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Janet1983
Guest
Did you actually read through what I wrote?
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Good_Fella
Guest
I certainly did. And I understood sufficiently what you meant when you wrote that God chose Mary as a vessel to provide the divine Word his humanity besides nurture him, and to call her anything more than that (the Mother of God) would diminish God’s glory. You present Mary as someone who assumed the role of a mother but wasn’t actually the mother of the divine Word. She was nothing more than a hired caregiver. Jesus is one divine Person. Either you have to accept Mary is the mother of a divine Person who assumed a human nature through her, or she was the mother of a human person with a divine nature. But that would be odd, since our Lord’s divinity is uncreated and eternal, whereas his humanity was created in time. Moreover, Jesus could not be two persons - divine and human - at the same time cohabiting a single body, as the heretic Nestorious believed, Mary being the mother of the human person.
:heaven:
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Janet1983
Guest
I’d consider it very special to be chosen by God to do this…
I figured it would be obvious considering the relations between a mother and her child… To have this with God Himself is rather outstanding, don’t you think?
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SingleMomMonica
Guest
Even if it were true that Mary was “just a vessel” - what was she a “Vessel” of?..GOD HIMSELF!!!
In OT times the Ark of the Covenant was the “vessel” of the Ten Commandments and anyone unworthy who touched it DIED!
GOD HIMSELF is valued, obviously, substantially more than the Ten Commandments!!! How much MORE we must honor the person who carried Him into this world!!! Even if that’s all she was…“a vessel”.
As Christians, we believe she is much more than just a vessel! But I just wanted to make the point above.
In OT times the Ark of the Covenant was the “vessel” of the Ten Commandments and anyone unworthy who touched it DIED!
GOD HIMSELF is valued, obviously, substantially more than the Ten Commandments!!! How much MORE we must honor the person who carried Him into this world!!! Even if that’s all she was…“a vessel”.
As Christians, we believe she is much more than just a vessel! But I just wanted to make the point above.
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Lutheranteach
Guest
So now the simple, but very pointed question asked by a small child once. Could Mary had said: “No. I don’t want to do this. Find someone else.”
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bookgirl32
Guest
No, I don’t think so. To say that God only required of Mary what He needed from her, and to say that she was not allowed to be the mother of every single part of her Son (as every other human is allowed to do for their children), is to use her.
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SingleMomMonica
Guest
Yes - she could have said, “No”, but there has been no other woman born that was pure enough to bear the God of the Universe.
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Janet1983
Guest
Wait… she carried Him, gave birth to Him and raised Him…
What is the issue? She herself did not have part in His divinity, but she raised Him as her son…
(If I were to have a baby and he had blue eyes I could be pretty sure that he didn’t get those from me for example.)
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Janet1983
Guest
She could have said no and God could have raised another woman for His purpose…
We can say no to God… We would be missing out on immense blessings however…
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bookgirl32
Guest
If you believe that Jesus if simultaneously fully God and man, and that these two natures cannot be separated, then to claim that she was a “vessel” for His humanity only is to say that she is not fully His mother.
A mother is not only “mother” to the physical part of her child that carries her DNA. She is fully a mother to the whole child, including the part that is not her DNA. In other words, if you had a baby with blue eyes, you are still the mother of that baby’s entire body. The baby’s eyes don’t have a different mother than the rest of it.
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MelanieAnne
Guest
It would appear that some posters are stating that Mary was merely a surrogate, that she was not in any way the natural Mother of the fully human aspect of Jesus. In this way, they are seeking to deny the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and the entire issue as to whether Mary can be said to be the “Mother of God”. If she has no natural biological connection to Jesus, if she is simply a surrogate, then this makes that argument easier to make.
It’s false of course. But that appears to be what those that make this argument are trying to achieve.
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Janet1983
Guest
Lol… I don’t believe in the Immaculate Conception either… but the idea that comes through in the arguments that some deliver here makes me think… they really assume I was hinting at her only being a surrogate? What baloney… Well now I know where those strange arguments come from that I have difficulty answering to…It would appear that some posters are stating that Mary was merely a surrogate, that she was not in any way the natural Mother of the fully human aspect of Jesus. In this way, they are seeking to deny the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and the entire issue as to whether Mary can be said to be the “Mother of God”. If she has no natural biological connection to Jesus, if she is simply a surrogate, then this makes that argument easier to make.
It’s false of course. But that appears to be what those that make this argument are trying to achieve.
She was not a surrogate… calling her a vessel does not really imply that either.
It just implies that God chose a human being that He created to be the mother to the Saviour… This is a very great honor, so why start whining about the idea of her being a vessel?
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MelanieAnne
Guest
When they say Mary was “just a vessel” I think some people are viewing that as a way to diminish Mary. Efforts to diminish Mary would be offensive to some people. I wouldn’t call their being offended “whining”. Most people can understand that an attack on someone you admire would be offensive.
I haven’t studied the development of this sort of issue in depth but I have to wonder if this “just a vessel” idea is a 20th century one. Before science made surrogacy possible, would someone have even thought that Mary could have had no biological connection to Jesus except as an incubator? Somehow I doubt it.
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Dokimas
Guest
Seems you disagree with the writer of Hebrews.Melcheizadeck did ‘not’ just appear … and he had both a beginning and an end …
Jesus received His human natire from Mary …
Now how God made this happen is a mystery … Mary is absolutely the Mother of Jesus, the Theotokos [Mother of God] … Jesus is both Human and Divine … that too, is a profound Mystery … as is the Trinity …
You, make God small when you speak of sperm and eggs and carnal sexual relations …
My God is an awsome God, Who humbled Himself - taking a Human Nature, born of a woman, a Virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit … Mary gave birth to the Word MAde Flesh … the same Word that was present in the World at is very creation … GOd, creator of Heaven and Earth - of all that is seen and unseen … Awsome and Powerfu - whose mysteries are both wonderful and incomprehensable…
Hebrews 7:
1 ¶ For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him,
2 to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated “king of righteousness,” and then also king of Salem, meaning “king of peace,”
3 without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
4 Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.
5 And indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham;
6 but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.
7 Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better.
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Dokimas
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Sorry but that’s the best I will do for you.
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MelanieAnne
Guest
Let the record reflect, then, that your opinions are just that ~ opinions ~ and unsupported opinions at that.
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MelanieAnne
Guest
My My! Such sarcasm! Perhaps hypocritical as well, since noting that something is someone’s opinion is something you have done repeatedly. It’s OK for you to say that to others but not OK for the same designation to be given to you?
Contrary to what you have stated, what I have previously stated is not opinions backed by the Church’s understanding of things, it is, instead, all derived from the teachings of Jesus Christ, handed down to the Apostles, and continuing in one unbroken line until today. That’s not “opinion”, that’s “truth”. Unless, of course you’re going to say that what Jesus taught was error. I trust you don’t believe that.
Further, Jesus promised, and that promise has been kept, that the Church would be guided by the Holy Spirit forever. And it has been. There’s a big difference between truth received from Jesus Christ and “opinion”.
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Luke65
Guest
Yes, it is infinitely better to believe what “the pillar and foundation of the truth” tells us, then to lean on our own understanding.
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