Blessed Mary

Defensor Christi

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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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AnticipateHisComing

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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.
You are correct, there are exceptions to general statements in scripture. Like Moses and Jesus.

General rule: No one has seen God the Father.
John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.​
Exception: Moses saw him, but not his face.
Exodus 33:21 Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
General rule: Solomon was the wisest person to live.
1 Kings 3:12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.​
Exception: Jesus was greater in his knowledge and wisdom.
Matthew 12:42 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.​

BTW, notice how Jesus in flesh was man just like us and yet scripture awkwardly uses "something" to describe Jesus. Maybe him being both man and God puts him in a different category than the rest of us mere humans being human flesh with human spirit. Jesus was human flesh with God Spirit. He was not exactly like us.

General rule: Everyone sins.
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.​
Exception: If you are so blind to miss Jesus as exception clearly listed in verse 24.
Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.​

Unfortunately, for your argument, exceptions are clearly and explicitly stated. You can't just invent exceptions for convenience. Exceptions to scripture, if any, are clearly listed. There is no clear statement that Mary was sinless. There is no new name/title given to Mary that is used later in scripture. Your arguments take examples and exceptions in scripture and pretend that they could be applied to another.

I would like to ask you a question. Please explain the other side of the coin to me:
So you give up on the Abram was given a new name argument and wish to engage in conjecture. OK.

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?
Jesus had to be born, so that means he needed a mother. You falsely think the invention of original sin is passed through flesh. Jesus did not need a sinless mother to be born and live a sinless life. Your argument is irrational because you would have to continue the concept of immaculate conception to Mary's mother, grandmother, ...

I am sure Mary was special, just as scripture list David, Daniel and John as special. We don't give them a capitalized title in their names.

Maybe the Ark was a place for the Father's Spirit. Maybe Jesus is the mediator between the Father and men. Maybe the Son of God was made lower when he took on flesh. Scripture has the answers to your question of conjecture.

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...
Because the Son of God is God. You think that God is dependent on a man/woman to still be God/perfect? You think that what he inherited from his mother has any influence on him being God? God is not subject to his creation, even when he came as one of us.

Mary was just a human, a product of his creation. That means, she had to learn the hard way just as we all do to follow him. For her to be any different than the rest of us breaks all the rules of God's creation.
The Angel (not angle that's math)
Maybe you can tell me what this word means too, anal. I am glad you like to point out typos. It might be your best argument and one place where you have corrected me.
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.
As I stated and you ignore, the "full of grace" greeting is a minority translation that you pick as the critical basis for your doctrine. Still, assuming it was a decent translation of a blind translation, it is restated to "found favor". You are confused, nowhere did I say Catholic teaching was "Mary was absent of sin not because of God, and because of her".

You confuse Catholic teaching with scripture that you call "mumbo jumbo". All I tried to teach you is what grace is. You could not argue how grace is defined in scripture that you even quoted. You rely on Catholic teaching to define full of grace to mean sinless. When Stephen was called full of the Holy Spirit, does that mean he was just like Jesus that was full of the Holy Spirit? I guess Stephen was also sinless because he was also full of grace; NO, NO, it is not the same, an angel didn't say it in Greek.


Righteousness comes through faith and is the result of God's grace. All sin and don't deserve God's grace.
 
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SummaScriptura

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It is worse hermeneutics to develop a doctrine based on a single contested verse that has multiple verses of scripture in clear opostion to it.
That "all have sinned" is a clear teaching of Scripture. Do you contest this? To TEACH then that Mary is an exception to this clear teaching of Scripture, you must needs to support the claim with more than a single witness from Scripture.
 
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AnticipateHisComing

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That "all have sinned" is a clear teaching of Scripture. Do you contest this? To TEACH then that Mary is an exception to this clear teaching of Scripture, you must needs to support the claim with more than a single witness from Scripture.
Have you read my posts? I replied to your post not to disagree with what you said, but to assert how it was worse than just bad.
 
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SummaScriptura

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Have you read my posts? I replied to your post not to disagree with what you said, but to assert how it was worse than just bad.
Sorry, I misunderstood your post as a defense of the idea "full of grace" meant born sinless.
 
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