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To: Mrs. Don-o; imardmd1
I don't know how much of theology of Jesus' perfect humanity is dependent on the biology as I have just described it. Much of it must necessarily remain veiled in mystery. Nevertheless, the most advanced scienctific research provides converging lines of evidence that the genetic, gestational and lactational mother would have to be perfect in order to give birth to an offspring entirely free of defect, and nurture him perfectly through infancy.

You are talking about PHYSICAL, free of genetic defects, traits being passed down from mother to child. But, sin is a SPIRITUAL defect that has nothing to do with what Mary did or did not pass down to Jesus. Jesus was perfect and sinless because he was GOD, not because his mother was also sinless. Jesus didn't even need a physically "perfect" mother to be born of human flesh. What mattered is that Almighty God was incarnated in the likeness of sinful flesh:

    For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4)

766 posted on 08/13/2013 10:18:44 PM PDT by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: boatbums
...in the likeness of sinful flesh ...

Ooops!

776 posted on 08/14/2013 3:58:22 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: boatbums
"You are talking about PHYSICAL, free of genetic defects, traits being passed down from mother to child. But, sin is a SPIRITUAL defect that has nothing to do with what Mary did or did not pass down to Jesus."

No, it's not quite so simple, since in human beings, the physical affects the spiritual: Jesus needed to be, in all ways, a perfect human.

Consider what Scripture says about this:

Scripture indicates, in the very first prophecy concerning the Messiah (Genesis 3:15-16) that there would be enmity between Satan and the Seed of the Woman. "Seed" is all about genetic inheritance and the transmission of human nature, as you know. Biblically it always refers to male semen, as well as offspring through the generations. In only one case does it refer to the "seed" of a woman. Very strange. Think about that.

The Messiah would have to be born from the "Seed of the Woman" who is NOT a slave of sin and Satan, but who is in "enmity" --- in opposition to --- sin and Satan. He would have to be born with a sinless human nature.

How does Original Sin affects us? This is how: because we receive from our parents a defective human nature. As you know, human nature is both physical and spiritual, because we are a composite of a physical body and a spiritual soul.

This defective human nature we receive, by natural transmission from our parents, results in a moral trait called "concupisence," a darkening of the intellect and weakness of the will, which strongly inclines us to fall into personal sin.

What we receive from our parents is not personal guilt for a personal moral wrong in itself --- since we have not committed any acts as zygotes, embryos or fetuses which could be called personal sins --- but a strong tendency to sin as a result of a defective and corrupted human nature.

Therefore the physical and genetic has a direct impact on the spiritual: our corrupted human nature strongly inclines us to think wrong, speak wrong, and do wrong.

Without Divine grace, we will always sin.

With this in mind, we can see that the physical and spiritual are intertwined in us, since we are composite beings; and Jesus needed to be spotless in the nature He got from His only human parent, His mother.

783 posted on 08/14/2013 6:11:39 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("If they refuse to listen even to the Church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.")
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