Very nice explanation, however, that is a big stretch. Like stouts said above, you do not need a Savior if you are without sin. Romans 3:23 says ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…Mary and everyone else fall under “ALL”. Mary went through the old testament ritual after giving birth and gave a "sin’ offering…more scripture points to her having sin than do not.
The leaders/people of the Catholic faith have lifted Mary to this high position without her even knowing it. Mary saw her need for a Savior like all of us need and confessed this with her own mouth.
Hi ServantofChrist,
I think Rolltide did an excellent job defending Mary’s perpetual virginity, so I won’t rehash the issue here. This thread now seems to be turning to Mary’s sinlessness, so here are some thoughts.
First, let’s be clear with what the Catholic Church teaches. Catholics believe in the Immaculate Conception, the notion that Mary was born without the stain of original sin and was therefore preserved from sinning throughout her life. This teaching was infallibly declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854 as follows: “The Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.” This statement does not mean that Mary did not need a savior – she most certainly did (Lk. 1:47), and the Church does not teach otherwise. With God, however, all things are possible. For God, there is no time or space. Hence, Catholics believe that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was applied to Mary in a unique way. Medieval theologians used the following analogy to explain Mary’s salvation: whereas the ordinary person falls into a hole and must later be saved, Mary was saved from falling into the hole in the first place. At bottom, the Immaculate Conception is more a belief about the uniqueness of Jesus than Mary. Martin Luther himself appears to have accepted the Immaculate Conception to his dying day: “It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without Original Sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from Original Sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live, she was free from all sin” (Sermon: On the Day of the Conception of Mary, the Mother of God [1527]).
Catholics believe that the Immaculate Conception is fully supported by Scripture (and certainly, in no way, contradicts it). First, turning to the passage in Genesis 3:15, God proclaims that He “will put enmity between you [Satan] and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.” Catholics believe that complete enmity could not exist between Satan and “the woman” (i.e., Mary, see Jn. 2:4-11; Jn. 19:26-27) if Mary was under the bondage of sin (complete enmity between “the woman” and the serpent is revisited in Revelation 12). Hence, Mary’s Immaculate Conception is prefigured in this prooftext.
Second, the Church Fathers repeatedly referred to Mary as the “new Eve.” It seems probable that this Apostolic Tradition originated with the Apostle John, who instructed St. Polycarp, who in turn instructed St. Irenaeus. Of course, the types and shadows in the Old Covenant are always made more perfect in their fulfillment in the New Covenant. Eve was born without sin but, through her disobedience, later sinned. If Mary is the new Eve, it follows that she too was born without sin but, through her obedience, was preserved by God’s special grace from later sinning.
Similarly, the Ark of the Covenant prefigured Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant. God gave Moses precise plans for the construction of the Ark, which was to house the very presence of God Himself (Ex. 25:9-22). The Ark was so holy and imbued with God’s presence that to touch it, even inadvertently, meant instantaneous death (2 Sam. 6:6-7; see also 1 Sam. 6:19). If the Ark, a gold-encased wooden box containing the “types” of the Christ to come was that holy, how much more unblemished and holy must God have made the vessel which He chose to literally bear His Son – the fulfillment of those very “types?”
Finally, Gabriel addressed Mary by saying: “Hail, favored one!” (Lk. 1:28). The Greek word
kecharitomene conveys the idea of “grace” (since it is derived from the word
charis, i.e., grace) and literally means “you who have been and remain filled with the divine favor.” Hence, it is appropriate to translate the address as “Hail, full of grace” as St. Jerome did in the Vulgate. Catholics see in this address (which can actually be seen as a re-naming of Mary, since the phrase is used in place of her name) an implication of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, since it indicates that Mary was, and remained, full of God’s grace.
And while Paul wrote that “all have sinned and fallen short” (Rom. 3:23), he certainly did not literally mean “all.” Jesus, for one, did not sin. Infants are incapable of sinning. Similarly, those with severe mental disabilities lack the ability to commit sin. Thus, this verse in no way disproves the Immaculate Conception. Furthermore, when Paul wrote that all have sinned in Adam (Rom. 5:12), his purpose was to insist that everyone must be redeemed through Christ. Catholics fully agree, and Mary is no exception (Lk. 1:47).
continued…
The Bible shows this simple truth.
And so it goes on: people who claim to “believe all of the Bible” usually pick out certain parts, while ignoring others; IOW, they prioritise some parts over others.