Is there salvation without Mary?

[The Liturgist]

Her being His Mom would make her aware of His abilities, but that does not mean we should pray to her. Jesus never once says to do that. Yes she is blessed. So are we as Christians. She found favor by being a virgin and Elizabeth found favor also, even though she was an old barren woman. The Bible does not say too much about Mary after Jesus died, and from what I have heard from people who can see in the spirit, they say that all of the earthly prayers given to Mary actually grieve her because she was not divine, could not perform miracles, and as a woman cannot intercede for anyone. She may be Jesus mother, but in heaven there is a hierarchy and women know their place. No one can intercede for us but Jesus and maybe the Archangels, but the truth is that Mary was a human soul that died like everyone else dies. She never performed miracles. She was not a Saint. She did not remain a virgin and she was not without sin. The only man who knew no sin is Jesus Christ. This is why I have a problem when people say that Jesus robbed the grave. Our Lord never stole anything and to accredit Him to a common thief is blasphemous to me.

My dear Jaxxi, I fear you have gotten ahead of me. My point is that we should give her credit where it is due. I also said that if someone feels uncomfortable with the Hail Mary then they should not say it. There is also one particular Orthodox version in the pocket-sized prayer book the Antiochian Orthodox Church publishes, which is very nice, which blesses her but does not ask her for anything. However, regarding her perpetual virginity, remember that there is enough evidence of that so that all of the Reformers up to and including John Wesley believed in it.

Also, a Saint is anyone who is a Christian and is therefore holy by their faith in Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I am a saint and you are a Saint. Some of us, however, will not persevere. But if someone is in Heaven, and you and I agree that Mary is in Heaven, they are still a Christian; those Christians alive in this world are the Church Militant, and those in Heaven are the Church Triumphant, so Mary is absolutely a saint, as are all other Christians alive in Heaven and alive in this world. This is why you see Protestant churches dedicated to Saint Mary.

The only reason not to call every departed Christian a saint is that we don’t always know who persevered in the faith and who did not. But according to Jesus Christ, “He who confesses me before men I will confess before the Father,” so it is a safe assumption that everyone ever killed for refusing to renounce their faith in Christ, as recently several Coptic and Ethiopian Christians were killed by ISIS in Libya for refusing to profess the Islamic creed (the Shahadah, in which a Muslim or someone converting to Islam declares there is no God but God and Mohammed was his prophet), along with a Ghanaian who was with the Copts, who declared “Their god is my God” whose prior religion was unknown, but most likely Christian based on the demographics of Ghana, for the other major religion there is Islam, but even if he had been a Muslim or an adherent of Voodoo or an indigenous religion (a tiny minority of Ghanaians believe in those), the act of dying for Christ is called Baptism by Blood; one becomes a Christian and a saint the moment they are killed for confessing a belief in Jesus Christ.

This fellowship in the Church, between the saints who persevered, were saved and are in Heaven, and the saints who are on Earth hoping to persevere and be saved, is referred to by the Apostle’s Creed as “The Communion of the Saints.”

Remember always the important and unifying feature of Christianity is love. The worst thing we can do with regards to Mary is hate each other over differences in doctrine between denominations regarding her specific role. God has commanded us to love one another. This is why I address you as a saint, because St. Paul, who was beheaded by the Romans for his faith in Christ (he was beheaded rather than crucified because his status as a Roman citizen granted him that privilege of a swift death), and is thus a saint, addressed his Epistles “to the saints in (the name of the city he was writing to).” Because we are holy, and our holiness comes from love, which makes us closer to God, because as it says in the Bible, God is love.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Dude, that’s just not the case. You seriously need to reread your Gospels, and I mean this in a loving way, because I think you’re an awesome guy with great moral values. Matthew 2 is all about Mary and Joseph and the Nativity. Only Luke 1 goes into detail on the Nativity of John the Baptist, and it also goes into detail on the Nativity of our Lord; the Virgin Mary, who was related to Elizabeth, visits her, and that is where she sings the canticle known as the Magnificat (Zecariah sings the Benedicite, and Symeon sings the Nunc Dimitis, three of the most beautiful hymns in Christianity, all in the opening part of Luke). But the Nativity of our Lord is the theme in both Matthew and Luke, whereas only Luke mentions the Nativity of John the Baptist.

Also, while John the Baptist was special in terms of his nativity, owing to the age of his father, Jesus was more special, because Mary conceived without losing her virginity, and Joseph is not the Father of our Lord but rather his guardian. The Heavenly Father of our Lord Jesus Christ does receive considerable attention in the scriptures.

It doesn’t bother me if you feel that we should pray only to God, as many Protestants are of that opinion, but I am troubled by the fact that you claimed something about the Gospels which is completely inaccurate.

Yes, it is true that some Roman Catholics take Marian devotions way too far and worship her, in violation of the Second Commandment. There is a cult called the Palmerian Catholic Church which has revived the Collyridian heresy and claims the Virgin Mary is present in the Eucharist. And there are some Roman Catholics who want her declared Co-Redemptrix based on the visions of Ida Peerdeman, which the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith when it was run by the future Pope Benedict XVI determined were “not worthy of belief.” The apparitions at Medjugorje were also certainly false, the experience of teenagers who admitted to smoking marijuana, which the local Franciscans exploited in their century-long power struggle (now, one and a half centuries long) with the Diocese of Mostar to avoid ceding control of parishes to the diocese, which they were supposed to have completed by the late 1890s, as Herzegovina had ceased to be part of the Ottoman Empire and had become part of Austria-Hungary, and as such, was no longer under the purview of the Congregatio Propaganda Fide, to be served by mendicant friars who had been given charge of the area as a province, but was rather divided into normal dioceses, but for some reason, the Friars in Mostar have been contumant and have dug in, and the Medjugorje vision gave them an excuse to retain control of the parish church of St. James. And a film was made starring Martin Sheen villainizing the Bishop of Mostar. So please, by all means, oppose this kind of false worship of the Virgin Mary. And if you personally are uncomfortable with the Hail Mary prayer, as a Protestant, I can’t object to that.

But please do not depart from the doctrine of Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, Philip Melanchthon, and John Wesley, by deprecating the role of the Virgin Mary in the birth of Christ, which is unique and special, and which was prophesized by Isaiah, and which does receive about twice as much direct coverage in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Additionally, the Gospel of John features the Virgin Mary in several sections. And the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon did reject Nestorianism and the idea that Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ but not God, because John 1:1-17 clearly shows the two are one person, and other scriptures show that the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ is united without change, confusion or separation, and Martin Luther and most of the reformers believed in the principle of Communicatio Idiomatum, wherein what one can say about the deity of Christ applies to His humanity and vice versa, because in Him God and man were united, which is why we call His birth and life the Incarnation. And by the way, the Reformers I mentioned did also believe in the perpetual Virginity of Christ. As I see it, if we aren’t going to adhere to the very careful and deliberate reconstruction of the Apostolic faith they strove to implement, so that what had happened to the Western Church since the Great Schism of 1054, indeed, since two or three centuries before the Great Schism, would not be repeated, we become like the proverbial house built on sand, without a foundation, because we become disconnected with the early Church; we still have a Bible, but we can’t explain how it came to contain the books that it has, and we have no reason to even adhere to its canon or the Nicene Creed. At that point, we might as well incorporate whatever ancient apocryphal books we want.

But, even if one takes such an extreme approach, there is still the matter of sola scriptura reckoning, and you did make an error, and a substantial one, regarding the Virgin Mary. And I feel like you, being a virtuous Christian, were blinded by the neo-Collyridianism advocated by a minority of Roman Catholics, and this may have driven you to a point where you forgot about or misread the Gospels, and you are making the mistake of falling into the trap of Antidicomarianism, when the correct answer is to recognize Mary as someone blessed by God the Father, having been chosen to bear His only begotten son, conceived supernaturally and without coitus by the action of the Holy Spirit, and to be a mother to Him, while not worshipping her as a goddess.

All that and no mention of Mary's Parents. The Mother of the Mother of God gets no mention. When you pray to God and Pray to God's mother why not pray to Mary's mother too makes sense to me because if Mary's Mother didn't have Mary we wouldn't have Jesus.... right?

 

[prodromos]

The Bible does not say too much about Mary after Jesus died, and from what I have heard from people who can see in the spirit, they say that all of the earthly prayers given to Mary actually grieve her because she was not divine, could not perform miracles, and as a woman cannot intercede for anyone.

I find it ironic that you claim something with no Biblical basis (seeing in the spirit) as an authority against something else you claim has no Biblical basis. How does that work?

 

[The Liturgist]

All that and no mention of Mary's Parents. The Mother of the Mother of God gets no mention. When you pray to God and Pray to God's mother why not pray to Mary's mother too makes sense to me because if Mary's Mother didn't have Mary we wouldn't have Jesus.... right?

Every Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy concludes with intercessory prayers to the most important saints including Joachim and Anna, and they are venerated to an extreme degree as the maternal grandparents of Christ. The Roman Catholics furthermore believe that Joachim and Anna conceived Mary immaculately, a necessary Augustinian position since under Augustine, original sin is transmitted venereally through coition, rather than ancestrally as taught by John Cassian.

Also, Joachim and Anna were extensively mentioned in the Protoevangelium of James, but Athanasius decided not to include it in the canon, since he doubted either the Apostle James the Great the brother of the Apostle John, or James the son of Alfeus, the Brother of our Lord, wrote it, and the basic story it contained was already included in the liturgy of the church, rendering it superfluous.

In retrospect this may have been an error, because by removing the scripture which addressed the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, this created problems when all of tradition was re-evaluated in light of Scripture by the Protestants in response to misconduct by the Roman Catholic Church under a succession of really bad Popes, culminating with Alexander VI of the Borgias, Julius II and Leo X, who I believe most Roman Catholics abhorr, and the actions of Julius II and Leo X directly caused the Reformation by pushing Martin Luther, a fearless intellectual, over the edge. And I personally think St. Athanasius, since the Arians, the main heretics of his day, did not claim anything like sola scriptura, but rather tried to argue their cult was the faith of the Apostles, did not anticipate a situation where Scripture would be used as the test of faith rather than as an exposition of faith already held and expressed liturgically, as Scripture itself refers to an Apostolic tradition, or kerygma, which was handed down (traditore), and this Paradosis was the Deposit of Faith, although other verses do support Scriptural vetting. Either that, or St. Athanasius did not regard the doctrines concerning the Nativity of the Theotokos important enough to justify including a work that he regarded as spurious, to the extent that unlike the Shepherd of Hermas, he did not commend it to a role as material for the edification of catechumens outside of the church.

But the Church Fathers are individually not infallible; Athanasius left quite a bit out of the Old Testament including Esther, but regarded Judith as protocanonical, and this was reversed by the early church in the following centuries. And I myself can find no doctrinal fault in the Protoevangelium of James.

So many liberal Christians want us to include Thomas, which is clearly a text that, while probably authentic, was modified by Gnostics, and it would have to be modified again to remove the Gnostic content, a dubious enterprise, but if we assume the canon is not closed and we can add to the New Testament (and interestingly my understanding from @MarkRohfrietsch is that the Lutheran church does not have a closed canon), the Protoevangelium of James would address your question. Although the hymns from the Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox liturgies of the Nativity of the Theotokos (especially, those of Vespers and Matins, or from the Coptic Psalmody) would provide the same benefit without departing from the scriptural canon.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Every Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy concludes with intercessory prayers to the most important saints including Joachim and Anna, and they are venerated to an extreme degree as the maternal grandparents of Christ. The Roman Catholics furthermore believe that Joachim and Anna conceived Mary immaculately, a necessary Augustinian position since under Augustine, original sin is transmitted venereally through coition, rather than ancestrally as taught by John Cassian.

Also, Joachim and Anna were extensively mentioned in the Protoevangelium of James, but Athanasius decided not to include it in the canon, since he doubted either the Apostle James the Great the brother of the Apostle John, or James the son of Alfeus, the Brother of our Lord, wrote it, and the basic story it contained was already included in the liturgy of the church, rendering it superfluous.

In retrospect this may have been an error, because by removing the scripture which addressed the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, this created problems when all of tradition was re-evaluated in light of Scripture by the Protestants in response to misconduct by the Roman Catholic Church under a succession of really bad Popes, culminating with Alexander VI of the Borgias, Julius II and Leo X, who I believe most Roman Catholics abhorr, and the actions of Julius II and Leo X directly caused the Reformation by pushing Martin Luther, a fearless intellectual, over the edge. And I personally think St. Athanasius, since the Arians, the main heretics of his day, did not claim anything like sola scriptura, but rather tried to argue their cult was the faith of the Apostles, did not anticipate a situation where Scripture would be used as the test of faith rather than as an exposition of faith already held and expressed liturgically, as Scripture itself refers to an Apostolic tradition, or kerygma, which was handed down (traditore), and this Paradosis was the Deposit of Faith, although other verses do support Scriptural vetting. Either that, or St. Athanasius did not regard the doctrines concerning the Nativity of the Theotokos important enough to justify including a work that he regarded as spurious, to the extent that unlike the Shepherd of Hermas, he did not commend it to a role as material for the edification of catechumens outside of the church.

But the Church Fathers are individually not infallible; Athanasius left quite a bit out of the Old Testament including Esther, but regarded Judith as protocanonical, and this was reversed by the early church in the following centuries. And I myself can find no doctrinal fault in the Protoevangelium of James.

So many liberal Christians want us to include Thomas, which is clearly a text that, while probably authentic, was modified by Gnostics, and it would have to be modified again to remove the Gnostic content, a dubious enterprise, but if we assume the canon is not closed and we can add to the New Testament (and interestingly my understanding from @MarkRohfrietsch is that the Lutheran church does not have a closed canon), the Protoevangelium of James would address your question. Although the hymns from the Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox liturgies of the Nativity of the Theotokos (especially, those of Vespers and Matins, or from the Coptic Psalmody) would provide the same benefit without departing from the scriptural canon.

The problem is... the Bible itself doesn't consider Mary's parents important enough to list we can only try and assume from a book that isn't widely accepted by scholars. Jesus parents is Important Mary's doesn't seem to be at all which to me speaks less of her importance vs Jesus and John the Baptist... yes John the Baptist seems more important than Mary in the Bible as Mary did her 1 thing mentioned (give birth to Jesus) and only get a brief mention here and there while we see John the Baptist front and center in the Bible in a very important ceremony. We see mention of the parents of everyone else in the Bible coming up to Joseph's parents... not Mary's so is Joseph more important than Mary is?

 

[prodromos]

The problem is... the Bible itself doesn't consider Mary's parents important enough to list

It would be somewhat redundant as the Church which safeguarded the memoirs of the Apostles and compiled that self same Bible, considers Mary and her parents to be extremely important. They are commemorated in the same Liturgy during which those memoirs of the Apostles are read out loud.

 

[Sophrosyne]

It would be somewhat redundant as the Church which safeguarded the memoirs of the Apostles and compiled that self same Bible, considers Mary and her parents to be extremely important. They are commemorated in the same Liturgy during which those memoirs of the Apostles are read out loud.

If you say so, The problem with the logic is when one persons parents are "exalted" and compared to another parents that aren't "exalted" and the reasons just don't seem to make sense. I just do not see the "importance" that is foisted upon Mary in the writings of the Bible that doesn't go anywhere near that level. Paul who is the apostle to the Gentiles doesn't put a lot of importance on Mary instead puts more importance on Abraham I think
but we don't have him being prayed to and he is the great great.... grandfather of Mary she wouldn't exist if he didn't believe and trust in God as much as Mary did or more.. putting his son to death vs bearing a child I'm not sure you can compare the two. Abraham's life was full of stories of his faith and trust.. Mary's... doesn't seem to
be that way in the Bible she all but vanishes till something Jesus does concerns her, Abraham was responsible for a large group of people while Mary.... either one person (as some believe) or a small family of a few.
Basically it seems the Bible rather downplays Mary after Jesus is born she sort of vanishes into the background. John the Baptist gets more "press" than she does and she didn't even write one book of the Bible, Paul should be the one we pray to as he seems to have the Holy Spirit pouring out over half the New Testament through him. I don't see one miracle performed by Mary other than birth of Jesus, I don't see her being hunted down and put to death like the apostles were seems even the Jews at that time didn't think a lot about her.

 

[Jaxxi]

Dude, that’s just not the case. You seriously need to reread your Gospels, and I mean this in a loving way, because I think you’re an awesome guy with great moral values. Matthew 2 is all about Mary and Joseph and the Nativity. Only Luke 1 goes into detail on the Nativity of John the Baptist, and it also goes into detail on the Nativity of our Lord; the Virgin Mary, who was related to Elizabeth, visits her, and that is where she sings the canticle known as the Magnificat (Zecariah sings the Benedicite, and Symeon sings the Nunc Dimitis, three of the most beautiful hymns in Christianity, all in the opening part of Luke). But the Nativity of our Lord is the theme in both Matthew and Luke, whereas only Luke mentions the Nativity of John the Baptist.

Also, while John the Baptist was special in terms of his nativity, owing to the age of his father, Jesus was more special, because Mary conceived without losing her virginity, and Joseph is not the Father of our Lord but rather his guardian. The Heavenly Father of our Lord Jesus Christ does receive considerable attention in the scriptures.

It doesn’t bother me if you feel that we should pray only to God, as many Protestants are of that opinion, but I am troubled by the fact that you claimed something about the Gospels which is completely inaccurate.

Yes, it is true that some Roman Catholics take Marian devotions way too far and worship her, in violation of the Second Commandment. There is a cult called the Palmerian Catholic Church which has revived the Collyridian heresy and claims the Virgin Mary is present in the Eucharist. And there are some Roman Catholics who want her declared Co-Redemptrix based on the visions of Ida Peerdeman, which the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith when it was run by the future Pope Benedict XVI determined were “not worthy of belief.” The apparitions at Medjugorje were also certainly false, the experience of teenagers who admitted to smoking marijuana, which the local Franciscans exploited in their century-long power struggle (now, one and a half centuries long) with the Diocese of Mostar to avoid ceding control of parishes to the diocese, which they were supposed to have completed by the late 1890s, as Herzegovina had ceased to be part of the Ottoman Empire and had become part of Austria-Hungary, and as such, was no longer under the purview of the Congregatio Propaganda Fide, to be served by mendicant friars who had been given charge of the area as a province, but was rather divided into normal dioceses, but for some reason, the Friars in Mostar have been contumant and have dug in, and the Medjugorje vision gave them an excuse to retain control of the parish church of St. James. And a film was made starring Martin Sheen villainizing the Bishop of Mostar. So please, by all means, oppose this kind of false worship of the Virgin Mary. And if you personally are uncomfortable with the Hail Mary prayer, as a Protestant, I can’t object to that.

But please do not depart from the doctrine of Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, Philip Melanchthon, and John Wesley, by deprecating the role of the Virgin Mary in the birth of Christ, which is unique and special, and which was prophesized by Isaiah, and which does receive about twice as much direct coverage in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Additionally, the Gospel of John features the Virgin Mary in several sections. And the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon did reject Nestorianism and the idea that Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ but not God, because John 1:1-17 clearly shows the two are one person, and other scriptures show that the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ is united without change, confusion or separation, and Martin Luther and most of the reformers believed in the principle of Communicatio Idiomatum, wherein what one can say about the deity of Christ applies to His humanity and vice versa, because in Him God and man were united, which is why we call His birth and life the Incarnation. And by the way, the Reformers I mentioned did also believe in the perpetual Virginity of Christ. As I see it, if we aren’t going to adhere to the very careful and deliberate reconstruction of the Apostolic faith they strove to implement, so that what had happened to the Western Church since the Great Schism of 1054, indeed, since two or three centuries before the Great Schism, would not be repeated, we become like the proverbial house built on sand, without a foundation, because we become disconnected with the early Church; we still have a Bible, but we can’t explain how it came to contain the books that it has, and we have no reason to even adhere to its canon or the Nicene Creed. At that point, we might as well incorporate whatever ancient apocryphal books we want.

But, even if one takes such an extreme approach, there is still the matter of sola scriptura reckoning, and you did make an error, and a substantial one, regarding the Virgin Mary. And I feel like you, being a virtuous Christian, were blinded by the neo-Collyridianism advocated by a minority of Roman Catholics, and this may have driven you to a point where you forgot about or misread the Gospels, and you are making the mistake of falling into the trap of Antidicomarianism, when the correct answer is to recognize Mary as someone blessed by God the Father, having been chosen to bear His only begotten son, conceived supernaturally and without coitus by the action of the Holy Spirit, and to be a mother to Him, while not worshipping her as a goddess.

It is true that to say Mary is the mother of God is a true statement. What is the doctrine of Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, Philip Melanchthon, and John Wesley? Are they Biblical? Is the doctrine of John Smith valid also,? Do Catholics worship Mary as a Goddess? In a sense I think they might but that breaks the first commandment big time doesn't it? What is your view on the stigmata? I think this phenomenon cannot be ignored but I am just not sure if it's source but it has been documented.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

\Paul who is the apostle to the Gentiles doesn't put a lot of importance on Mary instead puts more importance on Abraham I think
but we don't have him being prayed to and he is the great great.... grandfather of Mary she wouldn't exist if he didn't believe and trust in God as much as Mary did or more..

The Righteous Forefather Abraham is celebrated among the ancestors of Christ. His life prefigures Christ's. Some examples, many will be saved due to Abraham. Abraham welcomed the three Angels and one of the most famous icons, the Hospitality of Abraham was painted by Rublev. He supped with Melchizidek in what prefigures the Mystical Supper.

The Orthodox Faith - Volume I - Doctrine and Scripture - Salvation History - Abraham

The three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

 

[renniks]

So Mary was not unique in that respect. But she definitely understood after the Resurrection.

So? That just makes her like any other diciple. She needed saved as much as anyone. Which the Catholic doctrine denies, making her on a level with Jesus as far as sinlessness.

 

[Jaxxi]

She was certainly mystified at first, when she consented to God’s request as conveyed by the archangel, but by the time she visited her cousin Elizabeth it becomes clear from the Magnificat that she was beginning to understand the importance of the child she was bearing and the child her cousin was bearing. And by the time of the Gospel of John, she clearly knew of his power, even though He had not yet begun His ministry. But none of the Disciples understood how salvation was going to work until after Christ was crucified and rose from the grave, and furthermore, they still needed to receive the Holy Spirit to act on that information, which happened on Pentecost. So Mary was not unique in that respect. But she definitely understood after the Resurrection.



She volunteered; her cooperation was optional. Our salvation was facilitated by God becoming incarnate, and he became incarnate through being born of a woman, the Virgin Mary, through the action of the Holy Spirit. So she is a part of our salvation in that she was a mother to the incarnate Word of God, who was God, and she and Joseph did protect him from Herrod by traveling to Egypt following the warning of the three Magi, and they did raise Him and raise Him well, and represent exemplary parents. So yes, she did participate in the economy of salvation in an important role, for which she volunteered, although she is not, as a minority of Roman Catholics claim, co-redemptrix.

Oh so she wasn't chosen, she volunteered? So she had a choice and God was like" You are my first choice but either way He will be born. You are just my first option."?

 

[prodromos]

Oh so she wasn't chosen, she volunteered? So she had a choice and God was like" You are my first choice but either way He will be born. You are just my first option."?

Do you have a problem with God's foreknowledge that Mary would consent to being His choice?

 

[Jaxxi]

Do you have a problem with God's foreknowledge that Mary would consent to being His choice?

No not at all. I have a problem with people putting so much stock and weight on a woman who does not have the authority to do anything for them as it grieves her deeply. She was not divine. She performed no miracles. She was at the wedding! Why didn't she turn the water to wine? Because she couldn't. Only Jesus can do anything and that is who we pray to. Mary did not remain a virgin, or die a virgin. She did not die as the Virgin Mary. I do not mean any disrespect.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Accepting the word is one thing. Like I had said, we are not told to do what the angels do unless we are told by God. If God sends His angel Gabriel to you and tells you to do Hail Marys and pray to Mary then do it! Otherwise, you shouldn't because it isn't Biblical.

The Hail Mary is Scripture. The words themselves are taken verbatim from the Bible.

That's why it was said that Gabriel did a "Hail Mary"--he's the one who said, "Hail Mary, highly favored one, the Lord is with you". And it was Elizabeth who said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

It's like saying that praying the Our Father isn't biblical--it's literally the words of the Bible, the words Jesus Himself used when teaching His disciples to pray, it's His prayer.

One can argue that asking the saints has no basis in Scripture; but the Hail Mary is (mostly) the words of the Scripture themselves.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Jaxxi]

Mary is blessed above all women, because her son was also God’s son. The reason God sent Jesus to earth was to save it. Here are some scriptures that identify Jesus as the savior:

John 14:6 “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (NIV)

John 3:16-17“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.”(KJV)

We know Jesus is the Savior. That is why we are here! So we pray to Jesus! Why didn't Mary turn the water to wine at the wedding? Because she couldn't.

 

[Jaxxi]

The Hail Mary is Scripture. The words themselves are taken verbatim from the Bible.

That's why it was said that Gabriel did a "Hail Mary"--he's the one who said, "Hail Mary, highly favored one, the Lord is with you". And it was Elizabeth who said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

It's like saying that praying the Our Father isn't biblical--it's literally the words of the Bible, the words Jesus Himself used when teaching His disciples to pray, it's His prayer.

One can argue that asking the saints has no basis in Scripture; but the Hail Mary is (mostly) the words of the Scripture themselves.

-CryptoLutheran

And how many times is it written? One or forty? Why do they repeat it over and over? Do they think God didn't hear them the first time? Mary's womb was blessed yes. But Mary is not given any power to perform miracles and she never blessed anyone. How can she offer Salvation to anyone when that comes from God Alone?

 

[ViaCrucis]

And how many times is it written? One or forty? Why do they repeat it over and over? Do they think God didn't hear them the first time? Mary's womb was blessed yes. But Mary is not given any power to perform miracles and she never blessed anyone. How can she offer Salvation to anyone when that comes from God Alone?

Mary can't save anyone, neither does anyone believe she can. But she is the mother of our Salvation, Jesus Christ Himself. And she is blessed among women, the highly favored one of God.

Repeating a prayer isn't about God not being able to hear us or not. Prayer is a form of devotion to God.

Apply the same reasoning to the singing of hymns and other sacred songs of worship. Is the fact that we repeat parts of the song, such a chorus or refrain, mean we think God didn't hear us? Of course not.

I don't petition the Blessed Virgin, or any of the holy saints, for their prayer--that's just not part of my practice as a Lutheran. Though I have the utmost confidence in the prayers of all the holy saints and angels in heaven for us, as the word of God bears witness.

Nor do I believe in reports of Marian visions and miracles; though I have no reason to exclude such a thing as impossible if it's within the will of God. God's will is God's will.

The only thing I wanted to point out is that the words of the Hail Mary are, mostly, taken directly verbatim from Scripture. And so there's no reason to take an issue with the very word of Scripture.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Jaxxi]

Mary can't save anyone, neither does anyone believe she can. But she is the mother of our Salvation, Jesus Christ Himself. And she is blessed among women, the highly favored one of God.

Repeating a prayer isn't about God not being able to hear us or not. Prayer is a form of devotion to God.

Apply the same reasoning to the singing of hymns and other sacred songs of worship. Is the fact that we repeat parts of the song, such a chorus or refrain, mean we think God didn't hear us? Of course not.

I don't petition the Blessed Virgin, or any of the holy saints, for their prayer--that's just not part of my practice as a Lutheran. Though I have the utmost confidence in the prayers of all the holy saints and angels in heaven for us, as the word of God bears witness.

Nor do I believe in reports of Marian visions and miracles; though I have no reason to exclude such a thing as impossible if it's within the will of God. God's will is God's will.

The only thing I wanted to point out is that the words of the Hail Mary are, mostly, taken directly verbatim from Scripture. And so there's no reason to take an issue with the very word of Scripture.

-CryptoLutheran

That is very true. I did not think of it like that. That is not even my issue. I am not hostile be and I know I appear to be- I am just so worried about fellow Christians falling prey to what has become tradition but is possibly false doctrine because the notion of what HAS been placed on Mary is not Biblical. It is like the idea of Christmas-I celebrated Christmas my entire life before I realized it is a tradition of men- nowhere does the Bible tell us to celebrate Jesus birth, not does it give us His birthday but it gives enough clues to tell us it is not in December. So since days matter to the Lord, it is important to know what Dec. 25th actually was celebrated for, and about the Christmas Tree. Not only did Saturnalia use fir trees, it was actually celebrated around the end of December! A festival for feasting, celebration and helping those less fortunate, gifts were exchanged and lots of food was consumed. People even dressed up in their nicest clothes and drank lots of wine…Saturnalia was Pagan. So with the commercialization and Santa, and everything I decided my Lord is not going to celebrate His birthday by competing with Santa and elves, and reindeer and Snowmen and Rudolph and tradition. Satan does not love us on Christmas and if we think that he is going to let us have our perfect little holiday and take the day off we are mistaken. The more I looked in the Bible the more I found warnings of celebrating Christmas so last year I stopped. It was hard, but Christmas is not Biblical. We have to be careful. What worries me is satan has had 2000 years to get this right. He knows what works to get men into hell compared to our what 50-60 " know it all" years? We can rationalize and justify whatever but who is to say the wrong priest got some different info and made it a tradition with Mary to do certain things even though they are not Biblical and now the masses think a certain way but it is not Biblical! If it is not in the Bible then who is it of? We need to be careful and test everything we know and not just take some man's word for it because he is wearing a funny hat or robes. The scandals in the churches should remind us, these men could be wolves in sheep's clothing. What does the Bible say? I only hope that people search for whatever they have believed up until this point and try to find it in the Bible to make sure it is Biblical. I'm sorry if I come off too intense. I will chill out!

 

[ViaCrucis]

That is very true. I did not think of it like that. That is not even my issue. I am not hostile be and I know I appear to be- I am just so worried about fellow Christians falling prey to what has become tradition but is possibly false doctrine because the notion of what HAS been placed on Mary is not Biblical. It is like the idea of Christmas-I celebrated Christmas my entire life before I realized it is a tradition of men- nowhere does the Bible tell us to celebrate Jesus birth, not does it give us His birthday but it gives enough clues to tell us it is not in December. So since days matter to the Lord, it is important to know what Dec. 25th actually was celebrated for, and about the Christmas Tree. Not only did Saturnalia use fir trees, it was actually celebrated around the end of December! A festival for feasting, celebration and helping those less fortunate, gifts were exchanged and lots of food was consumed. People even dressed up in their nicest clothes and drank lots of wine…Saturnalia was Pagan. So with the commercialization and Santa, and everything I decided my Lord is not going to celebrate His birthday by competing with Santa and elves, and reindeer and Snowmen and Rudolph and tradition. Satan does not love us on Christmas and if we think that he is going to let us have our perfect little holiday and take the day off we are mistaken. The more I looked in the Bible the more I found warnings of celebrating Christmas so last year I stopped. It was hard, but Christmas is not Biblical. We have to be careful. What worries me is satan has had 2000 years to get this right. He knows what works to get men into hell compared to our what 50-60 " know it all" years? We can rationalize and justify whatever but who is to say the wrong priest got some different info and made it a tradition with Mary to do certain things even though they are not Biblical and now the masses think a certain way but it is not Biblical! If it is not in the Bible then who is it of? We need to be careful and test everything we know and not just take some man's word for it because he is wearing a funny hat or robes. The scandals in the churches should remind us, these men could be wolves in sheep's clothing. What does the Bible say? I only hope that people search for whatever they have believed up until this point and try to find it in the Bible to make sure it is Biblical. I'm sorry if I come off too intense. I will chill out!

As has been explained to you in previous conversations, your understanding about Christmas is incorrect. I'm not going to get into that again here.

But, let's examine your perspective on "tradition". You seem to be under the impression that if something isn't mentioned or commanded in the Bible then it is wrong.

The problem with that is this: Where does the Bible say that if something isn't mentioned in the Bible then it's wrong?

Or how about this, using only the Bible itself how do you determine which books should be in the Bible? Why do you accept the book of Esther as Scripture, but not Baruch? Again, using only what is explicitly written in the Bible.

The answer is that the books you receive as Scripture were given to you as extra-bibilcal tradition. The same tradition that honors Christ's birth.

"The Bible alone" in the sense of "anything not in the Bible is wrong" is erroneous. Not only is it erroneous, it actually undermines the authority of the Bible itself.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Jaxxi]

As has been explained to you in previous conversations, your understanding about Christmas is incorrect. I'm not going to get into that again here.

But, let's examine your perspective on "tradition". You seem to be under the impression that if something isn't mentioned or commanded in the Bible then it is wrong.

The problem with that is this: Where does the Bible say that if something isn't mentioned in the Bible then it's wrong?

Or how about this, using only the Bible itself how do you determine which books should be in the Bible? Why do you accept the book of Esther as Scripture, but not Baruch? Again, using only what is explicitly written in the Bible.

The answer is that the books you receive as Scripture were given to you as extra-bibilcal tradition. The same tradition that honors Christ's birth.

"The Bible alone" in the sense of "anything not in the Bible is wrong" is erroneous. Not only is it erroneous, it actually undermines the authority of the Bible itself.

-CryptoLutheran

The Apocrypha was in the Bible Jesus read, and was actually in the Bible close to 2000 years and was only removed in the last century. How is it that God wanted these writings as a part of His book and just recently they were removed. Did God say " Oh those were a mistake and should be omitted?
And I am not wrong about Christmas. Christmas Day did not start off as Jesus birthday and we know He was not born December 25. CBS news said "Christmas is really about bringing out your inner pagan," historian Kenneth C. Davis told "CBS This Morning." According to Davis, Christmas was celebrated as early as the fourth century, suggesting that it had almost nothing to do with Jesus Christ.In ancient Rome there was a feast called Saturnalia that celebrated the solstice. What is the solstice? It's the day that the sun starts coming back, the days start getting longer. And most of the traditions that we have that relate to Christmas relate to the solstice, which was celebrated in ancient Rome on December 25. So when Christianity became the official religion in a sense, in Rome, they were able to fix this date. ... There's a little discrepancy about it but there's no question that the fact that it was celebrated in Rome as an important day with gift giving, candle lighting, and singing and decorating houses really cemented Christmas as December 25."
Another custom we can thank the pagans for? Christmas trees. Davis explained that the evergreen trees signaled the "return of life" and "light" as the winter solstice meant the days were starting to get longer.

"They started to hang an apple on it, so little red balls on green trees — get the picture here? ... So all of these things celebrate the idea that life and light are coming back into the world, which is essentially what Christmas means to Christians around the world."
Davis also pointed out that the very first instance of a "war on Christmas" actually dates back to the Puritans in the mid-17th century.

"They knew all of these things, the date, the traditions, were pagan ideas. The Puritans banned Christmas for 20 years in America before the celebration became just too popular."

Christmas is not Biblical. Many Roman traditions are not Biblical. Many American customs are not Biblical. We just need to be careful that we know what we are doing and why. What are the origins of our traditions and are they what we stand for? If we don't we are just the blind leading the blind. People can do whatever they want. It is their business, their traditions, whatever but at the end of our lives, we are going to have to answer for why we were celebrating on Pagan holidays, and what made us think God wanted us to do certain things that He never told us. God is pretty clear about what He wants celebrated in the Bible. That is all I am saying.