If I may, the Bible says in Romans chapter 3 verse 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The only person to ever live without sin according to Scripture is Jesus Christ. So as you can see, to the Protestant, the idea that Mary was sinless is simply unscriptural.
“For ALL have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
All humans from all times? Our protestants brothers don’t believe saints in heaven hear our prayers, but they believe a man (St. Paul) knew the heart of every person that had lived until the moment he wrote that passage, as well as the hearts of all the human beings who were to be born after that moment until the end of the world.
Let’s analyze the word
ALL used by Paul in this passage. Is he literally referring to
ALL human beings of all times? Paul is not God, so he doesn’t know each man & woman’s heart, does he? Could Paul really know every person’s heart of all times? Do you believe he did? If so, can you prove it?
When the word
ALL appears in the Bible in reference to people, does it mean every human being? We can answer this question when we look at Romans 1:7 where we find the word
ALL used there too:
“To ALL that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is believed that Paul’s letter to the Romans was written in the year 58 AD. Is his letter addressed to ALL the human beings living in Rome at the time? No, of course not. He addressed it to ALL Romans who were Christians. This cannot be denied, Paul is very specific for he sends his letter to those “beloved of God, called to be saints”. Christians were a minority in Rome, the majority were pagans. In the year 58 Nero was the Emperor and it cannot be denied that Paul’s letter was not addressed to him, so Nero is not part of “ALL that be in Rome” even though he was there, he is clearly AN EXCEPTION. So there are exceptions when using ALL in the Bible, “ALL that be in Rome” does not include Nero. With this I’m trying to establish that ALL cannot be taken literally every instance you see it.
Now let’s look at Romans 3:23. It can be argued that Paul is saying that “ALL those living in Rome have sinned.” He is talking to them, he addresses his letter to them, ALL of them are the new Christians in Rome, they used to be pagans, “ALL [of them] have sinned” makes sense. Is the sentence all inclusive? No, it cannot be all inclusive. Children who died before reaching the age of reason never sinned. Those born retarded, same thing, they never sin. So you see, there are millions of exceptions, millions of human beings who never committed a sin in their lifetimes.
“
ALL Judea and
ALL the people from the city of Jerusalem went out to John to confess their sins and be baptized by him in the river Jordan.” (Mark 1:5)
ALL the people?
ALL of them? Did the Sanhedrin (Annas, Caiaphas & the rest) go out to John, confessed their sins and were baptized by him? Did the Roman soldiers stationed in Judea and Jerusalem, including Pontius Pilate, go out to John and confessed their sins and were baptized too? Do you think they did? Of course not. So you see, ALL does not mean “all” each and every time it’s used in the Bible. Paul didn’t write his letter to Nero, Caiaphas didn’t go to John to be baptized, yet Paul said “to ALL that be in Rome” and Mark said “ALL the people from the city of Jerusalem went out to John”. Clearly there are exceptions. Romans 3:23 also has exceptions: the Blessed Virgin Mary is one.
You know Mary is sinless by the Grace of God. He decided to protect Her from the devil. You also know, as Luke tells us, that
“With God nothing is impossible.” (Luke 1:37)
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) and never returns to the discussion.