Was Mary a Biological Mother or a Surrogate Mother for Jesus?

[Eliyahu]

Do you mean without the involvement of Mary. (She is human). Not a chance. That would be a denial of the virgin birth. To deny the virgin birth is almost equal to a denial of Christianity itself. It is that fundamental a doctrine.

I thought you gave up your typical exaggeration and groundless libel against the oponents of the debate. Do I deny Virgin Birth because I deny the Biological Motherhood of Mary?

It is not that different except for the added doctrines of the Immaculate Conception, the perpetual virginity of Mary, etc. The basic doctrine of the Virgin birth is almost the same.

I believe the Virgin Birth, but do not believe that Jesus was from the sinner's egg. You have not been wakened up from the wine of RCC completely yet.

No they don't.
That is the Apostle's Creed that the Catholic Church recites over and over again. I have it memorized both in English and in Latin. I was Catholic for 20 years. You can find it
here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles'_Creed#Text_of_the_Creed

OH Dear ! Don't you know that the Apostle's Creed contains lots of errors and is full of heresies? This is why I can safely conclude you are not wakened up from the wine of RCC yet !

You don't read too closely do you? It wasn't fertilized with sperm, but by the Holy Spirit--miraculously.

Ovum need another 23 chromosomes, which means the Sperm is essential. You are pleading with the mystery when you cannot answer !

Your assumptions and pre-conceived ideas about OT theophanies and Christophanies are red herrings which have nothing to do with this subject. They are irrelevant. Because God is able to appear to Abraham or Jacob has nothing to do with the Incarnation. They are apples and oranges. God at that time did not become totally human. Elijah and Moses did not become totally human when they met with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration.

What do you think Jesus was doing before He came into the world? Was He sleeping? YOu are far away from understanding the Pre-Incarnate Jesus Christ who worked during OT times. Why does Bible say Jesus is the Priest according to the Order of Melchizedek?

So who gets to decide how tiny is tiny. Why are you the authority (over God) that decides when the embryo arrived in Mary's womb. You also fit into this spaceship theory that God sent down from heaven a little embryo in his specially made spaceship and then plunked it into Mary's womb, kind of like Stork's deliver babies on the front steps of expecting parents.
But the Bible teaches that a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son. Conception involves the ovum or egg of the woman.

You may be obssessed with Spaceship and Stork. The Holy Spirit arranged all things and that's what the Bible says. Read Heb 10:5 - too.

You are right in that he never was in the state of a sperm. He was virgin born. Virgins don't have sperm. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Spirits don't have sperm.

So, you are claiming Jesus had only 23 chromosomes?

However her "egg" or ovum was still fertilized, and life began where life always begins. To say anything less takes away from the humanity of Jesus Christ. He was always God, yes. But he was totally man; and you imply that he wasn't. You give him a status less than that of a total man.

So, you claim that God cannot create another Adam, the second Adam, without the egg of Mary, right?
Can The Second Adam not be Human?

I would not forget about your masterpiece, the Masterpiece on this issue,

" the sin nature is not inherited thru female, but thru male", misunderstanding Romans 5:12 Anthropos meant only Man, not woman.

Maybe only men commit adultery but no woman commit adultery.

In the Spring only men marry and in the Autumn only women marry according to your theology.

Your theology sounds like a comedy!

 

[Eliyahu]

The Word was manifest in the flesh and we beheld his glory. (John 1:14) That is what happened.
That fertilized egg grew into an embryo which developed into a fetus, which sometime later was born as an infant into a cruel and heartless world. Two years later a king tried to kill him. And 30 years later he was crucified for declaring the truth: that He was the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of mankind.

So, what you are saying is that the Word entered into the egg of Mary, right?

Then the Egg became a flesh, right?

Now, Could He be a Human being with only 23 chromosomes in every cells?

YOu sound like Jesus was different from all the other human beings because His flesh had only the woman's genes, right?

Did the egg form a Brain as well?

Did that brain remember what He discussed with Abraham ( Jn 8:56-8)?

Do you believe Word became Flesh? If yes, which flesh did the Word become?

 

[standingfirminChrist]

You are right; it was the virgin birth. But a birth nevertheless--a birth wherein Isaiah said: "a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son." Conception involves an egg, and I do believe what the Bible says. I don't try to rationalize it away just because I may not understand it all. The Jehovah Witness says: "I don't believe in the trinity because I cannot understand it." They don't believe what they cannot understand. I find that same reasoning here.

With that statement:
1. You limit Mary's physical capabilities.
2. You limit God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
3. In effect you are saying that God is not powerful. Human reason must be put above the power of God, and the Word of God.

I wonder what the name of the spaceship was that carried the body. The Bible says that Mary conceived and brought forth a son. Conception starts with an egg or ovum.

I would rather believe Scriptures like Isaiah 7:14 and Mat.1:20 which state explicitly state that Christ was born of a virgin conceived of the Holy Spirit; not carried by a spaceship somehow and then plunked into the womb at a later date.

Stating God could not cause Mary to conceive without the egg of Mary

1 Limits the power of God
2 infers Christ could not be born without the help of man
3. Denies the fact that begotten is the true meaning of the word 'conceived' in Matthew 1:20 placing the focus on Mary instead of God.

 

[DHK]

So, what you are saying is that the Word entered into the egg of Mary, right?

The Bible says that the Word became flesh.
The Word is pre-existent, is now, and always will be. It never ceased to be at any moment or nano-second in time. Obviously, if the Word can enter into a womb, into an embryo, then it can also enter into an egg. Is there anything too hard for the Lord?

Then the Egg became a flesh, right?

Christ took on humanity. He did so by being born of a virgin. It is called the Incarnation--enfleshment. His humanity began with a fertilized egg, or more specific with the fertilization of an egg. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Normally a fertilized egg, not only is flesh but grows into "more flesh" shall we say.

Now, Could He be a Human being with only 23 chromosomes in every cells?

You don't know how many chromosomes he had so why speculate. Do you limit the power of the Holy Spirit. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was totally man and totally God at the same time.

YOu sound like Jesus was different from all the other human beings because His flesh had only the woman's genes, right?

What did I say about a woman's genes? I said he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. It was a miraculous event. It took place at the time of conception. Whatever the Holy Spirit did, he did. The secret things belong unto the Lord. A finite mind cannot understand an infinite God.

Did the egg form a Brain as well?

The brain develops rapidly during the first month of the pregnancy. He had a human brain. He took upon himself humanity.

Philippians 2:7-8 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

 

[cowboymatt]

So lets talk about this notion of "sinful flesh" or as it was much later called, "original sin."

Could it be that Jesus did in fact have the same DNA as the rest of us, and yet despite this remained sinless?

To put the question differently, what is it that damns someone, sin nature or sin? "All have sinned" (Rom 3.23), NOT "all have sin natures." Thus, if Jesus had the same sort of humanity that all of us have (that was begun when God invented Adam's DNA), that doesn't make his sacrifice on the cross in anyway void. Had Jesus sinned, then his sacrifice would have been tainted; seeing that he did not sin means that his sacrifice was perfect.

Or to put it still another way, falling short of God's glory has nothing to do with what we inherited from our parents. It has everything to do with the fact that we each have given into temptation. Jesus did not...but Jesus' sinlessness would mean nothing to any of us if he was not in fact human like all of us.

 

[Eliyahu]

You don't know how many chromosomes he had so why speculate. Do you limit the power of the Holy Spirit. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was totally man and totally God at the same time.

You sound that Jesus may have the flesh different from human flesh because He had flesh only from the woman, right? Is that the Humanity which you have been talking about?

The brain develops rapidly during the first month of the pregnancy. He had a human brain. He took upon himself humanity.

Brain is formed when the body was formed from the Embryo. If you claim that the egg became a flesh, then the brain might have been developed from the Egg alone, and it might have had some thoughts and the learning process. But on the other hand, Jesus remembered He met Abraham, and claimed He had existed before Abraham was ( Jn 8:56-8). Then that person of Jesus having the memory of knowing Abraham, taught the brain from the egg, is this what you are saying?

 

[DHK]

Brain is formed when the body was formed from the Embryo. If you claim that the egg became a flesh, then the brain might have been developed from the Egg alone, and it might have had some thoughts and the learning process. But on the other hand, Jesus remembered He met Abraham, and claimed He had existed before Abraham was ( Jn 8:56-8). Then that person of Jesus having the memory of knowing Abraham, taught the brain from the egg, is this what you are saying?

No, I claim as the Bible teaches, that Christ has two inseparable natures, one divine, and the other human. When he walked the face of this earth he walked it as a human laying aside his divine attributes but not his deity. He was totally God and totally man all the time. This is quite evident while he was in the womb of Mary. He chose not to use his divine attributes at that time, though He was God.

On the way to the cross he told Peter to put up his sword, reminding him that he could have called 12 legions of angels to defend him. He didn't have to go to the cross. He went voluntarily, of his own will. He said: "I lay my life down; I take it up again. No man takes it from me." It was his choice. No one forced him to the cross. He was always in control. He could have called the angels of heaven, exercising his divine power, but he didn't. In other words he laid aside that divine power of omnipotence in order that he would suffer as a man.

He laid aside his divine omniscience in the womb and during his childhood knowing not that he had seen Abraham until he started his ministry. He only used his divine attributes when needed. He came to do the will of His Father, and always submitted to him. In other words, during most of the time on this earth he lived as a man, ate and hungered as a man, tired and thirsted as a man.

Luke 9:58 And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

 

[Eliyahu]

I hope everyone understands that both mother and father are equally affecting the genes of the child.

Here is some report on this:

A mother and father each pass an allele for a specific gene on to a child. If one of the alleles is defective and causes disease, the child will develop the disease according to a dominant-recessive pattern of inheritance. For example, cystic fibrosis (CF), a metabolic disorder that causes a progressive loss of lung function, is caused by a mutation in the recessive allele of a gene responsible for regulating salt content in the lungs. The recessive allele is unable to direct the production of a key protein, resulting in a salt imbalance that causes thick, suffocating mucus to build up in the lungs. If a baby inherits the defective allele from just one parent, no disease results. But the infant who inherits the defective allele from both parents will be born with the disease.
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761563786&pn=8

Let's remember the Down Syndrome and Leukemia, are the mother's genes not affecting the child?

Has there been any woman having the perfect genes only since the Fall of Adam and Eve?

If the child received the defective genes, can he be blemish, spotless, and sinless?

1 Peter 1:19
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

If the blood contained any Leukemia or Down Syndrome genes or
Alcohol addictive genes, could He be blemish and spotless?

 

[DHK]

I hope everyone understands that both mother and father are equally affecting the genes of the child.

Here is some report on this:

A mother and father each pass an allele for a specific gene on to a child. If one of the alleles is defective and causes disease, the child will develop the disease according to a dominant-recessive pattern of inheritance. For example, cystic fibrosis (CF), a metabolic disorder that causes a progressive loss of lung function, is caused by a mutation in the recessive allele of a gene responsible for regulating salt content in the lungs. The recessive allele is unable to direct the production of a key protein, resulting in a salt imbalance that causes thick, suffocating mucus to build up in the lungs. If a baby inherits the defective allele from just one parent, no disease results. But the infant who inherits the defective allele from both parents will be born with the disease.
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761563786&pn=8

Let's remember the Down Syndrome and Leukemia, are the mother's genes not affecting the child?

Has there been any woman having the perfect genes only since the Fall of Adam and Eve?

If the child received the defective genes, can he be blemish, spotless, and sinless?

1 Peter 1:19
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

If the blood contained any Leukemia or Down Syndrome genes or
Alcohol addictive genes, could He be blemish and spotless?

Jesus was perfect; his humanity was perfect; not because he had the pefect physical body as a "body builder" or was the most handsome or whatever you may be thinking, but because he was perfect as in sinless. He did not have a sin nature. In that way he was perfect.

He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Though this is emphasized over and over again, it seems to be continually forgotten or ignored.

 

[Eliyahu]

He laid aside his divine omniscience in the womb and during his childhood knowing not that he had seen Abraham until he started his ministry.

How do you know that He didn't know that He Himself met Abraham? How could He astonish the doctors and the people at His understanding? ( Luke 2:46-7)

He only used his divine attributes when needed. He came to do the will of His Father, and always submitted to him. In other words, during most of the time on this earth he lived as a man, ate and hungered as a man, tired and thirsted as a man.

So, did His capacity to heal the diseases, feed 5000, walk over the water, know what He didn't see, teach the people are all from the egg of Mary? Thomas called Him God, Peter called Him Christ, John reported the Word was God. God appeared in flesh in Genesis 18. Could He not do it again? What if He appeared in a tiny flesh?

Luke 9:58 And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Shall I interpret this for you?

Head is laid upon the neck, on top of the body. The Body is the church. He has to prepare the church so that His Head may be laid down on it.
He was talking about His Death at the Cross. He was not talking about His miserable human situation, which many people misunderstand. He had to die so that He prepare the Body of Christ.

 

[Eliyahu]

Jesus was perfect; his humanity was perfect; not because he had the pefect physical body as a "body builder" or was the most handsome or whatever you may be thinking, but because he was perfect as in sinless. He did not have a sin nature. In that way he was perfect.

He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Though this is emphasized over and over again, it seems to be continually forgotten or ignored.

How could the perfect person come out of the imperfect sinful human parts?

 

[Gold Dragon]

ILet's remember the Down Syndrome and Leukemia, are the mother's genes not affecting the child?

You really should try not to use science in your arguments.

Downs is not an inhertiable syndrome. It occurs because the ovum in its formation did not divide its chromosomes properly and has an extra copy of chromosome 21.

 

[Eliyahu]

You really should not try to use science in your arguments.

Downs is not an inhertiable syndrome. It occurs because the ovum in its formation did not divide its chromosomes properly has an extra copy of chromosome 21.

It doesn't need the details. What we need here is that we understand any part of human involvement can cause a defective person, which is contrary to the Person of Jesus Christ.
What you know about the medical science cannot be claimed as the perfect one either, you may be found wrong some times later, though you may know a little more than the lay people as the science may develop further as time goes on.

Adam lived over 930 years though he was condemned as a sinner after the Fall. However, Mary didn't live that long time at all. Neither Adam nor Mary could be perfect and blemish.

The Ovum or any part of Mary cannot be blemish, and she could not pass the sinless DNA to Jesus for the Blood of Jesus.

 

[DHK]

How could the perfect person come out of the imperfect sinful human parts?

Now you are thinking like a Catholic. Sinfulness, or the Adamic nature is passed from generation to generation by the man. The woman has nothing to do with it. As I mentioned in another thread, a cell is not sinfull in and of itself. Put a skin cell under a microscope, examine it, and tell me what you see. Do you see the wickedness, the sin, the evil nature? Of course not. The sin nature is not contained in a "pound of flesh."

Romans 7:24-25 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

 

[Gold Dragon]

The Ovum or any part of Mary cannot be blemish, and she could not pass the sinless DNA to Jesus for the Blood of Jesus.

The God I believe in is omnipotent so he could do whatever he wanted with DNA, ovum, genes, sin natures, etc.

 

[Eliyahu]

Downs is not an inhertiable syndrome. It occurs because the ovum in its formation did not divide its chromosomes properly and has an extra copy of chromosome 21.

Why does it happen? Isn't it because the Sin entered the world?

Was the Human being created with such defect?

Can there be any single woman who has no single defect in her body, personality, thought etc?

 

[Eliyahu]

The God I believe in is omnipotent so he could do whatever he wanted with DNA, ovum, genes, sin natures, etc.

Your god can improve all the genes of the people, but he doesn't do !

How wicked and merciless your god is !

 

[annsni]

Is the belief that DHK and I have a Roman Catholic one? Or was it the well accepted belief of many of Christian theologians of the past?

John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Luke 1:35

And the angel answered and said unto her…
The angel gave her an account of the manner in which what he had said should be effected, as well as observed some things for the strengthening of her faith.

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee.
The words, "upon thee", are left out in the Syriac and Persic versions; but are retained in others, and in all copies: the formation of Christ's human nature, though common to all the three persons, yet is particularly, and most properly ascribed to the Spirit; not to the first person, the Father, lest it should be thought that he is only the Father of him, as man; nor to the second person, the Son, since it is to him that the human nature is personally united; but to the third person, the Spirit, who is the sanctifier; and who separated, and sanctified it, the first moment of its conception, and preserved it from the taint of original sin. His coming upon the virgin must be understood in consistence with his omnipresence, and immensity; and cannot design any local motion, but an effectual operation in forming the human nature of her flesh and substance; and not in the ordinary manner in which he is concerned in the formation of all men, (Job 33:4) but in an extraordinary way, not to be conceived of, and explained. The phrase most plainly answers to (le ab) , in frequent use with the Jews F24, as expressive of coition.

And the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.
By "the power of the Highest" is not meant the Lord Jesus Christ, who is sometimes called the power of God; but rather the Holy Ghost, as before, who is styled the finger of God, and power from on high, (Luke 11:20) (24:49) unless it should be thought that the perfection of divine power common to all the three persons is intended: and so points out the means by which the wondrous thing should be performed, even by the power of God; and which should not only be employed in forming the human nature of Christ, but in protecting the virgin from any suspicion and charge of sin, and defending her innocence and virtue, by moving upon Joseph to take her to wife. In the word, "overshadow", some think there is an allusion to the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters, in (Genesis 1:2) when, (tpxrm) , he brooded upon them, as the word may be rendered; and which is the sense of it, according to the Jewish writers


From Matthew Henry's Commentary on Genesis 3:15:

Notice is here given them of three things concerning Christ:—(1.) His incarnation, that he should be the seed of the woman, the seed of that woman; therefore his genealogy (Lu. 3) goes so high as to show him to be the son of Adam, but God does the woman the honour to call him rather her seed, because she it was whom the devil had beguiled, and on whom Adam had laid the blame; herein God magnifies his grace, in that, though the woman was first in the transgression, yet she shall be saved by child-bearing (as some read it), that is, by the promised seed who shall descend from her, 1 Tim. 2:15. He was likewise to be the seed of a woman only, of a virgin, that he might not be tainted with the corruption of our nature; he was sent forth, made of a woman (Gal. 4:4), that this promise might be fulfilled. It is a great encouragement to sinners that their Saviour is the seed of the woman, bone of our bone, Heb. 2:11, 14. Man is therefore sinful and unclean, because he is born of a woman (Job 25:4), and therefore his days are full of trouble, Job 14:1. But the seed of the woman was made sin and a curse for us, so saving us from both.

 

[Gold Dragon]

Why does it happen?

The process of ova and sperm formation often results in these kinds of errors of missing or duplicate chromosomes. Most of the resulting sperm and ova are not viable and die off. Some of these errors are minor enough and are able to survive the system of checks and balances for these things. In the case of Downs it seems to be because chromosome 21 is the smallest of the human chromosomes.

 

[annsni]

Your god can improve all the genes of the people, but he doesn't do !

How wicked and merciless your god is !

Please don't tell me that you are saying that God is incapable of doing something like that AND calling him wicked! That's blasphemy!!!!!