Question about Mary

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Hi yall. I am rather new to this site, and I have found it very interesting to hear what various Catholic beliefs and view points are concerning scripture. I don’t know many Catholics to ask my questions to so maybe this will help.

I have a question concerning Mary. Now, I don’t mean anything at all against Mary because she was blessed among women after all. But as I have come to this site, I am under the impression that according to Catholics Mary was born immaculate or sinless. I am referring particularly to the “Mary: Full of Grace” article in the Library section of this site. But where is this found in the Bible? The first thing I thought of was Romans 3:23 “…for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Where in the Bible does it say anything about Mary being excluded from this?

I am genuinely curious what the Catholic view point on this is. Please clear this up for me! Thanks.
 
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jdc1084:
Hi yall. I am rather new to this site, and I have found it very interesting to hear what various Catholic beliefs and view points are concerning scripture. I don’t know many Catholics to ask my questions to so maybe this will help.

I have a question concerning Mary. Now, I don’t mean anything at all against Mary because she was blessed among women after all. But as I have come to this site, I am under the impression that according to Catholics Mary was born immaculate or sinless. I am referring particularly to the “Mary: Full of Grace” article in the Library section of this site. But where is this found in the Bible? The first thing I thought of was Romans 3:23 “…for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Where in the Bible does it say anything about Mary being excluded from this?

I am genuinely curious what the Catholic view point on this is. Please clear this up for me! Thanks.
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Romans 3:23 is a typical verse cited by one who is attacking the doctrine of the Immaculate conception. But the verse, although it seems to include everyone is not all-inclusive. Jesus never sinned. Also, infants and the mentally incompetent have not sinned. So, what did the author mean? Perhaps the author was trying to convey that all those to whom the letter was directed have sinned? Or - in a broader sense - that “all have sinned” in the vernacular sense that almost everyone has sinned - with certain limited exceptions that are not relevant to the discussion. Romans is not addressed to the sinless life of Mary, nor was it offered to contradict the Tradition that Mary lived a sinless life in complete submission to the will of God.

When specifically addressing Mary, the bible speaks of the Angel Gabriel addressing her as “full of grace.” Catholics understand the title “full of grace” to mean the absence of all sin. Thus, the bible does - indirectly - support the idea that Mary was without sin. This topic has been discussed ad nauseum on these forums, so I’m sure you can find other discussions that address your question in greater detail. But, suffice it to say, Catholic doctrine on Mary does not contradict Scripture, and in fact the doctrine is supported by the Bible.

Another way to think about Mary is to consider the “types” or foreshadowing of Mary in the OT. One such foreshadowing is Mary as the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark in the OT carried the word of God, just as Mary - in the NT was the bearer of the Word made flesh. The OT goes into great detail about the makeup of the Ark - of the finest gold and acacia wood - as incorruptible. Thus, again the suggestion is that Mary as the New Ark is without sin - being incorruptible. A bit esoteric, but still it is support. I’ll let others add to the discussion now.

Peace,
 

It doesn’t, anywhere.​

However, the matter does not end there, because of that very passage (not forgetting 5.12):

"What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all; for I have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin,

Rom 3:10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one;

Rom 3:11 no one understands, no one seeks for God.
Rom 3:12 All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one."
Rom 3:13 “Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.”
Rom 3:14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
Rom 3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood,
Rom 3:16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
Rom 3:17 and the way of peace they do not know.”

Rom 3:18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Rom 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
Rom 3:20 For no man will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it,
Rom 3:22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction;
Rom 3:23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Rom 3:24 they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,
Rom 3:25 whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith…"

Mary is much a recipient of God’s grace in Jesus Christ as you or we - not during the course of her life alone, but “in the very instant of her conception”, as the Bull which defined the IC in 1854 teaches; not through anything whatever in her, but solely & totally by the electing mercy of God. Mary’s election & predestination, like ours, was “from before the foundation of the world”, and for the Glory of her Divine Son.

An unconceived infant can hardly be described in such terms as those Psalms use: & the passage from Romans 3 is talking, not about the unborn or the unconceived - as the dogma of 1854 is - but about those who are capable of knowing good from evil, and are therefore chargeable for their sins: as the logic of the Apostle’s argument requires. To sin is impossible without opportunity to do so - and that was Mary’s condition: one who is unconceived & unborn cannot sin, nor be under the Law, nor be convicted of sin by the Law, nor know good from evil. IOW, what the Church believes about Mary is one thing; what the Apostle states, is another thing - so this dogma, is not undermined by the Apostle’s teaching.

Even so, “there is no distinction” between Jews & Greeks, nor between Mary and us, for that matter: we all need the One Saviour - Mary as truly as the rest of us. She can have no other righteousness than we do, by grace and not through works: her Son is her Righteousness, just as much as He is ours.

Does this help ? ##
 
Robert in SD:
[snip]

When specifically addressing Mary, the bible speaks of the Angel Gabriel addressing her as “full of grace.” Catholics understand the title “full of grace” to mean the absence of all sin.
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This is very significant.​

Of her Son it is said, that He is “full of grace and truth”, & that “the fullness of the God dwells bodily in Him”. She, is the “graced-one” - His is the fullness of grace from which she, no less than we, must draw; cannot but draw, since any grace we have at all is from that fullness of grace and truth which is His by Nature, and from no other source

The significance of this is, that there are over a dozen examples in the NT of something being said of Him, which is also said of His disciples, either in the Gospels, or elsewhere.

He is crucified - His disciples must take up their crosses
He is our High Priest - we too are priests
He is Son of God - we are sons of God by adoption
He is gone up on high - we are seated in the heavenly place in Christ
He is the Head of His Body - we are the limbs of that Body
He received the Spirit - we receive the Spirit
He is the true Vine - we are the branches of that Vine

And so on - all that He is and has, He shares with us, not because we are good, but because He is. He withholds nothing from us: His Life, Death, Resurrection, victory over satan, His grace, His Spirit; all are ours, and we are His, not our own - so we are not to withhold anything of His gifts to us from others.

So that greeting to Mary, hints at a pattern in the NT - it does not stand by itself.

One thing that ought IMO to be emphasised much more than it seems to be, is that to belong wholly to Him, is to be plunged into His sufferings. What the angel said was very odd: “Rejoice, graced-one!” To be in union with Christ at all, is to be vulnerable - the Christian is not greater than his Master: nor was Mary; she was not married when the angel “evangelised” her. The first thing her obedience to the call of God brought her was puzzlement - but the possibility of shame to herself, was not far behind: even in the womb, Jesus did not spare His mother suffering. ##
Thus, the bible does - indirectly - support the idea that Mary was without sin. This topic has been discussed ad nauseum on these forums, so I’m sure you can find other discussions that address your question in greater detail. But, suffice it to say, Catholic doctrine on Mary does not contradict Scripture, and in fact the doctrine is supported by the Bible.

Another way to think about Mary is to consider the “types” or foreshadowing of Mary in the OT. One such foreshadowing is Mary as the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark in the OT carried the word of God, just as Mary - in the NT was the bearer of the Word made flesh. The OT goes into great detail about the makeup of the Ark - of the finest gold and acacia wood - as incorruptible. Thus, again the suggestion is that Mary as the New Ark is without sin - being incorruptible. A bit esoteric, but still it is support. I’ll let others add to the discussion now.

Peace,
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FWIW, the word “overshadowed” in Luke 1.35 is also used for:​

  • The “overshadowing” of the Ark of the Covenant by the Glory of God, in the Greek OT at Exodus 40.35*****
  • The “overshadowing” at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17.5; Mark 9.7; Luke 9.34)
  • The shadow of Peter falling on the sick (Acts 5.15)
blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/words/1/1122101707-1303.html

Luke is fond of making references to the worship of Israel - his gospel begins in the Temple, and ends with the Ascension, which is expressed in liturgical language; including an allusion to the Ark in Psalm 132; for him, Jesus is the Ark, at least in that passage - so presumably Mary is the Tent, in this. OTOH, the description of Mary in Luke 1 & 2 appears to be modelled on the description of the bringing of the Ark to Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 6.
  • It reads in English: “And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of witness, because the cloud of the Glory of the Lord overshadowed it, and filled the tent” - and in the AV, which follows the Hebrew text: “And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle”;
blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/c/1122102777-4272.html#35
  • there is also an Exodus-theme in Luke: he even uses the word “exodos” in his account of the Transfiguration. ##
 
Thanks Gottle of Geer - that is a true revelation to me about the meaning of Rom3:23.

After years as a protestant quoting it out of context the meaning in context has suddenly (I hope) become clear.

There’s no cause for boasting as a Jew, one of God’s people. There’s no cause for boasting as a Gentile, saying I haven’t sinned as God hasn’t given me a law. Whether Jew or Gentile you’re in the camp of the sinner. Jews and Gentiles are in the same boat. (mixing metaphors now!). Jews are sinners. So are gentiles. All have sinned, not just one group or the other. And there is one source of righteousness and redemption for both Jew and Gentile, not one for the Jew and a different one for the Gentile.

Hope that I’m not now going massively astray in this sort of reading. It is a totally new way of looking at the passage for me.
 
The previous posters have done an excellent job in explaining the Biblical roots of Mary’s great holiness and special vocation as Mother of God.

However, I also think it is important to clarify the exact definition of the Immaculate Conception. The Immaculate Conception is not that Mary never sinned (even though Catholics believe this and is well-sustained by Tradition) but that, when Mary was conceived by her parents, she was not, like all other human beings except Christ, stained with Original Sin–in particular, the guilt of Original Sin.

Now, the idea that all men at birth are “stained” with the guilt of Original Sin is primarily a Western Christian concept which was synthesized (or developed) by St. Augustine of Hippo in the late 4th century. The Eastern Christian churches do not recognize the Augustinian understanding of Original Sin, and so they do not believe in the Immaculate Conception.

Yet, even in the Eastern liturgies, there is frequent reference to Mary as being things like blameless, pure, without blemish, etc. So, the tradition of Mary as being blameless and sinless is truly catholic and has its roots in the early Church.

Now, Scripture does not explicitly mention that Mary was born without sin. If it did, then the Franciscans and the Dominicans would not have argued over the Immaculate Conception for hundreds of years before it became dogma.

However, there is ample evidence to suggest that Mary lived a blameless life. And it has always been the tradition of the Church, even in the early Church, to pair Christ, the New Adam, with Mary, the New Eve. And so the qualities of Christ are more easily applied to Mary, especially when Christ and Mary are compared as opposites of Adam and Eve (Obedient, sinless, holy versus disobedient, sinful and shameful).

Never, unlike St. Peter, is Mary reproved for doing some wrong; and she agrees in complete faith to God’s plan for her to become Mother of God. There is no Scriptural event, to my knowledge, which demonstrates Mary as sinning. (I recall reading an accussation by a Jewish writer that in one passage Mary sins against her guests because she fails to act exactly according to the Law of Moses, or something like that, but I can’t remember which verses, and it seems to me that this charge was based on a strict understanding of Law.)

Just an additional note on Romans 3:23: The “all” is, as noted by others, with certain qualifications. Christ is sinless, and so the “all” excludes Christ. Likewise, the verb clause “have sinned” implies completed or ongoing acts of sinning. Infants, even though they have, according to RC belief, the guilt of Original Sin, do not have the faculties to actively sin until older. Therefore, the “all” also excludes those who are too young to sin. So, don’t be too worried about fundamentalists who try to use the word “all” in an extremely literal sense.
 
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jdc1084:
Hi yall. I am rather new to this site, and I have found it very interesting to hear what various Catholic beliefs and view points are concerning scripture. I don’t know many Catholics to ask my questions to so maybe this will help.

I have a question concerning Mary. Now, I don’t mean anything at all against Mary because she was blessed among women after all. But as I have come to this site, I am under the impression that according to Catholics Mary was born immaculate or sinless. I am referring particularly to the “Mary: Full of Grace” article in the Library section of this site. But where is this found in the Bible? The first thing I thought of was Romans 3:23 “…for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Where in the Bible does it say anything about Mary being excluded from this?

I am genuinely curious what the Catholic view point on this is. Please clear this up for me! Thanks.
Click to expand...
Probably, a better analysis of the Romans verse is this:

While the Church teaches that Mary was immaculately conceived, the Church also teaches that this occurred via the operation of the grace of the cross going back in time.

Get it? In a sense, Mary ALSO NEEDED “SAVING,” BY THE SAME GRACE THAT SAVES US, EXCEPT THAT THE JOB WAS BEGUN AND COMPLETED IN SOME UNDEFINED SPECIAL WAY AT THE MOMENT OF HER CONCEPTION.

Therefore, to that extent, MARY IS ONE OF THOSE REFERRED TO IN THE ROMANS VERSE.

There is no real conflict between the Immaculate Conception doctrine and Romans.

Now, WHY was Mary immaculately conceived? Hint: The answer is in Exodus 33:20.

Is the Immaculate Conception referred to in the Bible?

Oddly, it may be referred to in the Old Testament, but to see how, one must understand Bible typology.
 
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