Featured What is the hold?

Why does it bother you if Mary glorified God by having sex with her husband? The entire Bible celebrates the God honoring union, which is prescribed from the beginning of Genesis and onward. The number of illogical leaps you need to make in conjunction with an argument of silence makes it highly unlikely that Mary never had sex. I see no biblical reason why Mary didn't enjoy the pleasures of sex with her husband Joseph to the glory of God.

 

You're conflating issues there in the last paragraph.

Yes, Jesus was fully God (I said That, didn't I?). But He wasn't in the same way He was prior to the Incarnation, or indeed after it. For example, He wasn't omnipresent and therefore it is reasonable to conclude that He wasn't omniscient either. That's the paradox of the Incarnation.

 

Oh it doesn't bother me if Mary lived a normal married life and had a dozen other kids. However, when I read scripture and consider the evidence as a whole it seems certain that Mary did remain a perpetual virgin. I think the better question is why it bothers some that Mary did remain a virgin her entire life. And I will venture to say that by admitting Mary's virginity it places her in a position that is somewhat unique among women. And when Mary is singled out like that it takes you closer to Catholic beliefs about her. If "Mary" were not so central to Catholicism, her perpetual virginity would be a widely held belief among Protestants and Evangelicals.

 

Honestly, you have no leg to stand on with the perpetual virginity theory. It's similar to the baptizing of babies to save them. There is no biblical support.

 

Re: immaculate conception and perpetual virginity

Mary, the mother of Jesus, had normal parents. This means Mary was a sinner just like every other humanoid to inhabit this planet--she got this condition from her mommy and daddy. How, mostly her daddy. How does Mary get to be without sin? Jesus' Father is God. Jesus was without sin--He could not sin. This makes Jesus the one and only Redeemer. Mary cannot be a co-redemptrix--she is not qualified.

As far as perpetual virgin--"He (Joseph) knew her not until..." Mt. 1:25 is pretty difficult to explain away. It takes more than a lot of papal bulls and traditions of vestal virgins.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James

 

I agree that the word "until" is key.

If I say, "I did not go outside until it stopped raining," I am saying that I did go outside once it stopped raining. This is simply what the words mean. If someone comes along as says that those words clearly mean that I did not go outside, that person is contradicting basic rules of language communication.

Matthew 1:27 clearly states that Joseph had normal relations with Mary once the "until" condition had been met. This is a statement of a historical event; in other words it is reporting that the event did take place historically after that condition had been met. Sorry for those who don't want the passage to say this. The words themselves are very clear in what they teach.

 

If that's the case, then why wasn't Jesus a married man in the Jewish tradition? Why was he denied the earthly and spiritual joys of a loving wife and numerous children?

 

And she is not only a central figure in the Catholic tradition, but also in the Eastern Orthodox church where she called the Theotokos, the Mother of God. I guess that they had solid theological reasons why did they not abandon all the central belief's that the Western Church had at the great schism between the two in the 11th century.

 

Your remarks are a very well reasoned opinion of the subject at hand and raise some very interesting questions. Of course, such words won't sway our separated Christian brethren who have gone their own way with their own particular biblical interpretations.

 

Who denied God from doing what He wills? Yeshua chose His path according to His own will.
No one can deny the Sovereign King anything.

 

Mother of God: In AD 431, the Council of Ephesus countered the Nestorian heresy by declaring that Mary was truly the Mother of God: “Not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from Mary, but the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself, was born from Mary.” One problem with this wording is that it awakened the old Arian heresy that the Logos (Jesus) was a created being. In AD 451, at the Council of Chalcedon, Leo, Bishop of Rome, ratified the decision that Mary was theotokos (“God-bearer”) only as to the humanity of Jesus. The title had nothing to do with Jesus’ divinity as the eternal Word of God. The Chalcedonian definition added the words “as to the manhood” immediately after theotokos, which should have ended erroneous thinking. But the populace took this word theotokos as an uplifting of Mary’s status and started to venerate her. The term theotokos was not incorporated into the Nicene Creed of 321 or the Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. Neither is that expression used in the Anglican Articles or in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

What is Mariology?

 

That's right, including a new Ark of the Covenant that would bear Him and Him alone into this world. Seriously now, would the OT Ark of the Covenant have ever been used to carry other things besides those things God commanded be within it?

 

Tell me brother, why didn't the Eastern Orthodox Church abandon all the Christian teachings up to the schism point? One would think that if the Western Rite had been so wrong, so un-biblical as you claim, they would have changed every doctrine as they went their own way.

 

What are you talking about? Are you calling Mary's genitals the Ark of the Covenant? Such a belief is non-sensical and truly bizarre. Do you have any more weird and unbiblical allegories your church teaches?

 

Humans tend to like rules. It makes them feel like they are holy. Paul tells us that they are no value for becoming more holy.
Like the Pharisees and Sauces that added weight upon weight to God's word, so your church leaders and Orthodox leaders have added weight upon weight that is of no spiritual value. It may make you feel like your holy, but it doesn't make you more holy. Look at the problems in both churches in relation to immorality and you can see this is true.

 

Immorality is part of the human condition, it affects us all including your own particular Christian sect.

 

Her womb is the Ark of the Covenant, not her genitals. There is a big difference between them. Why is it that you cannot fathom this, or other things that started in the OT but reappeared in the NT?

 

Of course, but when traditions that have no basis in God's word become more important and twist the meaning of God's word, there is a problem. I see many non-biblical traditions in the church at Rome and in the Orthodox church.