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Locked on 12/11/2015 9:03:03 AM PST by Jim Robinson, reason:
Last word on the issue at post 435. |
Posted on 12/09/2015 1:36:26 PM PST by NYer
Mary was saved from sin in a most sublime manner. She was given the grace to be saved completely from sin so that she never committed even the slightest transgression. The problem here is Protestants tend to emphasize God’s “salvation†almost exclusively to the forgiveness of sins actually committed. However, Sacred Scripture indicates that salvation can also refer to man being protected from sinning before the fact.
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever (Jude 24-25).
The great Franciscan theologian, Duns Scotus, explained ca. 600 years ago that falling into sin could be likened to a man approaching unaware a massive 20-feet deep ditch. If he falls into the ditch, he would need someone to lower a rope and save him. But if someone were to warn him of the danger ahead resulting in the man not falling into the ditch at all, he would have been saved from falling in the first place. Analogously, Mary was saved from sin by receiving the grace to be preserved from it. But she was still saved.
http://www.catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/the-immaculate-conception-in-scripture
Mary was neither ignorant nor presumptuous of Jesus’ powers on earth. She was a very virtuous young woman, but not totally without sin as some believe. There is no Biblical evidence of this as well as the claim of no siblings born to Mary after Jesus birth (yup, there I said it). Mary likely saw much evidence of Jesus’ powers throughout his growing up in her home. At the wedding in Cana, she seemed to be quietly, privately asking him to help out with a big problem that would end in huge embarrassment if they ran out of wine (giving the appearance that these were close relatives or friends). Jesus told her it was not his time to show these powers, but he helped any way in a spirit of “good tidings,” I believe. He allowed witnesses, however. He could have cleared the room, but he didn’t. He wanted it known.
BTW - I like the Kenny and Wynona version, very powerful. It does nothing to diminish Mary or Jesus as Savior of us all. Merry Christmas!
Romans 3:23 does not say “all but Mary”. It says “all”.
Being “full of Grace” does not mean being without sin. Grace literally means “the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners.”
This Conclusion from this article about this subject sums this up very well:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=105&article=2658
We conclude from the Bible: (1) Like every other person ever born, Mary was born without any kind of original sin; (2) like every other person ever born (apart from Jesus Christ), Mary was not exempt from sin and its consequences; and (3) like every other person ever born (apart from Jesus Christ), Mary was in need of a Savior. These biblical facts do not minimize the importance of Mary’s role in fulfilling God’s divine plan to save man. Because of her godly life, God chose this particular young Jewish virgin to bring forth the Messiah. However, she was not sinless. Throughout history, God has used ordinary, imperfect men and women to accomplish extraordinary things, bringing them closer to “perfection” through His Son, Jesus Christ.
I wish I'd known all this growing up.
If I did, maybe my mom wouldn't have told us every year that we'd ruined Christmas and that Christmas was cancelled because of us.
Thanks, good synopsis. Mary was the devoted wife of Joseph IN EVER WAY, bearing him children AFTER Jesus was born. We are told in numerous places that Jesus had brothers. We are never told that He was the ONLY son of Mary. Rather, He was the FIRST born.
Yes, I like the Kenny and Wynona version, too.
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Mary, like all believers, will be saved from her many sins at the Last Trump.
To say that she was free of sin is stupendously absurd, and makes God a liar.
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My favorite is by its author, Mark Lowery; good voice, an authority on how it should sound, member of a great Gospel quartet, and, of all things, a very funny raconteur, as well.
The first release was in 1991.
Down through the years my favorite version has been the one by Mark Lowry.
Oh God, save us from theologians!
They frequently know not what they do that leads us into confusion and doubt!
An omnipotent God can do ANYTHING and is not constrained by ANYTHING, let alone puny human confusion!
A daughter of Adam, Mary needed saving by her Son, aside all sinners.
Mark Lowry, an evangelical member of the Gaither Vocal Band, was intentional when writing the lyrics.
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Yeshua didn’t reveal any “powers” to anyone that didn’t already know that he was the son of God.
What he did do was to demolish one of the Pharisees’ favorite takanot: The Washing of the Hands.
The wine was made in their ceremonial hand washing pots.
Well, one bass top realize that this comes from the perspective of Protestants. n the other hand, I think Father forgets that Mary was once a fourteen(?) year old Jewish girl who despite her great virtue was a fourteen year old girl. How much DID she know? Let us assume that she was naturally smart like the sister of Moses.Full of all the graces and well as grace. She was nonetheless a human being who had to learn the way they all of us learn, by experience. She learned about God, about her role in life, through experience. As to the lyric, Did she know that “her baby boy would be her savior,†I think that Scripture that tells us that she knew he was the Messiah, knew from the circumstances of his birth, and his growing up. She would teach him as any mother teaches a child, how to be a good Jew for one thing, but given that she and Joseph, who was also in the know, were raising a wunderkind, she must sometimes have been started by something he said and did. We know the tales of the many precocious children, how they can do and understand things from a very early age,Do we not think that for this special child this was true? But he was also a human baby and had to live within the limits that God sets for members of the species. All the mor true of Mary. I think she knew him, more about him, and could see what was coming better than any other human being. But she had to live her life one day at a time. Had to live by faith. No, I love the song, do not think it slights the Virgin.
Therefore the human nature He received from His handmaid and mother, Mary, had to be sinless.
Talk about left field. It's turtles all the way down or it's not. Mary received her human nature from her mother, or she wasn't human and then Jesus isn't one of us.
no, her conception had zero to do with her salvation, or else Jesus didnt die on the cross for the world
1Jn 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world.
Mary is part of the whole world
Roman Catholicism teaches error, great error
After reading the verses, I just realized this - for the first time.
It really is a fathomless Book. Always new when you read it.
If Mary was sinless, why wasn’t she the savior?
She was saved by the events of his incarnation. God chose her to be the mother of our savior.
you must not have read this, because this false prophet said Mary was sinless
Now, those lines make sense if Mary is another sinner just like us, who needs to be delivered from sin. You see, if Mary is a sinner who like us needs a savior, then the lyricist’s play on the word “deliver†(sense 1: “deliver†= “give birthâ€; sense 2: “deliver†= “liberate from sinâ€) is both clever and theologically sound. But if Mary is a sinner in need of a savior, then she cannot be the worthy vessel in whom the All-Holy God takes on human nature as the Word-Made-Flesh. In other words the lyrics depend upon the dogma of the Immaculate Conception being false. If Mary needs a Savior, then she cannot be the vessel of the Incarnation. And “No-Incarnation†= “No-Christmas.†How ironic that a song sung with so much gusto as a Christmas hymn logically precludes what it claims to celebrate!
Let’s take a look at the Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus, promulgated by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854, which defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Pius begins by summarizing this ancient doctrine: “From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only begotten Son a mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world.†Mary was not, and could not have been, just any woman, just any sinner, selected by God to be the mother of His Only Begotten Son.
Pius reflects on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in a way that shows that sound theology can be eloquent, even poetic:
The Virgin Mother of God would not be conceived by Anna before grace would bear its fruits; it was proper that she be conceived as the first-born, by whom ‘the first-born of every creature’ would be conceived. They testified too that the flesh of the Virgin, although derived from Adam, did not contract the stains of Adam, and that on this account the most Blessed Virgin was the tabernacle created by God himself and formed by the Holy Spirit … she is beautiful by nature and entirely free from all stain; that at her Immaculate Conception she came into the world all radiant like the dawn. For it was certainly not fitting that this vessel of election should be wounded by the common injuries, since she, differing so much from the others, had only nature in common with them, not sin. In fact, it was quite fitting that, as the Only Begotten has a Father in heaven, whom the Seraphim extol as thrice holy, so he should have a Mother on earth who would never be without the splendor of holiness.
How much more beautiful, sublime, and awe-inspiring is the Immaculate Conception as the prelude to Christmas — far more so than the well-intentioned but erroneous sentimentality of the lyrics of “Mary Did You Know?â€
Pius sums up the dogma of the Immaculate Conception with this definition:
We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.
We are now in the second week of Advent. Prepared or not, we will soon find ourselves in the Christmas season. To find the truth of Christmas, to find the great gift of God which is the real “reason for the season,†we cannot avoid, forget or deny the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. No piece of music, not even Handel’s Messiah can express all of the wonder of Incarnation and the glory of Christmas. Silly, secular songs can distract us from Christmas. Some songs, like “Mary Did You Know,†even if very affecting in a sentimental way, actually preclude Christmas. This Christmas season, let’s give our family and friends the gift of Christmas truth. “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!â€
She was saved by God for his sake. She is as dependent on her son as we are, because he is God.
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