Immaculate conception and Romans?

[fireproofpoodle]

Hi!

I am a devotee of the blessed Mother and have a great love for Mary, but recently I have been troubled with regard to her sinlessness by some Bible verses:

Matthew 19:17 "“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

Romans 3:23, the most troubling one “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

And Ecclesiastes 7:20 “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”

and several oters.

How does the church respond to these verses while still teaching immaculate conception?

Go bless.

 

[CWBetts]

It is reasonable to interpret the “all” in Romans to be a generalization, rather than absolute. After all it all Romans also says that “all have died,” when neither Enoch nor Elijah died. The same book also says that “none seek after God” when some people truly do.

 

[Canto]

Hi!

I am a devotee of the blessed Mother and have a great love for Mary,

but recently I have been troubled with regard to her sinlessness by some Bible verses:

Matthew 19:17 "“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

From the Haydock Bible…

One is good, etc. God alone, by his own nature, is essentially, absolutely, and unchangeably good; at the same time, he is the source of all created goodness, as all goodness is a mere emanation from his. The person here addressing our Saviour, appears not to have believed that Christ was God: wherefore our Saviour, to rectify his misconception, tells him that God alone is good, insinuating thereby, that he should believe him to be God, or cease to address him by the title of good. (Tirinus)

The sense is, that only God is good necessarily, and by his own nature. The Arians bring this place to shew, that Christ is not truly and properly God: but by this way of speaking, Christ does not deny that he is good, even by his nature, and consequently God; but seems to speak in this manner, to make the man know who he was. (Witham)

Romans 3:23, the most troubling one “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Paul says elsewhere that the Romans have all knowledge. Do the Romans know every single itty bitty thing. When we read in the Gosepels of all Judea etc coming out to see Christ, did evey single itty bitty person come out to see him? In Greek the word all is a general term meaning most, a great many etc. It does not mean all full stop.

And Ecclesiastes 7:20 “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”

From Haydock

We must not flatter ourselves with impeccability, ver. 18. (Calmet)

How does the church respond to these verses while still teaching immaculate conception?

Some verses are mistunderstood or twisted to attack Mary. Some are generic statments not ment to impune every sinlge person who ever lived or ever was to live.

The Immaculate Conception is rooted on sound Biblical exergesis and the oral tradtion handed down through the Church, tradtion St Paul commands we stand fast and hold onto (2 Thes 2:15).

It may have taken time for the doctrine to be made ‘offical’ but one must remember that Christ died c. 33 AD and yet the Canon of Scripture was defined at the Council of Rome in 382 AD, more than 300 years later. This does not invalidate the canon nor the immaculate conception.

While hardly any of the 12 apostles wrote, within the time of the Council of Rome and the Bible Canon we had Hippolytus noting that “His tabernacle was exempt from putridity and corruption.” Origen calling Mary “immaculate of the immaculate.” Ephrem noting “Thou alone and thy Mother are in all things fair, there is no flaw in thee and no stain in thy Mother.”

“O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides.” Athanasius, Homily of the Papyrus of Turin, 71:216 (ante AD 373).

“Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free of every stain of sin.” Ambrose, Sermon 22:30 (A.D. 388).

At it’s most basic level Mary is adressed as Kechartiomene (Luke 1:28 Full of Grace). According to Strongs concordance, the root (Charitoo) means to grace. Being a perfect passive participle Mary recieved this grace (from God) sometime in the past. Tradition logically states that this time in the past was her conception, and that she remained in this state of grace. Never being without God’s grace her whole life - Mary never sinned.

Mary of course needed a Saviour, and he saved her in advance at the moment of her conception. Something he was certainly able to do as we ourselves can be vaccinated before catching certain diseases. Mary’s soul truly magnifes the Lord.

 

[LilyM]

If memory serves correctly, Zechariah and Elizabeth are described in Luke as in fact being righteous and ‘walking in all the commandments of the Lord blameless’ (or very similar words). Sounds very much like sinlessness to me - at least prior to the point where Zechariah doubts the angel, which still leaves Elizabeth

That alone flies in the face of Romans, Ecclesiastes and the like being interpreted to mean that LITERALLY all apart from God are sinful.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Hi!

I am a devotee of the blessed Mother and have a great love for Mary, but recently I have been troubled with regard to her sinlessness by some Bible verses:

Matthew 19:17 "“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

Romans 3:23, the most troubling one “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

And Ecclesiastes 7:20 “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”

and several oters.

How does the church respond to these verses while still teaching immaculate conception?

Go bless.

For All Have Sinned
A Refutation of the Attack on the Immaculate Conception of Mary from Romans 3:23
(Based on a talk by Karlo Broussard on Catholic Answers Live on 2/11/08)

Many people reject the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and argue that Mary was not born sinless and that she did not remain sinless all of her life. In support of their position, they often quote a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans which declares, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

However, does this passage really prove that Mary could not have been without sin? And is this really what Paul intended to teach in this passage? Let’s take a closer look.

The primary question to be asked concerning Romans 3:23 is this: When the Bible uses the word “all”, does it necessarily exclude exceptions? The answer is “no” as several scripture passages suggest.

For example, Matthew 3:5 tells us, “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.” Does this mean that there were no places from which people did not go out to see Jesus? This is not likely. The author attempted to convey an idea that a large number of people went out to see Jesus by using hyperbole.

Similarly, 1 Corinthians 15:22 says, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” Does this mean that every single person ever born will die? Well, the Bible tells us that Enoch and Elijah were taken up into heaven without dying, so we know that obviously not all die because these two exceptions exist. From this, we know that the Bible does not necessarily exclude exceptions when it uses the word, “all”.

Returning to Romans 3:23, we should ask further whether Paul intended to exclude exceptions when he used the word, “all”, or is he using it in a non-absolute way? To understand the context of Paul’s thought, we should look at Romans 3:10-12 wherein he quotes Psalm 14:2-3: **“**As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Does Paul really believe that there no righteous people? Of course not! The Bible tells us that Joseph was a just man (Mt 1:19), John the Baptist’s parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were declared righteous (Luke 1:19), and Psalm 14 goes on to speak of “the company of the righteous” in verse 5 while Psalm 15 references those who walk blamelessly and do what is right. So, if Paul is using the word “all” to mean “absolutely no exceptions”, then he is using the word very differently from the verses he quoted from Psalm 14 and from other passages of scripture.

Finally, it is also reasonable for us to assume that Paul would agree that infants and those who are mentally deficient cannot sin personally—two additional exceptions to the concept of “all” having sinned.

Therefore, when Paul uses the word, “all”, it is obvious that he is not attempting to declare that every single individual who ever lives will be guilty of committing personal sin; rather, he is attempting to communicate with clarity the universality of sin and the idea that both Jews and Gentiles alike are sinners before God. He is not attempting to exclude the possibility of exceptions.

Thus, the word “all” in Romans 3:23 cannot be used to disprove the doctrine of sinlessness of Mary.