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.
Careful. I learned some time back that there are some Catholics here in FR who don’t take kindly to questioning Catholic Doctrine, especially when the actual BIBLE is referenced. Makes their heads spin any green goop spew onto their monitors...
Don’t say you were not warned!
N: An age old heresy that has been refuted by Christians again and again.
I think you are confusing different things. Let me walk you through this. Jesus's human spirit was given to him by the Father. Jesus's divine spirit always existed. After the Cross the Father raised Jesus from the dead and gave Him a glorified body. Mary didn't have anything to do with any of this.
you can’t acquire “divinity”.
i will accept you just made a mistake.
I do do whatever He tells me. Why would you think I don't?
I'm not attacking His church, I am His church, or part of it.
I am not attacking His mother either, however, I will not acquiesce to all the extra-Biblical nonsense about her which cannot be substantiated with Scripture.
I used to be more antiCatholic than you. The Pope was the antiChrist. But then the God lifted the blindness from my eyes.
There are different opinions on that.
How does a mother give birth to one person who is both God and man, divine and human and only give birth "to the humanity"?
Do you see the error about who Christ is that is in this statement about Mary?
Do you agree with the Apollinarians?
Apollinarianism is a fourth-century Christological heresy. Named after Apollinarius of Laodoecia, its main author, Apollinarianism teaches that Jesus Christ had a human body and a human soul but no human rational mind (nous), because the Divine Logos had taken its place. Apollinarianism was condemned at the Second Ecumenical Council together with Macedonianism and other Christological and Trinitarian heresies. Adherents of Nestorianism sometimes accused Orthodox and monophysite theologians of Apollinarianism.
First of all, it is not “RC tradition” the establishes the doctrine that Mary ought be called Theotokos, which is usually Englished as “the Mother of God” or “the Birthgiver of God”. The Latin church is not the only Christian confession to acknowledge the authority of the Third Ecumenical Council. We Orthodox Christians regard its Acta (along with those of all seven — some of us would argue nine, though we differ from the Latins on which councils count as Eight and Nine — Ecumenical Councils) as authoritative statements of Christian belief, as do the Monophysites (Copts, Jacobites, and Armenians).
There is, of course, an ancient church which objected to the Third Ecumenical Council and went into schism over the issue: the Holy Catholic Apostolic Assyrian Church of the East, to give its full self-proclaimed name, which venerates the heretics Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia as saints, and had converted a great part of Asia to Nestorian Christianity before its near-destruction by the Muslims. Although in theory their patriarch is the bishop of a see in Iraq, he actually resides and has his functional cathedral in Chicago.
Second, are you really so scrupulous as to never use technical language derived from the plain meaning of Scripture, but not used in Scripture? Do you never speak of “the Holy Trinity” as short-hand for “Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God”? Are all the technical words your confession uses really vetted as sound translations of words in the Greek (or Hebrew since I suppose your confession favors the Masorete over the Septuagint) versions of the Scriptures?
Third, the point of the title is christological: Jesus Christ is God, fully and completely, just as the Father and the Holy Spirit are God (though there is but one God). He assumed our nature, fully and completely, and was born of the Virgin Mary. She is His mother, and by that fact, that she is His mother, He assumes our nature and all that pertains to it (excepting sin). To deny her the title “Mother of God” one must split the person of Christ into “the Divine Logos and the One From the Virgin” as old Nestorius did, or deny the reality of Christ’s divinity as the Muslims do or of His humanity as the docetists and gnostics did. It’s not about Mary, it’s about Jesus. If you get it wrong, you get wrong who Jesus is.
Of course, if you discount the authority of Holy Tradition, of the Ecumenical Councils and of the local councils whose Acta they adopted, you have a real problem: what constitutes your Bible, which books are Scripture or are not Scripture, is itself a matter of Holy Tradition, set down first by a local council held in Carthage (the Latins regard this as having fixed the canon, since Carthage was in the Patriarchate of Rome and the Pope of Rome accepted its Acta) and made binding on the Church by the action of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (some would argue the Fourth on the basis of a canon ratifying “the ancient canons”, but this is obscure and the disciplinary session of the Sixth Ecumenical Council,
called in the west the Trullan Synod or Quinsext Council, explicitly gave the Carthaginian canons, including the
list of the books of Christian Scripture, ecumenical force.) Or, rather, if, as I suspect, you favor Luther’s abridgement of the canon, tossing out books St. Jerome erroneously thought of less importance because the Christ-denying Jews had dropped them from their canon, or mere human tradition.
Eutychianism
Monophysitism is a Christological heresy that originated in the 5th century A.D. Its chief proponent was the monk Eutyches, who stated that in the person of Jesus Christ the human nature was absorbed into the divine nature like a cube of sugar dissolves in a cup of water. Therefore, Christ was left with only one nature, the Divine (Greek mono- one, physis - nature). This is to be contrasted with the miaphysitism which is professed by the Oriental Orthodox churches.
Eutyches’ position on monophysitism is often referred to as Eutychianism, a position that went beyond the Christology as expressed by Cyril of Alexandria and is also anathematized by non-Chalcedonians who accept the faith of Cyril. Eutyches formulated this doctrine in response to the heresy of Nestorianism, which divided the person of Christ almost to the point of having two separate persons (not two natures, as the Orthodox believe).
Another branch of monophysitism, called Apollinarianism, holds that Christ had a human body and human “living principle,” but that the Divine Logos had taken the place of the nous, or “thinking principle,” analogous but not identical to what might be called a mind in the present day.
Monophysitism (particularly Eutyches’ variety) was condemned at the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held in Chalcedon in the year 451. Apollinarianism had previously been condemned at the Second Ecumenical Council in 381.
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Eutychianism
So, the Gospel of John has to be thrown out to make the argument of the Snowflake Sect work, and now someone apparently thinks that the book of Luke wasn't inspired either.
Luk 1:41 And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.
Luk 1:42 And she cried out with a loud voice and said: Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
Luk 1:43 And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
So, The Holy Spirt lied to Elizabeth, the author of the Book of Luke made a mistake which means the Book of Luke doesn't belong in the Bible, or is it that it wasn't really the Holy Spirit that came to Elizabeth but some other spirit and the folks who wrote the Bible wanted to hide that fact?
People who pretend to believe the Bible is the Word of God but throw out part of the Christian canon and instead accept the Pharisee canon will always end up throwing out and ignoring other parts of the Bible as well. In addition, they'll always interpret what the retain any way that suits them at the moment. Whether it's finding clear Scripture against gambling right up until the "good church members" are going on junkets to Vegas or preaching against tattoos right up until the "hip crowd" who they want to toss money in their tamborine all have tats, it's always the same. They will always modify the Scriptures to suit their personal preferences. They absolutely refuse to surrender, take up their cross, and follow Christ instead of following their own inclinations and avoiding that tacky cross with Christ on it.
non-Catholics will never understand that point, well said.
( how can they when they think there were no Christians before the 16th century? )
Would you have a problem saying Mary is the Mother of God Incarnate?
His divinity was placed in human form at conception.
Hebrews 10:5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
Phil 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
No mistake.
Who said Jesus was not fully human.. our point is that was Marys only contribution to Jesus
the author of the article you posted, i suggest you read any future articles before posting nonsense.
>> “It’s a simple question and a simple answer will suffice” <<
Its an ignorant question.
The son of God is an eternal being. what Mary bore was his connection to humanity, not his eternal divinity.
That’s the trouble with fallible oral traditions; they create this kind of foolishness. Stick with the word of God, not men’s traditions.
I think it's because protestants never had to go through these heresies. They never had to develop their thoughts on it and see all the possible variations of belief about the Incarnation and who Jesus is, and don't realize they cannot all be true and have the same orthodox faith.
It's an argument from ignorance in many cases. IMHO anyway.
Childish!
you stated His Divinity was given to Him by the Holy Spirit at conception.
BIG HUGE MISTAKE ( if you are a Christian )
It is no coincedence that Islam’s teaching about Christ developed where the Nestorian heresy flourished.
Live by the strawman, die in its pyre.
Too bad you are too obtuse to have the simple wisdom that St. Elizabeth did.
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