When was Mary graced

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fatima-Crusader
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

Fatima-Crusader

Guest
Can you prove the Immaculate conception from scripture alone? I know you can prove Mary was sinless just before the angel greeted her, but can you run that grace back to her conception?
 
This doctrine of the Immaculate Conception can be found in what God says to Satan in
Genesis 3:14-15
“And the LORD God said unto the serpent … I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” KJV

Identity of the Woman

All Christians agree that this is a prophecy about the Messiah, Jesus Christ, coming to strike the head of the serpent, Satan. - Actually the Hebrew word that is translated as “seed” is being used in a very unusual way. Normally it applies to the male, but here it is being used in reference to a woman.

It is referring to Jesus’ birth through the Virgin Mary. - So, looking back at this Scripture we should appropriately ask ourselves, of which woman’s seed was He born ?

The answer of course is Mary. Jesus even goes on to identify Mary as the “Woman” in John 2:4 , 19:26, and also see Revelation 12: 1, 5.

Mary as “woman.” See endnote # 1.

It is important to note that the creation of the enmity between Satan and the woman is not something that the woman does, rather it is what God does, and He does it in the most perfect way.

Unfortunately some Christians in their misguided attempts to defend the glory of God actually insult Him by denying Him the credit that is due for this miraculous work He did in Mary.
Enmity is a determined, enduring and extreme hostility that exists between enemies.

Every Christian once in heaven will be perfected by God’s grace.

However, only of Mary, and of “her seed,” which is Jesus Christ, is it said that there will be enmity between them and Satan. Since Jesus is God and since holiness is an aspect of His Nature, he has that enmity by nature. Where as with Mary, she has it as a gift.

If there had ever been a time when Mary was under Satan’s domination through personal or original sin, then there would not be a real enmity between her and Satan. Therefore, by virtue of the grace He gave her, God put Mary in opposition to Satan from the beginning and throughout her life.

Notice that God the Father says that He will put the enmity between her and Satan. Only in God, and by His gift of grace, also in Mary, can it be said that there is enmity with Satan because only in them is their entire life opposed to Satan.

Therefore, since Mary had an enmity between her and Satan, and even though she was a descendant of Adam and would have contracted Original Sin, she was saved from the stain of it by the merits of Jesus Christ from the first moment of her life.

See more at
https://www.defendingthebride.com/ma2/conception.html

John
 
To be at enmity is for one person to be completely opposed to another. Notice that it is God who makes this woman and Satan completely opposed to each other.

Also notice that it is not mankind in general or even all women, but a specific woman that God is speaking about. What God does He does perfectly, and so this opposition between the particular woman in question and Satan is perfect. …

For Mary to be completely opposed to Satan for if she had ever sinned she would certainly not be opposed to Satan at that time.

And it is helpful to understand why it is appropriate that God would have wanted to preserve the mother of His Son from being on Satan’s side.

Satan fell because of his pride. He could not worship a God who would take upon Himself a nature, a human nature, that was below Satan’s higher nature, that of an angel.

However, God in His perfect justice humbles Satan. Now, if Mary, the spouse of the Holy Spirit, had ever sinned she would have been in Satan’ camp against God.

And in that case, Satan would have been able to brag to the Holy Spirit, “Yes. You have her now, but I had her first.

See more at

Satan’s Number 1 Enemy

https://www.defendingthebride.com/ma2/number.html

John
 
Last edited:
Since time is a created thing that God provides to redeem fallen souls, the question of “when” some part of God’s plan happened is, to me, sort of like asking “when” Edison “invented” the light bulb. Was it at the first inspiration? The first prototype? The first commercially viable light bulb?

We tend to think of something as “reality” when it manifests itself in the material world. Yet God, True Reality Himself, is pure spirit. So if True Reality, before time began, intended to send the angel to declare, “Hail, full of grace”, we might say she was graced “then”. Not provable as a series of events laid down in scripture, but understandable from the nature of God and His relationship with His creation.
 
Whenever a human encounters an angel in Scripture, they fall down prostrate and cover their faces, lest they see the divine presence and be destroyed. Mary did not do this. She ponders how the angel has greeted her, not at all alarmed by the fact of the angel being there. And when Mary questions the angel, she receives an answer, whereas Zechariah is punished for his lack of faith. He is a learned man and a man devoted to the service of the Temple, and yet he asked how the word of God spoken to him by the angel is to come to be. Mary, meek and humble, is not punished for asking a question. The angel outranks Zechariah. He does not outrank his Immaculate Queen. The exchange between Gabriel and Zechariah is an unworthy servant questioning his superior. That between Mary and Gabriel is a queen asking one of her servants to explain.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Fatima-Crusader said:
Can you prove the Immaculate conception from scripture alone? I know you can prove Mary was sinless just before the angel greeted her, but can you run that grace back to her conception?
Click to expand...
Can you prove the point in her life at which Mary was graced from Scripture alone?

If not, how can you make the claim that the ‘gracing’ happened at some point in her life and not at her conception?
 
We know it happened before the angel greeted her “O graced one” becuase its a perfect passive particale extending in the past with abiding results in the future
 
Last edited:
Fatima-Crusader said:
We know it happened before the angel greeted her “O graced one” becuase its a perfect passive particale extending in the past with abiding results in the future
Click to expand...
You’re spot on. The word is for “Full of Grace” is translated from the Greek word “kecharitomene”. This word is a “perfect passive participle” of the Greed word “charitoo”, meaning to “fill or endow with grace”. The perfect tense indicates that Mary was graced in the past but with continuing effects in the present. An English example would be “abandoned house.” The phrase means its abandoned now, and was abandoned in the past.
 
KMC said:
An English example would be “abandoned house.” The phrase means its abandoned now, and was abandoned in the past.
Click to expand...
It’s a decent example, but doesn’t capture the meaning of “continuing effects” into the future. “Abandoned house” doesn’t imply that it will continue to be abandoned; kecharitomene implies that the state of grace continues onward.
 
Fatima-Crusader said:
Can you prove the Immaculate conception from scripture alone? I know you can prove Mary was sinless just before the angel greeted her, but can you run that grace back to her conception?
Click to expand...
Since Mary was sinless, it does logically follow that she was sinless at conception, because everybody incurs original sin on conception. So in order for her to be sinless as a teenager she would have needed to be sinless at conception.

The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the faith.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top