The Protestant Reformers View Of Mary

[BrianH]

Point four is the breakdown. Mary has a spouse, Joseph. You cannot have a figurative spouse and a literal spouse. Its just meaningless semantics. There is no relationship component. I thought it was a Catholic thing because when I looked for it attached to the Orthodox, I got nada.
I DO find it objectionable because it is not accurate or have any biblical basis, no matter what Mr. Armstrong states. I actually find it VERY objectionable but I am trying to be respectful to people who say this.

 

[Mannyfit75]

In addition to what I have written, Benedict XVI is using the analogy that is find in Scripture much like calling the Church, the Bride of the Lamb. The title Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit is not literal nor it is it dogmatic. This is the point I am trying to explain to those who have trouble understanding this.

 

[Dokimas]

I make too much of the ark of the covenant? There was the special ark of the covenant for the old covenant between God and man, and there was a much more special ark of the covenant for the NEW AND EVERLASTING covenant.

What I said was that you make too much of the Ark of the Covenant (with respect to Mary) and the overshadowing. Then I gave Scripture about the Presence of God between the angels over the Mercy Seat. The overshadowing, if we can call it that, was the Mercy Seat, not the Ark of the Covenant, IMO.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Point four is the breakdown. Mary has a spouse, Joseph. You cannot have a figurative spouse and a literal spouse. Its just meaningless semantics. There is no relationship component. I thought it was a Catholic thing because when I looked for it attached to the Orthodox, I got nada.
I DO find it objectionable because it is not accurate or have any biblical basis, no matter what Mr. Armstrong states. I actually find it VERY objectionable but I am trying to be respectful to people who say this.

You find it objectionable because you try to interpret it as literal, as if the title itself is like the other Marian titles, “Mary, Mother of God.” You have taken a a fundamentalist view on Mary being called "Spouse of the Holy Spirit. That is your problem. Your Protestant lenses refuses to try to understand.

 

[BrianH]

Did she not ‘raise’ the Son and witness His suffering and sacrifice over time? You seem to separate God the Son, from God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; ONE God. Seems to me she totally submitted to God’s will, until her own end. Who else in scriptures did as much?

You seemed bent on keeping the semantics going on something metaphorically spoken. Is it only to keep a wedge driven between us?

I am not seperating them but Catholics are when they single out the Holy Spirit as being in a relationship with her. That did not occur in the Bible.
Mary had an encouter.
I am insistent because of how …honestly…extremely personally offensive I find it. I understand you do not. But we do:shrug:

 

[BrianH]

You find it objectionable because you try to interpret it as literal, as if the title itself is like the other Marian titles, “Mary, Mother of God.” You have taken a a fundamentalist view on Mary being called "Spouse of the Holy Spirit. That is your problem. Your Protestant lenses refuses to try to understand.

No I object to the figurative component as well. Listen, Catholics are out on a limb with this. Not the rest of Christianity Manny. Its not a Tradition so I think it is fair game to evaluate. Like you said, since its not official its open to scrutiny.

 

[adstrinity]

A figurative spouse? No it is NOT like when a male spouse impregnants his female spouse. That is absolutely not accurate imagery and should not be used figuratively . Mary did not have some form of special relationship with the Holy Spirit according to the Bible. It is all about her relationship with God. It is all about her saying yes to Gabriel. The rest of this is just make believe. I tell you what is also true. I can’t find any patristic writer who says it. Who was the first? Does anyone know?

I don’t know what you believe, but, the Holy Spirit is God. If She had a special relationship with the Holy Spirit, then She had a special relationship with God.

 

[Mannyfit75]

What I said was that you make too much of the Ark of the Covenant (with respect to Mary) and the overshadowing. Then I gave Scripture about the Presence of God between the angels over the Mercy Seat. The overshadowing, if we can call it that, was the Mercy Seat, not the Ark of the Covenant, IMO.

Let us compare King David and Luke’s Gospel,

Compare David and the ark to Luke’s account of the Visitation:
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:39–45).

Mary arose and went to the hill country of Judea. I have been to both Ein Kerem (where Elizabeth lived) and Abu Ghosh (where the ark resided), and they are only a short walk apart. Mary and the ark were both on a journey to the same hill country of Judea.

When David saw the ark he rejoiced and said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” Elizabeth uses almost the same words: “Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Luke is telling us something—drawing our minds back to the Old Testament, showing us a parallel.

When David approached the ark he shouted out and danced and leapt in front of the ark. He was wearing an ephod, the clothing of a priest. When Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, approached Elizabeth, John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb—and John was from the priestly line of Aaron. Both leapt and danced in the presence of the ark. The Ark of the Old Covenant remained in the house of Obed-edom for three months, and Mary remained in the house of Elizabeth for three months. The place that housed the ark for three months was blessed, and in the short paragraph in Luke, Elizabeth uses the word blessed three times. Her home was certainly blessed by the presence of the ark and the Lord within.

When the Old Testament ark arrived—as when Mary arrived—they were both greeted with shouts of joy. The word for the cry of Elizabeth’s greeting is a rare Greek word used in connection with Old Testament liturgical ceremonies that were centered around the ark and worship (cf. Word Biblical Commentary, 67). This word would flip on the light switch for any knowledgeable Jew.

The ark returns to its home and ends up in Jerusalem, where God’s presence and glory is revealed in the temple (2 Sam. 6:12; 1 Kgs. 8:9–11). Mary returns home and eventually ends up in Jerusalem, where she presents God incarnate in the temple (Luke 1:56; 2:21–22).

 

[Mannyfit75]

It seems clear that Luke has used typology to reveal something about the place of Mary in salvation history. In the Ark of the Old Covenant, God came to his people with a spiritual presence, but in Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, God comes to dwell with his people not only spiritually but physically, in the womb of a specially prepared Jewish girl.

The Old Testament tells us that one item was placed inside the Ark of the Old Covenant while in the Sinai wilderness: God told Moses to put the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments inside the ark (Deut. 10:3–5). Hebrews 9:4 informs us that two additional items were placed in the Ark: “a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded.” Notice the amazing parallels: In the ark was the law of God inscribed in stone; in Mary’s womb was the Word of God in flesh. In the ark was the urn of manna, the bread from heaven that kept God’s people alive in the wilderness; in Mary’s womb is the Bread of Life come down from heaven that brings eternal life. In the ark was the rod of Aaron, the proof of true priesthood; in Mary’s womb is the true priest. In the third century, St. Gregory the Wonder Worker said that Mary is truly an ark—“gold within and gold without, and she has received in her womb all the treasures of the sanctuary.”

While the apostle John was exiled on the island of Patmos, he wrote something that would have shocked any first-century Jew. The ark of the Old Covenant had been lost for centuries—no one had seen it for about 600 years. But in Revelation 11:19, John makes a surprising announcement: “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple.”

At this point chapter 11 ends and chapter 12 begins. But the Bible was not written with chapter divisions—they were added in the twelfth century. When John penned these words, there was no division between chapters 11 and 12; it was a continuing narrative.

What did John say immediately after seeing the Ark of the Covenant in heaven? “And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child” (Rev. 12:1–2). The woman is Mary, the Ark of the Covenant, revealed by God to John. She was seen bearing the child who would rule the world with a rod of iron (Rev. 12:5). Mary was seen as the ark and as a queen.

But does this passage really refer to Mary? Some say the woman represents Israel or the Church, and certainly she does. John’s use of rich symbolism is well known, but it is obvious from the Bible itself that the woman is Mary. The Bible begins with a real man (Adam), a real woman (Eve), and a real serpent (the devil)—and it also ends with a real man (Jesus, the Last Adam [1 Cor. 15:45]), a real woman (Mary, the New Eve [Rev. 11:19–12:2]), and a real serpent (the devil of old). All of this was foretold in Genesis 3:15.

John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote about this passage in Revelation:
What I would maintain is this, that the Holy Apostle would not have spoken of the Church under this particular image unless there had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high and the object of veneration to all the faithful. No one doubts that the “man-child” spoken of is an allusion to our Lord; why then is not “the Woman” an allusion to his mother?
Later in the same chapter we read that the devil went out to persecute the woman’s other offspring—Christians—which certainly seems to indicate that Mary is somehow the mother of the Church (Rev. 12:17).

Even if someone rejects Catholic teaching regarding Mary, he cannot deny that Catholics have scriptural foundations for it. And it is a teaching that has been taught by Christians from ancient times. Here are a few representative quotations from the early Church—some written well before the New Testament books were officially compiled into the final New Testament canon:

Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373) was the main defender of the deity of Christ against the second-century heretics. He wrote: “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 [Ark of the] 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” (Homily of the Papyrus of Turin).

Gregory the Wonder Worker (c. 213–c. 270) wrote: “Let us chant the melody that has been taught us by the inspired harp of David, and say, ‘Arise, O Lord, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy sanctuary.’ For the Holy Virgin is in truth an ark, wrought with gold both within and without, that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary” (Homily on the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church echoes the words from the earliest centuries: “Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the Ark of the Covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is ‘the dwelling of God . . . with men’” (CCC 2676

 

[BrianH]

I don’t know what you believe, but, the Holy Spirit is God. If She had a special relationship with the Holy Spirit, then She had a special relationship with God.

So why is she not the spouse of God? Catholics draw the distinctions. Don’t confuse that.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

I am not seperating them but Catholics are when they single out the Holy Spirit as being in a relationship with her. That did not occur in the Bible.
Mary had an encouter.
I am insistent because of how …honestly…extremely personally offensive I find it. I understand you do not. But we do:shrug:

Show me where the ‘encounter/relationship’ took place with another.

Christ was called the bridegroom in scriptures. Does that offend you? How about the wife of the Lamb?

**Rev 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb is come: and his wife hath prepared herself.

Rev 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb is come: and his wife hath prepared herself.**

We’ve told you it was metaphoric, but you still maintain it was literal. Anything else you want to tell us we believe?

 

[BrianH]

Show me where the ‘encounter/relationship’ took place with another.

Christ was called the bridegroom in scriptures. Does that offend you? How about the wife of the Lamb?

**Rev 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb is come: and his wife hath prepared herself.

Rev 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb is come: and his wife hath prepared herself.**

We’ve told you it was metaphoric, but you still maintain it was literal. Anything else you want to tell us we believe?

No, it does not offend me because its scriptural!
I do not maintain its literal. Quit lying about me Prodigal or read a little closer for once. I have made clear that I object to the figurative use as well.

 

[adstrinity]

I am not seperating them but Catholics are when they single out the Holy Spirit as being in a relationship with her. That did not occur in the Bible.
Mary had an encouter.

An encounter?..or, encouter as you put it? God used Mary, then? Had a spiritual one-night stand with Her? Used her and then never called again? That doesn’t sound like a God of love.

A Protestant in another thread I started about, “Could Mary Have Sinned While She Was Pregnant” (carrying God inside of Her and all…somebody nobody else has had the ability to do), surmised it is possible no because it’s possible that the HS overshadowed Her for the entire 9 months and kept Her free from sin so as not to harm the Baby She was carrying.

 

[Mannyfit75]

No I object to the figurative component as well. Listen, Catholics are out on a limb with this. Not the rest of Christianity Manny. Its not a Tradition so I think it is fair game to evaluate. Like you said, since its not official its open to scrutiny.

It isn’t even doctrine so it shouldn’t be a problem to you. Mary, being called, Spouse of the Holy Spirit in Pope Benedict XVI’s speech was written in analogical terms. It isn’t part of Catholic doctrine. I doubt the CC would even make into an issue. St. Maximillian Kolbe is the only I know I who have probably written it first. It is also mention in the Glories of Mary by Algori something…

 

[adstrinity]

So why is she not the spouse of God? Catholics draw the distinctions. Don’t confuse that.

She is the Spouse of God…and His Daughter and His Mother.

 

[BrianH]

It isn’t even doctrine so it shouldn’t be a problem to you. Mary, being called, Spouse of the Holy Spirit in Pope Benedict XVI’s speech was written in analogical terms. It isn’t part of Catholic doctrine. I doubt the CC would even make into an issue. St. Maximillian Kolbe is the only I know I who have probably written it first. It is also mention in the Glories of Mary by Algori something…

Just one more roadblock. Im sick of them. They always come up around Mary.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

No, it does not offend me because its scriptural!
I do not maintain its literal. Quit lying about me Prodigal or read a little closer for once. I have made clear that I object to the figurative use as well.

I’m not a liar, so your insinuation or accusation is false and offensive.

Ok, let’s totally remove the analogy of ‘spouse’, what analogy of Christ being begotten of the Father are we left with?

You only want to beat a dead horse in my honest opinion. Have fun with it, it’s not as you are representing it to be.

 

[BrianH]

An encounter?..or, encouter as you put it? God used Mary, then? Had a spiritual one-night stand with Her? Used her and then never called again? That doesn’t sound like a God of love.

A Protestant in another thread I started about, “Could Mary Have Sinned While She Was Pregnant” (carrying God inside of Her and all…somebody nobody else has had the ability to do), surmised it is possible no because it’s possible that the HS overshadowed Her for the entire 9 months and kept Her free from sin so as not to harm the Baby She was carrying.

Yes an encounter. And this sexual imagery you just sprewed is disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself. But you will not be. It just confirms what this kind of language causes people to bring up.

 

[BrianH]

I’m not a liar, so your insinuation or accusation is false and offensive.

Ok, let’s totally remove the analogy of ‘spouse’, what analogy of Christ being begotten of the Father are we left with?

You only want to beat a dead horse in my honest opinion. Have fun with it, it’s not as you are representing it to be.

Then your reading comprehension is poor.
Yeah, I want to beat a dead horse. Hey, you never answered my question. How long have you been Catholic? When did you convert? I could explain why it is important but i am working on theory of converts.

 

[Mannyfit75]

PS,

BrianH is taking it too literal same as Dokima. That is why they are having issues. I have repeatedly said that the context of the Mary as “Spouse of the Holy Spirit” is merely written in poetic terms using metaphors, analogies… etc. Despite my continue arguments that it isn’t literal, they continue to view it as literal

I ponder if viewing Jesus as Lamb is a issue to them, or Paul’s writing when he call Jesus, “He who was without sin become sin…,” ( 2 Cor 5:21)