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Furthermore, this is not church leadership claiming some special knowledge. he Immaculate Conception means that Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain—that’s what "immaculate" means: without stain. The essence of original sin consists in the deprivation of sanctifying grace, and its stain is a corrupt nature. Mary was preserved from these defects by God’s grace;

Mary was saved by her Savior, her son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and our GOD

Ditto for when at the end of her life she was assumed in heaven.

Remember Luke 1:28 where Mary is addressed as kecharitomene filled with grace. She was in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence to have been called "full of grace."

She was a created, human being who was saved by her Son. This we know from scripture.

I’m going to reply to both of your posts in this post. You said this:

>>the Immaculate Conception means that Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain—that’s what "immaculate" means: without stain.<<

You just said that Mary herself was conceived by Immaculate Conception. Then you said this:

>>Mary was saved by her Savior, her son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and our GOD<<

If Mary was “without original sin or its stain” why would she need to be saved? From what did she need to be saved? The scriptures never mention or infer that Mary was “conceived by Immaculate Conception”, in fact, if Jesus was “wholly man” she would have to have been with sin and pass that to Jesus to carry our sin. It was Jesus who was conceived by Immaculate Conception, not Mary. Jesus was both wholly man and wholly God thus His God nature could overpower His man nature.

In your previous post you said this:

>>Everything does not have to be in scripture, yet all we believe in must agree with scripture. And that holds true for what we believe about the Mother of God.<<

If that is true then please quote the scripture that proves the ascension of Mary.

Last but not least, you said this:

>>the concept of the Trinity as we know it is not completely explicit from scripture<<

What does this excerpt mean to you? “"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

>> Remember Luke 1:28 where Mary is addressed as kecharitomene filled with grace. She was in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence to have been called "full of grace."<<

"It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase kecharitomene as completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace." (Blass and DeBrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament).

However, Luke 1:28 uses a special conjugated form of "charitoo." It uses "kecharitomene," while Ephesians 1:6 uses "echaritosen," which is a different form of the verb "charitoo." Echaritosen means "he graced" (or bestowed grace). Echaritosen signifies a momentary action, an action brought to pass (Blass and DeBrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament, p. 166). Whereas, Kecharitomene, the perfect passive participle, shows a completeness with a permanent result. Kecharitomene denotes continuance of a completed action (H. W. Smyth, Greek Grammar [Harvard Univ Press, 1968], p. 108-109, sec 1852:b; also Blass and DeBrunner, p. 175).

As you can see the only thing kecharitomene differs from echaritosen is that the grace was bestowed permenantly. Mary was given grace by God permanently not just for a short period. It does not say she was born without sin. If she had been born without sin why would she need to be given grace from God?

Here is a quote from Pope Pis IX. "And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son -- the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart -- and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds."(Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus)

Now, if Mary had already been “completely free from all taint of original sin” then Jesus was not the first but was the second to “be without sin” since Adam. Nowhere in scripture is that written. Surely such a claim would have been documented and celebrated by the apostles.

The word gymnastics used to try to justify a point of view is foolish. Just as taking quotes out of context gives false information so does word gymnastics. I still claim that Irenaeus and others would have declared that to be a Gnostic teaching and “not to be trusted”.