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To: Mrs. Don-o

Ignoring the snark, notice that Stephan was declared to be “full of grace and POWER”

The Biblical Mary was filled with grace.

“Power” was erroneously given to her by Catholic tradition.

The Catholic Mary isn’t the Mary of the Bible.


264 posted on 08/05/2017 3:21:12 PM PDT by Syncro (Facts is facts)
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To: Syncro
Three people in the NT are described (in most English translations) as being "full of grace": that would be Jesus, Mary, and Stephen. (Yes, for Stephen it adds "and power," and for Jesus it adds "and truth." This cannot reasonably be construed as saying there was no power in Jesus or Mary, or no truth in Mary and Stephen!!)

But let me get to the point. Although the same or similar words, "full" or "filled" with grace, are used for Jesus, Mary, and Stephen, it does not mean exactly the same for all three. If it did, we'd be in the position of saying that the blessedness of Jesus, Mary, and Stephen are indistinguishable, identical -- which they are not, as I'm sure you'll agree.

How can they be distinguished, then?

The Greek grammar shows how.

"Kecharitomene" is applied to Mary, "pleres charitos" to Jesus and, "pleres pisteos" to Stephen. (I just looked that up in the Greek Interlinear NT online. Right. And "pleres pisteos" can better be translated "full of faith, or "full of belief.")

Kecharitomene is a Greek perfect, passive, participle, which could literally be translated "having been graced," since the root of the word is "charis", which means grace. Ephesians 1:6, which refers to Jesus Christ, uses the aorist, active, indicative echaritosen, meaning "he graced."

See the difference? Mary, passive voice, "She received grace"; Jesus, active voice, "He graced." This is due to the fact that Jesus is a Divine person; Mary is a human person, a creature and handmaid.

In Luke 1:28 "Kecharitomene" is nominative or titular, since it follows the greeting "Chaire" ---"Hail [name or title] --- thus the name would normally be capitalized in English translations.

The unique feature of "Kecharitomene" is that it is in the Greek perfect tense, denoting that the state of grace began in past time, by a completed action (hence "fully" accomplished), whose results continue in the present. A suitable translation to denote all these features might be "Fully-Graced One." The Greek passive voice denotes that Mary received the title from an outside source, in this case, Almighty God.

(BTW, "pleres pisteos" the term used for Stephen, also implies a gift from an outside source, that is, again, faith as a gift and initiative of God.)

All God-given changes of name or title in the Bible indicate the person's status as seen by God, the person's predestined giftedness in order to be equipped to play their role in God's plan:

The same is true when Mary is addressed (nominative or titular) as Kecharitomene (Fully-Graced One).

It's the only place in the Bible --- the only place in all of Greek literature ---where the root word charitoo is used in exactly this way, as a form of address. It's unique. It doesn't make her equal to God (passive voice: it's been done unto her) and not identical to what's said of Stephen, because it's

This unique neologism Kecharitomene is the best Greek word that could have been invented by Divine inspiration to indicate Mary's sinlessness, her being equipped to play her role as the natural source of Christ's human nature, His flesh: human, yet untainted by sin.

It's brilliant. No other Greek formulation could have conveyed it all.

267 posted on 08/05/2017 6:53:15 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Jesus, my Lord, my God, my All.)
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