediator, along with Christ, with God the Father.
Especially genius are those "apparitions", "visions" and "miracles" of Mary. Where people will crawl until their knees bleed to touch a potato that the "Virgin Mary" appeared on. Yes, very genius group of people who have gathered together for the last 2,000 years, waiting, waiting, to be told what "God said" to their leaders. Of course, none of them are actually looking at God's WORD to "see if those things are so". No, they just suck it up, because IF they "believe" their leaders are God's geniuses, then they get a wafer and a sip of wine.
Once again, show me in Scripture where Mary is referred to as the Mother of God.
I’m sure all of the LGBT community thanks you.
Only to a Catholic. I'm sure "he" thanks you though. LOL
Is it really that hard to ping someone when you talk about them?
I'm sure there are a lot of non-Catholics who also understand his point. You should have heeded what your father said instead of just repeating it.
No, not Christians. Catholics are the ones who combined them.
Why do you insist on teaching contrary to what scripture clearly says?
Galatians 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Spot on! as the Brits say. But the fact that "it's become about Mary" is precisely due to lack of good teaching, which we see in this thread: folks objecting to calling Mary "Theotokos" are unwittingly coming up with most of the classical christological heresies. If one starts with Christ (as one ought) and holds rightly that Jesus is fully God, existing from before the ages, and fully Man, born of the Virgin, yet is one Christ, one person, not a divine person united to a human person, but one person subsisting in two natures, the title is a simply natural and correct expression of the truth of who Jesus Christ is. If one starts with some preconceived notion of the nature of motherhood and dwells on it, rather than on who Christ is, or starts with an erroneous conception of Christ, the title seems blasphemous or absurd.
And indeed the Holy Spirit does take care of details. . ."lead[s] into all truth" as Our Lord put it.
However, most of what is going on here has to do with disagreements about how the Holy Spirit takes care of details. Those of us (whether Orthodox or Latin) who understand Scripture in the context of Holy Tradition, knowing that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and always, see the Holy Spirit taking care of details throughout the history of the Church, and refer to that experience -- the promise that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth applied as much to the bishops who gathered in the Ecumenical Councils, to those we call the Fathers of the Church and to all the other saints down the ages as it does to us today. We can point to the first time erroneous ideas about Christ, which still come up, gained sufficient currency that the Church, led by the Holy Spirit, was obliged to act to ensure "good teaching", by issuing a condemnation of the wrong idea. Most prominently, when the wrong idea (heresy) roiled the whole Church, it was the Ecumenical Councils that issued these condemnations. Even peasants in traditionally Orthodox countries, with no theological training know that ours is the "Church of the Seven Councils" and have some idea about what the Councils taught, so this isn't a matter for learned theologian only. Orthodox hymnography -- from which pious peasants learn such things -- refers to the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils as "the Harps of the Spirit".
Others on the thread and out in the world (esp. those who use "Bible" or "biblical" as an adjective to describe their faith) fancy somehow that they with their Bible are going to be lead by the Spirit into all truth, then come different conclusions from those to whom that same promise applied in ages past (notably the bishops who gathered in the Ecumenical Councils), indeed different conclusions from the consensus of those to whom that promise applied down the ages, and deprecate the teaching of the ancient and undivided Church as "RC tradition". And, as we've seen on this thread, as often as not, such folk end up preaching one of the classical christological heresies, be it the coarse monophysitism of Apollinarius in which God assumed only a human body, not our complete nature (excepting sin), a version of the "adoptionism" of Paul of Samosata, or Nestorianism with God the Word somehow distinguished from the One Born of the Virgin.
Actually, the Second Person of the Trinity is eternal.
The person, both human and divine, that is Jesus did not exist until His conception, when the divine united with the human in the womb of Mary.
Before then, there was no Jesus.
“And how has it happened, that the mother of my Lord, should come to me?”
Elizabeth knew.
If A visits B, and C makes a comment about it, that in no way implies that they are “consubstantial,” and in no way presents a “mystery.”
Heated arguments like this thread, with Christian believers - which I am not - squabbling endlessly over interpretations of the lore, makes me wonder why, if indeed the Bible is God’s own word, and if indeed its exact literal understanding is central to one’s faith, and one’s practice, and one’s very salvation, why God didn’t produce something more coherent and consistent. I’ve read the entire Bible three times in my life. It’s a mess. Mysteries I understand, as I am a mystic within my own tradition, but most people are not. Philosophical hair splitting I understand, as I’ve studied the craft and know the language, but most people do not. Why such a user unfriendly tome with which to guide souls? That’s the only real mystery I see here.
Do females have a Y chromosome at conception? Do males?
That is the question.
At what point was the Divine united with the human? Because if it happened at conception, which is what all Christians believe, then for as long as Jesus grew in her womb, Mary held God, physically within her own body.
But, hey, she was just a woman who served a purpose.
Some protestants can’t even say that Jesus loves her.
Mind boggling.
It’s no wonder you don’t understand.
John 10:27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So, if what you say is true, then the Second Person of the Trinity did not have his divinity until the Holy Spirit gave it to Him at conception?
Well, that’s a new one.
Maybe you could explain that one more fully.
I was under the belief that the Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, was eternal, like His Father and like the Holy Spirit.
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