Posted on 01/11/2012 7:34:56 PM PST by RnMomof7
Mary: Mother of God?
This article is prompted by an ad in the Parade Magazine titled: "Mary Mother of God: What All Mankind Should Know." The offer was made for a free pamphlet entitled "Mary Mother of Jesus" with this explanation: "A clear, insightful pamphlet explains the importance of Mary and her role as Mother of God."
This is quite a claim, to say the least! Nowhere in the Bible is Mary said to be the mother of God. I touched on this subject in a series on "Mary Co-Redeemer with Christ" printed recently.
Question: If Mary is the Mother of God, Who, may I ask, is the Father of God? Does God have a Father, and if He does, Who is His Mother?
The phrase "Mother of God" originated in the Council of Ephesus, in the year 431 AD. It occurs in the Creed of Chalcedon, which was adopted by the council in 451 AD. This was the declaration given at that time: "Born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to the Manhood." The purpose of this statement originally was meant to emphasize the deity of Christ over against the teaching of the Nestorians whose teaching involved a dual-natured Jesus. Their teaching was that the person born of Mary was only a man who was then indwelt by God. The title "Mother of God" was used originally to counter this false doctrine. The doctrine now emphasizes the person of Mary rather than the deity of Jesus as God incarnate. Mary certainly did not give birth to God. In fact, Mary did not give birth to the divinity of Christ. Mary only gave birth to the humanity of Jesus. The only thing Jesus got from Mary was a body. Every Human Being has received a sinful nature from their parents with one exception: Jesus was not human. He was divine God in a flesh body. This is what Mary gave birth to. Read Hebrews 10:5 and Phil 2:5-11.
Please refer to Hebrews 10:5 where we see. "...Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me."
The body of Jesus was prepared by God. In Matthew 1:18, "she was found with child of the Holy Ghost."
The divine nature of Jesus existed from before eternity, and this cannot be said of Mary Jesus never called her "mother". He called her "woman".
This doctrine deifies Mary and humanizes Jesus. Mary is presented as stronger that Christ, more mature and more powerful that Christ. Listen to this statement by Rome: "He came to us through Mary, and we must go to Him through her." The Bible plainly states that God is the Creator of all things. It is a blasphemous attack on the eternity of God to ever teach that He has a mother. Mary had other children who were normal, physical, sinful human beings. In the case of Jesus Christ, "His human nature had no father and His divine nature had no mother."
It is probably no coincidence that this false doctrine surrounding Mary was born in Ephesus. Please read Acts 19:11-41 and see that Ephesus had a problem with goddess worship. Her name was Diana, Gk. Artemis. You will not have to study very deep to find the similarities between the goddess Diana and the Roman Catholic goddess, Mary. It should be noted that the Mary of the 1st century and the Mary of the 20th century are not the same. Mary of the 1st century was the virgin who gave birth to the Messiah. Mary of the 20th century is a goddess created by the Roman Catholic Church. A simple comparison of what the Bible teaches about Mary and what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about her will reveal two different Marys. Mary is not the "Mother of God." If she were she would be GOD! There is only one true, eternal God. He was not born of a woman. Any teaching on any subject should be backed up by the word of God. If it cannot be supported by Scriptures, it is false doctrine.
But “became” as in replacing is what the CC is saying.
So it seems.
In fairness the Protestants that I know outside of this forum (and probably many here) reject the Prosperity Gospel with strong condemnation.
400 posts and three days later and you still don't have an answer to your question.
Boy, there's a lot of catching up to do.......
Thank God he did.
But regardless of adjectives, neither Luther nor Calvin attributed to Mary any of the sacrilegious, supernatural powers the RCC cons the world with today.
If you’re too lazy to format it, I’m too lazy to read it.
As do the ones that I associate with.
However, there is yet another upstart church in the area that is yet again renting the elementary school gym on Sundays and setting up 'church' on Sundays. Their gimmick is a large flat screen TV to be given away each week.
The last one here that set up like that was so successful that they bought a small department store to set up their pizza parlour, coffee shop, meeting area, and if necessary, worship center.
In that case Catholics might want to rethink *petra* as meaning Perter as well, since last I recall, Peter was a man.
Here is an excellent resource for doing word studies of Scripture.
You can follow links to the Greek and then a Strong’s Concordance.
The Albigensian and Waldensians were simple Christians. There was no justification for killing them. It was a big fat worldly mistake.I pay no compliment to those whom celebrate (or would even repeat?) those type of mistakes.
The Lord's kingdom is not of this world. Missing that, is to miss a crucial truth.
Vengeance is the Lord's. It does not belong to men, though I must say there is much competition nowadays amongst those whom would take it upon themselves to "do God a favor" by killing others, in his name.
There is no shortage of those whom run to do so. They all have one thing in common. They congratulate themselves for doing it! That particular sickness, is most assuredly not of God.
Oh my goodness, are you saying that what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander?
Sorry, but you have no right to object to methods you yourself both advocate and routinely apply unless you're also claiming to be an infallible individual and as such, demand everyone accept your interpretation of Scripture as correct. So, are you saying that you are the infallible and the final authority on all interpretation of Scripture?
Have you changed your opinion in the last few hours and no longer agree with personal interpretation of Scripture, or are you saying that your advocacy of personal interpretation only applies to Scripture because the interpretation of Scripture isn't nearly as important as the interpretation of comments in a discussion forum?
If you have ceased to believe that each individual can listen to whatever voices pop into their head, call those voices the Holy Spirit, and then interpret Scripture accordingly, who do you say is the final authority when a question of interpretation arises? Or do you still advocate personal interpretation of Scripture but, if and only if you agree with the result of such personal interpretation?
Do you still think it's just fine for someone to slander Christians, Jesus Christ, Mary, all of the Apostles, and all Catholics who have ever lived, along with anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with their own personal interpretation of Scripture ?
People who advocate a given approach to Scripture or anything else but object to others using that exact same approach without the approval of the advocate are called either a hypocrite, or a relativist, or both. When such an individual is clearly very selective in when they object to the approach they advocate, they would qualify for being described as both a hypocrite and a relativist.
How about this clarification, do you agree with those who say both Christmas and Easter are pagan holidays, agree with those who believe it's wrong to have Church services on Sunday rather than Saturday, agree with those who say all sacred artwork is some sort of idolatry, and do you agree with those who believe the Catholic Pope is now or at some future time will be the prophet of the AntiChrist or the AntiChrist? Given your defense of those who espouse such things, clear all these questions up and then maybe we could discuss which other fantasies you may or may not have accepted from the Most High Self crowd and whether or not I've misunderstood something you've said. Until then, I'll I consider it axiomatic that any dog leaving worm infested samples around has worms.
When a member of The Invisible Church of the Most High Self starts "clearing up a few things" for anyone who doesn't agree with the Millerite and Russelite lies and fables, it's obvious where they're coming from. Particularly when such folks select a screen name near and dear to those who believe in, The Rapture of the Snowflakes Fantasy or some variant of threreof.
In no way did the Reformers attribute to Mary the blasphemous sacrilege the RCC heaps on a simple Jewish girl who was graced by God to carry the Christ child to term. The RCC ignorantly ignores Christ's own words regarding Mary as Christ tells us believers are the equal of His mother.
As far as the quote goes, I'm happy you provided me the opportunity to repost it and correctly attribute it to the second greatest mind in history...
"Nay, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God. We see that Christ treats almost as a matter of indifference that point on which the woman had set a high value. And undoubtedly what she supposed to be Mary's highest honor was far inferior to the other favors which she had received; for it was of vastly greater importance to be regenerated by the Spirit of God than to conceive Christ, according to the flesh, in her womb; to have Christ living spiritually within her than to suckle him with her breasts. In a word, the highest happiness and glory of the holy Virgin consisted in her being a member of his Son, so that the heavenly Father reckoned her in the number of new creatures." -- John Calvin, Commentary 32
Ping to 1,554 and Calvin’s Scriptural comment on Mary.
Thank you for your edifying input here. You are a blessing in more way than you know. God bless you!
“Therefore we should make the Hail Mary neither a prayer nor an invocation because it is improper to interpret the words beyond what they mean in themselves and beyond the meaning given them by the Holy Spirit.”[100]
“…her giving birth is blessed in that it was spared the curse upon all children of Eve who are conceived in sin and born to deserve death and damnation. Only the fruit of her body is blessed, and through this birth we are all blessed.”[101]
“…in the present no one speaks evil of this Mother and her Fruit as much as those who bless her with many rosaries and constantly mouth the Hail Mary. These, more than any others, speak evil against Christ’s word and faith in the worst way.[102]
“Therefore, notice that this Mother and her Fruit are blessed in a twofold way—bodily and spiritually. Bodily with lips and the words of the Hail Mary; such persons blaspheme and speak evil of her most dangerously. And spiritually [one blesses her] in one’s heart by praise and benediction for her child, Christ—for all his words, deeds, and sufferings. And no one does this except he who has the true Christian faith because without such faith no heart is good but is by nature stuffed full of evil speech and blasphemy against God and all his saints.”[103]
These quotes are from Luther’s brief explanation of the “Hail Mary” found in Luther’s Personal Prayer Book. http://tquid.sharpens.org/luther_mary2.htm#VII
Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
BTW: this is an important reason to read your Bible. The post I gave you saying the 12 stayed in Jerusalem was not correct. They stayed in ISRAEL, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, to the Jews. With the one exception being Cornelius. I apologize for saying Jerusalem and not Israel. I went back to God's Word and found the mistake. After Acts 28, when Israel is set aside, is not the point of the conversation here. We are talking about Acts, Chapter 1 through Acts, Chapter 28. And yes, Cornelius is VERY important. I believe you will find that it Acts 10. That would be after Acts 9, when Paul is saved. Which is a VERY important clue.
Just like cherry picking these verses and so much other Scripture promotes error the RCC has fallen into?
John 20:22-23 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
Matthew 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
James 2:17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
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