Posted on 12/08/2014 2:32:24 PM PST by NYer
Jesus' nature has nothing to do with the environment in which He gestated.
You do believe that, don’t you?
No, because having a *holy* womb us not a requirement anywhere foretold in Scripture as a condition for the messiah to meet to fulfill prophecy. Nor is there any Scriptural support for it.
Man's sinfulness is not due to being carried by a human, sinful mother, but rather because of their inherent nature, something that is intrinsic to them.
Same with Jesus. His nature was intrinsic, not based on environment.
You do have Luke in your Bible, correct?
Sure Luke is in Scripture. Show us where Jesus' nature is dependent on Mary's alleged sinlessness.
And supposing it was, then how did MARY become sinless born of a sinful mother? Her mother would have likewise had to be sinless for Mary to be if Mary needed to be sinless for Jesus to be.
And back it goes, a whole family line of women who needed to be sinless in order to produce more sinless women so that one could carry the Messiah.
Actually, for Jesus to be fully human, to share fully in our humanity and to be tempted in every way, just as we are and yet remain without sin, He would have NEEDED a sinful mother to be born of and to raise Him.
How hard would it be to be obedient to the perfect mother? Nobody else has one. How can He be tempted in every way that we are and yet remains without sin, if He did not experience life as we do?
You have that backwards.
This is more like it.....
There is then no problem with the Church officially defining a doctrine which is not explicitly in Scripture, so long as it is not in contradiction to Scripture. The same is true for sola scriptura.
But that's not what you said.
What you said was this....
Post 10: "It is about Jesus have a holy womb in which to grow so that he could be fully human and fully God."
That says that the perfect, holy womb to grow in was a requirement for Him to be fully God and fully man. That would make His deity, His divine nature, dependent on Mary. So if Mary was not sinless, Jesus could not be fully human and fully God.
THAT is blasphemous.
Do you really think that Jesus and God were limited by Mary?
Mary and Grace
The word grace used in this passage in Luke is used in one other place in the Bible and that is Ephesians 1 where Paul is us that with this same grace, God has blessed us (believers) in the Beloved. IOW, we all have access to that grace and it has been bestowed on us all.
http://biblehub.com/greek/5487.htm
Luke 1:28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
Ephesians 1:4-6 In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Greek word “grace”
charitoó: to make graceful, endow with grace
Original Word: χαριτόω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: charitoó
Phonetic Spelling: (khar-ee-to'-o)
Short Definition: I favor, bestow freely on
Definition: I favor, bestow freely on.
HELPS Word-studies
Cognate: 5487 xaritóō (from 5486 /xárisma, "grace," see there) – properly, highly-favored because receptive to God's grace. 5487 (xaritóō) is used twice in the NT (Lk 1:28 and Eph 1:6), both times of God extending Himself to freely bestow grace (favor).
Word Origin: from charis
Definition: to make graceful, endow with grace
NASB Translation: favored (1), freely bestowed (1).
Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.
If there's no sin, there's no need for grace.
If Mary were sinless, then she didn't need grace.
But dontcha know?
If the Bible doesn't tell us it DIDN'T happen, it maybe coulda, shoulda, woulda, therefore someone can conclude it did and then teach it as truth because you can't prove it didn't.
How did Mary's *immaculate conception* happen then?
It removes her free will then.
Sure she was highly favored.
Only ONE woman in all of the history of the world would be the one to carry the Messiah.
And Mary got the job. What an honor!
That's what makes her favored, not anything else.
Preach it, sister!!!!!!
From the Catechism of the Catholic church....
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a9p6.htm
969 “This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation .... Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”510
Names of God from the Bible. Compare them to the names given to Mary in the above prayer.
Jesus
Hope (our) - 1 Timothy 1:1
Counselor - Isaiah 9:6
Advocate - 1 John 2:1
Mediator - 1 Timothy 2:5, Hebrews 9:15, Hebrews 12:24
Holy Spirit
Comforter - John 14:26
Helper – John 14:16
This is worship of Mary if ever there was.....Attributing to her the attributes of God is idolatry.
It is a fact that Mary is the mother of God.
WRONG! Mary is the mother of JESUS, as told us by the Holy Spirit in the Scripture HE inspired.
God has no mother. He is eternal. Calling Mary the *mother of God* makes HER above God and God a created being.
The Holy Spirit is clear in Scripture in calling Mary *the mother of Jesus*.
John 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
John 2:3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
Acts 1:14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
The argument that *Mary is the mother of Jesus and Jesus is God therefore Mary is the mother of God*, leads to the following conclusions using the same (for lack of a better term) *logic*:
If Mary is the mother of God and the Father is God, then Mary is the mother of God the Father.
If Mary is the mother of God and the Holy Spirit is God, then Mary is the mother of God the Holy Spirit.
That puts Mary above the Godhead, makes Mary deity, makes her the mother of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, making them created, finite beings with beginning.
It totally messes up all kinds of theology.
Do Catholics EVER think through what they have been spoon fed for their entire lives, cause it sure doesn't look that way with the arguments they use.
I'll stick with agreeing with the Holy Spirit in what He inspired in Scripture: *Mary, the mother of Jesus*.
That way, I KNOW I can't be wrong and I know that I can't lead anyone into error by teaching that God had a beginning and that Mary preexisted God.
Why does the Catholic church think it needs to correct the work of the Holy Spirit? What chutzpah!!!!
Let me see here.
Do I go with a Catholic church doctrine that was not established for nearly 2,000 years that has no Scriptural support, or do I go with the Holy Spirit and what He breathed out to us in Scripture......
Decisions, decisions....
In a way you are making my point...
The resurrection of our Lord was such a monumental event, world changing in nature, of course the disciples would record it for history and to spread the good news...without instructions, amazingly, they forgot to tell the story of Jesus mother Mary’s supernatural conception and sinless life...
THE RC church took almost 1,900 years to come to that conclusion...
I will always take the earliest history of the people closest to the event as the most accurate and correct...
wouldn’t you...?
And makes her Jesus' Grandmother...
Hail, full of grace (kecharitomene), the Lord is with you!" [Luke 1:28, RSVCE]
The Greek word, kecharitomene, is the perfect passive participle of the Greek verb, charitoo, meaning to grace or favor. The perfect tense denotes completion or fullness. It can be translated as "completely graced" or "fully favored." St. Jerome in the 4th century translated it into Latin as, gratia plena, or "full of grace." Even some Protestant Bibles render it as "highly favored one" (NIV & KJV). In this verse Gabriel does not address her as "Hail, Mary" but as "Hail, full of grace." Gabriel uses this participle as a name or title for Mary. In Acts 6:8, St. Stephen is said to be "full of grace" according to the RSV, but this phrase is used as a description and not as a title. Mary is named "Full-of-Grace", which includes sanctifying grace. Grace is opposed to sin (Rom. 5:21). This verse may not prove the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but it would be an odd greeting otherwise. Elsewhere in the Bible, Elizabeth under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit declares to Mary:
"Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" [Luke 1:42, RSV]
In this poetic parallel, Mary's blessing from God is compared to the blessing that rests on her Son - the fruit of her womb. Jesus was blessed in His humanity by being sinless (Hebrews 4:15) even while in her womb. Mary was blessed by God as the mother of His Son and in her freedom from sin.
Nothing in before 100 ad supports this idea. It comes into the Church later - much later.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception developed slowly through the centuries. Some divinely revealed truths take time for us to fully understand. Its development can be traced back to God's words to the serpent:
"I will put enmity between you (serpent) and the woman and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel."[Genesis 3:15, RSV]
This verse is seen as the promise of the Redeemer. "He" and "her seed" refer to Christ. "Woman" and "her" can refer to Eve, but they apply better to Mary (John 19:26). Luke's Annunciation scene (Luke 1:26-38,42) appears to contrast the Eve-serpent scene (Gen. 3:1-7): Mary vs. Eve, Gabriel vs. Satan (Rev. 12:9) as serpent, Fruit of the womb vs. fruit of the tree. In Romans 5:14 and 1 Cor. 15:44-49, St. Paul sees Jesus Christ as the New Adam. In like fashion, St. Justin Martyr in 155 A.D. saw Mary as the New Eve: "For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy... And by her has He (Jesus) been born." [Dialogue with Trypho 100] St. Irenaeus in 190 A.D. wrote: "Eve was...the cause of death...; so also did Mary...become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race...The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith." [Against Heresies III 22:4]
No where does the Scripture teach she was immaculate.
The absence of such a statement does not contradict its reality, much like sola scriptura, as has already been pointed out.
NYer,
I face a busy day of travel. I did read your post and will respond - hopefully tonight.
have a good day :-)
That's the knotty problem with free will. C.S. Lewis took a stab at it in The Great Divorce (a book I highly recommend):
"Time is the very lens through which ye see - small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope-something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. But ye can see it only through the lens of Time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. It is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise. Neither the temporal succession nor the phantom of what ye might have chosen and didn't is itself Freedom. They are a lens. The picture is a symbol: but it's truer than any philosophical theorem (or, perhaps, than any mystic's vision) that claims to go behind it. For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom. Witness the doctrine of Predestination which shows (truly enough) that eternal reality is not waiting for a future in which to be real; but at the price of removing Freedom which is the deeper truth of the two. And wouldn't Universalism do the same? Ye cannot know eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all acts and events that fill Time, are the definition, and it must be lived. The Lord said we were gods. How long could ye bear to look (without Time's lens) on the greatness of your own soul and the eternal reality of her choice?"AND SUDDENLY all was changed. I saw a great assembly of gigantic forms all motionless, all in deepest silence, standing forever about a little silver table and looking upon it. And on the table there were little figures like chessmen who went to and fro doing this and that. And I knew that each chessman was the idolum or puppet representative of some one of the great presences that stood by. And the acts and motions of each chessman were a moving portrait, a mimicry or pantomime, which delineated the inmost nature of his giant master. And these chessmen are men and women as they appear to themselves and to one another in this world. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and watch are the immortal souls of those same men and women. Then vertigo and terror seized me and, clutching at my Teacher, I said, "Is that the truth? Then is all that I have been seeing in this country false? These conversations between the Spirits and the Ghosts-were they only the mimicry of choices that had really been made long ago?"
"Or might ye not as well say, anticipations of a choice to be made at the end of all things? But ye'd do better to say neither. Ye saw the choices a bit more clearly than ye could see them on earth: the lens was clearer. But it was still seen through the lens. Do not ask of a vision in a dream more than a vision in a dream can give."
"A dream? Then-then-am I not really here, Sir?"
"No, Son," said he kindly, taking my hand in his. "It is not so good as that. The bitter drink of death is still before you. Ye are only dreaming. And if ye come to tell of what ye have seen, make it plain that it was but a dream. See ye make it very plain. Give no poor fool the pretext to think ye are claiming knowledge of what no mortal knows. I'll have no Swedenborgs and no Vale Owens among my children."
Luke 1
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
28 And he came to her and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!"
29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.
30 And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end."
Regardless of how you phrase it, Jesus - the Messiah - is the 2nd person of the Trinity (i.e. the Triune God). Mary is the mother of God.. And that is a FACT.
God has no mother. He is eternal. Calling Mary the *mother of God* makes HER above God and God a created being.
We call Mary the "Mother of God" because that's exactly what she is. A woman is a man’s mother either if she carried him in her womb or if she was the woman contributing half of his genetic matter or both. Mary was the mother of Jesus in both of these senses; because she not only carried Jesus in her womb but also supplied all of the genetic matter for his human body, since it was through her—not Joseph—that Jesus "was descended from David according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:3).
Since his Incarnation Jesus has had two natures, divine and human. These natures are completely united (meaning he is completely God and completely human). The technical word for this is the hypostatic union.
Although Jesus has two natures, he is only one Person--God--the Second Person of the Trinity. For this reason Jesus is properly called the "God-Man." (By the term nature we mean what Jesus is; by the term Person we mean who he is.)
Since the Son born to Mary is a single Person (and that Person is God) with two natures, Mary can rightly be called the Mother of God. The Person she's the mother of is God--he's not, strictly and philosophically speaking, a human person, as we are.
This doesn't mean that Mary existed before God (which is an impossibility). She is a human person with a human nature. She existed before Jesus' human nature was created.
Here's another way to look at it. A woman can't be the mother merely of a nature. She can only be the mother of a person who possesses a nature. When a child is conceived he is a person, not just a nature.
The same is true of Jesus, or else he would be two persons in addition to having two natures. Since Mary is the mother not of Jesus' human nature but of Jesus the God-Man, a divine Person, she is rightly called the Mother of God.
Not really.
The Catholic Church was commissioned by Christ to teach all nations and to teach them infallibly—guided, as he promised, by the Holy Spirit until the end of the world (John 14:26, 16:13). The mere fact that the Church teaches that something is definitely true is a guarantee that it is true (cf. Matt. 28:18-20, Luke 10:16, 1 Tim. 3:15).
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