Whoa. Slow down. Nobody said anything about God keeping the Devil from tempting Mary. Mary was free from Original Sin but not protected from temptation. Just like Adam and Eve were free from OS, but open to the Devil's temptation. One of these days you might actually understand this Catholicism you always rail against.
If we say that Mary needed special assistance from God to remain sinless you rip us for saying God violated the devil's "rights" and turned Mary into a slave.
Nobody needed special assistance in the old days to live a righteous life - they just needed to obey God. The same is true today, with the caviat now of accepting Christ rather than heeding the old sacrificial system. Ya'll act like there was no such thing as a righteous person before Jesus came along. You can't really be that dumb.
Angelo, call your office.
Havoc, why this Jesus thing again if it was so easy to be righteous before? Isn't it a big proof text of your side that "all men have fallen short" to prove that Mary couldn't have been without sin? Now you say that righteousness was obtainable under the old system.
SD
Is there a contradiction I missed or is Dave just dumbfounded once again at obviety of the truth. God didn't do away with the old system because men couldn't be righteous under it. It was done away with because it was abused - much as other covenants entered into with God have been abused by men. When God's had enough, he acts.
I've never argued that Mary couldn't be sinless. I've argued the Bible side of it that she was chosen precisely because she was righteous and sought to be so. She still claimed a need for a saviour. And in order to atone for sin and wipe it out, there had to be sacrifice. When the old system passed at the death and resurrection, the Lord became that sacrifice. Being righteous doesn't mean *never* sinning. It means pursuing a life goal of never sinning and making things right when you do. Quite a contrast from doing what you want and then expecting God to make it right because Jesus was sacrificed for sin. God had the right to reject an offering under the old covenant when a heart was not right. He has that right still. And Mary is no exception to any rule God has made. Mary was a human being with a sin nature that she did her level best to overcome through prayer and sacrifice - and later through the Lord Jesus.
The beef comes in when you start making dumb statements like the one's I pointed out before. Eat, fill the plate with poison and then want everyone to believe you've been poisoned because there is poison on the plate after you eat. Mary having children after the Birth of Jesus in no way made her less of a virgin before Jesus' conception nor does it affect the birth of Jesus in any way. Your Doctrine is moronic to say the least, yet it is high minded 'reason' and 'logic' that comes up with such moronicisms. Such people likely coined the phrase, "I are smart" and were the proximate model of the Mortimer Schnerd character.