Mary Matters (Dr. Walter Martin on disbelief in the Mother of God)

In my new book, Behold Your Mother: A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines, , I spend most of its pages in classic apologetic defense of Mary as Mother of God, defending her immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, assumption into heaven, her Queenship, and her role in God’s plan of salvation as Co-redemptrix and Mediatrix. But perhaps my most important contributions in the book may well be how I demonstrate each of these doctrines to be crucial for our spiritual lives and even our salvation.

And I should note that this applies to all of the Marian doctrines. Not only Protestants, but many Catholics will be surprised to see how the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, for example, is crucial for all Christians to understand lest they misapprehend the truth concerning the sacred, marriage, sacraments, the consecrated life, and more.

I won’t attempt to re-produce the entire book in this post, but I will choose one example among examples I use to demonstrate why Mary as Mother of God not only matters, but how denying this dogma of the Faith can end in the loss of understanding of “the one true God and Jesus Christ whom [God] has sent” (John 17:3). It doesn’t get any more serious than that!

In my book, I use the teaching of the late, well-known, and beloved Protestant Apologist, Dr. Walter Martin, as one of my examples. In his classic apologetics work, Kingdom of the Cults, Dr. Martin, gives us keen insight into why the dogma of the Theotokos (“God-bearer,” a synonym with “Mother of God”) is such a “big deal.” But first some background information.

It is very easy to state what it is that you don’t believe. That has been the history of Protestantism. Protestantism itself began as a… you guessed it… “protest.” “We are against this, this, this, and this.” It was a “protest” against Catholicism. However, the movement could not continue to exist as a protestant against something. It had to stand for something. And that is when the trouble began. When groups of non-infallible men attempted to agree, the result ended up being the thousands of Protestant sects we see today.

Dr. Walter Martin was a good Protestant. He certainly and boldly proclaimed, “I do not believe Mary is the Mother of God.” That’s fine and good. The hard part came when he had to build a theology congruent with his denial. With Dr. Martin, it is difficult to know for sure whether his bad Christology came before or after his bad Mariology—I argue it was probably bad Christology that came first—but let’s just say for now that in the process of theologizing about both Jesus and Mary, he ended up claiming Mary was “the mother of Jesus’ body,” and not the Mother of God. He claimed Mary “gave Jesus his human nature alone,” so that we cannot say she is the Mother of God; she is the mother of the man, Jesus Christ.

This radical division of humanity and divinity manifests itself in various ways in Dr. Martin’s theology. He claimed, for example, that “sonship” in Christ has nothing at all to do with God in his eternal relations within the Blessed Trinity. In Martin’s Christology, divinity and humanity are so sharply divided that he concluded “eternal sonship” to be an unbiblical Catholic invention. On page 103 of his 1977 edition of The Kingdom of the Cults, he wrote:

[T]here cannot be any such thing as eternal Sonship, for there is a logical contradiction of terminology due to the fact that the word “Son” predicates time and the involvement of creativity. Christ, the Scripture tells us, as the Logos, is timeless, “…the Word was in the beginning” not the Son!

From Martin’s perspective then, Mary as “Mother of God” is a non-starter. If “Son of God” refers to Christ as the eternal son, then there would be no denying that Mary is the mother of the Son of God, who is God; hence, Mother of God would be an inescapable conclusion. But if sonship only applies to “time and creativity,” then references to Mary’s “son” would not refer to divinity at all.

But there is just a little problem here. Beyond the fact that you don’t even need the term “Son” at all to determine Mary is the Mother God because John 1:14 tells us “the Word was made flesh,” and John 1:1 tells us “the Word was God;” thus, Mary is the mother of the Word and so she is the Mother of God anyway, the sad fact is that in the process of Martin’s theologizing he ended up losing the real Jesus. Notice, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is no longer the Eternal Son! And it gets worse from here, if that is possible! Martin would go on:

The term “Son” itself is a functional term, as is the term “Father” and has no meaning apart from time. The term “Father” incidentally never carries the descriptive adjective “eternal” in Scripture; as a matter of fact, only the Spirit is called eternal (“the eternal Spirit”—Hebrews 9:14), emphasizing the fact that the words Father and Son are purely functional as previously stated.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of what we are saying here. Jesus revealed to us the essential truth that God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in his inner life. For Martin, God would be father by analogy in relation to the humanity of Christ, but not in the eternal divine relations; hence, he is not the eternal Father. So, not only did Dr. Martin end up losing Jesus, the eternal Son; he lost the Father as well! This compels us to ask the question: Who then is God, the Blessed Trinity, in eternity, according to Dr. Walter Martin and all those who agree with his theology? He is not Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He must be the eternal … Blah… the Word, and the Holy Spirit (Martin did teach Christ to be the Eternal Word, just not the Eternal Son). He would become a father by analogy when he created the universe and again by analogy at the incarnation of the Word and through the adoption of all Christians as “sons of God.” But he would not be the eternal Father. The metaphysical problems begin here and continue to eternity… literally. Let us now summarize Dr. Martin’s teaching and some of the problems it presents:

1. Fatherhood and Sonship would not be intrinsic to God. The Catholic Church understands that an essential aspect of Christ’s mission was to reveal God to us as he is in his inner life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Jews already understood God to be father by analogy, but they had no knowledge of God as eternal Father in relation to the Eternal Son. In Jesus’ great high priestly prayer in John 17, he declared his Father was Father “before the world was made” and thus, to quote CCC 239, in “an unheard-of sense.” In fact, Christ revealed God’s name as Father. Names in Hebrew culture reveal something about the character of the one named. Thus, he reveals God to be Father, not just that he is like a father. God never becomes Father; he is the eternal Father

2. If Sonship applies only to humanity and time, the “the Son” would also be extrinsic, or outside, if you will, of the Second Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, as much as he would have denied it, Dr. Martin effectively creates two persons to represent Christ—one divine and one human. This theology leads to the logical conclusion that the person who died on the cross 2,000 years ago would have been merely a man. If that were so, he would have no power to save us. Scripture reveals Christ as the savior, not merely a delegate of God the savior. He was fully man in order to make fitting atonement for us. He was fully God in order to have the power to save us.

3. This theology completely reduces the revelation of God in the New Covenant that separates Christianity from all religions of the world. Jesus revealed God as he is from all eternity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Dr. Martin reduces this to mere function. Thus, “Father” does not tell us who God is, only what God does. Radical feminists do something similar when they refuse to acknowledge God as “Father.” God becomes reduced to that which he does as “Creator, Redeeemer, and Sanctifier” and int he process where is a truly tragic loss of the knowledge of who God is. In the case of Dr. Walter Martin, it was bad theology that lead to a similar loss.

4. There is a basic metaphysical principle found, for example, in Malachi 3:6, that comes into play here as well: “For I the Lord do not change.” In defense of Dr. Martin, he did seem to realize that one cannot posit change in the divine persons. As stated above, “fatherhood” and “sonship” wold not relate to divinity at all in his way of thinking. Thus, he became a proper Nestorian (though he would never have admitted that) that divides Christ into two persons. And that is bad enough. However, one must be very careful here because when one posits the first person of the Blessed Trinity became the Father, and the second person of the Blessed Trinity became the Son, it becomes very easy to slip into another heresy that would admit change into the divine persons. Later in Behold Your Mother, I employ the case of a modern Protestant apologist who regrettably takes that next step. But you’ll have to get the book to read about that one.

The bottom line here is this: It appears Dr. Walter Martin’s bad Christology led to a bad Mariology. But I argue in Behold Your Mother that if he would have understood Mary as Theotokos, it would have been impossible for him to lose his Christological bearings. The moment the thought of sonship as only applying to humanity in Christ would have arisen, a Catholic Dr. Walter Martin would have known that Mary is Mother of God. He would have lost neither the eternal Son nor the eternal Father because Theotokos would have guarded him from error. The prophetic words of Lumen Gentium 65 immediately come to mind: “Mary… unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith.” A true Mariology serves as a guarantor against bad Christology.

When Jesus tossed the money changers out of the temple and turned over their tables, and deprived them of their livlehood, and cost them who knows how much money, and deprived their families of supper that night.......did He sin??

One of the many, many scriptures I'm sure you have never read...

Eph_4:26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

So why are you asking me??? You don't believe God on that one either???

1Pe 2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
1Pe 2:22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:

Now that you mention it, that's the Catholic position as well...The big difference is: I believe the scriptures...

as written by who??...the Catholics, or Luther, or Storch, or Calvin, or knox, or Smyth, or Wesley, or Otterbein, or Campbell...or etc etc etc etc etc.

None of those people wrote any scripture...The Catholics did however come up with their own version of the scriptures by changing a lot of words and adding un-inspired book to them...

Your comment; “Do you see any exceptions in that statement? It’s preposterous to think that the apostles sent a letter to all the churches to tell them not to eat blood but then have them sit down and drink blood.”

Then why did the Apostles continue the Mass and the Eucharist and give the “Body and Blood of Jesus” to Catholics. And this has continued for 2000 years.

So you do not see any difference between the “Body and Blood” of Jesus and animal blood?

You say that Jesus is a sinner based on the Last Supper and that Jesus and the Apostles consumed His Body and Blood. And for His instructions to do this in memory of me.

>>Then why did the Apostles continue the Mass and the Eucharist and give the “Body and Blood of Jesus” to Catholics.<<

The apostles knew it was not the physical body and blood just as the Jews understood that the Seder lamb was not the physical original lamb of Passover. The apostles understood that it was a spiritual remembrance rather than a physical presence.

>>So you do not see any difference between the “Body and Blood” of Jesus and animal blood?<<

The blood of all sacrifices was to be "spilled on the ground" as it was when Jesus was sacrificed on the cross. Commanded never to be eaten or drank.

>>You say that Jesus is a sinner based on the Last Supper and that Jesus and the Apostles consumed His Body and Blood.<<

Especially for Jesus and the apostles as they were still under the old law at that time.

No, that is not what I am saying. Mary conceived and gave birth to the Second person of the Trinity. She did not conceive and give birth to the Holy Spirit, who came over her. And she did not conceive and give birth to the Most High, who overshadowed her.

Mary can rightly be called the mother of God because Jesus is God, whole and entire, just as the Father and the Holy Spirit are God, whole and entire. They are one God, of one substance, essence, and nature.

Yet they are distinct in their relations with one another. They work as a single operation in all three persons, with each showing forth what is proper to him in the Trinity. This can be seen in John 14, where Jesus tells His disciples that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, and that the Father who dwells in Him is doing His works. Then He says He is going to the Father, and that He will ask the Father to send another Advocate, the Spirit of truth, who will teach them everything and remind them of all that Jesus told them. The Father, Son, and Spirit, working as one, but each working in what is proper to him.

It was proper for Mary to be the mother of God the Son, but not to be the mother of the Father or the Spirit.

>>Mary conceived and gave birth to the Second person of the Trinity.<<

Luke 1:35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Galatians 3:26 for ye are all sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus,

>>She did not conceive and give birth to the Holy Spirit, who came over her. And she did not conceive and give birth to the Most High, who overshadowed her.<<

Colossians 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

>>Mary can rightly be called the mother of God because Jesus is God,<<

So why didn't the Holy Spirit inspire the writers to call her "mother of God"?

Acts 1:14 - These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.

>>Yet they are distinct in their relations with one another.<<

So you can separate the nature of God but not the nature of Jesus the man?

You say you are looking for answers but I'm sensing you looking more to re-inforce prior beliefs.

So you put your faith in the Catholic Church? I put my faith in Christ alone.

Do you really? You may be deluding yourself that you believe in Christ alone, but when you don’t believe His Church, you are rejecting Him. (This is in the Bible too.)

Yes I put my Faith in Jesus and in His Church, the Catholic Church.

I do hope that you have true faith and reach salvation with our Lord Jesus.

I wish you understood how utterly sad that reply to Mark was. It shows a total lack of understanding of what a regenerated heart is or it’s desires.

You are so correct. To a born again Christian, when we give ourselves to God and our as heart changes we start to change in all ways! Suddenly we don't have the desire to do the things we did, don't have the desire to go to the places we frequented, don't have the desire to hang around with the same people, ect. The desire we DO HAVE is to get closer to God.

When we are Redeemed, we have the desire to please God and everything in our life changes. We don't use the excuse of Confession to allow ourselves to do anything we want to all week because the Priest can make it all go away every Saturday.

The apostles understood that it was a spiritual remembrance rather than a physical presence.

Your personal opinion. It is not true.

That has never been Christ’s statement or the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Do you just reject the Catholic Church as you can not properly receive Holy Communion from the Catholic Church unless you are a baptized Catholic?

>>but when you don’t believe His Church, you are rejecting Him. (This is in the Bible too.)<<

No, that's not in the Bible. What is in the Bible is that if they rejected the apostles they rejected Christ. In no way can the apostles be equated with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church teaches many things that there is no indication the apostles taught. Paul says that anyone who teaches something they didn't is to be considered accursed.

>>I do hope that you have true faith and reach salvation with our Lord Jesus.<<

I have the guarantee of the Holly Spirit that I have been saved. Do you?

>>That has never been Christ’s statement<<

"my words are spirit" "the flesh profits nothing".

>>Do you just reject the Catholic Church<<

I reject Catholicism because it is a paganistic religion and teaches things the apostles didn't contrary to God's word.

Your comment; “I have the guarantee of the Holly Spirit that I have been saved. Do you? “

I hope you have that in writing from someone with authority.

Otherwise you will face judgement from Jesus when you die like everyone else.

If you believe that Jesus is God, then he was perfectly within his authority to have swept the temple clean of such sinners....he even had the right to kill them so a beating was showing the thieves a great deal of mercy! This event was in part a fulfillment of Malachi 3. Read thru verse 5

Malachi 3:1Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, he shall come, says the LORD of hosts.

2But who may endure the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:

3And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

4Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

5And I will come near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the sojourner from his right, and fear not me, says the LORD of hosts.

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