Posted on 06/16/2019 4:55:18 AM PDT by CharlesOConnell
In Captains Courageous, with Spencer Tracey, Freddy Batholomew is a blowhard millionaire's son who is socially, poorly adjusted. He uses his father's incredible wealth, to bully his classmates and even his teacher, but he's roundly disliked, and ostracized. While on an ocean liner, he unsuccessfully tries to impress some other boys by eating 5 ice cream sodas. When he has to throw up, to escape the mocking boys, he runs into a lifeboat area to evade their ridicule while purging his overindulgence, and manages to fall overboard into the ocean.
Instances of people falling overboard into the open ocean are rather commonly reported in the news. Usually they are lost, but if by chance their accidents are observed and a life-preserver is thrown to them, is that the end of the story, do we just say, "oh, well, you have a floatation device, you're okay now"?
No, we have to pull them in. The life-preserver, the lifesaver, is only part of the formula for saving their lives. There is also a rope, which must be attached to the life-preserver, and must be used to finally accomplish their salvation.
Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man. But on the man side of the equation, unlike the radical individuality most typified by J.J. Rousseau, we who life the life of Christians do so in communities. But even then, we do not abide as atomistic individualists. We live our Jesus-oriented life in relation to our fellows. "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." – Hebrews 10:25.
Jesus' first disciple was his mother, who gave us the total account of his early life and who "treasured these things up in her heart". "A sword will pierce your own soul too, so that the secret thoughts of many hearts might be revealed". On the cross, he gave his mother to John to take in his home, but when you take your master's mother, she takes care of you.
Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.
And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. …
And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. - Rev 11:19 -- 12:17
She forms the body of Christ. She schools her son's disciples. Those who won't attend her school, remain ignorant.
We are in a time when any merely human institution would be washed away. Our churches are going under the shadow of a new Heresy of Ba'al of Peor, as when the Hebrew people were successfully attacked and overwhelmed through human sexuality. Our churches are now pro-gay and as soon as the civil authority authorizes child sex, they will be indistinguishable from the denizens of the town of Sodom: "Bring them out that we may know them".
Jesus' mother forms the few of the elect who will resist being fooled by the great apostasy. Those who will not avail themselves of the lifeline of Mary, will be lost.
Galatians 4:26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
Why would she be childless, without support? The Bible clearly says Jesus had brothers and sisters, even if they were step-siblings, as some people insist.
I’ve shared with you at least 4 times that this passage is about Israel and not Mary.
One has to wear Mary-colored glasses to see her everywhere God didn’t put her...
who?
This has at least two interpretations: literal, (Jesus’ concern for his mother who would otherwise be left chhlesss, without support); and symbolic, in the light of the Cana episode in Jn 2 (the presence of the mother of Jesus, the address 'Woman,' and the mention of His 'hour') Mary (who is also a symbol of the church) is given a role as the mother of the faithful.
This verse has the following meaning:
Jesus entrusted Mary to John as His other brothers and sisters were not yet believers.
John was the disciple whom He loved.
The Greek of the passage indicates this was a private matter.
There is NOTHING in Scripture to indicate Mary was being given as a "spiritual mother".
IF, as Roman Catholicism claims, Mary is so essential to the life of the believer, and is necessary, then the New Testament would have clear teachings on this.
That it doesn't is telling.
Means nothing due to their deception.
How many times have we used Scripture to clearly show the Roman Catholic why their rendering/understanding of a passage is incorrect?
How many times have we shown the Roman Catholic, from Roman Catholic sources, their claims about this or that are incorrect or contradicted?
Yet they continue in their error.
>> Ignore the Mary stuff. Don’t pray to her or give any attention to her. Take all that time praying to her and focusing on her and spend it with Jesus, praying to Him and focusing on Him.<<
Would you accept this challenge?
One month with no Hail Mary's, no morning prayers to Mary, no prayers to Mary....nothing directed to Mary. Put away your "statue" and pictures of Mary.
Focus on only praying to God.
Would/could you do this?
If I tried that type of "exegesis" in seminary class, I'd fail.
Some other corrections and clarifications can be seen here , by the grace of God.
I would say that if there is one contrasting a paragraph it would be,
salvation by grace does not mean salvation by attaining to actual, practical perfection in this life or in Purgatory, but that of being accepted in the Beloved on His account, (Eph. 1:6) resulting finally in the resurrection of the body, which is the final conformity to Christ after this life. (1 John 3:2) And with obedience with holiness in this life being its effects/fruits, but which effects are not the cause of justification, though works justify one as being a believer. (Heb. 6:9,10)
MDo,
Context.
This event occurs *after* The Great Tribulation.
(Preceding chapters)
Mary’s delivery of Christ and their lives on earth happened before The Great Tribulation.
That alone is enough, though there is more.
She is a "sign."
Hence the word "sign."
That means the vision is supposed to represent something or somebody, symbolically, as a "sign".
The fact that she is the mother of a son "destined to rule the nations with an iron rod" is a big Messianic clue.
Who is the mother of the Messiah?
Well, symbolically, Israel, since He is the son of Mary, son of David, son of Abraham, son of Adam & Eve, son of Man. That is is lineage according to the flesh. Human genome, human genealogy.
He has generations of humans who are his forebears, according to the flesh.
And who is His nearest, most proximate human forebear?
Jesus' only human connection to his genetic human forebears are on His Mother's side.
If He is not the physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is not a member of the People of Israel. So the symbol is probably both individual and collective: Mary and Israel.
And since her other offsprng are identified as those who "keep God's commandents and bear witness to
The "great sign" not only has both an individual and collective reference, it also has both a present and future reference, since those offpspring who "bear witness to Jesus" are certainly people who come A.D., after Christ. They ae the children of the Church.
It is not a vice to have contempt for what is contemptible. To misconstrue the Word of God intentionally, in order to support the fictions of an ‘other religion’ is contemptible.
Well, the practice of praying to departed saints and Mary was one that developed, helped by pagan influences, for Scripture provides no example of any believer praying to anyone in Heaven by the Lord, and reveals that doing otherwise was a practice of pagans, including to the “Queen of Heaven.” (Jer. 44:17,18,19,25). The Catholic Encyclopedia speculates that a further reinforcement of Marian devotion, “was derived from the cult of the angels, which, while pre-Christian in its origin, was heartily embraced by the faithful of the sub-Apostolic age. It seems to have been only as a sequel of some such development that men turned to implore the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. This at least is the common opinion among scholars, though it would perhaps be dangerous to speak too positively. Evidence regarding the popular practice of the early centuries is almost entirely lacking...,” (Catholic Encyclopedia > Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary) Yet, as expected, it imagines this practice came from the apostles and NT church, but which never exampled or instructed it, and instead showed that the believer has immediate access to God in the Divine Christ, (Heb. 10:19), who is the all sufficient and immediate intercessor between God (the Father) and man. (Heb. 2:17,18; 4:15,16) To the glory of God
Of-course all generations will call Mary blessed, because it is written that she was. While Leah said, "Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed," (Genesis 30:13) yet Mary exceedingly was by being chosen to bear the incarnated Christ, her creator. And like as Jael said, "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent," (Judges 5:24) of Mary it is said, "blessed art thou among women." (Luke 1:28)
The problem is what is does not say, which is almost everything Catholics attribute to Mary!
The woman and the rest of her offspring those who keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus. Revelation 12:17
Why do you persist in thinking of a mortal far, far, far, above that which is written, and thus requiring reading into Scripture a desired conclusion? What reduce Scripture to being an abused servant, compelled to support what the NT nowhere is shown to believe? Faced with the utter absence of any actual reference to Mary after Acts 1:14, let alone special devotion to Mary in Acts and all the epistles, Catholics force the "women" of Rv. 12, to conform to Mary when it does not.
That Christ is the is the child who is to rule with an iron rod" is clear, but which does not make Mary to be the women, and the typology fits Israel. And he [Joseph] dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? (Genesis 37:9,10)
The 12 stars on the woman’s head represents the 12 patriarchs, “and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.” (Rm. 9:5) And which was and will be persecuted, but God keeps her through it. And Israel is likened to being a women and mother:
For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers. (Jeremiah 4:31)
Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail. Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies. (Micah 4:9-10)
I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman. (Jeremiah 6:2)
The women of Rv. 12 travailed (ōdinō: (cf. Gal. 4:19, 4:27) in birth and tormented (basanizō: cf. Mat. 8:6;Rev. 9:5; Rev. 20:10; Mat. 8:29; Mar. 5:7; Luk. 8:28; Mar. 6:48; Mat. 14:24; 2Pe. 2:8) to be delivered of her child, which was Christ, but which women cannot be the Mary of Rome, as it teaches that since she was sinless,
just as the rays of the sun penetrate without breaking or injuring in the least the solid substance of glass, so after a like but more exalted manner did Jesus Christ come forth from His mother's womb without injury to her maternal virginity...To Eve it was said: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Mary was exempt from this law, for preserving her virginal integrity inviolate she brought forth Jesus the Son of God without experiencing, as we have already said, any sense of pain. - CATECHISM OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT PART 1: THE CREED; Article III. http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tcreed03.htm
In the preface of the votive Mass in honor of Mary at the foot of the cross, we read the words: “She who had given Him birth without the pains of childbirth was to endure the greatest of pains in bringing forth to new life the family of the Church.” http://www.cst-phl.com/marian.html
“In conceiving you were all pure, in giving birth y ou were without pain.” (St. Augustine, Sermone de Nativitate )
Thus to take this as the women literally giving birth then you must contradict RC teaching that Mary had no anguish and pain of birth. In addition, no where is Mary said to uniquely be the mother of all Christians, but as said, Christ makes all such disciples
In addition, while the women can be seen to be Israel and thus consequently, the church, Rev. 7:4-8; cf. 14:1-4 also shows John's focus is on Israel, that of the remaining descendants of Abraham during the tribulation which turn to the Lord, whose coming the CCC teaches awaits his recognition by all Israel, whose acceptance means life from the dead, and that this full inclusion of the Jews will be in the wake of the full number of the Gentiles being saved.
Scripture clearly teaches that,
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. (Romans 11:25-27)
Thus Rev. 7:14 speaks of a remnant of these in the tribulation period, and to which other prophecies relate:
And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: (Ezekiel 20:34-37)
And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers. And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God. (Ezekiel 20:42-44)
The nations that persecute the remnant of Jews who turn to Christ are led by the devil, and which God protects by providing a place in the wilderness for 3.5 years, while in the end the Lord wuill destroy these persecuting peoples.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. (Zechariah 12:9-10)
And even if we allowed this as a possible mention of Mary, it does not present the Mary of Catholicism, and it remains that there is only one manifest mention of her the inspired record of the NT church, (Acts 1) in stark contrast to her hyper exaltation and centrality in Catholic devotion, thinking of her far far above that which is written.
I will also let Catholic scholars themselves speak:
The RC NAB Bible and The New Catholic Answer Bible commentary and certain other RC sources do not make the women of Rv. 12 to be Mary:
The woman adorned with the sun, the moon, and the stars (images taken from Genesis 37:9-10) symbolizes God's people in the Old and the New Testament. The Israel of old gave birth to the Messiah (Rev 12:5) and then became the new Israel, the church, which suffers persecution by the dragon (Rev 12:6, 13-17); cf Isaiah 50:1; 66:7; Jeremiah 50:12...Because of Eve's sin, the woman gives birth in distress and pain. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__P12V.HTM
Raymond Brown and J.A. Fitzmyer, editors of the Jerome Biblical Commentary (2:482):
a woman: Most of the ancient commentators identified her with the Church; in the Middle Ages it was widely held that she represented Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Modern exegetes have generally adopted the older interpretation, with certain modifications.
In recent years several Catholics have championed the Marian interpretation. Numerous contextual details, however, are ill-suited to such an explanation. For example, we are scarcely to think that Mary endured the worst of the pains of childbirth (v. 2), that she was pursued into the desert after the birth of her child (6, 13ff.), or, finally, that she was persecuted through her other children (v. 17). The emphasis on the persecution of the woman is really appropriate only if she represents the Church, which is presented throughout the book as oppressed by the forces of evil, yet protected by God. Furthermore, the image of a woman is common in ancient Oriental secular literature as well as in the Bible (e.g., Is 50:1; Jer 50:12) as a symbol for a people, a nation, or a city. It is fitting, then, to see in this woman the People of God, the true Israel of the OT and NT.
Roman Catholic theologian Father Hubert J. Richards agrees that the Revelation 12 woman refers to Israel. His book, What The Spirit Says to the Churches: A Key to the Apocalypse of John, carries the Nihil obstat and Imprimatur of the Roman Catholic Church.13 Concerning the woman of Revelation 12, Father Richards writes:
The vision proper, then, begins with the figure of a Woman clothed with the sun and the stars. We think naturally enough of our Lady, to whom this description has traditionally been applied. After all, we say, of whom else could John be thinking when he speaks of the mother of the Messiah? However it is clear from the rest of the chapter that this interpretation will stand only if the verse is isolated: what follows has very little relevance to our Lady. Nor is it any honor to Mary to apply any and every text to her without thought....
Who then is she? The source to which John has turned for his imagery throughout this book is the Old Testament. There, the Woman, the bride of God who brings forth the Messiah, is Israel, the true Israel, the chosen people of God. It is quite certain that this is what is in John's mind when he begins his description with a quotation from Gen. 37:9-10, where the sun and moon and twelve stars represent the twelve-fold Israel.
This Woman will later be contrasted with the Harlot (the collective personality of Rome, opposed to the true Israel), and will be specified at the end of the book, again appearing in light and splendour for her marriage with the Lamb, as the twelve-gated Jerusalem which forms the new Israel. In fact the number twelve occurs so frequently in the Apocalypse in reference to Israel that it cannot have a different meaning here. All the early Fathers of the Church interpreted these verses as about the Israel of God.14 See http://www.eternal-productions.org/PDFS/Revelation12Woman.pdf
Bye.
The real Mary would be distraught and horrified that the Catholics made her into an idol akin to the Golden Calf.
Sad!
Placemarker
“So the symbol is probably both individual and collective: Mary and Israel.”
Just Israel.
Start with chapter 1 and read the whole book.
“The “great sign that appeared in the sky””
It does not appear in the sky, but in heaven.
Revelation 12:1 -that this is not a symbol of Mary the mother of Jesus, is clear from the fact that she will be the object of persecution during the Tribulation (v. 13; cf. v. 17).
Mary doesn’t appear in the tribulation.
Ott acknowledges for the first three centuries, the “veneration” of Mary was connected with the veneration of Christ. It is in the fourth century, and especially after Ephesus (431), that the formal veneration of Mary is found. “For the first three centuries, the “veneration” of Mary was intimately connected with the veneration of Christ. From the 4th c onwards we find a formal veneration of Mary herself.”
Llywelyn notes: Mary’s unparalleled stature as a figure to whom the faithful sought recourse grew through the slow accumulation of a complex matrix that included theological speculation, public and private worship, legendary narratives, accounts of miracles, homilies and hymns, and material culture. Expressed often in poetic rather than intellectual language, prayer and praise effectively precedes and underpins the theological elucidation of Mary’s role in salvation. Throughout the patristic period, homilists delighted in discovering intimations of Mary’s virginal motherhood in the phrases, images, objects, episodes, and personages of the Hebrew scriptures. An ever-growing stock of inventive literary images and elaborate phraseology embellished the liturgy. (emphasis mine)
Pelikan observes “…there is no altogether incontestable evidence that it was used before the fourth century, despite Newman’s categorical claim that “the title Theotocos, or Mother of God, was familiar to Christians from primitive times.”
Carroll contends “…there is little evidence or no evidence that anything like the Mary cult existed during the first four centuries of the Christian Church.”
********************************
Ott, 215-16.
Llywelyn, “Mary and Mariology.”
Jaroslov Pelikan, Mary through the Centuries: her place in the history of Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press,1996), 57.
Michael P. Carroll, The Cult of the Virgin Mary: Psychological Origins (Princeton University Press, 1986), 4.
Much of Roman Catholic theology is based on the discounted Infancy Gospel of James.
It records instead of the normal birth as narrated by Luke, Jesus just showed up....
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"And immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it. And in a little that light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and went and took the breast from His mother Mary."
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Further, it is recorded the midwife said the following:
And the midwife cried out, and said: This is a great day to me, because I have seen this strange sight. And the midwife went forth out of the cave, and Salome met her. And she said to her: Salome, Salome, I have a strange sight to relate to thee: a virgin has brought forth -- a thing which her nature admits not of. Then said Salome: As the Lord my God liveth, unless I thrust in my finger, and search the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth.
20. And the midwife went in, and said to Mary: Show thyself; for no small controversy has arisen about thee. And Salome put in her finger, and cried out, and said: Woe is me for mine iniquity and mine unbelief, because I have tempted the living God; and, behold, my hand is dropping off as if burned with fire.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/infancyjames-roberts.html
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The Infancy Gospel of James, and others like it are part of the Apocrypha of writings the early church had to contend with.
Luke, who researched the history of Jesus and gives a very detailed account of the selection of Mary, birth, etc, includes none of these details.
Why were these left out?
The writing was condemned as spurious by numerous writers from the early church...among who are Origen, Aquinas, Athanasius.
Origen seems to call this writing into question. “Now those who say so wish to preserve the honour of Mary in virginity to the end…” “Mary: Ever Virgin,” Catholic Answers, accessed January 25, 2019, https://www.catholic.com/tract/mary-ever-virgin.
Aquinas also seems to call this book, and the apocryphal writings in general, to be false. “We are told (Luke 2:7) that the Blessed Virgin herself "wrapped up in swaddling clothes" the Child whom she had brought forth, "and laid Him in a manger." Consequently, the narrative of this book which is apocryphal, is untrue. Wherefore Jerome says (Adv. Helvid. iv): "No midwife was there, no officious women interfered. She was both mother and midwife. 'With swaddling clothes,' says he, 'she wrapped up the child, and laid Him in a manger.'" These words prove the falseness of the apocryphal ravings.” “Question 35. Christ's nativity: Reply to Objection 3,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed January 25, 2019, http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4035.htm,
But they [apocryphal writings] are an invention of heretics, who write them when they choose, bestowing upon them their approbation, and assigning to them a date, that so, using them as ancient writings, they may find occasion to lead astray the simple. Athanasius. “From Letter 39,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed February 2, 2019, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm
F.F. Bruce does not indicate this writing was on any list of books considered for the New Testament.
At the Council of Trent, when Roman Catholicism approved its canon, this writing was not included.
For the Roman Catholic, who seemingly elevates "tradition" to a position equal to, and in many cases, superior to Scripture, to continue to rely upon this discredited and rejected writing is telling.
Roman Catholicism has built a lot of false dogma on writings that were rejected by their own standards.
BUT, IF, Rome were to renounce their Marian dogmas, it would collapse the Roman Catholic church.
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