Protestants: Do you believe Mary is the spouse of God in any sense?

[MattG]

This statement shows a misunderstanding of what motherhood is.

Mothers don’t create their children. They only bear them until their bodies are strong enough to survive outside the womb.

God creates all children. Jesus, of course, is uncreated, since He is a person of the Trinity - God the Second Person.

Mary is God the Second Person’s mother because she bore Him in her womb. That has nothing to do with the fact that He is God, and therefore uncreated.

Congratulations, Jmcrae and the rest of your Swim Team. I liked your post, but this sentence requires a response: “Jesus, of course, is uncreated, since He is a person of the Trinity - God the Second Person.”

The 2ND Person of he Blessed Trinity, i.e., the Son of God, is as you say “uncreated,” but Jesus did not exist until Lk 1:38 by what we call The Incarnation, when God became man to save us.
Therefore, Mary is God’s Mother; a fact recognized by John the Baptist when still a fetus(Lk 1:41,44) and proclaimed by Elizabeth, John’s Mother (Lk1:43.)

 

[milenyo]

Ohhhh, what’s up bro, Jesus!
Has anyone said this term before?

Isn’t He our brother?

I think it’s ok since Jesus is our brother and when we talk to Him it does not need to be solemn always…
I does not matter how informally you talk to Him as long as there is respect…

As for the main TOPIC…

Mother Terresa once said, “Jesus is my husband”
Mary could be referred as spouse of God since she is very obedient…

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

i did. but that doesnt change anything.

none of them were impregnated by god. So even symbolically, the title bears more weight on Mary.

why use ‘spouse’ instead of ‘wife’? arent they basically the same thing? the only difference i see is that the former is a unisex term. the other is gender specific.

1. She was not “impregnated by God” - the Incarnation is not an account of that kind of carry-on at all, nor does it imply it.​

1. Distinction according to gender is for nouns, differentiation by sex is for animals (including man). Given the widespread ignorance of grammar, the confusion is unsurprising.
2. IMHO, all these talk about the status of the Mother of God is ever so slightly sick - the Church is at least partly to blame if people have wonky notions about these matters.
3. One question that seems not to have been asked is, “What effect does this kind of language, as used about the BVM, have on people’s perceptions of God ?” If ideas about the BVM are assimilated to ideas about earthly mothers, or to earthly things such as experience in this world, it’s not surprising if ideas about her - & so, about her God - are coarsened through being too much coloured by thoughts of “things of earth”.

Assimilating God too much to Louis XIV, or to Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, have been two dangers: ISTM that assimilating the relation between the BVM & her Creator too much to domestic arrangements on earth is a third. After all, she, unlike God, is not ineffable, immense, infinite, transcendent: so she is not beyond word & thought & knowledge in the way that God is. IOW - she is not a goddess; so it’s a pity to make her sound more like one than is absolutely necessary.

Maybe calling her “God-bearer” would help - it would be closer to rendering the sense of Theotokos & Deipara than “Mother of God” is. Both titles are traditional & early, & perhaps they do not have quite the misleading associations that “Mother of God” has.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Mary is the daughter of God the Father; therefore she is the daughter of God. Mary is the wife of the Holy Spirit; therefore she is the wife of God. And of course, Mary is the mother of Jesus therefore Mary is the mother of God.

If Mary were not the wife of the Holy Spirit, then Jesus would be illegitmate.

That’s disgusting - she was not married to the Holy Spirit; she was betrothed to St.Joseph. This suggestion means that she “got laid” with God & cuckolded the man she was to marry. Which makes her guilty of lying, adultery, & fornication, & incest. What next ?? (I’m RC - for the record.) I feel dirty even reading these things ​

Quite apart from the wholly unspiritual & materialistic notion of God that this idea implies The notion of the BVM & the Holy Spirit “getting spliced” so as to ensure the legitimacy (?) of the offspring sounds like something from a bad soap-opera. And it does not favour purity of heart, or reverence, or knowledge of Jesus Christ. These horrible imaginations make the Holy Gospel sound like one of the ancient mythologies. Anglicanism has a less developed, but far more chaste, theologically responsible, & Christian appreciation of the place of the BVM than Catholicism seems to have. Catholicism “uglifies” the poor woman by making her into something resembling an alternative Christ: which is - beyond words.

This is the kind of thing in Catholicism I have trouble with - the Blessed Virgin has become so prominent in Catholic devotion as to become the subject of ideas (titles, for example) that distort the balance of elements in the Christian faith. And sometimes they are alarmingly similar in spirit as well as language to ideas about Divine Mothers who were goddesses in their own right. Mary sometimes looks very like the great Canaanite goddess Asherah - there are, for all sorts of reasons, many similarities. The similarities between “pagan Christs” (so-called) & the Lord Himself are felt less, because He is God, not a god. Whereas she is only a creature - which is compatible with being a god.

Devotion to the BVM has long had an alarming tendency to run out of control, like a plant allowed to run wild. It needs to be kept in check & purified by things more important than itself. Such as Christology, & the Bible. It is compatible with non-Christian religions in a way that faith in Christ is not - because the claims of Christ leave no room for obedience to other gods; whereas Hindus have no difficulty in devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. The BVM is a Christian saint - or nothing at all.

 

[Mannyfit75]

I think when most saints refer to Mary as spouse of the Holy Spirit, its only symbollic. I have heard sisters call themselves the bride of Christ, and refer to Jesus as my Beloved. My husband, etc… but if you take the context spouse of the Holy Spirit… I think its misleading. You have to look at the entire context… the thinking behind the words… itself… It goes very deep.

 

[Goth_Catholic]

That’s disgusting - she was not married to the Holy Spirit; she was betrothed to St.Joseph. This suggestion means that she “got laid” with God & cuckolded the man she was to marry. Which makes her guilty of lying, adultery, & fornication, & incest. What next ?? (I’m RC - for the record.) I feel dirty even reading these things ​

It suggest nothing of the sort. The Holy Spirt and God Himself are not men therefore physical intimacy cannot be assigned to the conception of Jesus. By your understanding the words of the gospel are just as disgusting “The Holy spirt shall come upon you, and the power of the most high shall overshadow you.”
Quite apart from the wholly unspiritual & materialistic notion of God that this idea implies The notion of the BVM & the Holy Spirit “getting spliced” so as to ensure the legitimacy (?) of the offspring sounds like something from a bad soap-opera. And it does not favour purity of heart, or reverence, or knowledge of Jesus Christ. These horrible imaginations make the Holy Gospel sound like one of the ancient mythologies. Anglicanism has a less developed, but far more chaste, theologically responsible, & Christian appreciation of the place of the BVM than Catholicism seems to have. Catholicism “uglifies” the poor woman by making her into something resembling an alternative Christ: which is - beyond words.

Explain. Mary is never made into an alternative Christ. God gave her the greatest position bestoyed upon any mortal. She was concieved without sin, carried the word incarnate, and was assumped body and soul into heaven where was crowned Queen of heaven and earth.

This is the kind of thing in Catholicism I have trouble with - the Blessed Virgin has become so prominent in Catholic devotion as to become the subject of ideas (titles, for example) that distort the balance of elements in the Christian faith. And sometimes they are alarmingly similar in spirit as well as language to ideas about Divine Mothers who were goddesses in their own right. Mary sometimes looks very like the great Canaanite goddess Asherah - there are, for all sorts of reasons, many similarities. The similarities between “pagan Christs” (so-called) & the Lord Himself are felt less, because He is God, not a god. Whereas she is only a creature - which is compatible with being a god.
God made her what she is. The Church has never placed or held her any higher then God himself does.
Devotion to the BVM has long had an alarming tendency to run out of control, like a plant allowed to run wild. It needs to be kept in check & purified by things more important than itself. Such as Christology, & the Bible. It is compatible with non-Christian religions in a way that faith in Christ is not - because the claims of Christ leave no room for obedience to other gods; whereas Hindus have no difficulty in devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. The BVM is a Christian saint - or nothing at all.

Our Lady brings us to Christ. All she does, she does through her son.

 

[Contarini]

Curious, since Jesus was born of Mary by the Spirit, do you think there is any sense in which Mary is the spouse of God?

Mystically, yes. Obviously not literally. Mary is the spouse of God in the same sense all believers are, but more so.

It is very important to maintain that Jesus being born of Mary by the Spirit does not make Mary the spouse of the Spirit in anything approaching a literal sense. That reduces the Incarnation to the level of a pagan myth in which a god impregnates a woman.

Edwin

 

[Mannyfit75]

Mystically, yes. Obviously not literally. Mary is the spouse of God in the same sense all believers are, but more so.

It is very important to maintain that Jesus being born of Mary by the Spirit does not make Mary the spouse of the Spirit in anything approaching a literal sense. That reduces the Incarnation to the level of a pagan myth in which a god impregnates a woman.

Edwin

You call it mystical I call it symbolic… Still we can’t take these terms literally… I think we can agree to that.

 

[Contarini]

You call it mystical I call it symbolic…

I avoid “symbolic” because it has come to have a very weak meaning in our culture.

Edwin

 

[MarcoPolo]

Mystically, yes. Obviously not literally. Mary is the spouse of God in the same sense all believers are, but more so.

It is very important to maintain that Jesus being born of Mary by the Spirit does not make Mary the spouse of the Spirit in anything approaching a literal sense. That reduces the Incarnation to the level of a pagan myth in which a god impregnates a woman.

Edwin

I tend to agree at first glance. However, did not God impregnate a woman, regardless of prior pagan myths???

 

[Contarini]

I tend to agree at first glance. However, did not God impregnate a woman, regardless of prior pagan myths???

Certainly not. In what sense was Mary impregnated by God? Are you suggesting that Jesus’ Y chromosome came from God? What sort of genes does God have? Do you really want to go there?

The Holy Spirit miraculously caused Mary to reproduce parthenogenetically. We know some creatures that do this–it’s not logically incoherent or anything like that. (The main problem, scientifically, is how Jesus could be male–i.e., where did His Y chromosome come from. But I don’t think we are required to have an answer to that–one can imagine several possible answers and I don’t think the question is theologically important.)

I may be overanalyzing this (although I know that I’m talking to people many of whom buy Pat Madrid’s proof of the Immaculate Conception based on one word in this same passage, so this shouldn’t raise too many objections!), but it may be significant that the angel tells Mary that because of the Holy Spirit’s overshadowing Jesus will be “called” the Son of God. That’s always bugged me a little–why “called”? I used to worry that maybe this weakened Christ’s divinity somehow. But the point may be that the virginal conception is a sign and demonstration of Jesus’ identity, not actually the root on which it rests. In other words, theologically Jesus could have been fully divine and still born in the usual manner. The virginal conception is a way of marking out the fact that this is not simply a human being.

This is a similar mistake to the common Catholic belief that the flesh and blood seen in Eucharistic miracles are the natural species of Christ’s body and blood. At least, it’s an error according to Aquinas. But I recognize that that’s another issue.

Edwin

 

[Mannyfit75]

I avoid “symbolic” because it has come to have a very weak meaning in our culture.

Edwin

Can you explain why you think it is weak term?

 

[MarcoPolo]

Certainly not. In what sense was Mary impregnated by God? Are you suggesting that Jesus’ Y chromosome came from God? What sort of genes does God have? Do you really want to go there?

The Holy Spirit miraculously caused Mary to reproduce parthenogenetically.

I’m not sure why you state the miracle of this Conception is parthenogenetics, but that does not affect the point I was making. I don’t know the science of it, nor was I suggesting any scientific theory, nor do I know what Pat Madrid says about it. I just know the Holy Spirit caused the pregnancy which we have reason to believe was completely normal after the miraculous Conception. No? And it is this which I find unnecessary to compare to stories of pagan gods impregnating women.

And it is this which is why the Church gives her the special name Spouse of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit overshadowed her, a child was produced. Mary’s espousement to the Spirit is much different than ours in that it involves the procreative aspect of espousement. The science is immaterial. It is because a child is involved. I think that is why you did state that Mary is the spouse “more so” than the rest of us?

 

[byoby]

27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

 

[Singinbeauty]

Congratulations, Jmcrae and the rest of your Swim Team. I liked your post, but this sentence requires a response: “Jesus, of course, is uncreated, since He is a person of the Trinity - God the Second Person.”

The 2ND Person of he Blessed Trinity, i.e., the Son of God, is as you say “uncreated,” but Jesus did not exist until Lk 1:38 by what we call The Incarnation, when God became man to save us.
Therefore, Mary is God’s Mother; a fact recognized by John the Baptist when still a fetus(Lk 1:41,44) and proclaimed by Elizabeth, John’s Mother (Lk1:43.)

I think John would disagree…
John 1:

Prologue: Christ, the Eternal Word
1 In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He existed in the beginning with God.
3 God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.

 

[MarcoPolo]

I think John would disagree…

John disagrees with Luke???

 

[MattG]

I think John would disagree…

Hello, please discuss where in John, Jesus, specifically, is mentioned before His taking flesh in verse 1:14, which is the important verse for our discussion, i.e., And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth, which is described in Luke as happening at 1:38, Then Mary said, “Here am I the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” accepting the word(s) of verses 31-33, and 35-37, of Luke spoken by the angel.

The Word’s Divinity is defined in John 1:1, not as a happening but a pre-existing fact. The Word’s humanity is from Mary by The Holy Spirit and of the power of the Most High. Therefore, Jesus is true God and true man: God does not have a beginning; every man does.

 

[Singinbeauty]

John disagrees with Luke???

Luke wasn’t saying that Christ didn’t exist UNTIL that time… Christ existed with God since the beginning as John says. He came to this earth through Mary. She didn’t create Him because He already existed long before she did. Luke indicates that Elizabeth didn’t know it was Him until that moment. Big difference. John came right out and said it, Jesus existed since the beginning with God… Plain as the nose on my face. MattG’s use of the verses below to make his point is weak and doesn’t prove that Christ didn’t exist until then…

41And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

44For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

Where, in any of that, does it say that Jesus did NOT exist until He was in Mary’s womb???

 

[Singinbeauty]

Hello, please discuss where in John, Jesus, specifically, is mentioned before His taking flesh in verse 1:14, which is the important verse for our discussion, i.e., And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth, which is described in Luke as happening at 1:38, Then Mary said, “Here am I the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” accepting the word(s) of verses 31-33, and 35-37, of Luke spoken by the angel.

John 1:

Prologue: Christ, the Eternal Word
1 In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He existed in the beginning with God.
3 God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.

John makes it VERY clear that Christ existed in the beginning with God. VERY clear. That is why he says… wait for it… “In the beginning the Word ALREADY existed” I don’t know how much clearer that can be.
John 1:

6 God sent a man, John the Baptist, 7 to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8 John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. 9 The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

It’s kind of funny how this is specifically said also. This would be why John the Baptist jumped in Elizabeth’s belly when Mary said hello. Because John had a HUGE role ahead of him.
John 1:

10 He came into the very world HE created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

Kind of interesting, the word usage here. He came INTO this world… You can’t come into something unless you exist before you step foot in it…
John 1:

14 So the Word became human[d] and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.[e] And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

So the Word became Human. This says it all. Whether human or spirit it still existed in the beginning with God.

The Word’s Divinity is defined in John 1:1, not as a happening but a pre-existing fact. The Word’s humanity is from Mary by The Holy Spirit and of the power of the Most High. Therefore, Jesus is true God and true man: God does not have a beginning; every man does.

Well, lets get something straight. God’s own humanity comes from Himself not a mere human of which He created. We cannot give to God anything that He doesn’t already have.

So Christ is two separate beings in one??? No. He is one in the same. You can’t separate Him from Himself otherwise He wouldn’t be Christ.

God made Himself human and He came through Mary as Jesus to this earth to show us the way. Amen.

 

[Contarini]

Can you explain why you think it is weak term?

To most people, it implies one thing that stands for another thing in a purely mental way. I.e., the flag represents the country. There is no necessary, intrinsic connection between the two. If Congress passed a law tomorrow saying that the U.S. flag was henceforth to be a big purple eagle on a green background, that would, in any objective sense, be an equally valid representation–though of course such an act is inconceivable and would be hugely problematic from a sentimental, subjective point of view, besides losing much of the appropriate symbolism of the current flag and failing to represent adequately the federal nature of the Republic as the current flag does.

Furthermore, it would be truer to say that human marriage is a symbol of Christ’s love for the Church and God’s love for humanity, rather than the other way round. The mystical reality is not the symbol; it is the thing that the earthly reality symbolizes. And this “symbolism” is intrinsic to the very existence of the two realities–it’s not arbitrary, as the symbolism of the flag is.

Edwin