Other Errors Concerning Mary

I. As noted in previous studies, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has a unique, blessed and important place in God’s plan. The Biblical Mary should not be diminished. A. However, as seen in other studies, Catholicism in particular has made more of Mary than God has assigned to her according to Scripture. The current Catholic version/vision of Mary is not supported by Scripture. B. The Jews gave Abraham undue importance. LUK 3:8; ROM 9:7. 1. Jesus taught that Abraham after death could not do anything for sinners. LUK 16:23-31. 2. Salvation is vested in one Name. MAT 1:21; ACT 2:21; 4:12. 3. God is very jealous of His unique, independent saving power. ISA 43:11. 4. Attributing saving power to Mary of necessity provokes God’s jealousy (c/w 1CO 10:22). More on this issue follows.

II. The elevation of Mary to the system of Marianism begins with the Douay-Rheims Version which renders GEN 3:15, “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: SHE shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for HER heel.” (caps mine). A. This rendering is based upon Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (circa 383 A.D.) which apparently incorrectly translated the original Hebrew masculine pronouns as feminine. B. The added footnote in the DRV says, “vs. 15. She shall crush. Ipsa, the woman; so divers fathers read this place comformably to the Latin: others read ipsum, viz. the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent’s head.” 1. This later explanation admits to the discrepancy in the Latin but spins the conclusion into Mary nonetheless. 2. The Vulgate and the DRV both disregard the fact that the only female person being spoken of by God in that text is Eve, not Mary. 3. It is the seed, Jesus Christ, that bruises the serpent’s head, not a woman. The rendering of the KJV is accurate. 4. The bruising of Satan is ascribed to God (ROM 16:20). Jesus Christ is God the destroyer of Satan and his works (1TI 3:16 c/w ISA 25:8-9; 1JO 3:8), not Mary.

III. Mary was declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854 A.D. to have been immaculately conceived. A. The late declaration reflected what had been long assumed and taught in the system. B. This doctrine holds that Mary was conceived without sin and remained in sinless perfection all of her days. C. Mind that this doctrine equates her conception and sinlessness with Jesus Christ, except that she is thus the first human ever conceived and born without sin, denying Jesus Christ’s rightful recognition of being God’s firstborn and somehow turning her into the spiritual sister of Jesus Christ, not just His earthly mother. D. The Catholic Confraternity Version renders LUK 1:28, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women.” 1. If Mary was full of grace, she needed no grace (favor) from God. 2. This again equates her with Jesus Christ Who is full of grace. JOH 1:14. 3. Arguments from the original Greek avail nothing for the Catholic position since the same Greek in LUK 1:28 refers to ALL saints in EPH 1:6. 4. As to how Mary was immaculately conceived and full of grace so as to be without sin is a bit of a puzzle, indeed. a. If she was divinely conceived by the Holy Ghost in her own mother’s womb, then Jesus Christ is NOT the first and only divine conception. b. If she had a human father and mother, she was conceived in and with original sin. c/w PSA 51:5; ROM 5:12; 3:23. c. To avoid the implications, it is assumed thatMary was sinless until an “age of reason/accountability” (similar to Arminianism): “Despite the phrasing, it (Romans 3:23) might be that it refers not to absolutely everyone, but just to the masses of mankind (which means young children and other special cases, such as Mary, would be excluded without being singled out).” (Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on “Romanism” by “Bible Christians” p. 271) 5. The tradition of the rosary prayer includes fifty-three repetitions of “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” a. By contrast, the “Our Father” prayer is repeated only six times in the rosary. b. The predominant appeal is to Mary, not Jesus or God the Father.

E. Concerning the visitation from the angel, the adult Mary declared her need of a Savior and deemed her estate (state or condition in general, whether material or moral, bodily or mental) to be low. LUK 1:46-48. 1. One would think that a sinless person full of grace would not have denigrated herself thus. 2. To explain her statements, it has been affirmed that Mary did need a Savior: a salvation from becoming a sinner: “Mary, too, required a Savior. Like all other descendants of Adam, by her nature she was subject to the necessity of contracting original sin. But by a special intervention of God, undertaken at the instant she was conceived, she was preserved from the stain of Original Sin and certain of its consequences. She was therefore redeemed by the grace of Christ, but in a special way, by anticipation.” (Ibid., p. 270, emphasis added) a. This conflates providential intervention with redemptive pardon: as if being providentially delivered from a potential sin (for such we ought to pray, PSA 19:13; MAT 6:13) is the same thing as being delivered from the consequences of sin, death (ROM 6:23). b. By parallel, a State protecting your eyes from Top Secret Classified information is NOT the same thing as a President pardoning you from the penalty for hacking into Top Secret Classified information. c. Christ’s redemption is a transaction that delivers from a just sentence of the guilty to death, a pardon; it is not a divine bubble of protection against commission of sin. EPH 1:7. 3. Mary knew that her blessing was owing to the conception IN her of Christ her Savior, not her own conception. 4. If Mary was immaculate, why did she make a sin offering for her purification? LUK 2:21-24 c/w LEV 12:8. 5. If Mary was immaculate from conception onwards, why did God pay her the wages of sin, death (a debated topic among Catholic apologists)? ROM 6:23. a. If sinless, her death was an unjust one, calling God Himself into question. b. If she died an unmerited death, did she die for someone else’s sin, as did Christ?

IV. In 1950, Pius XII declared that Mary did not undergo decay/corruption but was assumed bodily into heaven, making this an infallible dogma of Catholic faith. But whether she died or not remains a puzzle among Catholics. A. Some affirm that if she died, she did so by her own choice, not because of sin. This could be considered suicide, and is at least contrary to general Catholic teaching about the preservation of life being incumbent upon an individual. B. “Still, fundamentalists ask, where is the proof from Scripture? Strictly, there is none. It was the Catholic Church that was commissioned by Christ to teach all nations and to teach them infallibly. The mere fact the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as something definitely true is a guarantee that it is true.” (Ibid., p. 275) 1. This underscores the obvious fact that Scripture is not the final authority, and is actually not a reliable source of information. 2. Yet the Catholic Church’s assumed infallibility is a conclusion drawn from something declared in Scripture. 3. The obvious conclusion here is that, for the Catholic system, Scripture is only useful when it props up the system. C. Enoch and Elijah were bodily assumed into heaven and Scripture plainly declares those facts (2KI 2:11; HEB 11:5). Scripture knows nothing of Mary’s assumption.