I'm hung up on Mary.

[Erich]

The trinity was decided by the Bishops, not because simply the tradition stated so, for Athanasius argued from Scripture as well. The Scripture teaches that Jesus our Lord is the Word of God made flesh, who was also God with God.

And yet, the Arians – who were well-trained, Greek-speaking theologians who could read Scripture in the original tongues – argued from Scripture that Jesus was not truly God but only a sort of godlet or superior created being., vastly superior to us (as an angel is) but still created and not of one being with the Father. They rejected Tradition (as you reject much Marian Tradition) and pointed to texts like “my Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28) and “Why do you call me good? No one is good – except God alone” (Mk 10:18) to make their point.

 

[TimothyH]

The trinity was decided by the Bishops, not because simply the tradition stated so, for Athanasius argued from Scripture as well. The Scripture teaches that Jesus our Lord is the Word of God made flesh, who was also God with God.

There really is no excuse to not believe this doctrine.

**With regard to Mary, however, we do not have any emphasis on her in the NT writings, though this is not the authority of the matter. We really do not have any apostolic original for the teaching on Mary, we have later deductions. **

For instance, that Mary is the 2nd eve, the mother of the redemeed, mother of God, the means by which the Savior would come and wage the war against Satan, etc,etc,etc…

And I want to say Yes amen amen to all this. But to exalt Mary to the level of being a special means of obtaining salvation is to take the original apostolic message to a place that it never had in the beginning.

The means of salvation has always been and always will be a work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel (1 Cor 1-2, Rom 10:1-9, the whole gospel of John, the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Augustine, Irenaeous, Tertullian, etc,etc). Any place that another human being has is that of mediation of prayer and intercessory supplication, but this is accessible to anyone. The prayer of a righteous man avails much (James), and this was not originally an exhortation to look to Mary for more an inside message directly to Jesus, it simply means those who pray with purity of heart will avail much, and this was intended to be an exhortation for everyone to pray. Goodness, if only St. James could hear how people immediately point to Mary from this passage as another mediator special then anyone else.

If Mary is in heaven with Jesus, I am sure that she has a special place as the mother of Jesus. But we must realize that even in his earthly life he understood his mission to God the Father as more important that physical family.

With regard to the bolded section in red:

We don’t see Mary in scripture because we don’t know how to look for her. Take for example John’s Gospel. Mary is mentioned only twice and this is seen as an indication of her lack of importance. The logic used is that those who are more important have a larger role in the narrative - that the number of words written about someone is proportional to their importance. But that’s not how Hebrew storytelling works.

Mary is mentioned only twice, but she is mentioned at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and at the end of Jesus’ ministry - at the Wedding in Cana and at the foot of the Cross. We have to look at where she is mentioned in the story, and how, not just how many times. It is a classic case of quality over quantity. That’s how Hebrew storytelling works.

What John was doing was using a literary technique which we call “Bookending”. John places Mary at the beginning and at the end. It is John’s way of telling us that Mary was there “From beginning to end” and at all times inbetween.

Hebrew storytelling works by drawing you into the story and allowing you to figure things out for yourself. Hebrew storytelling does not give you the facts, but tells you things which lead you to discern the facts for yourself. That’s how Hebrew storytelling works. We don’t get the facts. We get facts about the facts which lead us into the story and allow us to figure out the facts for ourselves.

This is how Hebrew storytelling works…

*Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."
(Genesis 2:23)

Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”
(John 2:4)*

Genesis says, “She shall be called woman” using the future tense. John then has Jesus calling her woman, just as Genesis says she shall be.

She shall be called Woman.
Jesus said to her, "Woman"

It is a subtle play on the word woman, designed to draw you into the story and to get you to ask questions about why Jesus would use such odd wording to address his mother. Jews studied Scripture for hours in the synagogue on the Sabbath. They were taught to read and write using Scripture. Jews who were immersed in scripture would have understood Jesus’ reference to Mary as “Woman” as a reference to the first woman in Genesis 2. Jews understood how Hebrew storytelling worked, and many would have seen it clearly.

These things are not pure inventions of councils nor based exclusivly on the writings of the Fathers, but rooted deeply in a study of Scripture the way it was meant to be read and the way it was inteneded to be understood by the people who wrote it down. They are not deductions. These teachings come straght from scripture.

-Tim-

 

[johnnyjones]

The trinity was decided by the Bishops, not because simply the tradition stated so, for Athanasius argued from Scripture as well. The Scripture teaches that Jesus our Lord is the Word of God made flesh, who was also God with God.

There really is no excuse to not believe this doctrine.

With regard to Mary, however, we do not have any emphasis on her in the NT writings, though this is not the authority of the matter. We really do not have any apostolic original for the teaching on Mary, we have later deductions.

For instance, that Mary is the 2nd eve, the mother of the redemeed, mother of God, the means by which the Savior would come and wage the war against Satan, etc,etc,etc…

And I want to say Yes amen amen to all this. But to exalt Mary to the level of being a special means of obtaining salvation is to take the original apostolic message to a place that it never had in the beginning.

The means of salvation has always been and always will be a work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel (1 Cor 1-2, Rom 10:1-9, the whole gospel of John, the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Augustine, Irenaeous, Tertullian, etc,etc). Any place that another human being has is that of mediation of prayer and intercessory supplication, but this is accessible to anyone. The prayer of a righteous man avails much (James), and this was not originally an exhortation to look to Mary for more an inside message directly to Jesus, it simply means those who pray with purity of heart will avail much, and this was intended to be an exhortation for everyone to pray. Goodness, if only St. James could hear how people immediately point to Mary from this passage as another mediator special then anyone else.

If Mary is in heaven with Jesus, I am sure that she has a special place as the mother of Jesus. But we must realize that even in his earthly life he understood his mission to God the Father as more important that physical family.

The trinity is revealed in sacred scripture by a proper reading of the texts. Tell a JW who studies scripture night and day that the trinity can’t be missed. Point being, if you don’t want to see something, you won’t. “If Mary is in heaven?” She most certainly is, and to even question if the mother of our Lord is in heaven is quite foolish. What exactly is it about Mary you do not want to embrace?

 

[Godfollower]

The trinity was decided by the Bishops, not because simply the tradition stated so, for Athanasius argued from Scripture as well. The Scripture teaches that Jesus our Lord is the Word of God made flesh, who was also God with God.

There really is no excuse to not believe this doctrine.

With regard to Mary, however, we do not have any emphasis on her in the NT writings, though this is not the authority of the matter. We really do not have any apostolic original for the teaching on Mary, we have later deductions.

For instance, that Mary is the 2nd eve, the mother of the redemeed, mother of God, the means by which the Savior would come and wage the war against Satan, etc,etc,etc…

And I want to say Yes amen amen to all this. But to exalt Mary to the level of being a special means of obtaining salvation is to take the original apostolic message to a place that it never had in the beginning.

The means of salvation has always been and always will be a work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel (1 Cor 1-2, Rom 10:1-9, the whole gospel of John, the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Augustine, Irenaeous, Tertullian, etc,etc). Any place that another human being has is that of mediation of prayer and intercessory supplication, but this is accessible to anyone. The prayer of a righteous man avails much (James), and this was not originally an exhortation to look to Mary for more an inside message directly to Jesus, it simply means those who pray with purity of heart will avail much, and this was intended to be an exhortation for everyone to pray. Goodness, if only St. James could hear how people immediately point to Mary from this passage as another mediator special then anyone else.

If Mary is in heaven with Jesus, I am sure that she has a special place as the mother of Jesus. But we must realize that even in his earthly life he understood his mission to God the Father as more important that physical family.

We don’t exalt Mary as a special means of obtaining salvation. She was saved the same way we were: through Jesus’ Sacrifice on the Cross. Now, since all times are one to God, He preserved her from sin in the first place as a holy vessel to carry the Word of God, Jesus; but that doesn’t mean that we can obtain salvation through her. We can’t. She’s just a saint who did what God asked of her. If we want salvation, we have to seek it from Jesus.

And, yes, He did realize that His mission was more important than physical family. That’s why Joseph and Mary searched for Him for three days before finding Him in the temple, teaching.

 

[Richca]

One thing that puzzles me though–if God can create perfect, sinless people–even after the Fall–why did He not just begin to create us ALL sinless, like Mary, rather than sending His Son to die on the cross?

One of God’s greatest gifts to us is our free will. He doesn’t force us to love and serve him else he would be violating our liberty. He wants us to love him but he will not force us.

Also–did Mary–like Eve–have the ABILITY to sin, but just chose not to, or was she unable to sin?

Mary was sinless her whole life long by a special grace from God. I remember reading in one of Pope John Paul II encyclicals which I can’t find right now in which he says that Mary’s greatness lies just not being sinless her whole life long by a special grace from God but also by freely cooperating with that grace. I also remember reading an article by a priest on this very subject a while back ago which I can’t find right now in which he describes Mary in a way that we can relate too. I believe he said something to the effect that Mary wasn’t impeccable in the sense that she was unable to sin, but that she didn’t sin because of her perfect free cooperation with God’s grace. She chose not to sin.

.

And then that leads me to–if babies are born innocent and have yet to sin–but sin as they grow older because of the fallen nature of man–why, then did Eve sin, and Adam? They were different from us in some way when created as they had no fallen nature starting out, yet they “fell” pretty easily, so the story goes. Yet, Mary did not. She did not even commit the little sins of childhood. She was able to refrain, even as a young child, from sinning, yet Adam and Eve were hardly able to resist it for a minute. I guess I just don’t really understand it.

Adam and Eve could have resisted the temptation to sin far better than we due to the preternatural gifts they had which made their sin all the more grave. Mary was conceived with a grace far above the grace Adam and Eve had and indeed far above any other creature in keeping with her vocation to be the Mother of Christ and the co- redemptrix of humanity.

 

[Micah11]

I’m loving the CCC and have not yet disagreed, but I’m having a hard time with Mary. I’m now a believer in the perpetual virginity of Mary after research and reading (prior to I was not), but I’m having a hard time with the idea that Mary remained sinless in life and the bodily taking up to heaven at the end of her life (assumption).

I have tried and tried on this one, but I simply cannot get past what Mary utters completely on her own:

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

A sinless woman needs a savior for…what???

You can read endless articles, books, and blogs on this topic, but all they are
are arguments on why you should accept this doctrine.
But I have to go with what she said.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I have tried and tried on this one, but I simply cannot get past what Mary utters completely on her own:

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

A sinless woman needs a savior for…what???

You can read endless articles, books, and blogs on this topic, but all they are
are arguments on why you should accept this doctrine.
But I have to go with what she said.

And you know what she said is true because it is in Scripture, and you got Scripture from where ? Oh yeah, the Catholic Church.

And the Catholic Church, reading the very same words you did, doesn’t say, "OH wait, that contradicts our teaching. We’ll omit it, or ‘revise’ it. "

So the Church obviously doesn’t see any contradiction to what Mary says and what the Church teaches. Why do you, NOW? Nobody saw any problem for the first 1500 years of Christianity, and the Catholics AND THE ORTHODOX, not to mention the FIRST PROTESTANTS, still don’t see any contradiction. Again, why do you?

Because you think that Mary being born sinless meant she didn’t NEED a savior?

Pish tosh. She needed a Savior and that is WHY SHE WAS BORN SINLESS. BECAUSE HE SAVED HER AT THE MOMENT OF HER CONCEPTION.

That is what the Immaculate Conception IS. It isn’t something made up out of the blue, not just 1800 years after Christianity and even 300 years after the first ‘reformers’. . .it’s something that is right there, in Mary’s own words. . .

She had a Savior. Right from the start. Her being sinless is BECAUSE she had that Savior.

And again, this is something the very early Christians (before the canon of the Bible in AD 380) were teaching. So why do you accept "the Bible’ but not the other teachings?

 

[Richca]

I have tried and tried on this one, but I simply cannot get past what Mary utters completely on her own:

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

A sinless woman needs a savior for…what???

The apostolic constitution “ineffabilis Deus” issued by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854 in which he declared the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary to be a doctrine revealed by God and to be believed by all the faithful explains why Mary needed a savior. The constitution reads " that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin". So it is in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, that Mary was conceived without sin. It is also in view of those same merits that Mary freely cooperated with that special grace to remain sinless her whole life long. Mary’s apparitions to St Bernadette of Lourdes in 1858 confirm the church’s teaching. Mary said to Bernadette " I am the Immaculate Conception".

You can read endless articles, books, and blogs on this topic, but all they are
are arguments on why you should accept this doctrine.
But I have to go with what she said.

 

[Miriam1947]

youtube.com/watch?v=kUdYeYy3NQA

This is a great explanation about Mary and her role as the new Ark of the Covenant.

 

[Miriam1947]

[BIBLEDRB]Psalm 131:8[/BIBLEDRB]

This is the ark and also Mary, the new ark.

The Douay Rheims has the Psalms numbered differently from other translations. This verse always causes tears. I wish I knew why.

 

[pdstor]

I honestly do not mean to take this interesting thread off track but----WHY would God strike someone dead simply because that person, in all innocence and devout intent, was trying to steady the ark from falling? I mean, perhaps they were told never to touch it, etc but when you see something falling your natural instinct is to reach out and try to stop it, especially something as holy as the Ark. Why strike the man dead? It just seems so–cruel somehow. If someone could explain so I can understand better–even in a PM so as not to take the thread offtrack–I would surely appreciate it.

Thanks

They were breaking a whole load of rules and that was the final straw. Check a little more than halfway down this page: christianthinktank.com/gutripper.html

 

[TimothyH]

And the ark of the Old Covenant continued to carry those items. Does mary continue to carry these items?

The ark in the Old Covenant maintained it’s holiness precisely because of the items and the glory of God which made it’s home in it, it is also a place of sacrifice. If you were to remove these things, the ark would no longer have it’s holiness. Therefore, since Jesus has been removed from the womb of Jesus, does she maintain this holiness? And if we are to grant that she would maintain this holiness, do all human beings who touch her die?

Why are you not seeing how ridiculous this is?

You are doing the same things that the protestants do. They build huge theological buildings off of chicken coop foundations such as the righteousness of Christ imputed to believers, dispensationalism, etc,etc

Mary was to be the spouse of the Holy Spirit. Mary was to be “Overshadowed” by the Holy Spirit alone. God reserved Mary for himself. No one other than God was to touch Mary.

Uzzah dies when he reaches out to touch the ark of the covenant. This points us to Mary, and God’s intent for her.

-Tim-

 

[pdstor]

The trinity was decided by the Bishops, not because simply the tradition stated so, for Athanasius argued from Scripture as well. The Scripture teaches that Jesus our Lord is the Word of God made flesh, who was also God with God.

Right. Tradition (binding tradition) is typically not assessed without considering the Biblical text. That doesn’t mean it isn’t tradition.

There really is no excuse to not believe this doctrine.

Go ask the Oneness Pentecostals how they feel about that!

With regard to Mary, however, we do not have any emphasis on her in the NT writings, though this is not the authority of the matter. We really do not have any apostolic original for the teaching on Mary, we have later deductions.

Only that the angel actually waited around for her **choice **to bear the Son of God. Angels typically don’t wait around for us human folk to make our minds up (they certainly didn’t with Joseph or Elizabeth), especially if it is something pretty critical like God taking on flesh, but her approval to do the will of God was needed, because it would have otherwise been divine rape without such a choice.

For instance, that Mary is the 2nd eve, the mother of the redemeed, mother of God, the means by which the Savior would come and wage the war against Satan, etc,etc,etc…

Mary is those things, and is such because she made the **choice **to bear God Himself in the flesh. She is the mother of God because Jesus Christ is a Person of Godhead; you can ignore all else here for a later time, but if you don’t recognize at least this, you’re simply on extremely dangerous territory as a Christian.

Perhaps you should consider that these things don’t show up in early writings because nobody important decided to challenge such things then.

And I want to say Yes amen amen to all this. But to exalt Mary to the level of being a special means of obtaining salvation is to take the original apostolic message to a place that it never had in the beginning.

Neither did issues like Nestorianism or Monotheletism. Does that mean we’re free to believe Jesus was both a human person and a divine person since this wasn’t discussed for hundreds of years?

The means of salvation has always been and always will be a work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel (1 Cor 1-2, Rom 10:1-9, the whole gospel of John, the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Augustine, Irenaeous, Tertullian, etc,etc).

What would have happened if Mary didn’t make the **choice **to bear the Son of God? Obviously, she was kept free from sin so that she would not choose to disobey (having now known Eve’s example even though she shared with Eve the pre-fall state), but in your view this is false, so what would have happened if she and all other women the angel could “hit up” for bearing God’s Son declined to make this choice? The only solutions are divine rape (obviously ruled out), theological determinism, or that Mary made the choice to bring salvation into the world.

Any place that another human being has is that of mediation of prayer and intercessory supplication, but this is accessible to anyone.

Yet if these play a role in salvific behavior, they, too, must be only of God in the view you present.

The prayer of a righteous man avails much (James), and this was not originally an exhortation to look to Mary for more an inside message directly to Jesus, it simply means those who pray with purity of heart will avail much, and this was intended to be an exhortation for everyone to pray. Goodness, if only St. James could hear how people immediately point to Mary from this passage as another mediator special then anyone else.

If we show honor to Mary or any other saint by addressing our prayers through her intercession, that’s fine, but whenever we pray the whole team of saints prays along with us even if we pray straight to the Man Himself; we are united with the whole body of believers, living or dead, and it is lifted up by the Spirit within them to the Son and then to the Father even if we pray “alone.” See Revelation 5 and 8.

If Mary is in heaven with Jesus, I am sure that she has a special place as the mother of Jesus. But we must realize that even in his earthly life he understood his mission to God the Father as more important that physical family.

“If?” I hope you don’t mean she could possibly not be saved. If you mean the Assumption then I hope you don’t find Enoch and Elijah’s stories too tough to believe either. And yes His mission was more important than just hanging out with Mary, that’s not the point lol. The point is that Mary’s role in salvation is the greatest that a human could have (humans have role in salvation, of course, since humans pass the traditions, author the Bibles in the Spirit, exhort each other etc) and this is because she gave birth to God Almighty by choice.

 

[pdstor]

It’s interesting that John the apostle glosses over this in Chapter 1 where he describes how Christ tabernacled among us. He was teaching that Christ’s body is the temple of God. So it the temple inside mary as well?

The Holy Spirit caused the Lord to come into physical being in Mary’s womb through its sanctification. The womb is what would be like the Ark here (not Mary’s whole body lol), I don’t see why the womb that carried our Lord would stop being sanctified the second He left it. Would you have happily pitched the Ark if its contents were moved?

If you were Joseph, would you feel the bravado to consummate your marriage in the very physical place the Holy Spirit sanctified and the Lord was formed and given birth? If so, you’re a much, much braver man than I.

 

[Erick_Ybarra]

I just cannot bring myself to believe that Mary, right now, has some special mediatorial hand in the conversion of sinners, and that apart from her there is no salvation.

Otherwise, we are going to soon have to add her in such creeds such as:

Saved by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and His blessed Mother for the remission of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As if salvation is a divine miracle in the Church wrought in our hearts through the Father, Mother, and Son…this is just going way too far.

 

[Ion]

I just cannot bring myself to believe that Mary, right now, has some special mediatorial hand in the conversion of sinners, and that apart from her there is no salvation.

Otherwise, we are going to soon have to add her in such creeds such as:

Saved by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and His blessed Mother for the remission of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As if salvation is a divine miracle in the Church wrought in our hearts through the Father, Mother, and Son…this is just going way too far.

This is a “straw man”…
Your thinking is influenced by “Once saved always saved”, your reasoning is a consequence of this ideea.

 

[Erick_Ybarra]

I don’t believe in Once saved always saved…

I have resolved to stick with the extra-biblical literature of the first 4 centuries of the Church. It is even within this circle that we find very little concerning Mary. If modern day Catholics, with their devotion to Mary, were writing in those times, it would be showing up like a taxi in New york City.

And how is it a straw man? Are you admitting that Mary participates in the salvation of sinners today? That when the 3000 jews were saved on Pentacost, Mary had some contribution? Or that all throughout history, she saves human beings?

If yes, you are saying that Mary is Savior with Jesus Christ. Not in the functional sense of being the 2nd Eve, but in the present-active powerful sense…the divine miracle of converting human beings…my goodness I cannot imagine the apostles teaching this.

 

[Ion]

I don’t believe in Once saved always saved…

I have resolved to stick with the extra-biblical literature of the first 4 centuries of the Church. It is even within this circle that we find very little concerning Mary. If modern day Catholics, with their devotion to Mary, were writing in those times, it would be showing up like a taxi in New york City.

And how is it a straw man? Are you admitting that Mary participates in the salvation of sinners today? That when the 3000 jews were saved on Pentacost, Mary had some contribution? Or that all throughout history, she saves human beings?

If yes, you are saying that Mary is Savior with Jesus Christ. Not in the functional sense of being the 2nd Eve, but in the present-active powerful sense…the divine miracle of converting human beings…my goodness I cannot imagine the apostles teaching this.

Mary asked Jesus for wine at one particular wedding, and not for all of them…
If you “do not invite her” I don’t think she is going to ask something for you.

 

[Ion]

Also, at the marriage supper of the Lamb, extra wine will be required for the souls saved by the Mary’s prayes…

 

[Erick_Ybarra]

I have no animosityvtowards her. Only she did not save me, she loved God and bore the christ child. I would die before someone forced me to call her my savior and redeemer