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larkin31
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I know.
God was speaking of Eve, no? How do you read “the woman” as “Mary”? Jews obviously never read it that way.
Any non catholic: what is your opinion on Mary the Mother of God?
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God was speaking of Eve, no? How do you read “the woman” as “Mary”? Jews obviously never read it that way.
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elvisman
Guest
God was not speaking of Eve in the Garden - but othe New Eve that was to come.
Jesus was not the offspring of Eve - but of Mary. Mary is the New Eve.
**Just as Eve was named this because she became “the mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20), it is not a wild jump to then come to the realization that Mary becomes “the mother of all living in Christ”. Jesus’ words from the cross “woman behold thy son” and “behold thy mother” of John’s Gospel can certainly be interpreted in this way. If Jesus spoke these words only to tie up loose ends and make sure that his mother was cared for, they make no sense in the light of the fact that He had plenty of time to make those provision for her. He knew far ahead of time He was to die.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus never refers to his mother as “mother” (John 2:4, 19:26). Whenever he addresses his mother, he calls her “woman”. The anti-Catholic will point to this as proof that there was nothing special about Mary or that Jesus didn’t hold her in very high regard. This couldn’t be further from the truth. This correlates directly to the Woman in Gen. 3:15 and in Rev. 12.
Jesus defeats death on Calvary (Skull place) and fulfills the prophecy in Gen. 3:15 about the offspring of the woman. Mary is present at the foot of the cross while this is happening - and what does Jesus call her in John 19:26? He calls her “WOMAN”, because the prophecy about the head of the serpent being crushed in Genesis is taking place right* there* on Calvary.**
Here is a REALLY interesting side note. Are you familiar with the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico?
The name in the Aztecan dialect(Nahuatl)** was “Coatlaxopeuh”, pronounced “Quatlasupe”. The name was corrupted by the Spanish to “Guadalupe”. Coatlaxopeuh, means “crushed serpent.” Ironically, in the Aztec religion the highest idol and creator of mankind is Quetzalcóatl, which means “Feather-Serpent.”
So Our Lady of Guadalupe is “Our Lady of the crushed serpent”, which is exactly what we read about her in Gen. 3:15:
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
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Esdra
Guest
I was born and risen as Roman Catholic ('though very poorly catechised!).
So, actually, I’ve always believed that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos), because Jesus IS God. (The father and I are one.)
My pastor (Baptist) told me that God always has been and thus Mary can’t be the Mother of God, but the Mother of Christ. (Meaning the Mother of the human part of Jesus only.)
Logically seen, if I think about it, what my pastor said is more logical…
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elvisman
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And, unfortunately, what your pastor said is heresy.
As has been noted several times on this thread - that particular heresy (Nestorianism) was dealt with at the Council of Ephesus. The very same Council that proclaimed Mary, Theotokos, proclaimed the Hypostatic Union of Christ’s 2 united natures - fully human and fully divine.
These 2 natures cannot be separated, so to say that Mary is only the mother of Jesus’s flesh is heresy. He is fully God and fully man. Nobody is claiming that she gave birth to the Trinity. She gave birth to Jesus, who is God.
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LiftHimUp
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Correction: Genesis 3:15 is prophecy and according to the bible, in prophecy, a woman is a church. So this scripture is not referring to Mary.
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Peter_John
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While I do not know which prophecy refers to woman as a Church, that would be consistent with the Catholic view of Mary as representative of the Church and the meaning of Rev. Ch. 12.
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Esdra
Guest
Hi,
as I am at the moment doubting what I have written before, I’ll quote my pastor’s email answer here. Then you can judge yourself if this is Nestorianism:
I’d like to note that this text hasn’t been written by me, but is a translation (by me) what Pastor Willy, the Baptist pastor in the Church I’ve been attending since 2009, wrote to me in response if “we”, the Baptist Church, believe that Mary is the Mother of God!
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GaryTaylor
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And how do you figure this? This specific verse in question?
We all understand how the church is referred to as her.
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GaryTaylor
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Peter_John
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Is Jesus God now? Was he resurrected with the body Mary gave him? If not, why was there no body in the tomb?
My point is that fully human and fully divine means that the human and divine in Him could not be separated. Otherwise he would be part human and part divine, and could not be God because God is One. The entire Creation was about God manifesting himself in the flesh as Christ.
Can Christ’s divinity be separated from the physical suffering when he was scourged at the pillar? Can it be separated from the punctures from the crown of thorns? Can it be separated from the weight of the cross on his choulders, the splinters in his back. the scraping of the cobblestones against his knees when he fell?
Can Christ’s suffering be separated from the nails driving through his hands and feet? Most of all – can Christ’s suffering be separated from the shedding of his blood? This is all bodily suffering, and if his body bwas not part of his identity as God, then God did not suffer these things for us. His body – his very human body - came from Mary and was just as much part of him being God as His spirit was of Him being human – He was fully man and fully God. Mary was His mother in the flesh, and served as his temple.
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LiftHimUp
Guest
Jeremiah 6:2 I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman.
Revelation 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
Revelation 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
Revelation 17:3 is unique because here you have a beast (in prophecy is a king or kingdom see Daniel 7:23) and a woman (which is a church). This means that you have a church-state nation. A woman (church) rides the beast (kingdom)
How can this woman you speak of be Mary?
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larkin31
Guest
God was not speaking of Eve in the Garden - but othe New Eve that was to come.
Jesus was not the offspring of Eve - but of Mary. Mary is the New Eve.
Just as Eve was named this because she became “the mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20), it is not a wild jump to then come to the realization that Mary becomes “the mother of all living in Christ”…
Seems like a “wild jump” jump to me, despite your claiming otherwise. This approach seems revisionist (with prophecies in mind) in the extreme.My church of my upbringing certainly never asserted anything of the kind. In fact, I never heard of this kind of thing until I heard it stated here at CA once before.
Was the pain of childbirth also about Mary’s pain of delivering Jesus and others? It says pain in bringing forth “children,” (in the plural) so this must mean that Mary had other children, right?
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GreggAlvarez
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Indeed, that is not the same woman as Mary. You are right.
If you will see it in context, you will note that that woman is NOT the same woman as in Revelations 12, the mother of the offspring (those who do God’s will and bear witness to Christ). The woman in Revelations 12 is Mary. The same Mary that is the Mother of Christ. The same Mary that is Mother of His Body, the Church. The same Mary that is the Mother of all Christians that keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Christ. That is the Mary we are talking about.
Revelations 17 could be speaking about the “queen of heaven” in the Old Testament (I forgot where). She is not even in heaven but some people called her the queen of heaven depsite the atrocities done by her. The angel even explains how bad the woman in Revelations 17 is.
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GreggAlvarez
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The evidence is pretty clear that Genesis 3:15 is referring to Mary. This is unquestionable.
Genesis 3:15 - “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.”
John 2:4 - “Woman, what will you have me do.”
John 19:26 - “Woman, behold thy son.”
Revelations 12:1 - “A woman clothed with the sun with the moon under feet.”
Revelations 12:17 - “Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus.”
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LiftHimUp
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If Mary is the woman in Revelation then what does the sun and moon represent? Also, who was the dragon in Mary’s time?
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larkin31
Guest
are you arguing that every use of “woman” in scripture is a reference to Mary? All you have done here is list a few uses of the word “woman”.
According to Strong’s Concordance, the word “woman” is used 367 times in the KJV (OT and NT). Are these all references to Mary?
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GreggAlvarez
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How should I know? My guess is the sun is the Light of the World. And the moon is Satan. “God separated the light from the darkness” (or something like that) as the Bible says in Genesis 1.
Satan. As I imagine he is in our time also. He continues to attempt to corrupt her offspring, those that keep God’s will.
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LiftHimUp
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So you know for a fact that the woman in Revelation 12 is Mary, yet you don’t know what the other part of the verse or chapter means? So its okay for you to guess at scripture, but if someone from another denomination does this then its heresy? Let’s not forget about 2 Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
How about we let the bible define itself.
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GreggAlvarez
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No. That answer nullifies your reference to Strong’s Concordance as irrelevant.
I suppose from pure syntax, that is exactly what it looks like, but I can assure that is not the case.
I was looking at the whole of Genesis 3:15 – “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between her offspring and yours; He will strike at your head, while you strike at His heel.”
Jesus is clearly the enmity in that picture. What I did when looking at the word woman was consider it in reference to Christ or her offspring.
I used John 2 because Jesus could have easily said “Mother” instead of “Woman”. Fact is He said “Woman” and there is no question that Christ is His offspring. As per if we can call Mary “Mother of God” is debated on another thread, but we do not that He is her offspring.
I used John 19 because the word is used in reference to her offspring, those who bear witness to Jesus according to Revelations.
I use Revelations 12:1 because that same woman is clothed by the Light of the World, a.k.a. Christ. She is also referenced having offspring later in the chapter.
I used Revelations 12:17 because it references her offspring. The structure of the chapter itself indicates reference Genesis 3. There is the woman. There is Jesus, Mary’s Child. There is the dragon. So, verses 1, 2 and 3 is woman, Jesus/enmity and dragon. And then there is the exile in verse 17 as paralleled in Genesis 3:23-24. That last part is purely speculation but it is reasonable. And then there is her offspring who the dragon wages war against.
These are not just random findings of the word “woman” as you seem to think. This is well thought out. It is pretty reasonable.
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Tantum_ergo
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You can’t be serious. The Bible define itself? Where does Christ or the Holy Spirit ever say “let the Bible define itself?”
The Bible doesn’t even define which of the many Scriptures of Jewish tradition and the various works of the early Christian period (for example, the Didache) are to be included in “the Bible.” (The CHURCH did that.) How do you expect the Bible to ‘define itself’?
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