Mary - Doctrines in the Bible

There are more scriptural citations in favor of Marian doctrines than there are for such doctrines as the age of reason or accountability, the end of revelation with the Apostles, the Trinity. All these others are doctrines held by both Catholics and Protestants.

Mother of God: Luke 1:43 "the mother of my Lord."

Denial of this doctrine makes one a Nestorian. Jesus is only one Person, the Divine the Divine Pre-Existent Second Person of the Trinity, who took on a human nature: one Divine Incarnate Person, two natures; divine and human. There are not two of Jesus. Mothers give birth to persons not natures. Mary is Mother of the Second Person of the Trinity Incarnate. The Person pre-existed Mary, but was the same person born by her in the flesh. The Council of Chalcedon A.D. 451 proclaimed her Theotokos-God Bearer (Mother of God).

Immaculate Conception - Mary's Sinless Conception and life: Luke 1:28

Luke 1:28 "Full of grace,” in the Greek, "kecharitome" is a perfect passive participle indicating "one (she) who has been perfected in grace,” a past action that is ongoing. See 1 Peter 1, where he speaks of a past action of justification that is ongoing. Our justification in Christ is a past action that is ongoing although it did not start at conception as did Mary's justification by God's special grace, due to her unique role in God's plan of salvation.

The angel addresses Mary with a name that is a verb form, "kecharitome." New names in the Bible are always significant. Mary does not do reverence to the angel as other in scripture do such as John in Revelation 19 & 22.We struggle for perfection (Philippians 2:12; 3:12-16), Mary is conceived as a spotless vessel and remained so by God's preserving and saving grace through the eternal merits of Jesus her son, "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev 13:8). Fullness of grace and sin are incompatible.

Some respond that "There is none righteous, not one...all have sinned,"(Romans 3:10-12). This refers to personal sin, not original sin. Read Psalm 14, which St. Paul quotes, in it's full context. Was Jesus a sinner? No, but truly man, he was an exception to "all have sinned.” Other exceptions regarding personal sin are infants and the severely mentally retarded.

Mary, Ark of the New Covenant: Luke 1:35, Exodus 40:34-35 and more.

The same Greek root word, "Episcia" (overshadow, cover) is used in these two passages in the Septuagint.

The New Testament type is always superior to the Old Testament type. Observe the Old Testament references to the Ark of the Covenant and the New Testament parallels to Mary as Ark of the New Covenant.

Exodus 40:34: "The cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle."

Luke 1:35: "The power of the Most High will cover you and the child will be called holy, the Son of God."

John 1:13: "Born not of the desire of the flesh or of the will of man...."

Luke 1:34: "I do not know man."

John 1:13: "...but of God."

Exodus 25:8: "And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell with them."

John 1:14: "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt (pitched his tent) among us."

Exodus 25:10-11: "And thou shalt make an ark...and thou shalt overlay it with pure gold..."

Exodus 25:21 "And thou shalt put the mercy seat above the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony I shall give thee."

Exodus 25:22 "And there I shall meet with thee and commune with thee from above the mercy seat."

John 19:25: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother..."

2 Samuel 6:9; "How can the ark of the Lord come to me?"

Luke 1:43: "How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Mary, Ark of the New Covenant and Mary, Mother of God.

2 Samuel 6:11: "The ark of the Lord remained for three months in the house."

Luke 1:56: '"Mary remained about three months with her."

2 Samuel 6:16: "David dancing and leaping before the Lord."

Luke1: 41: "The infant leapt in her womb."

The Ark of the Covenant contained the word of God (Ten Commandments) and the manna (Hebrews 9:14). Mary bore the Word of God, Jesus, "the manna come down from heaven" (John 1:1; 6:31-35).

Revelation 11:19-12:5: "Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple.... 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.... she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and his throne..."

The New Eve: Genesis 3:14-15, Revelation 12:17, John 19:26

Gen. 3:14-15 "And the Lord said to the serpent...I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed." This passage is called the Proto Evangelium or the Proto Gospel. Mary can be seen to fulfill this prophecy. This mention of the "seed of the woman" in scripture is unique. All other mention of seed always refers to man's seed. But Jesus was born in the flesh of a woman, by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by the seed of a man. And Jesus although wounded by Satan on the cross, crushes the Serpents head by his resurrection. The special designation " woman" is mentioned 8 times in Genesis 3 and 8 times in Revelation 12. In additional this designation referring to Mary is mentioned in other important passages: John 2:3-5, John 19:26, Galatians 4:4.

Rev.12: 17 "And the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring." Are you one of her offspring?

John 19:26 " When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold your mother!' And from that moment the disciple took her to his own home." Are you a beloved disciple?

Mary is the New Eve, the mother of all the living in Christ Jesus according to the Spirit, just as Eve is "the mother of all the living" in Adam according to the flesh. Genesis 3:20

The first mention of Mary as the New Eve in early Christian writings comes in as early as 150 A.D. in the writings of Justin Martyr in his, Dialogues with Typho the Jew, and in the writings of Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, 189 A.D. By comparison the first mention of the term "Trinity " is found in the writings of Theopholus of Antioch, 181 A.D.

As indicated above, the New Testament fulfillment of Old Testament types are always superior to the Old Testament types that prefigure them. This is the major point of the Letter to the Hebrews. Eve was created in perfection but fell. Mary was created in perfection and did not fall. Jesus is the New Adam (1 Cor. 15:45-49). So the disobedience of Eve is undone by the obedience of Mary. Death entered through Eve's acceptance of the word of the serpent and she conceived and brought forth sin and death in Adam's sin. Mary accepted the word of God and conceived of the Holy Spirit and brought forth eternal Life in Christ Jesus and his obedience. Sin and death was the fruit of the tree where Eve stood. Jesus and eternal life is the fruit of the tree that was the cross of Calvary where Mary stood at the Crucifixion. The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil we are forbidden to eat of and leads to death, but the tree of life is now ours again.

Mary, Ever Virgin: Ezekiel 44:2

"And the Lord said to me, 'This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it; for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut." Early Christians recognized this passage as a prophecy of Mary's perpetual virginity, a doctrine that even the Protestant Reformers Luther and Calvin accepted.

Gospel references to the "brothers and sister of Jesus" implying other children of Mary do not hold up under close examination.

Matthew 13:55 is undone by Matt 28:1 and 27:55 and John 19:25 and Jude 1:1 which points out that James and Joseph and Jude, the "brothers of Jesus " are in fact cousins and the sons of another Mary. It is also interesting to note that nowhere in scripture is anyone described as a son or daughter of either Mary or Joseph other than Jesus. Only Jesus is ever described as the "son of Mary" of Nazareth. There are references to the brothers or sister of Jesus, but the original words used in those contexts can be found in other places in scripture where they are without doubt used to describe kin in a broader sense: i.e., Genesis 14:14 & 29:15, 1Cor 15:6, Rom 8:29, 1 Peter 5:2, Mark 6:4. In the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint: 1 Mac 9:44; 11:73; 12:27,28; 28: 13:52; 15:52; 15:16; 2 Mac.11: 20; Proverbs 13:21. In the Hebrew OT the same usage is found: Gen 14:14 and Gen 29:15. You can use the King James Version for these references except for the Maccabees which are now left out of the King James, but which were in the original 1611 version of the King James, a fact she can even be confirmed through Protestant sources.

If Jesus had brother and sister, why would he give his mother to John at the foot of the cross? This would be a serious violation of Jewish custom, in which the children were responsible to take care of their widowed mother.

The Assumption of Mary:

This doctrine is not found explicitly in scripture, but the doctrine does have Old Testament antecedents and types in the assumptions of Enoch (Gen. 5:23 and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11-12) and in the New Testament (1 Thess. 4:17). Revelation 12 shows Mary in heaven late in John's life. There is also the Jewish apocryphal book, The Assumption of Moses that contains the Jewish tradition of Moses' assumption, which tends to be confirmed by his presence at the Transfiguration of Jesus and the reference to this tradition in Jude 9.

The doctrine of the Assumption of Mary is nothing less than an affirmation of God's promise of the Resurrection to all the faithful in Christ. For those who believe that at the second coming of Christ, the dead shall be raised and the living faithful be caught up into the clouds to be with Jesus, and believe in the assumptions of Enoch and Elijah in scripture, this can hardly be a difficult doctrine to accept.

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