The Case for the Sinless Ever-Virgin Mary.

[Rita]

Yes, and yet only She is the Mother of God Incarnate, yours and our Spiritual Mother, the Queen of Heaven, and Holy Spouse of our King and God, and for many reasons.

That’s an assumption , she isn’t my mother, spiritually or otherwise. I have a Heavenly Father ( God )
She also isn’t my Queen of heaven. If you choose to believe that for yourself , that’s fine , but don’t state it as a general and universal truth for everyone else.

 

[Soulx3]

That’s an assumption , she isn’t my mother, spiritually or otherwise. I have a Heavenly Father ( God )
She also isn’t my Queen of heaven.

You have a Heavenly Father, your King, and a Heavenly Mother, Your Queen, Mother of God Incarnate, and you are blessed for it. She loves and prays for you constantly to our God, Her Holy Spiritual Spouse.

 

[Rita]

You have a Heavenly Father, your King, and a Heavenly Mother, Your Queen, Mother of God Incarnate, and you are blessed for it. She loves and prays for you constantly to our God, Her Holy Spiritual Spouse.

Jesus intercedes for me

 

[Soulx3]

Jesus intercedes for me

He certainly does as well.You have a Heavenly Father, your King, and a Heavenly Mother, Your Queen, Mother of God Incarnate, Holy Spouse of God, and your Heavenly Brother Jesus, God Incarnate, and you are blessed for it.

 

[simplefaith1]

Jesus intercedes for me

I lived in a christian community once predominantly run by catholics. They were really nice people, and had much love for others, especially the poor, and those who had messed up their lives badly. However, when it came to the biblical message of grace, namely Paul's message they didn't seem to understand it much.

 

[Rita]

I lived in a christian community once predominantly run by catholics. They were really nice people, and had much love for others, especially the poor, and those who had messed up their lives badly. However, when it came to the biblical message of grace, namely Paul's message they didn't seem to understand it much.

Yes, I have a few catholic friends and they are lovely and I have defended them when others have misjudged them as a whole and not weighed them up individually. I honestly don’t know if they understand about grace.
I do sadly know, , like any other denomination group ect, that there are accounts of ‘ not so much love and support ‘ ……but that is perhaps for another discussion.

 

[Soulx3]

There are people in every religion and sect who do and don't understand Grace.

 

[simplefaith1]

Yes, I have a few catholic friends and they are lovely and I have defended them when others have misjudged them as a whole and not weighed them up individually. I honestly don’t know if they understand about grace.
I do sadly know, , like any other denomination group ect, that there are accounts of ‘ not so much love and support ‘ ……but that is perhaps for another discussion.

I am sure in all denominations there are many who are not rigid sticklers for the denominational blueprint as it were. I was raised in a fundamentalist church. I heard someone on the internet once state that though that denomination and Catholics are at the opposite ends of the spectrum, they are the two mainline denominations that find it hardest to accept biblical grace. It seems strange, but I think the person is right

 

[Aunty Jane]

You have a Heavenly Father, your King, and a Heavenly Mother, Your Queen, Mother of God Incarnate, Holy Spouse of God, and your Heavenly Brother Jesus, God Incarnate, and you are blessed for it.

Have you not listened to the points raised against any possibility that Mary was anything but a normal human woman who was chosen to bear “the son of God”....who was not God incarnate, because God cannot be his own son.....nor can an immortal God die.

Let me point out something to you about your comment above....

We have a Heavenly Father who is our King, and a heavenly mother who is our Queen, and the mother of the king you just mentioned....so Mary is God’s holy spouse, which if Jesus is God incarnate, she is married to her own son....do you understand how ridiculous this is?

Did you also know that the Babylonians had a “mother of the gods” who was married to her own son? She carried the designation “Queen of Heaven”....but Mary never did.
The RCC made Mary into a mother goddess.....



You suggest that Mary had to be sinless to give birth to Jesus....but nowhere is that idea found in the Bible....in fact, Mary hardly rates a mention in the Bible compared to the attention she gets in the Roman Catholic Church. Nowhere is she called a “queen” or “the mother of God”, either....

After Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph presented him at the Temple as was required under God’s law.
Giving birth meant a period of uncleanness for the mother. If the baby was a boy, she was unclean for seven days, the same as during her menstrual period. The eighth day the child was circumcised, but for another 33 days the mother was unclean with regard to touching anything holy or coming into the sanctuary, though she did not make unclean everything she touched.

If the baby was a girl, this 40-day period was doubled: 14 days plus 66 days. Thus, from birth, the Law distinguished between male and female, assigning to the latter a subordinate position. In either case, at the end of the period of purification she was to bring a ram less than a year old for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. If the parents were too poor to afford a ram, as was the case with Mary and Joseph, then two doves or two pigeons served for the cleansing sacrifices. (Lev 12:1-8)

Luke 2:21-24...
“After eight days, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.
22 Also, when the time came for purifying them according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to Jehovah, 23 just as it is written in Jehovah’s Law: “Every firstborn male must be called holy to Jehovah.” 24 And they offered a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of Jehovah: “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

If Mary offered a “sin offering” then she was like all other women who gave birth.....a daughter of Adam and a victim of inherited sin. (Rom 5:12) Only Jesus was sinless because he had no inheritance of sin from Adam. If he had been a son of Adam he could not have redeemed mankind.

Do you understand how redemption works?

Mary was a married woman who had more children after the birth of Jesus.....

“When Joseph rose from sleep, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him. He took Mary into his home as his wife, but he engaged in no marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son, whom he named Jesus.” (Matt 1:24-25 New Catholic Bible)

She did not remain ever virgin…..because there was no necessity to do so. Her purpose was to produce the Messiah and after she did, she gave birth to more children, which in Jewish culture was a sign of God’s blessing.

There is nothing in scripture to even suggest that Jesus was an only child, or that Joseph and Mary were not a normal married Jewish couple blessed with a large family. (6 or more)

 

[Pearl]

The assertion is earlier in the work:

4. And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by, saying: Anna, Anna, the Lord hath heard thy prayer, and thou shalt conceive, and shall bring forth; and thy seed shall be spoken of in all the world. And Anna said: As the Lord my God liveth, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God; and it shall minister to Him in holy things all the days of its life.

Roberts, Alexander, et al., editors. “The Protevangelium of James.” Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: The Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, the Clementina, Apocrypha, Decretals, Memoirs of Edessa and Syriac Documents, Remains of the First Ages, translated by Alexander Walker, vol. 8, Christian Literature Company, 1886, p. 362.

You can read the entire document here.

There is all kinds of weirdness such as Mary was raised in the Holy of Holies and was feed by an angel. The document is the work of a gnostic sect that views normal marital activity as something defiling. Which I would add, is not the scriptural view. Which is why it was rejected by either Pope Damasus I in the late fourth century, (Who, as fate would have it, presided over the council of Rome that helped determine the canon of Scripture. Not sure what the Papalists have to say about that little nugget.), or Pope Gelasius in the late fifth century. It depends on your view of the Gelasian Decree.

That's not in my bible.

 

[Pearl]

We have graveyards because people bury physical bodies or ashes of a person no longer physically alive,

Ah right then, so people do die. Thought as much.

 

[Pearl]

Catholics don't pray to the dead, but rather to God for the dead, and when we do that we're referring to the souls in Purgatory: "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." (2 Macc. 12:46)

Where does it say purgatory in the bible? Either people die in their sin or else they die in Christ there is no third option in my bible.

 

[RedFan]

So, you do believe that Scripture is wrong to say that evil (sin) cannot dwell with God?

Good morning, @Soulx3. I've answered this already, but let me elaborate a bit:

Psalm 5:4 says God and sin can't dwell together. John 1:14 says God in the form of Jesus became incarnate and dwelt with sinners -- clearly an exception to the Psalm's statement. You are the one who suggested that an otherwise universal statement (like "all have sinned") can admit of exceptions:

We read, "all have sinned," except Jesus, so why not Mary as well, the One Who conceived God Incarnate? There's no scriptural verse that forbids the exception applying to Mary as well.

But you are unwilling to apply that same logic to Psalm 5:4, even though John 1:14 creates an exception for Jesus. As you once said, "except Jesus, so why not Mary as well." If Jesus could dwell with sinners despite Psalm 5:4, he could dwell in the womb of a sinner despite Psalm 5:4.

I'll close by reiterating that I don't know if Mary was born sinless or not, although I'm strongly leaning toward NOT. All I'm saying in this post (because you asked the question) is that Psalm 5:4 is a fairly weak argument for your position (thanks to John 1:14). Your better argument is the logical one, not the Scriptural one. It isn't convincing to me, but I thank you for putting it out there. Please develop it further if you like.

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bow out of this discussion. Going over the same ground again and again is getting tedious.

 

[Athanasius377]

That's not in my bible.

That's not in any bible and for good reason. Its a work of a heretical sect and even Rome had the good sense centuries ago to condemn the work as such. Now, we have forum members trying to rehabilitate the work because their church's doctrine changed in the intervening centuries.

 

[Athanasius377]

You suggest that Mary had to be sinless to give birth to Jesus....but nowhere is that idea found in the Bible....in fact, Mary hardly rates a mention in the Bible compared to the attention she gets in the Roman Catholic Church. Nowhere is she called a “queen” or “the mother of God”, either....

Not so fast. I take issue with the phrase, "Mother of God". The phrase is completely orthodox and its origin has to do with the two natures of Christ. Meaning Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man in one person (hypostasis) human and divine and not some sort of weird hybrid or two persons stuck together. Mary is the mother of God in that she bore Jesus, not just his humanity but the whole person as they cannot be divided (Nestorianism). Now, do Papalists use this phrase in an completely inappropriate and idolatrous manner? You bet. We agree there. But cautious use of the phrase is appropriate when describing Mary's relation to Jesus Christ.

Also, you make a good point regarding what scripture says about Mary. Nobody here is accusing Mary of some gross sin but she was by nature a sinful human being and she needed a saviour as much as me or anyone else in history. I honestly think that if Mary were to see what sinful accolades that have been bestowed upon her name I think she would be outraged to put it mildly.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Not so fast. I take issue with the phrase, "Mother of God".

There is no such designation given to Mary in the Bible…..not even an allusion to such a title.

The phrase is completely orthodox and its origin has to do with the two natures of Christ.

The term “orthodox” is interesting when determining the truth of any statement or institution.
We have a very good example of how “orthodoxy” can change with the intervention of time and a presentation of something that people are convinced is no longer true…replaced by something “better”……that is the medical establishment and it’s multi-billion dollar drug industry.

What used to be “orthodox” medicine was replaced by patented drug therapy, in a carefully orchestrated take over of the accepted medical practice of using compounds made from natural substances to the creation of medicines manufactured using synthetic copies of these natural substances.

Because it is illegal to patent a plant, a few wealthy families put their money to good use in formulating a way to gain customers for life by demonizing the natural remedies as “snake oil” medicine, ( which no doubt some of them were and still are) and began infiltrating the medical establishments with a new approach to “medicine”….in the form of unnatural drugs, which always have a myriad of “side effects”…..the symptoms of which were dealt with by prescribing more drugs to deal with this unwanted problem.

A side effect, which is treated as a ‘natural’ result of the drug itself, is actually the body’s rejection of the substance administered. Giving more drugs to deal with the inevitable side effects of putting synthetic substances into an already sick body can be disastrous. But the entire medical system is now based on these drug therapies….the first thing a doctor will do now is prescribe drugs for everything…...or recommend unnecessary surgery, all of which are designed for profit, not cures.

Was the abandonment of natural medicine in favor of the new ‘scientific’ approach better for the patient?
Not really, but it sure was good for big pharma’s bottom line…..and no one seems to know how well these drugs worked in curing anyone, when that was not in the business model. Big pharma is about symptom control and creating drug customers for life. The elderly are particularly targeted and it is not unusual to see them taking multiple drug therapies for the natural consequences of aging.

”Orthodox“ Christianity was hijacked in a similar manner by a corrupt church system that developed after the death of the apostles……Jesus warned that “weeds” of counterfeit Christianity would be sown by “the devil”, “while men were sleeping”…..so there was to be a period when fake man-made doctrines would be developed and accepted over time, during a period of spiritual drowsiness…..it happened gradually, just as the medical system was overtaken gradually……genuine Christianity was overtaken, and all the foundational doctrines of Christendom are based on man made beliefs, borrowed from paganism, not based on scriptural truth, which was put aside in order to accommodate the lies that have been introduced and promoted by the church for centuries.

Meaning Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man in one person (hypostasis) human and divine

There is not a single passage of scripture that says that.
Look up “hypostasis” in Strongs Concordance and see how it is translated in the 5 places that it occurs….
”confidence” X 2….”assurance” X 2…and “nature” only once….

Strongs Concordance

….who determines what words are used in translation? How easy is it to allow bias to influence the choice of words? Can you trust them? I am like the Beroeans when it comes to Bible study…I check out everything to make sure that what I believe is accurate and in harmony with the rest of scripture.

Jesus had to be 100% human in order to die and pay the ransom for mankind. The God and Father of Jesus Christ is immortal, so he could not pay the price of redemption because God’s perfect justice requires like for like……”an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life”…..all Jesus needed to be as “sinless”…..he did not need to be “God incarnate” to rescue Adam’s children. Atonement is “at-one-ment”…..the immortal God is not “one” or equal with his own creation. An immortal cannot pay for the sins of a mortal.

not some sort of weird hybrid or two persons stuck together. Mary is the mother of God in that she bore Jesus, not just his humanity but the whole person as they cannot be divided (Nestorianism).

Talking of weird hybrids……where will I find God or Jesus saying anything about being part of a three headed God? That is an entirely Catholic doctrine, which along with the doctrine of an immortal soul, and the torture of wicked souls in a fiery hell, were not dismissed by Protestantism, in their defection from the RCC and breaking the shackles of a tyrannical religious system that had held its members captive and in fear for centuries. They are part of the same system of lies introduced by the Roman Catholic church, because they did not divorce themselves completely from her doctrines. The foundation remained the same……whatever you build on a faulty foundation will ultimately collapse when the storm comes…..and it is coming.

There was nothing like any of those doctrines in the Jewish faith, until that was corrupted by men with their own ideas, which they taught as truth. (Matt 15:7-9) Jesus came to tell them the real truth and they didn’t like it one bit. History has simply repeated because humans have a short memory.

do Papalists use this phrase in an completely inappropriate and idolatrous manner? You bet. We agree there. But cautious use of the phrase is appropriate when describing Mary's relation to Jesus Christ.

Mary’s relation to Jesus is clearly stated in the Bible…..she was “the mother of Jesus”……what people have been led to believe about the nature of Jesus however, is not scriptural. He never once said he was God, and Mary’s role in producing the Messiah was foretold by Isaiah.
Mother goddess worship was adopted by the Roman church like a lot of other acquisitions.

All false worship has the three main doctrines that promote the devil’s lies….
1) That God is not “one” but “three” separate gods, somehow mysteriously rolled into one entity…..nowhere will we find this idea in God’s word.
2) That humans don’t really die, but have an immortal soul that lives on somewhere….that was the devil’s first lie…”you surely will not die”.
3) That God tortures the wicked forever in a fiery hell.…portraying him as a mean spirited fiend who enjoys seeing others in pain with no chance of repentance or forgiveness….the very opposite of God’s forgiving nature.

God transferred the life force of his most precious son, by placing a living embryo into the womb of this chosen Jewish virgin, so that his son would be born human in every way.….he would be the exact equivalent of Adam at his creation….sinless. And being 100% human he was also free willed, which the devil knew….and it was the reason why he tried to tempt him three times in the wilderness after his baptism to undermine his resolve to carry out his mission. It didn’t work, proving that Adam could also have remained faithful under test.

Imagine if the first humans had never given in to Satan’s temptations and lies….? Where would we be now?

 

[marks]

Yea, because I got the impression you think I said or believe that Mary is the new Adam. Again, I've never said that Mary is the new Adam, but rather have said that Jesus is, and that Mary is the new Eve. So, it's good that you agree Jesus is the new Adam at least.

You had written,

Now follow your own standard and provide the scriptural verse from the Bible that proves your statement: "God could have created Mary apart from Adam, but He didn't."

And this is what I've done.

Much love!

 

[marks]

Scripture was written by men, God's spokesmen that He chose, just as the scriptural writings that make up the The Poem of the Man-God was written by a spokesman He chose. And FYI, it's not a poem as in rhyming poetry, and its initial title was The Gospel As It Was Revealed To Me, and it doesn't contradict other scriptural writings from God, including those that make up The Bible. Any other excuse?

You can get whatever books you want to base your ideas on, I base mine on the Bible. Lot's of people make up their own writings about God, what do I care about that? And if it claims Mary was sinless then it most certainly does contradict the Bible. I'd get rid of it.

Much love!

 

[Pearl]

n verse 1 Pet. 2:22, it doesn't say, "only Christ committed no sin," but rather, "Christ ... Who committed no sin."

But Jesus was the only one ever to have been born without sin, which isn't the same as committed no sin.

 

[Soulx3]

But Jesus was the only one ever to have been born without sin, which isn't the same as committed no sin.

Jesus was born without the stain of original sin and did not actively commit sins.