I thought that was the Swiss Guards' gig.
Posted on 12/17/2012 1:19:04 PM PST by RnMomof7
Hasn't seemed to stop 'em yet! I find it curious that John said there were many things Jesus "did", not Jesus "said". I believe that everything Jesus meant to be said for the benefit of our faith IS written down in Scripture and He left nothing critical or of real importance unsaid either personally while here on earth or what was divinely revealed to the writers of Scripture after His ascension.
Good job! LOL
I thought that was the Swiss Guards' gig.
Seems that way to me, too.
If you had directly asked each of us here, rather than presume that we "will not answer" the question concerning Jesus' nature, you would have known that most all of us have defended the divine and human nature of Jesus repeatedly on this forum. What seems to be missed is the actual point of the disagreement, it is not the denial of Jesus being God in the flesh, it is the doctrine that makes Mary the "Mother of God" and, in turn, the absolute insistence by the church of Rome that all Christians MUST believe it, too, or be anathematized.
To explain my objection to the title for Mary, let me just say that I believe that Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, ALWAYS existed - he was eternal (co-eternal) with the Father and Holy Spirit. When the Son of God took on flesh, Mary was blessed to be chosen to bear His human body as he formed within her womb. She became His physical mother - though it is a deeper theological discussion whether the embryonic Jesus was placed within her womb or one of her own eggs became his body "through" the Holy Spirit. I guess we can ask him when we see him.
Mary, then was NOT the "mother" of God, though she WAS the mother of the incarnate Son of God - who is God made man. God had no mother - he is the eternal, self-existent one. I object to what I think is the inordinate glorification given Mary for her role in bearing Jesus - ascribing sinlessness, co-redeemer status, mother of all Christians role, etc., when Scripture tells us no such thing and rather commands us to glorify ONLY God and no one else besides Him. I have no issue with Mary being called Christ bearer, the Mother of Jesus Christ, Mother of Jesus and so forth, but calling her the Mother of GOD is taking it too far and has caused her to be worshiped AS God is worshiped. Though I know it is not sanctioned by the Catholic Church, not much is done to discourage it either.
So, before you make a statement that "most of the Prots here will not answer that question", actually ASK the question first and allow those who choose to answer speak for themselves. I know I would appreciate it.
Now you’ve done it! You’re just gonna be bunched in with the rest of us “mental midgets” now. Welcome!;o)
The people who built them were the early Christians of Rome. You don’t know about the cult of martyrs, and the hold it has on the early Christians. Peter and Paul were martyrs, human sacrifices to the Roman gods. Because they were so prominent in the Church, their shrines attracted pilgrims from the earliest time, but especially after the final desecration of Jerusalem by Hadrian.
Then the mistake is mine, for not expressing myself more clearly.
The second set was clearly your words, and I was repeating them (#292)
You'll get NO disagreement from me about Christ's nature.
You WILL get disagreement from me over Mary's nature.
If you maintain that MARY was sinless, to be able to give birth to a sinless Jesus; then you would, by all manner of logic, extend the same claim to Mary's mother.
And her mother's mother, and to....
It'll be turtles; all the way down.
Sorry; but THAT job was her Son's to fulfill.
It is STILL alive and well!
Just LOOK at some of the responses here on FR~
boatbums:
Nobody believes that Mary gave birth to Christ Divine Nature, he was consubstantial with the Father from all Eternity. When Catholics and Orthodox speak of Mary as Theotokos, they are only speaking of Mary giving bith Christ, the 2nd Person of the Trinity so as the article that I linked notes [it is wikipedia, which perhaps would be seen as a more neutral source] somtimes Theotokos is translated in English as “Mother of God Incarnate” which from what your post implies, you seem more comfortable with. I think that term does translate the essence of the Dogma of the Council of Ephesus 431AD and communicates what St. Luke was meaning in Luke 1:43.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theotokos
But you, I think, appear to have enough theological depth to realize that in NO way does the Catholic, or the Eastern Orthdox Church’s use of the term Mother of God or Most Holy Theotokos [Orthodox term] mean that either Chuch is suggesting that Mary gave birth to God from eternity, nor does it indicate that Mary give birth to the Father or Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, after reading your post, you are the first Protestant in this thread that I would 100% state is not a Nestorian [based on your last post] and that is good thing so in future posts in this thread, at least on the Nestorian controversy and the canons and decrees of Ephesus in 431AD, your views are divergent from said Council.
Elsie:
Mary being “sinless” was not the result of her nature, it was the result of God’s Providence and Grace which overshadowed her and empowered her to receive Christ without ever hearing him, or being preached to by the Apostles, etc.
So God was sinless because he is Divine by Nature, encapable of sin, Mary was made pure and Holy by God’s Grace. And this is where again Catholicism, and the Orthodox understanding of Grace, and the Reformed, assuming that is the tradition you follow, part ways. In the Catholic understanding, Grace is given to and infused into the inner man, and God’s Grace results in a “real communion of Love” transforming the sinner into the image of man before the fall, this is what many of the epistles refer to, 2 Peter 1:3-4 “partake divine nature”, the 1st Episte of John 3:2 “we will be like him” and St. Paul Phillipians 3:20-21 “will change our lowly bodies to conform with his glorfied body”
On this question, Catholics and Orthodox part ways with Reformed theology which is a legalist forensic system of Grace, God only covers me, but there is no room for real communion of Love. How can a God that only covers me be a God that wants to enter into a real communion with us.
And Mary is the only woman who gaive birth to a Divine Son and thus God’s special Grace only was extended to her and given that I don’t believe that Mary had any other children, that is where it stopped, not that it would apply anyway as God giving a special Grace to Mary does not mean he gave it to any “hypothetical kids” that you think she had [and again, she did not have any other kids] and no I don’t need you to post the scripture passages about James the brother of Lord, or those other passages. The word brother had many meanings in that culture and nowhere do we read, they were Mary’s Kids.
boatbums
Edit to earlier post to you: I meant to say in my last sentence, your views are not totally divergent from the Council of Ephesus
There we differ, for I can read.
I feel that your 'belief' in this matter is colored by your organizations teaching on the subject: the NECESSITY to keep Mary 'sinless'.
God is no respecter of persons; that He should give Mary any 'special' grace.
There is nothing sinful in begeting children.
Then do not READ the following; as I'm sure that OTHERS may be interested in what the BIBLE plainly states.
Jesus had "brothers and sisters", as reported in Mark[3] 6:3[4] and Matthew 13:55–56.[5] The canonical Gospels name four brothers, James, Joseph (Joses), Judas, and Simon, but only James is otherwise known. After Jesus' death, James, "the Lord's brother",[6] was the head of the congregation in Jerusalem[3] and Jesus' relatives may have held positions of authority in the surrounding area.[7]
The literal interpretation of what is written in the New Testament is that Jesus' siblings were children either of Joseph or of Mary or of both. That they were children of both was accepted by some members of the early Christian church, including Tertullian.[8] The orthodox later labelled upholders of this view as "Antidicomarianites" ("Anti-Mary"), when it was represented by Bonosus (bishop), Jovinian, and various Arian teachers such as Photinus. When Helvidius proposed it in the 4th century, Jerome, apparently representing the general opinion of the Church, maintained that Mary remained always a virgin; he held that those who were called the brothers and sisters of Jesus were actually children of her sister, another Mary, whom he considered the wife of Clopas.[8][9] The terms "brothers" and "sisters" as used in this context are open to different interpretations,[10] and have been argued to refer to children of Joseph by a previous marriage (the view of Epiphanius of Salamis), Mary's sister's children (the view of Jerome), or children of Clopas, who according to Hegesippus was Joseph's brother,[11] and of a woman who was not a sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus (a modern proposal).[8] Certain critical scholars say that the doctrine of perpetual virginity has obscured recognition that Jesus had siblings.[12]
Elsie:
What you cited is “the Literal interpretation” but of course, there are types when you are not so literal, for example, any of the Euchrasistic passages!!!!, Christ giving the authority to the Apostles and the Church to forgive sins. The Bible does not say anything. It is Sacred Scripture yes, but it required interpretation by the Church that it was a part of and thus the issue is what was the Faith of the Church with respect to what was written in the Sacred Scriptures. In other words, how did the undivided Church, West and East, understand those passages. understood it.
Of course, all of the ones who claimed Mary had other children, as the article you cited notes, were Arians or were expressed by Tertullian as he entered into his Montanist phase, which is yet another heretical sect [at one time, Tertullian was 100% orthodox, per circa 200AD] or some other group not in line with the orthodox consensus.
Of course, critical scholars attack the perpetual virginity of Mary, again as the link you cite notes, think about why? If virginity, for the kingdom of God is upheld, then it says something about the nature of human sexuality. Those who give themselves totally to God, i.e. embrace celibacy for the right reason, is a pointing to the reality of what we are all to become as in heaven they neither enter marriage or be taken in marriage, to paraphrase Christ’s words to the sadduccees.
Relatedly, marriage and human sexuality then have a deeper meaning, they are bounded together and can’t be bifurcated and express the communional purposes of marriage, unites a man and woman, and the procreative aspects as well. In that sense, attacking the Perpetual Virginity of Mary is a precursor for the historical critic types and by extension secular elite to attack marriage and sexual morality.
Think about it, what says something to the modern world that is the most counter cultural, 1) that someone would choose chastity in era when sex is everywhere, you see it on TV, movies, in music, in billboards, etc, etc.
For the record, the literal intepretation, as your article cited, can be understood several ways. They were Joseph’s kids by an earlier marriage, and he was a widower, they were Mary’s by another man [maybe a husband after Joseph who we have no account of, and no way to I accept that one] or both, and I don’t except that one either.
There have been two orthodox interpretations, in the East, the one that is positied is that That they were Joseph’s children by an earlier marriage, a possible interpretation and the one that the Greek Church Fathers posited: See 2 links below from the Eastern Orthdox perspective:
.http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/theotokos.aspx
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/evervirgin.aspx
The Catholic position which is posited the most often among the Latin Fathers [the Eastern position is also sometimes argued by e.g., St. Ambrose] is that these kinsmen of Jesus were cousins. It should be noted that no orthodox Church Father, Greek-East or Latin-West ever argued against Mary’s perpetual virginity.
.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02767a.htm
Who despite the poor navigation was unable to put the ship on the rocks. True north remains true north.
A literal look shows that the writers of the New Testament were as indifferent to this matter as they were to the personal appearance of Jesus. f we depend on Mark alone, there is not even a Virgin Birth. The Proto-gospel of James, proposes that they were the children of Joseph, and also that she was a member of a priestly family. Given the story in Luke about her visit to Elizabeth, this may be true, in which case, she may not have been a mere peasant girl at all but someone of higher standing who ends up in Nazareth for some reason, as the wife of an older man. That she was a widow at the time of Jesus ministry, gives credence of that possibility. In any case, many different stories can be created to fit the facts related in the New Testament, including the doctrine of perpetual virginity.
Indeed!
One has!
Here are the FACTS of the matter:
Matthew 1:25
But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.