The Two Times when Jesus was confronted with "honor Mary Mother of Jesus" statements

GreekOrthodox said:

Annnnd this is why I'm done

Click to expand...

Oh come on now...

Isn't "full of grace" a Latin addition to what the Greek Text actually says. Or does tradition take priority?

BobRyan said:

As far as I can remember there are only two times when Jesus was directly confronted with some form of "blessed be your Mother", "Blessed be Mary", "here is your mother - show her honor" as reported by the NT writers.

In the one case His response begins with "on the contrary"
In the other case He spins the statement around to a question "who IS My mother?"

Luke 11:
27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.”
28 But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”


Matt 12
46 While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. 47 [Someone said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak to You.”] 48 But Jesus replied to the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?” 49 And extending His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold: My mother and My brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother.”

Which makes the "top" honor - someone Jesus came to save and as a person who accepts that salvation (which would include Mary).

====================

Surely He loved Mary as a child of God and as one blessed to give birth to the Messiah - but it is odd that his response to these two chances for respect "as my mother" - that these are in fact the two responses "He chose", if indeed He was trying to promote "Mary, is the mother of God" doctrine.

Click to expand...

He was protecting her from persecution. Imagine if His enemies got wind of the virgin birth?

BobRyan said:

As far as I can remember there are only two times when Jesus was directly confronted with some form of "blessed be your Mother", "Blessed be Mary", "here is your mother - show her honor" as reported by the NT writers.

In the one case His response begins with "on the contrary"
In the other case He spins the statement around to a question "who IS My mother?"

Luke 11:
27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.”
28 But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”


Matt 12
46 While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. 47 [Someone said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak to You.”] 48 But Jesus replied to the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?” 49 And extending His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold: My mother and My brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother.”

Which makes the "top" honor - someone Jesus came to save and as a person who accepts that salvation (which would include Mary).

====================

Surely He loved Mary as a child of God and as one blessed to give birth to the Messiah - but it is odd that his response to these two chances for respect "as my mother" - that these are in fact the two responses "He chose", if indeed He was trying to promote "Mary, is the mother of God" doctrine.

Click to expand...

I think you have some misunderstanding. We know according to the Bible that all generations are to call Mary blessed. Why is she blessed, or most blessed? What is Jesus saying?

GDL said:

Oh come on now...

Isn't "full of grace" a Latin addition to what the Greek Text actually says. Or does tradition take priority?

Click to expand...

Those are English words, perhaps the words fall short, but there is no exact translation. The Koine Greek root word "charis" means "grace," study the modifiers and usage of "charis." It is used by the Angel in the manner of a title, it is a grace that was imbued in Mary in the past, a full and everlasting grace.

Scripture shows us Mary saying,

Luke 1:48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden:
for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

And from henceforth it begins, showing so much a few chapters up further

Luke 11:27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things,
a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice,
and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.

Jesus responds to her also

Luke 11:28 But he said,
Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.

So Mary says" from henceforth all generations" shall call ME (singularly) blessed . Even as it was her womb that bare Jesus Christ as it was her paps which did give him suck (and of the same that "certain woman" did bless).

Jesus didnt respond back with an Amen, You said it sista'! But he said, Yea rather blessed are THEY (plurally speaking) that hear the word of God, and keep it.

Jesus seems to divert the woman's attention from lifting up her voice in respects to the singular vessel (as was Mary) who brought him forth and calling her blessed (in a singular sense) but Jesus responded, "Yea rather blessed are" They" (in the plural sense) that hear the word of God and keep it.

Speaking of blessed wombs and paps Jesus said,

Luke 23:9 For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.

@BobRyan - neither the Roman Catholic Church, nor the Eastern Orthodox Church, nor the Oriental Orthodox Church, or anyone else except perhaps the Palmerian Catholic cult, regards the blessed virgin mary as co-redemptrix. There is a movement in the Roman Church to do this, but it is a fringe movement, the result of a woman named Ida Peerdeman who had strange and threatening encounters with a female entity claiming to be “The Lady, Once Known As Mary” and demanding the Roman church declare her co-redemptrix.

The local bishops and the Holy Office (the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith) investigated, and the Holy Office concluded that the visions of Ida Peerdeman were not worthy of belief.

Most Christians belong to churches that venerate Mary, but only a tiny minority incorrectly believe her to be co-redemptrix.

BobRyan said:

...if indeed He was trying to promote "Mary, is the mother of God" doctrine.

Click to expand...

The title Theotokos - or “Mother of God” or “God-bearer” is not just a title of reverence - but rather is a theological statement. At the Council of Ephesus in 431, the bishops denounced Nestorianism, which claimed that Christ’s human and divine natures were separate. Therefore, they believed that Mary was only the mother of the human Christ, not of the divine Christ.

The affirmation of the title Mother of God (since it already was in use), affirmed the unity of the divine and human natures of Christ. Since Christ is fully God and fully human - and since Christ’s human nature can’t be separated from His divine nature, the Council made a dogmatic statement - that Jesus is God, Jesus’ humanity cannot be separated from His divinity, and thus Mary is the Theotokos (God-bearer in Greek) - the Mother of God. She isn’t the Mother of the Trinity or the source of the Godhead, but she is the mother of God Incarnate - the mother of Jesus Christ who is God.

Valletta said:

Those are English words, perhaps the words fall short, but there is no exact translation. The Koine Greek root word "charis" means "grace," study the modifiers and usage of "charis." It is used by the Angel in the manner of a title, it is a grace that was imbued in Mary in the past, a full and everlasting grace.

Click to expand...

I just dealt with this on another thread. None I've ever studied and none of the Lexicons I've used see "grace" or "favor" as falling short of being a good translation for the Greek word.

When the angel addresses Mary in Luke 1:28, he simply says to her, "Hail/Rejoice [you] who has been favored/graced [at some time prior to this and as a result are favored/graced right then when the angel addresses her]... This is all it says. "Full of grace" is not a correct translation. Saying that this is everlasting is not a correct interpretation of the Greek, which makes no assertion of anything future.

BobRyan said:

Are you talking about Stephen - the deacon?

Acts 7
55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;

Click to expand...

The only time "full of grace" is clearly used, it is used of Jesus Christ in John 1:14.

In Acts 6:8 there is a textual variant. Some Greek manuscript evidence says Stephen was "full of grace" when he witnessed just before he was killed. Other evidence says "full of faith."

Mary "full of grace" is a tradition and can be found in the Latin translation of the Greek. This is Roman tradition.

BobRyan said:

yes NASB does that.

Click to expand...

Several do, since many translate from the same manuscript tradition.

All4Christ said:

The title Theotokos - or “Mother of God” or “God-bearer” is not just a title of reverence - but rather is a theological statement. At the Council of Ephesus in 431, the bishops denounced Nestorianism, which claimed that Christ’s human and divine natures were separate. Therefore, they believed that Mary was only the mother of the human Christ, not of the divine Christ.

The affirmation of the title Mother of God (since it already was in use), affirmed the unity of the divine and human natures of Christ. Since Christ is fully God and fully human - and since Christ’s human nature can’t be separated from His divine nature, the Council made a dogmatic statement - that Jesus is God, Jesus’ humanity cannot be separated from His divinity, and thus Mary is the Theotokos (God-bearer in Greek) - the Mother of God. She isn’t the Mother of the Trinity or the source of the Godhead, but she is the mother of God Incarnate - the mother of Jesus Christ who is God.

Click to expand...

This is entirely correct. If anyone is unwilling to affirm that our glorious, ever-virgin lady, Mary, gave birth to the Lord God Incarnate and was a mother to Him, it opens up a massive can of worms. Nestorians liked to claim the divine Word and the human Jesus were two persons in a union of will, or equally as problematic, two hypostases in a personal union, and this has uuuthuuuuuuuuu777e effect of destroying the Chalcedonian hypostatic union or union of natures proposed by St. Cyril and taught in the Oriental Orthodox churches, which has the effect of decoupling the humanity and divinity that we know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ possess in abundance.

As a result of this problematic mode of Christology, a number of vital constructs stop working; we lose communicatio idiomatum, theopaschism, and any meaningful form of the incarnation, or of substitutionary atonement (if our Savior was merely a man in a personal union with the Logos, the Incarnation seems altogether less relevant; furthermore, if God did not die on the cross, even if Christ was sinless, owing to his personal union with the Word, this is still much less of a sacrifice than God willingly sacrificing Himself to restore humanity.

This is why the work of the Scythian Monks in the 6th century was so important: they convinced the Byzantine Emperors and the Patriarchs of Constantinople to embrace Paschitism; when Pope Hormisdas refused an audience to them and wrote a letter complaining about the Scythians to Patriarch Maxentius, Maxentius rather gracefully dismissed it on the grounds that whoever wrote it was a heretic and therefore it was a forgery (whether he believed this or was seeking to save the face of a colleague, we will not know), the Second Council of Constantinople anathematized anyone who denied that the same Jesus Christ who died on the cross was one of the Trinity, and Emperor Justinian inserted the Hymn of the theopaschite Oriental Orthodox St. Severus, Ho Monogenes, into the Byzantine divine liturgy, appending it to the second antiphon (since Severus was from Antioch, what became the Syriac Orthodox Church begins their liturgy with Ho Monogenes, the Armenians use a heavily Byzantinized liturgy with the hymn in the same place as the Byzantine, and the Copts use the hymn on Good Friday). I particularly like this hymn, and the Te Deum Laudamus, as secondary creeds, as they guard against Christological and Triadological misinterpretations of the Nicene Creed.

BobRyan said:

In that case -- isn't it more than "just a little noticeable" that not one single NT writer reports it being used?? Their silence on that point is deafening.

Click to expand...

The Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John all depict Mary as the mother of God. We can positively assert thar Jesus Christ is God Incarnate based on John chapter 1; he is the second person of the Trinity, the uncreated Word, begotten of the Father before all ages, who for our salvation became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, making her the Mother of the Incarnate God.

The Liturgist said:

The Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John all depict Mary as the mother of God.

Click to expand...

They depict Jesus as God, but never Mary as the mother of God.

They are concerned with Mary mainly to depict the birth of Jesus. Then they begin to ignore her for the rest of the Bible so much (except of some small details in the Jesus's story) that it must be very strange to you, with your view of her being so theologically important and high being.

What is your explanation for such ignorance by the writers of the New Testament?

myst33 said:

They depict Jesus as God, but never Mary as the mother of God.

They are concerned with Mary mainly to depict the birth of Jesus. Then they begin to ignore her for the rest of the Bible so much (except of some small details in the Jesus's story) that it must be very strange to you, with your view of her being so theologically important and high being.

What is your explanation for such ignorance by the writers of the New Testament?

Click to expand...

Forgive me, but the first sentence of your post is literally contradictory. If Jesus is God, and Mary gave birth to Him, Mary becomes His Mother.

The Liturgist said:

If Jesus is God, and Mary gave birth to Him, Mary becomes His Mother.

Click to expand...

This is exactly the route of logic the biblical writers never went into. Why?

No decent translation says "on the contrary". Most translations simply say "rather", meaning "It is not only my mother who is so blessed, but rather, this same blessing is available to all of you as well".