“Mary, Mother of God”

Catholics propose that Mary, Mother of God, is of special worship and reverence. It is wrong to worship her. The Bible indicates that she was special because Christ was incarnated through her, but beyond that point, there is no worship for her.

Introduction

Mary is not the center of focus in Scripture. If you were to not know anything about the Bible at all, and you were to study religion as the Roman Catholics present it, you would deduce that Mary is the center of Christianity. Walk into one of their churches and you see Mary’s image plastered all over everything. Although there are other saints and Jesus’ image around also, Mary’s image will be there many times more than Jesus’ image or any other biblical person.

But if we study the Scriptures, this is just not the case. References to Mary or even the incarnation at all are scarce, with the emphasis not on the virgin mother, but on God incarnate. Mary is very central in the Incarnation in the Gospels, and even at that, only Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels even relate the incarnation mentioning Mary.  In Acts, she is mentioned in being among the disciples waiting for the day of Pentecost, but after that, she basically totally disappears from the pages of Scripture.

All this reinforces the idea that Mary is not the center of Scripture. When we apply the same principles to Jesus Christ, we find central importance and priority of Jesus Christ from Genesis through Revelation, with references to the Savior in almost every chapter of the Bible, and abundant references within most books of the Bible.

So why would a person or group de-emphasize Jesus as Savior, to replace His importance with some other person? This is the basic tactic of false religion to pervert the Gospel (which the Gospel is totally Jesus Christ and nothing Mary) so that they can claim to be the unique professors of what they call “truth.” They grab authority asserting that they are the only true religion, but they cannot account for the contrast and disparity between their doctrines and practices and what the Bible defines.

Why Catholics insist on this term “Mary, Mother of God”

This phraseology for Mary is defended by Catholics as being necessary for Mary intercessory work beside or instead of Jesus Christ. Acts 8:12 and 1Tim 2:5 clearly declare that Jesus is the only intercessor, but Catholicism’s desire desire to de-emphasize Christ and exalt Mary is behind this movement. It is true that “Lord” refers to God, and many of these times it is clearly Jesus Christ who is Lord. But Mary was only the mother of Christ’s humanity, not his Divinity. By definition, a “mother” is someone who gives birth to someone else, and the mother exists before the child always and absolutely without any exceptions.

Catholicism has fabricated this error in the same way that Paul warned us about “cunningly devised fables” (Peter 1:16; 2 Timothy 4:1-4).

The Aseity (Non-Creation) of God

Note: Aseity is the divine quality of always having existed, and never having a beginning. Only God has this quality. Creation is not God because it doesn’t have aseity.

In the case of Jesus, Mary maybe existed before the incarnate Christ (an argument could be made that the Old Testament theophanies were Christ, proving even the pre-existence of Christ’s physical body before Mary’s existence and that Christ had a body before Mary), but Mary did not exist before God, and she did not exist before Jesus Christ. Note that Jesus is portrayed as the Creator of the world, of all creation (Col 1:16-17; Heb 1:2). In comparison, who existed first, Mary or Abraham? Abraham of course. Mary was a descendent of Abraham. But Jesus taught that he (Jesus) existed before Abraham (John 8:56). All of this goes hand-in-hand with Jesus’ divinity and His eternal nature (aseity – always having existed, and never having been created).

So the consideration of the correctness of the term “Mary, Mother of God” has to be concluded as in error. It conveys incorrect and heretical doctrine.

Is Mary the “Mother of God” (God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit)?

Moreover, who is God? Jesus alone is God? This is an error. God exists in a trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When the term “Mary, Mother of God” is used, it must be used in its fullest sense. Is Mary the mother of God the Father? Is Mary the mother of God the Holy Spirit? Mary cannot be considered “the Mother of God” because she did not exist before God, and by her, God did not come into existence.

Earthly relationships cannot be extended in the case of Christ

If Mary is the mother of God, does that make Elizabeth the aunt of God? John the Baptist is the cousin of God? etc. We could go on, but the point is ridiculous. These earthly relationships have no basis in eternity, and in eternity, Mary is not the mother of God.

Mary is not God

A mother always communicates her nature to her children. By saying that “Mary is the mother of God”, we would have to also accept that Mary is God herself, otherwise, she could not communicate divinity to her son God. Again this is totally unbiblical and ridiculous, because Mary in her essence was fully human, and nothing God. God came upon her as a vessel to be used for pre-existing Jesus Christ God to enter the world. Unlike all other human births, wherein the person had no existence before their mother’s conception, Jesus was a fully functioning divine person before the creation of the world.

The purpose of elevating Mary to be equal to or above God is because as a false religion, they seek to de-emphasize Jesus Christ as the only Sovereign and Lord. By adding Mary to Jesus, they construct an unbiblical salvation scheme which is theirs, and by which as false prophets they can denounce all who do not adore Mary as they do.

Reverence, honor, and Exaltation of Mary

Note: It is also incorrect to refer to Mary as Virgin at this point in time because virginity has to do with having never known man (Mat 1:25 says Joseph did not “know” Mary until after Jesus was born, clearly implying a sexual relationship after that point in time, otherwise it would have read, “Joseph never knew Mary”), and having never had a child. With today’s artificial insemination, a woman never having had sex, but having born a baby really is not a “virgin” anymore either.

In Luke 11:27, a woman praised Jesus’ mother. This is exactly what the Catholics do and insist that all must do with Mary. But Jesus cut this woman’s praise of Mary short, and Jesus transferred that “blessedness” that she was wanted to fix on Mary from Mary onto all those who hear and obey the Word of God. This would be incorrect of Jesus if praise and honor on Mary were correct in his day and today.

Is Mary an Intercessor or a Sinner?

Luke 1:47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

As we stated above, there is only one meditator between man and God, and that is Jesus Christ (1Tim 2:5). But one of the requirements of an intercessor is that the intercessor must be sinless. Jesus fulfilled that requirement, but Mary confessed that she had a need and a hope in the Messiah as her Saviour (Luke 1:47 the Magnificat). If in the very announcement of the birth of Jesus, her thoughts were on Jesus being the Messiah, her own personal Saviour because she recognized her own sinful state before God, then Mary absolutely cannot be any kind of mediator between God and man.

In a sense, we are all intercessors for the saved and unsaved around us, but the Catholic concept of this doctrine is that nobody can come to Jesus because we are sinful, therefore we can only come to Mary as our intercessor. If Mary is sinful as she confesses to this in Luke 1:47, then it is not possible that Mary is our intercessor. Ecc. 7:20 declares that there in no just man in the earth, and Mary would fall under this divine declaration.

Moreover, an unclean person cannot be an intercessor. Mary followed the Levitical law in Lev. 12:2-6 of making an offering after the birth of her child. Under that Levite law, it declares a woman “unclean” until she offers the offering. In Luke 2:22-24 Luke records this action by Mary fulfilling exactly the Levitical law. How is it possible then that Mary assume the position mediator when she was unholy, unclean, and refused from even entering the temple except to offer this sacrifice? Note in Galatians 3:19 that God demands a sinless mediator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin%27s_views_on_Mary

http://allanturner.com/magazine/archives/rm0905/Blackaby002.html