Defensor Christi
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- Oct 25, 2012
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First, if there is any doubt about Mary or any being without sin, read clear scripture.
Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Read the text again, and how about reading in one of the more common translations that puts the greeting as "Greetings, O favored one". So in response to Mary's wondering about the greeting, the angel reiterates it in verse 30 that she has "found favor with God". Next learn how scripture uses favor. Favors are blessings/gifts from God. Favors from God are not rewards we get for being such great people, righteous or sinless. The favor that Mary was to receive was to bear a special child as the angel states clearly this favor/gift in verse 31. "You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus." Now if you would also read verse 25 you would find the same verbiage of favored expressed by Elizabeth.
25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”
First, the angle did not speak to Mary in Greek, so you are dealing with a translation that you are blind to. Second, the restating of the greeting to Mary, even in your English translation, is "you have found favor", not grace. I will stick with the majority translations that say Mary is favored, not full of grace. You go ahead and believe one argued translation of one verse that disagrees with multiple texts of scripture that say no one is without sin.
Next, study what grace is. Learn that the opposite of one full of sin is not one full of grace. Grace is a gift from God. It is something we receive despite our sin. It is something that rights our sin. If one was sinless, there would be no need for God's grace. You quoted Romans 4 and Philippians 3, study them, they teach this. These are not rules for the "average" Christian. They apply to all. If Mary was "full of grace" then you could argue that she was full of sin because grace counters sin. We can not earn righteousness.
If you want to compare Abram getting a new name to Mary then you should understand that scripture explicitly says it. "No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham". Not so with Mary. You resort to conjecture.
If Luke thought that Mary got a new name from the angel's greeting then he would have done what Moses did and used the new name from then on in his text. Sorry there is no Blessed Mother of God Mary in the Bible.
I have heard your arguments far too many times in these forums...if ALL means ALL and that ALL ALL means...then ALL would include Jesus himself, being 100% God and 100% Man...so that argument doesn't hold water.
I would like to ask you a question. Please explain the other side of the coin to me:
How would a Holy God allow Himself to be born of a sinful human? Why would God Himself choose the Blessed Virgin to bear His Son? Let's look a the Old Covenant for a moment...the Ark was so Holy a container that if someone touched it they dropped dead...so Holy that it was built with very specific instructions and material. Why then would God allow the New Covenant to be bore, cared for, taught by and loved by a sinful human being?
Further...why would the Savior of the Universe, who lives and dwells outside of time and space, not protect His very Mother from all stain of sin...
The Angel (not angle that's math) Gabriel hailed her as Full of Grace...you are confused as to what the Catholic teaching is...Mary was FULL of Grace (absent of sin) because of God, not because of her.
You confuse the Catholic teaching with protestant mumbo jumbo...no Catholic teaches or believes that Mary is sinless due to her own merit, power or being...she is full of Grace because God gifted and preserved her from sin.
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