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Does God have a Mother?
- Thread starter Eliyahu
- Start date
"Mary was no more an incubator that I was for my son or any other mother who bears and gives birth are for their children. She was the mother of Jesus. Jesus was totally 100% man as well as being totally 100% God. To try to "downsize" Mary's role as his mother attacks the humanity of Christ."-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But were you the mother of their soul and spirit?
Trying to unduly elevate Mary is feminism in my opinion.
But were you the mother of their soul and spirit?
Trying to unduly elevate Mary is feminism in my opinion.
"It's really quite simple:
Mary is the mother of (conceived, carried, gave birth to) Jesus.
Jesus is God
Therefore, Mary is the mother of (conceived, carried, gave birth to) God"------------------------------------------------------------------
NO, this only works if you limit the definition of mother, which the vast majority don't do naturally. So you are insisting on a title that is only logical with a forced limit on the term mother. You also must force a limit on the term God, because the term is naturally taken to refer to the whole Godhead. It take to much effort and is troublesome, why bother. If we did not call Mary Mother of God, are we in danger of seeing Christ as less than God. What purpose does it serve?
Mary is the mother of (conceived, carried, gave birth to) Jesus.
Jesus is God
Therefore, Mary is the mother of (conceived, carried, gave birth to) God"------------------------------------------------------------------
NO, this only works if you limit the definition of mother, which the vast majority don't do naturally. So you are insisting on a title that is only logical with a forced limit on the term mother. You also must force a limit on the term God, because the term is naturally taken to refer to the whole Godhead. It take to much effort and is troublesome, why bother. If we did not call Mary Mother of God, are we in danger of seeing Christ as less than God. What purpose does it serve?
So his conception had nothing to do with Mary?
"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
"And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS."
"It serves the purpose it was intended to serve: to combat the false idea that the flesh Mary carried was only the "human part" of him. Rather, that flesh was God - the Word became flesh, not the Word joined up with or filled the flesh."---------------------------------------
The purpose it served was for Cyrill to hang a rival who never said Christ was not God. He simply did not want to use the title in a world that was full of pagan virgin mother God worshipers, like Artemis.
But you must not have really seen Ephesus for what it was. An attack by one political power against another. It is clear Nestorious did not think Christ was not God by his plane speech. Cyrill force the conclusion based on a problematic logic argument, and Nestorious never actually had a hearing. In the same way you accuse others of things like Nestorism based on this confusing logic based on limited definitions that folks don't even know you are using until it is too late to avoid your accusation.
The purpose it served was for Cyrill to hang a rival who never said Christ was not God. He simply did not want to use the title in a world that was full of pagan virgin mother God worshipers, like Artemis.
But you must not have really seen Ephesus for what it was. An attack by one political power against another. It is clear Nestorious did not think Christ was not God by his plane speech. Cyrill force the conclusion based on a problematic logic argument, and Nestorious never actually had a hearing. In the same way you accuse others of things like Nestorism based on this confusing logic based on limited definitions that folks don't even know you are using until it is too late to avoid your accusation.
Thanks to BobRyan and Bunyon.
I already explained about Nestorian. Nestorius was right and those people who condemned were heretic.
Nestorius and his followers were condemned there in Ephesus and Constantinople but they were welcomed in Eastern Area and Asia. They became the Christian Orthodox in China many centuries while Roman Catholic was refused as heresy by them.
I already reported on this in other thread as follows:
posted December 06, 2005 07:54 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some misunderstanding about Nestorius or Nestorian in the absence of such group is not right, I believe, because any false accusation in the absence of the person or his supporters is a kind of coward behavior. Nestorians were very much powerful in preaching the Gospel in East Asia such as China, Korea, Japan, Manchuria, and Mongolia, probably in Middle East too. Their ministry influenced very much on Tang dynasty of china as Emperor Tae-Jong became a born-again Christian, some generals under Genghis Khan had the names of Mark, Philip, John and so on, and Riao Dynasty in Manchuria and Balhai dynasty of Northern Korea had many Christians most of whom were Nestorian too. However, there are also, a lot of evidences that support the Christianity reached there before Nestorian preached there, which dates back to 86AD.
North Korea discovered the Christian village formed during 3 century: pre-nestorian.
Now back to Nestorius, as far as I know, Nestorius didn't claim 2 persons existed inside one person. He just claimed Jesus had 2 personality, divine and human personality as one person, and that human personality was from Mary(Myriam). Throughout the eternity, Jesus was Son of God, and during the short period among the eternity, Maria was Mother of Jesus for his human personality, which was believed by Nestorius.
That idea might be right to some extent, but I doubt that Mary mothered Jesus biologically, because Bible doesn't say so in Mt 1:20
Mt 1:20 must be reviewed thoroughly:
το γαρ εν αθτη γεννηθεν εκ Πνεθματοσ εστιν Αγιου
which interprets word to word:
The one in her is born out of Holy Spirit.
KJV used "conceive" because there was no understanding about the fertilization between Ovum and Sperm at that time.
As you may know Gennao is used for "beget, give birth to" only, never for conceive anywhere.
It means that Jesus was born out of Holy Spirit already before He was born out of Mary.
The details were discussed in the other thread of Christian debate titled "Was Mary's Ovary Tube used?" I explained there why Mary cannot mother Jesus, but just remained as surrogate mother.
Some of the Eastern Church story is found in the following:
http://www.edessa.com/history/monument.htm
I already explained about Nestorian. Nestorius was right and those people who condemned were heretic.
Nestorius and his followers were condemned there in Ephesus and Constantinople but they were welcomed in Eastern Area and Asia. They became the Christian Orthodox in China many centuries while Roman Catholic was refused as heresy by them.
I already reported on this in other thread as follows:
posted December 06, 2005 07:54 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some misunderstanding about Nestorius or Nestorian in the absence of such group is not right, I believe, because any false accusation in the absence of the person or his supporters is a kind of coward behavior. Nestorians were very much powerful in preaching the Gospel in East Asia such as China, Korea, Japan, Manchuria, and Mongolia, probably in Middle East too. Their ministry influenced very much on Tang dynasty of china as Emperor Tae-Jong became a born-again Christian, some generals under Genghis Khan had the names of Mark, Philip, John and so on, and Riao Dynasty in Manchuria and Balhai dynasty of Northern Korea had many Christians most of whom were Nestorian too. However, there are also, a lot of evidences that support the Christianity reached there before Nestorian preached there, which dates back to 86AD.
North Korea discovered the Christian village formed during 3 century: pre-nestorian.
Now back to Nestorius, as far as I know, Nestorius didn't claim 2 persons existed inside one person. He just claimed Jesus had 2 personality, divine and human personality as one person, and that human personality was from Mary(Myriam). Throughout the eternity, Jesus was Son of God, and during the short period among the eternity, Maria was Mother of Jesus for his human personality, which was believed by Nestorius.
That idea might be right to some extent, but I doubt that Mary mothered Jesus biologically, because Bible doesn't say so in Mt 1:20
Mt 1:20 must be reviewed thoroughly:
το γαρ εν αθτη γεννηθεν εκ Πνεθματοσ εστιν Αγιου
which interprets word to word:
The one in her is born out of Holy Spirit.
KJV used "conceive" because there was no understanding about the fertilization between Ovum and Sperm at that time.
As you may know Gennao is used for "beget, give birth to" only, never for conceive anywhere.
It means that Jesus was born out of Holy Spirit already before He was born out of Mary.
The details were discussed in the other thread of Christian debate titled "Was Mary's Ovary Tube used?" I explained there why Mary cannot mother Jesus, but just remained as surrogate mother.
Some of the Eastern Church story is found in the following:
http://www.edessa.com/history/monument.htm
Doubting Thomas
Active Member
Actually, the theological purpose was to protect the UNITY of Christ (as well as His deity), politics notwithstanding.
There is one personal subject in Christ, not two.
In Hebrew 7:3 we must notice that both Melchizedek and Son of God do not have a mother and therefore both persons are the same. In fact, the most true believers have thought the person Melchizedek was the Christ before his incarnate and understand him as "Pre-incarnate Jesus"
Did the Hebrew writer not know that Mary is the Mother of God?
Was Hebrew 7:3 written before Jesus was born?
Did the Hebrew writer not know that Mary is the Mother of God?
Was Hebrew 7:3 written before Jesus was born?
I like this from Bunyon:
where would we be without her(Mary), we would have no God!
I would prefer "Human Incubator" to just "Incubator"
Even whether Mary is biological mother or not is in question because Mt 1:20 says " the one in her is born by Holy Spirit" 9 months before He was born out of Mary.
Word "Gennao" means give birth to and it was used for " Abraham begot Issac, Issac begot Jacob...."
Woman's ovum is not designed to accept the Words of God but human ears accept the Words of God. God can create another man from the dust, other than Adam's race.
where would we be without her(Mary), we would have no God!
I would prefer "Human Incubator" to just "Incubator"
Even whether Mary is biological mother or not is in question because Mt 1:20 says " the one in her is born by Holy Spirit" 9 months before He was born out of Mary.
Word "Gennao" means give birth to and it was used for " Abraham begot Issac, Issac begot Jacob...."
Woman's ovum is not designed to accept the Words of God but human ears accept the Words of God. God can create another man from the dust, other than Adam's race.
Eliyahu, stop the prooftexting it isn't helping your case. Hebrew 7:3 can not be understood outside of the context of scripture. You are attempting to set up a false dicotomy. It is true that the divine nature has no ancestry, but with the incarnation there is ancestry scripture is quite clear on that fact. You are attempting to seperate the divine from the human just like the heretic Nestorius. You cannot do that, if you do that then you gut the person of Christ and you end up with a false God or calling God a liar. There are two natures in the person of Christ, one divine and one human, but only one person. They are inseperable and unconfused. What is said of one nature is said of the whole person. You have seperated them by claiming Hebrew 7 nullifies the beginings of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and all of the prophecies concerning the line of David.
Some of the others were right in stating that while Mary is not the source of the divine nature she is the source of the human nature and did give birth to Jesus, who by very nature is God.
The title, "Mother of God" is short hand for the above.
No Christian would ever claim that Mary is the source of the divine nature, nor would any Christian seperate the two natures of Christ.
Chemnitz, Stop the Proof-denying!
You are denying the Words of God in Hebrew 7:3.
Stop the false accusation against Nestorius just because he is not here.
If you believe this:
"
No Christian would ever claim that Mary is the source of the divine nature"
then you yourself is denying the concept "Mother of God"
There is no rule about whether we can or should not divide the natures of Jesus between human nature or divine nature. The only problem is is not in the truth itself but in how human beings can understand the nature of Jesus and in how we can describe it.
Why you cannot find the words "Mother of God" in the Bible?
Just answer why Heb 7:3 denies that Son of God has Mother. Please provide us your eloquent explanation with the full context!
You are denying the Words of God in Hebrew 7:3.
Stop the false accusation against Nestorius just because he is not here.
If you believe this:
"
No Christian would ever claim that Mary is the source of the divine nature"
then you yourself is denying the concept "Mother of God"
There is no rule about whether we can or should not divide the natures of Jesus between human nature or divine nature. The only problem is is not in the truth itself but in how human beings can understand the nature of Jesus and in how we can describe it.
Why you cannot find the words "Mother of God" in the Bible?
Just answer why Heb 7:3 denies that Son of God has Mother. Please provide us your eloquent explanation with the full context!