A Biblical Basis for the "Immaculate Conception"?

AO Ministries ^ | 1991 | James White

[fishtank]

A Biblical Basis for the "Immaculate Conception"?

A Review and Rebuttal of Patrick Madrid's Article "Ark of the New Covenant" in "This Rock" magazine, December 1991.

by James White

Catholic Answers has some interesting ways of grabbing your attention. By placing the beginning paragraph or two of the lead article of their monthly magazine, This Rock, on the very cover of the work, they draw your attention into reading the rest of the article. True to form, the December, 1991 edition sported Pat Madrid's article, "Ark of the New Covenant" with the interesting lead in, "His face stiffened, and his eyes narrowed to slits. Until now the Calvary Chapel pastor had been calm as he `shared the gospel' with me, but when I mentioned my belief in Mary's Immaculate Conception, his attitude changed." Using a "real-life" backdrop for the presentation of some particular topic is another fine writing tool used by the folks at Catholic Answers. As you continue to read about this encounter, you discover that our author, Pat Madrid, is going to provide Biblical support for his belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. He writes of his encounter with the Protestant pastor,

More at link......

[Rippin]

Jesus was CONCEIVED by The Holy SPirit in Mary’s womb. This does not in any biological sense mean Jesus was made from mary any more than eating meat or drinking water or wine or milk ‘makes’ any part of you

---

Jesus is human and Divine. The humanity he recieved from His mother, Mary the Mother of God. He still lives with both His humanity and His Divinity perfectly United in one Divine person.

If you think that Humanity came from somewhere other than Mary you are not really a Christian in any historical sense. You could be a Manichean maybe or something.

[RoadGumby]

You are very correct. I am conversing with stuart, as he is very questioning in these threads.

My point was not that evil men cannot go to heaven, as we are equal in not deserving a place there. But it is the redeeming by faith in Jesus that gives us the cleanness, the righteousness (His righteousness) that allows us there.

But he believes that ALL will go there, there is no hell, jesus was just a ‘very good man’.

[RoadGumby]

‘Just because I believe something, doesn’t make it so.’

And conversely, even if you don’t believe doesn’t render it untrue. Satans biggest lies are couched in truth, but watered down.

“You are living a good life, you’ll be OK when you die here.”

“there must be more than one way to get back to God, you should explore them, find out what works for you.”

And oh, so many more.

There is good, there is bad. There is night and day, there is up and down, and IF there is a heaven to believe in, there must then be a hell. And IF heaven is paradisical, then hell must be hell indeed.

With that, we must then begin to explore what will put us on the path to either, avoiding the bad and striving for the good.

[RoadGumby]

stuart, I am done for the day, I must go. You are in my prayers, my FRiend.

[paladinan]

Sorry for the word swap, it was not intentional.

:) I figured. No harm, no foul.

However, good, or righteous, Mary falls into that set of people, and was in need of a Savior as much as you or I.

Of course, she was... and she said so, herself (cf. Luke 1:47). But a few things need to be clarified, here:

1) "Needing a Saviour" does not translate into "having fallen into sin"; I can be saved (for example) from a muddy pit by being pulled out and cleaned off, or I can be saved from a muddy pit by having my Saviour prevent me from falling into the pit in the first place. We fall into the second category; the Blessed Virgin falls into the first. She was not free from sin by any merit of her own, apart from God; rather, she was kept sinless by God, Himself (cf. Luke 1:48-49, though that's not a proof-text: it's merely an indication that Mary attributed all the wondrous things about herself to God alone)... and the Catholic Church has always taught thusly

2) It may help to remember that God is quite able to create a woman without original sin; it may help further to know that He DID so, at least one other time... when He created Eve! Why would it be so bizarre for God to bestow on the New Eve (i.e. Mary) the same unfallen nature that He gave to the first Eve, especially since both free choices of both women were absolutely fundamental to our salvation or reprobation?

Noah was righteous per scripture, and Job was described as Perfect, per King James.

All right; then how do you square this with Romans 3:10? Either "there is none righteous, no, not one", or there is one (or more) righteous; one cannot have it both ways. There are only three clear possibilities: (a) the Scriptural descriptions of Noah and Job were erroneous; (b) the statement of St. Paul in Romans 3:10 is erroneous; or (c) there is more to these statements than the merest and most flatly "English-face-value-without-context" approch might suggest. I assert to you that (c) is, in fact, the case.

Tobit is non-canonical.

:) Would you care to prove that?

Children reach age of accountability, but all are born into sin. Innocence is innocence. But lies do come, pride does come, coveting others things does come, “no” to your mother does come. SIn comes. Inevitable. Then there is need of Jesus.

I agree... but what of the unborn children who (for example) die by abortion, well before they have any capacity to lie, act proudly, covet, or disobey their parents? Have they committed actual (personal) sin?

Of course there is original sin, from Adam to today. Who would say otherwise?

That rather depends on what you mean... and I'd like to be quite certain that we mean the same thing by the term "Original Sin" (and I'm not at all sure we do). I mean "the state of deprivation of sanctifying grace (and the deprivation of the preternatural protections, such as a lack of suffering, lack of death, lack of weakened will and clouded intellect, etc) which our first parents enjoyed before the fall". This state, which is called "Original Sin", is a lack of God's Sanctifying Grace within our souls (i.e. the life of the Blessed Trinity, living within us)... a state which is remedied by Sacramental Baptism. Is that what you mean?

That being the case, Noah, Job, and Mary, not to mention John the Baptist and Moses all needed Christ.

Of course... and no faithful and well-informed Catholic would argue otherwise. But Mary (by a singular privilege) received Christ's salvation "by prevention", rather than salvation "by forgiveness and redemption".

[rzman21]

The problem with Universalists is their prideful egotism.

They think that the universe revolves around them and that they create their own reality.

[RoadGumby]

paladinan,

That is a pretty comprehensive post, and my time is short. Please allow me to carry this overnight, and respond on the morrow. Peace to you FRiend ;^)

[paladinan]

:) Oh, no worries, dear fellow! My musings are hardly worth any strain or rush; write at your leisure! (I need to head home, myself, in fact!)

And peace to you, as well!

[rzman21]

The Universalist says, “I am the center of the universe, and no one dares to tell me that I am not perfect and that I am not going to heaven.”

[MHGinTN]

For the sake of further discussion, I will ignore your effort to pigeon hole me into some non-Christian spot you feel comfy with.

Let us assume for the discussion that I accept God used an ovum from Mary's ovary to conceive Jesus. This would mean Jesus has at minimum, 23 chromosomes from Mary and thus from all whom she is descended, including Adam. The normal human complement of chromosomes is 46, so Jesus also has, at minimum, 23 chromosomes from 'a father' source.

Okay so far? ... The question I would ask of you then is upon which chromosome is the original sin of Adam carried? Since Jesus was without sin, it would appear you need, for insurance, that the chromosome comes through the mother's gene pool, right? So the sinless nature of Mary means she either had such a chromosome and it was 'cured' before she implanted in her mother's womb, or this 'sin chromosome' was cured before she was born. Is this getting a bit too over the top yet? ... In anticipation of your response, allow me to post asecond possible explanation, one no more fantastic than the assumption that Mary was born sinless.

What if the 'sin chromosome' is from the father genetic pool. Could The God Who created the entire Universe and thus all that is in it have take a spermatazoon from Adam before the fall and brought that 23 chromosomes to the scene of Mary's conceiving in her womb? ... Can we answer in any meaningful way just where the spermatazoon came from for the conception of Jesus, if we assume that the ovum came from Mary's ovary?

At this point I would imagine you are in favor of God dividing the ovum of Mary before it separated into two sets of 23, and by miracle God then caused the ovum to become a complete zygote with the sex of the resulting new being as a male. [This is contrary to the result when this happens in nature, that an ovum becomes a zygotic new life without spermatazoon. But for our discussion we will let that slide ... we are going to get to nothing short of the miraculous with this anyway!]

HOWEVER, if you are not willing to go down these various roads of resoning this out, and prefer to just skip to 'it's a miracle' we are still left with the very real possibility that you nor I know just exactly what miraculous thing God did to 'conceive Jesus in Mary's womb. You can declare that half of His chromosomal complement comes from mary, but there is exactly zero Biblical evidence for this ... and we do have a mountain of biological data to suggest other possibilities and still not toss away the reality that God performed a miraculous event to conceive Jesus in Mary's womb.

[MHGinTN]

For the sake of further discussion, I will ignore your effort to pigeon hole me into some non-Christian spot you feel comfy with.

Let us assume for the discussion that I accept God used an ovum from Mary's ovary to conceive Jesus. This would mean Jesus has at minimum, 23 chromosomes from Mary and thus from all whom she is descended, including Adam. The normal human complement of chromosomes is 46, so Jesus also has, at minimum, 23 chromosomes from 'a father' source.

Okay so far? ... The question I would ask of you then is upon which chromosome is the original sin of Adam carried? Since Jesus was without sin, it would appear you need, for insurance, that the chromosome comes through the mother's gene pool, right? So the sinless nature of Mary means she either had such a chromosome and it was 'cured' before she implanted in her mother's womb, or this 'sin chromosome' was cured before she was born. Is this getting a bit too over the top yet? ... In anticipation of your response, allow me to post asecond possible explanation, one no more fantastic than the assumption that Mary was born sinless.

What if the 'sin chromosome' is from the father genetic pool. Could The God Who created the entire Universe and thus all that is in it have take a spermatozoon from Adam before the fall and brought that 23 chromosomes to the scene of Mary's conceiving in her womb? ... Can we answer in any meaningful way just where the spermatozoon came from for the conception of Jesus, if we assume that the ovum came from Mary's ovary?

At this point I would imagine you are in favor of God dividing the ovum of Mary before it separated into two sets of 23, and by miracle God then caused the ovum to become a complete zygote with the sex of the resulting new being as a male. [This is contrary to the result when this happens in nature, that an ovum becomes a zygotic new life without spermatozoon. But for our discussion we will let that slide ... we are going to get to nothing short of the miraculous with this anyway!]

HOWEVER, if you are not willing to go down these various roads of reasoning this out, and prefer to just skip to 'it's a miracle' we are still left with the very real possibility that you nor I know just exactly what miraculous thing God did to 'conceive Jesus in Mary's womb. You can declare that half of His chromosomal complement comes from Mary, but there is exactly zero Biblical evidence for this ... and we do have a mountain of biological data to suggest other possibilities and still not toss away the reality that God performed a miraculous event to conceive Jesus in Mary's womb.

[Salvation]

Here is God’s answer:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you...”

[Salvation]

Catholic

Almanac:

Thursday, December 8
Liturgical Color: White
Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pope Pius IX declared that at the moment of her conception Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin through the merits of her son, Jesus our Savior.

[Belteshazzar]

My dear MHGinTN, I will ignore your evident ire toward me. I am not trying to force a “scientific” explanation of what is plainly called a miracle. On the other hand I am not about to deny the clear testimony of the Holy Scriptures and the equally plain confession of Christendom that Jesus Christ is born of Mary and that Mary is indeed His mother. That simply means what it means in the case of every other mother/son incident, that is, mother and son share genetic material. That is as far as I care to go.

Remember, this was occasioned by your saying, post #51, “Jesus was not genetically a child of Mary,” to which I replied, “Excuse me ... huh?” You have now admitted in the point at which I questioned you that you said more than you should have in saying that Jesus was not genetically a child of Mary. She is His mother. Period. Or the Bible lies.

So, that’s it. I’m done. I was not trying to make the case for her immaculate conception, not at all! But I was defending the historic, Christian faith and the integrity of the Holy Scriptures. Mary is the mother of our Lord, with all that that implies. Period. It is a miracle, the further details of which are, therefore, beyond Scriptural proof and the subject only to our - almost certainly fruitless - speculation. Which is precisely the reason why the Apostle Paul wrote to young pastor Timothy: “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh ...” (1 Timothy 3:16)

[MHGinTN]

I have no ire toward you. Yours was the second name on the ping, if you will note.

Now, as to the issue at hand. When a woman has an embryo implanted in her uterus which embryo was conceived in vitro, she is absolutely called the mother of the child who gestates in her womb. We agree that Mary was the Mother of Jesus and that he was conceived in her uterus, I take it.

Sadly, you have not offered a single thing to show Biblical proof of Mary being the genetic Mother of Jesus, yet that is what you were up about. Adn BTW, I happen to believe Jesus could well have been born from Mary and she remain a Virgin. Jesus did, fater all, leave the tomb without rolling away the stone, so how much easier to leave Mary's womb in the same fashion.

Our discussion must needs always come down to the miraculous, authored by God Almighty. What miracle is not yet decided, IMHO. I see several very plausible miraculous ways God could have 'done it', brought Jesus to Mary's womb AND conceived Jesus without using an ovum from Mary. If you refer to believe Jesus is genetically descended from Mary, I warmly support you faith in that. I just have no evidence from scripture, so far.

In assuming Mary's ovum was used by God, you take that belief by faith alone.

We have Biblical declaration that Jesus was conceived in Mary's womb, by The Holy Spirit of God. How the zygotic Jesus arrived in Mary's womb will be miraculous in any final analysis, if one believes The Bible. I believe the Bible.

And one last point to ponder: did you know that when a woman gestates a child in her womb, there remian alive in her body cells built by that child during gestation, likely for the rest of her life. The Science of Embryology discovered that fact within the past 15 years. An amazing thing that! Something physical of Jesus remained with Mary long after He was born from her womb.

[stuartcr]

If doing good and being moral makes you feel good, then there’s your reason.

Do you have a desire to live outside of the law? I don’t. People that do feel that way, live that way.

What constitutes a scum-bag, is determined a lot by one’s current mores.

[stuartcr]

ok

[stuartcr]

Why does there have to be a hell?

[stuartcr]

ok, thanks

[rzman21]

Why does there have to be a hell?
>>Let me rephrase the question. Why should people who are consumed with hatred for God and who want nothing to do with his commandments be forced to spend eternity with him?

God’s love tortures those who hate him.

Dante’s Inferno is fiction.
http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/articles/207/%E2%80%9C-river-fire%E2%80%9D-revisited/
http://www.pelagia.org/htm/b24.en.life_after_death.07.htm