"Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV): "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you..."
or John the Baptist, who received the Holy Spirit when he was just a 6-months-young'un in the womb of Elizabeth.
The difference with Mary was just a matter of he being a few months earlier, even, than John the Baptist when it happened: she received His filling with grace when she was conceived. Conception is when human nature is transmitted to the next generation. Therefore she had an unflawed human nature, which is the human nature she transmitted to Jesus --- her Savior.
It has nothing to do with any kind of "personal merit" as if she had earned it. It has everything to do with God's predestining her to be the one to supply His human nature by her maternity.
Therefore the Angel of God addressed her with the unique title "She who is full of grace," which would have been a lie if she were a sinner.
Yes indeed! The mother of God is sinless. If she committed any sin the Bible would have said so since the Bible contains all truth, right.
are you serious???
You think that john the Baptist got saved in the WOMB???
HAHAHAHAHAAHahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaha
You sure got some funny doctrine, this conversation ended!
Absolutely not.
The angel did NO SUCH THING. That is an error. The angel gave her no such title. All the "therefore" this-and-that following is erroneous reasoning and speculation, rendering it worse than worthless, for it's only true worth is in support of theological error.
This is serious business.
In the more original (than Jerome's Vulgate) Greek, no single text out of some 5,000 extant Greek texts indicate that the angel "addressed her with the unique title "She who is full of grace" " or said that she was "full of grace" quote-unquote.
Please, STOP inventing things, or perhaps more precisely stop unquestioningly following after and repeating those who do alter & invent, particularly when evidence to the contrary of the alterations and inventions is presented.
Previously, I had neglected to include link to Matt's clear refutation of precisely the contention of yours which is highlighted above, at the top of this reply.
This seems to be a good place to amend that prior lack.
Mary, full of grace, and Luke 1:28 The information he presents there clearly and unequivocally refutes the contention or claim that the angel told Mary she was "full of grace" in that passage, showing also that there WERE two other instances in the NT where the phrase was used;
As for the second verse which uses "full of grace", I will again utilize NKJV rather than the NASB95 which Matt Slick embedded access to on his page which I have provided link to.
There are reasons I chose this way, chief among them is that the NKJV includes markings and footnote showing what NU texts (the oldest of the Greek Uncial, or all-capital letter texts) indicate or omit. The Uncial texts are the oldest extant NY manuscripts in the world, I take it, with what is called "miniscules" which are more in Greek cursive style, also mixing upper and lower case lettering significantly more numerous.
Other than or besides NKJV there are translations which include some form of NU text indications also...but being I cannot recall which at this moment, so the NKJV can suffice for now.
Occurring rather serendipitously in the next [below] example of a NT verse which Matt referred to in discussion and textual comparison in regards to Luke 1:28, indicates that in Acts 6:8 "full of grace..." is in the Greek NU text, even though the NKJV translators chose to not include the word "grace" but instead used the word "faith", as the footnotes indicate.
Which shows the value of the footnotes -- for they lead to being able to understand what the Uncial (oldest!) show in comparison to later arising miniscules, and many other English translations all at once --- without having to engage in further laborious searching.
This makes the NKJV valuable as tool for greater scriptural and historical insight, for we need not necessarily trust NKJV alone, yet with it's moderately modernized language compared to Authorized KJV 1611 and later revisions (1773 was it, for the first major revision?) which makes the NKJV and it's modern footnotes something of a bridge between the old and many newer, while also reaching back to the oldest known in existence. B-A-utival, baby...
Still with me? Here we go;
Footnotes:
[a] Acts 6:8 NU-Text reads grace.
Got that. "Full of grace..." and in this case...and power also.
In comparison Luke 1:28 does not include "full of grace" other than in Latin Vulgate, and in those English language texts which rely upon that Latin text.
All of which shows that Jerome's own choice of words, over the centuries have been conflated into being false support for Marion doctrines in the manner which you argued.
Sorry lady, you lose. The scripture refutes Roman Catholic apologetic in this narrow aspect. Please STOP using Challoner Douay-Rheims in effort to make a theological case or argument in support of this doctrine, for the very DR foundation itself is seriously flawed.
Going to Matt Slick's page (if you would) and looking also at what I have sent to you directly, can you see now how the contention you bring is "all wet"?
Asa another note of self-correction for my previous comment to you on this thread, the link I attempted to give to preselected parallel translation at the Unbound Bible I see failed, for that site is apparently not designed to allow linking for preselected pages. I just tried it again and see the html in the address bar reads "https://unbound.biola.edu/index.cfm?method=searchResults.doSearch" instead of an address which can link to preselected comparative, side-by-side format. But the online Unbound Bible can still be a useful tool, just not for handy linking in the course of online discussion.
Horsefeathers.
So easily is it forgotten that not only did Christ have no earthly father...the Heavenly Father DID supply all that earthly fathers would otherwise (though somehow not sexually) including probably a Y chromosome, or else Jesus was the only person in the world to have ever been born, who was not XX thus female, but not XY thus male, making Him not fully human but some sort of freak instead.
Needing Mary to be "unflawed" is not necessary. We do not inherent guilt of sin from our mothers, per se. We otherwise ARE born with a fallen, sinful nature or propensity. As the Son of God, directly Begotten, Christ received not only the Godly nature of His Father, but what served in stead of Adam's own spiritual legacy, for the "sin nature" is not a thing of the flesh but of spirit.
Sin entered the world by the sin of one man, as Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans chapter 5:12-21.
Paul did not write that sin entered through Adam and Eve.
Searching the scripture, we see in Genesis, if we are to there contemplate things in order of occurrence with that order itself revealing anything much, although Adam was in fact instructed to not eat fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God was addressing Adam directly, with there no mention of Eve.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Taking things in order, Eve was not created until only after Adam had received this instruction.
When Adam himself ate, then as it is written; ...And the eyes of them both were opened.
After the two of them both had eaten, the text there indicates boththeir eyes were opened, suggesting (admittedly remote?) possibility that if Adam himself had not eaten...then Eve's own eyes would not have been opened to the knowledge of good and evil.
Backtracking a bit, in Eve's own conversation with the Serpent, it can be seen that there was additional instruction which she claimed to have been God's own -- but according to text in the chapter just previous, God told Adam to not eat of that tree -- He did not there say "don't even touch it" as Eve related to the serpent that God had allegedly said.
It makes me wonder if Adam had not relayed the message and in discussion between himself and Eve concerning this, somehow the "don't even touch it" was added to the original more limited instruction.
Poor Eve, eh?
What was she supposed to have been aware of lies that `snakes' by their slithering nature make, anyway?
Up until then, herself and Adam both were innocent of the knowledge of such things as evil, and lies.
So she garbled the message a bit, and the snake took immediate advantage of the situation. Eve had just said that if they (herself and Adam) were to eat AND/OR EVEN to touch it -- then God had said not to do either, "lest they die".
The snake said (hissed?) "you shall not surely die".
As the story goes, Eve saw that the fruit was pleasant, touched it (and did not die, hey, the snake was right?) then ate of it and again did not die. No harmful effects were noted at that point...so it seemed like a good idea to offer it to our boy (super-duper grandfather of all) Adam.
Adam went along with it with nary a protest.
THEN --- again, following the order of operations of the text, both of their eyes were open. If one is to assume that Eve's eyes were open at that point, after she herself had eaten, bu before Adam dis so ...by the same freedom to assume to do that in reading between the lines, one can also assume the contrary --- that Eves eyes were not opened to the knowledge of good and evil at that point.
That type of consideration results in getting Eve part-way out of responsibility, and fully out of the way for having sinfully stumbled her own husband --- only IF --- her own eyes after she herself had eaten, and before Adam had done so also the same were OPEN to knowing good and evil. I suggest the text suggest not. Happy news? Eve wasn't such a bad gal? Let's not ultimately blame it all on the womenfolk, due to Eve.
Leaving it to be there needed be only "a man" to serve as sacrifice for the sin -- for all sin. Being born of a virgin Mary who was herself not entirely beyond having the sin nature herself, makes Christ's own sacrifice just that more complete.
Would you like to go over the scriptures where Jesus indicated that He had choices...that He could have done differently had He not decided to surrender "not my own will, but thine" to God, even in the Garden (of Gethsemane)?
If there was no chance of at all of not doing as God desired, then both of them are reduced to automatons of a sort. We know that (or can take it as article of faith) that neither of them were automatons.
Turning back to the first chapters of Genesis;
When God finds out the details, He tells the serpent off, telling that creature of his own eventual defeat which he [the serpent] will suffer, and how it will come about.
AHA. But here again we run across yet another bad Latin translation induced theoligical error, in Gen 3:15, for it is not Mary who shall place her foot on the serpent and crush it;'s head, but is instead the seed of the woman, and in the Hebrew clearly denotes that will be male.
God turns then the woman -- yet there He does not tell her the same as He immediately later tells Adam, in Genesis 3:17-19;
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Can you see? Eve herself, though punished as it were for her own part, doomed to suffer in her own flesh pains of childbirth, and being subject to her husband and her desire to be for him, was not charged directly by God for having directly disobeyed Him, with that consistent with the record that God had not directly told Eve to not eat of that certain tree, with the snake playing his own role in deceiving her, and so on. She was not fully responsible, yet neither herself fully innocent of wrongdoing.
Eve's own wrongdoing limited only to not having believed and adhered to strongly enough, of what God had told Adam, and that same Adam had likely told herself, or else -- would not have God told her as He did Adam. "because you did what I told you not to"?
If this conditions I outline be the case, that would mean Eve heard things second-hand, and then was lied to by the serpent. Do you see the tough spot she was in? She wasn't any more guilty than a child perhaps, in listening to new info even if it conflicted with what she had been previously told.
We are none of us condemned for being born.
The human body itself is NOT evil, in and of itself for merely existing, or for simply being born.
Although each and every son & daughter of Adam do inherit from Adam his own (and Eve's own) fallen from state-of-grace nature, none of the sons & daughters are subject to that due to Eve -- or necessarily due to their very own earthly mothers, or else we could return to the dark days when those born with handicaps were looked upon as being in some way, in part, themselves responsible for their own handicaps.
Though all daughters born into this world have the same fallen nature as do sons whom then later become fathers themselves, the lineage of that begins with Adam, leaving mothers to be themselves "infected" with this fallen nature, but not the source of the contaminant (if we can call it containment) or disease.
Read this following very carefully, for it is not Protestant theology, or my own understanding of what that may be, and how that could best coincide with Orthodox and RC theologies where and if possible.
From Orthodox view of Immaculate Conception © 2014 Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines, footnote [edited from an article in "The Word" Magazine. The Word is the official print publication of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America] Taken at face value, the Western doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is seen by the Orthodox as separating the Mother of God from the rest of the human race. If true, this would have made it impossible for Christ to become truly man, because Mary would therefore not be subject to the same conditions of humanity as those for whom Christ had become incarnate in order to save. Mary is human, and through her, God became fully human as well.
The rest of that article is quite good, well written/expressed and clear in it's theological focus, aim and coverage without being condemnatory towards Roman Catholics or Catholicism (that I at all noticed). It is worth reading for any interested in the subject matter.
It would not have been a lie, and would have been consistent with all the Gospel and all God’s Word, the message being that God shares His glory with no one, and that means all of His creatures. It is so true that one’s faith will be determined by one’s understaning of God, it seems. The New Testament says NO flesh will glory in His presence, and that it is God’s will that although we are imperfect vessels even as Christians, we hold Christ in us (rough paraphrase). Again, if you acknowledge God’s nature, He doesn’t need absolute purity outside Himself in order to stay pure. He MAKES pure what might be sins of scarlet. And something else to consider: in posts 171 and 173 you pointed to paradoxes in Scripture to discount passages that say all have sinned. Yes it’s true we have to look at passages in light of all Scripture, but then why do you insist that “full of grace” (if that’s actually what’s said) must be taken “as is” - if that’s even what you contend it means, too? We understand physical Cont’d
Cont’d...anatomy quite well, but how much do we really know about how body, soul and spirit go together? There is so much mystery to it all that one simply can’t conclude from the incomplete knowledge we have at this time that “full of grace” must mean “sinless.” Job was said to be a perfect man, but do we take from that that he wasn’t a sinner and didn’t need a Savior?