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Sellers1
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Mary was a virgin at the Annunciation of course, but what would it have to do with anything if she intended to remain a virgin afterwards?
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Sellers1
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Not so fast. The question was where are these things found in Scripture. I never said anything about sola scriptura or tradition.
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Sellers1
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Thanks for your charitable post but really I must disagree with you. I don’t see the Catholic church as the exclusive one holy catholic and apostolic Church that Christ instituted with Peter as the head and the succession of popes to follow. I was a cradle Catholic most of my life and I practiced my faith seriously for many years. In all that time I was so far away from God. I learned later on in life that his Church isn’t an institution full of man-made regulations said to be of Sacred Tradition, it is the one Church of those who are drawn by the Father to Christ who grow in faith and who begin to (get it) understand as St. Peter did. There isn’t one single denomination that can lay claim to this because they aren’t supposed to be able to do this.
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Tim_Kirchoff
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If Mary did not intend to remain a virgin afterwards, then her question makes no sense. Gabriel told her that she would conceive and bear a son. Now, if Mary intended to have normal marital relations with Joseph, it would have been the natural thing to assume that Jospeh would be the father of this child, right?
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Selene
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Mary remained a virgin even after she gave birth to Christ because Jesus who is God entered through her and was born through her and where God passes through, no man can enter according to the Prophet Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 44:2 He said to me: This gate is to remain closed; it is not to be opened for anyone to enter by it; since the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it, it shall remain closed.
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jpaul1953
Guest
Good morning Sellers1,
Now I must disagree. Just because you left the Church doesn’t mean you are now on the right track. The truth is the truth. You want to feel Christ’s love in you. So you walk away. What happens when you don’t feel Christ’s love in you? Does that mean Christ has left you? You know that not to be true.
The way I revitalized my fading faith was to study what Christ’s original Church teaches with adult eyes. I eventually realized that Mass is not a TV there to entertain me. I must participate. I realized that I must go to Mass to honor God, whether I like it or not. And now I love going to Mass and being spiritually free of major sin so I can receive Christ’s Body & Blood in either the Host, Wine, or both. So when I gave freely of myself to worship and respect God, God’s grace came down upon me and allowed me to once again love Mass in it’s entirety ( it is in giving that one receives). I gave my heart back to Christ’s Church and God gave me back my love for the Church, which is the Body of Christ in its entirety. I know there are dull priests and deacons with less than attractive homilies, but the priest/deacon talking to the congregation is not but a part of the Mass.
Do not tell me that when you were a child you didn’t love to receive the Eucharist. You really never knew why for sure as a child you loved it, but you did. That’s because it is Christ.
Many people walk away from the Church because their fear of Confession grows so big that they deny the reality of it. Any revert or convert loves the cleansing power of Christ’s Confession. In that booth, you must own your sin before it can be forgiven you. If you lie to the priest or keep something from him, your Confession is void.
I go to God directly with my sins when Confession is unavailable to me, but I retell the priest my sins so that I absolutely know these are sins of my doing. As you well know, it’s a lot easier to say: “God I’m sorry” than " Bless me Father for I have sinned, these are my sins". I am responsible for my actions, good or bad. Reread John 20:21-23. Confession loud and clear.
Jesus told the Pharisees that if they didn’t know the truth they would not be responsible for it, but since they did they were responsible. I am not throwing stones at you because you don’t believe the Church, but I am paraphrasing the above passage for your information.
May God always guide us, my fellow Christian.
jpaul1953
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jpaul1953
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Tim_Kirchoff
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Strictly speaking, this is not “proof” of Mary’s virginity, but Mary’s virginity can be seen as a fulfillment of this passage.
As a Lutheran, I hold a different mariology than you, my Lutheran brother. This is as it should be - the ability to disagree - as Mariology should not be an article faith. The believer should not be bound to believe or disbelieve St. Mary’s perpetual virginity.
Understanding that I do not condemn your position, I’ll make the following observations:
- While scripture does not explicitly support these marion beliefs, neither does it refute them. The Lutheran reformers, to my knowledge, all believed in her status as ever virgin, etc., and in fact put the term in the Latin version of the Augsburg Confession. Either they found sufficient scriptural support for the doctrine, or found insufficient refutation.
- I would not define virginity as you do, but define it as not having had relations. Mary gave birth to Jesus, but remained a virgin because she never “knew” a man.
- Mary’s sinlessness was the result of being filled with God’s grace, not related to any merit of her own. Therefore, she needed a savior.
- Giving a sin offering would simply be evidence that she was a good Jewish woman, who followed Jewish laws and customs.
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adstrinity
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First off, it’s not the Bible that is the Word of God, it is Jesus that is the Word of God. Jesus, who set up His Church. Let us follow Jesus and not worship the Bible.
Mary did not sin. Mary needed a saviour to save her from sin. Her Saviour preserved her from sin. She needed God; she could not have done that on her own.
Mary did remain a virgin after her birth. Virgin is somebody who didn’t have sex. This has no bearing on whether they had a child or not.
It is the point. I don’t know your beliefs, like I said, we could be talking past each other. Do you believe Jesus is Lord and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, uncreated, God come down to take on our nature? This really does have a lot to do with the issue.It’s not the point and you know that.
Note, in Genesis 3:15, God is talking to Satan. The Woman He is referencing is Mary. In Genesis 3:16, God is talking to Eve. Eve brought forth many children, Mary did not.
Mary did not sin. Mary needed a saviour to save her from sin. Her Saviour preserved her from sin. She needed God; she could not have done that on her own.
Mary did remain a virgin after her birth. Virgin is somebody who didn’t have sex. This has no bearing on whether they had a child or not.
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Guyonthestreet
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I asked this question earlier but it’s got lost in the ether so le me try again -
Why do people even think about Mary’s virginity? Why is the fact she remained a virgin, or not, important? How does Mary’s virginal state impact on us, and our salvation?
I honestly don’t understand the obsession with Mary’s virginity. When I’ve refelcted on Mary, her life, her role as the mother of Jesus, whether or not she was a virgin never enters my head. So why is it important?
Why do people even think about Mary’s virginity? Why is the fact she remained a virgin, or not, important? How does Mary’s virginal state impact on us, and our salvation?
I honestly don’t understand the obsession with Mary’s virginity. When I’ve refelcted on Mary, her life, her role as the mother of Jesus, whether or not she was a virgin never enters my head. So why is it important?
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Tim_Kirchoff
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It’s not essential to any central aspect of the Faith, but it is important because of what it signifies. This concept is explained in greater detail in the second book of Mark Shea’s Mary, Mother of the Son trilogy. For the sake of this discussion, I think it is worth saying that Mary’s virginity is a sign of her total dedication to God, and it also makes sensein the context of the early Church’s view of virginity. Christ Himself, after all, was never married- chastity allows for a greater level of dedication of God.
As for why this is even debated, it seems that many people see the teaching as a way to ridicule Catholics.
For nearly 2 millennia, Mariology has been a topic of speculation, debate, and belief in Christianity, and while it is of lesser importance for most of us who are not Catholic or Orthodox, don’t see any chance that the interest of Christians in the Theotokos will change.
Her state of virginity after Christ’s birth, in my POV in no way impacts our salvation.
Jon
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Guyonthestreet
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Thanks Jon and Tim for your response.
I can understand the point that chastity can free one up to dedicate more of one’s life to God. I believe catholic priests and nuns have a discipline not to marry. However, Orthodox priests do marry as I understand it. Are they any less of a priest, given they have Apostolic succession? I doubt it.
In fact, without sound reason for it to be absolutely essential to God’s plan of salvation for us, it almost feels somewhat disrespectful to be delving into such an area of the mother of God’s life. But maybe I’m being too humanistic about it, rather than looking at the issues with a theological head on.
It continues to remain a total non issue for me, but with so much heated debate, I also can’t help feeling I’m missing something??!!
Again, thanks for responding.
I can understand the point that chastity can free one up to dedicate more of one’s life to God. I believe catholic priests and nuns have a discipline not to marry. However, Orthodox priests do marry as I understand it. Are they any less of a priest, given they have Apostolic succession? I doubt it.
In fact, without sound reason for it to be absolutely essential to God’s plan of salvation for us, it almost feels somewhat disrespectful to be delving into such an area of the mother of God’s life. But maybe I’m being too humanistic about it, rather than looking at the issues with a theological head on.
It continues to remain a total non issue for me, but with so much heated debate, I also can’t help feeling I’m missing something??!!
Again, thanks for responding.
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Tim_Kirchoff
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It’s not just about freeing up one’s life for the service of God, but totally consecrating one’s life to Him. It’s not just about time spent in “active duty” but time in prayer; consecrated virginity allows the total dedication of one’s entire self to God.
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Jerom3
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That’s really stretching it…This verse has absolutely nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. This was simply instructions how to set up the Jewish temples and who could come and go, etc.
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Tim_Kirchoff
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Was the Temple built to these specifications, or is the passage meant to be seen in a symbolic sense?
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Jerom3
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I am aware of Martin Luther’s position on this. I don’t agree with every thing he taught either. However we must remember he lived in the 16th century and for almost 1500 years everyone had been taught the story of Mary’s perpetual virginity. I believe that had Martin Luther researched Mariology as closely as he did indulgences, he would have also learned the truth about Mariology. After all, he believed Scripture was true and certainly there is much more evidence that Mary and Joseph had other chuldren than the opposite. There is absolutely nothing to support her perpetual virginity. We also have no writers of the first and second century writing about it. One writer mentions it but is not teaching it. He merely called her the virgin Mary. This belief came about long after Mary had died and at least a hundred or more years after.
I agree with you that it is a non-issue. It doesn’t affect my salvation one iota but I worry about those who pray to her instead of the Father as directed in Scripture.
Answering your points one by one…
- Scripture doesn’t even come close to supporting those beliefs. In fact, Scripture would have most anyone who studies it believing that there were other children. There is no mention of Joseph being older or having children when he married Mary. So that is a total wash. I believe your statements indicates there is some evidence of Mariology but not enough to explicitly support it. Is that what you mean? If so, please tell me what Scriptures do that.
- When Mary made the statement that she had never “known” a man, remember she was still unmarried and had just been told she would bear Jesus. This certainly was not after she was married. Perhaps she remained a virgin is you want to consider only sex but that would have been only until her marriage was consumated. And there again, we have mentions of other siblings and several mentions in Scripture of James, the Lord’s brother.
Also I feel you must be aware of the letter from Ignatius to John about Mary and James when he said everyone who knew James said he was the(to use my terms), the “spittin image of Jesus and he looks as if he came from the same womb.”
- It is unlike Mary could have been of child-bearing age and never committed a sin. When she referred to Jesus as her Saviour, I feel certain she had been taught all about sin since she was a good Jewish girl.
- I agree with number 4 except as 3 states above.
Thank God for Martin Luther, John Wycliffe, Johannes Hus, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin and many others, the world was finally able to see what the Scriptures actually said instead of what they had been told by someone who wanted them to say what they wanted.
I would agree with Martin Luther however that if the Roman Catholic Church had cleaned up its act and went back to the original Catholic beliefs of Scripture first, dropped its heirarchal methods, etc. perhaps things would have been different. Butthis way, we now have over a billion people who know what the Scriptures actually say and what they mean.
Take care my brother in Christ. We also have many brothers who are still connected here although many of their beliefs are different. I wish them well also and hope they will, at some point in time, study to learn the truth.
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Jerom3
Guest
The temple that Solomon built was almost exactly like described in the 44th chapter. Read it carefully and then google a Jewish temple old and perhaps you will see how it was built. Only the Priest could go into the inner most chamber where God would be and there were restrictions on each door on the way. The Jewish people of those times would have followed those instructions exactly right down to where the lambs were slaughtered.
I don’t know what they are like today.
Good, I agree.
I would worry about that, too. OTOH, I accept the explanation of Catholics and Orthodox that the manner of “prayer” to her is not the same as that of prayer to God.
Yep. Your responses are the right ones for your position. And, of course, I will counter with, thereis no evidence or mention of other children when Mary and Joseph go back to find Him in the temple, no mention of brothers at the cross when He leaves her in the care of John. IOW, there is nothing to dispute the teaching that reaches back to the early church, that Luther and his colleagues believed.
Well, I’ll agree on Luther.
Jon
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