Role of Mary

[Bulldog]

Yes-thank you for pointing that out. I guess I'll go with number one.

 

[RonBa]

But this is not what Christ taught? he said nothing about Mary in his teachings neither did Paul

Excellent point.

Once Jesus went back to heaven, Mary is not mentioned in the Bible.

She has role in Salvation at all.

 

[vanshan]

She is the Theotokos -- the Bearer of God.

 

[Oblio]

Without our humanity from the Theotokos and given of free will to Christ we are not saved. Without Him being fully God we are not saved. So it is not enough for her to have motherhood as Joseph had fatherhood. He took His very flesh from her, the flesh that is assumed and then saved by His death and Resurrection. That which is not assumed is not healed !

We affirm two things in the Nicean Creed:

That He is True God and that He was Incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.

The True God was Incarnate of the Holy Sprit and the Virgin Mary

 

[Lynn73]

Mary was the vessel that God chose to bring Jesus into the world. That's all. She was a godly, young woman but that's all she was. She needed a Savior just like the rest of us and Jesus died for her sins too. Too much attention is given to her instead of the one she brought forth, Jesus. He is our Savior and Lord. She can be remembered but it is Jesus whom we should be looking at and paying attention to. Which do we give more attention to, the gift or the box it came in?

 

[oldrooster]

She was Jesus' mom, sorta like the Queen's husband....

 

[Oblio]

Mary was the vessel that God chose to bring Jesus into the world. That's all. She was a godly, young woman but that's all she was.

She was more than a vessel, our very humanity was given to Christ by her assent to the Angel Gabriel. If she were just a vessel then a cow could have been a surrogate mother for Christ.

She needed a Savior just like the rest of us and Jesus died for her sins too.

I want to state this next point very clearly. No orthodox Christian believes otherwise. The title Mother of God is about Christ and who He is. Affriming this does not in any way state or imply that she did not need a Saviour. We see this in the hymns and iconography of the Church where she is taken up to heaven by Christ, He very clearly saves her as he does to those of us who abide in Him and do the will of the Father.

 

[SPALATIN]

I think in some ways we could say she was both as we say we are both Sinner and Saint. I don't think that Mary knew everything that was going to happen to her son and probably at times felt that she needed to protect him as he was growing up. However, as Luther pointed out she was always a virgin.

 

[McCravey]

Mary is very speical.

She was a woman...but that does not lessen her value to us and to God.

She was and is highly favoured.

Jesus has a relationship to her as a son to a mother...and also as a savior.

He was in her before he was born....he was in her after his death.

 

[Axion]

Excellent point.

Once Jesus went back to heaven, Mary is not mentioned in the Bible.

Actually she is mentioned in Rev 12.

She has role in Salvation at all

And does Eve have no role in salvation either?.

 

[McCravey]

She was more than a vessel, our very humanity was given to Christ by her assent to the Angel Gabriel. If she were just a vessel then a cow could have been a surrogate mother for Christ.



I want to state this next point very clearly. No orthodox Christian believes otherwise. The title Mother of God is about Christ and who He is. Affriming this does not in any way state or imply that she did not need a Saviour. We see this in the hymns and iconography of the Church where she is taken up to heaven by Christ, He very clearly saves her as he does to those of us who abide in Him and do the will of the Father.

I agree. Christ carried his humanity through her....thank God for her!

 

[Axion]

I'll go with Lotar, that she is both. She is "Mother of God" only in the fact that she was in the relationship of "mother" to Jesus, who was God. In this sense, Joseph was also the "Father of God," since he played the role of "father" to Jesus, who was God even when He was a little child.

No. Mary is Mother of God, because she is real physical mother of God the Son, the ONE person, Jesus Christ - who is fully God, begotten of the Father, and Fully Man, flesh of Mary. Joseph is not the real father of Jesus, God is. Joseph is adoptive father.

Mary was not "mother" in the sense of "originator" of Jesus' divine side, so she was only "mother" of His divine side in that she was "mother" of all of Him in how she related to Him. In the same way today, someone can adopt a child and be its "mother," though not the "genetic predecessor" of that child. Mary was the "mother of God," but she was only the "predecessor" of Jesus' human part, not His divine part.

This is moving dangerously toward the major heresy of Docetism. You seem to be saying that Mary is just the adoptive parent of Jesus, and that he therefore took nothing from her. That would be to deny the reality of the Incarnation.

Mary IS the genetic predecessor of Jesus, in that His human flesh and human nature come from her. These are eternally united in one person, who is fully God and fully man. Mary is not and cannot be mother of "part" of a person. She is mother of Jesus Christ, God the Son.

 

[McCravey]

The major problem people seem to have with her is that they do not want her elevated above other humanity.....this is wrong thinking.

She is not only elevated...... but she evelates us all in the process.

We all should think a little better of ourselves.

 

[SumTinWong]

Excellent point.

Once Jesus went back to heaven, Mary is not mentioned in the Bible.

She has role in Salvation at all.

I beg to differ she is mentioned starting in Luke 1:27, and is found in a few more references, like Matthew 13:55.

I think this is argument is getting really old really fast. There are two sides to this argument, and both sides are in effect right. One will say without Mary saying yes, Jesus would not have been born into this world. The other camp says without God there would have been no birth in the first place and so Mary had nothing to do with it. Now I fall into the court that it was mostly God, as it was His idea, and His son that was sacrificed. But I do not deny that Mary was important in that act. Her response to the angel is also important:

So Mary said, “Yes, I am a servant of the Lord; let this happen to me according to your word.”

Had she said no, would Jesus have been born in that time and would we at this point be saved from our sins? Could God have found another person? Yes He could. But He didn't have to. God in His infinite wisdom chose Mary a humble girl to be the bearer, and earthly mother of His Son Jesus. I really think it does her a dishonor by portraying her as a mere vessel of the action that God wanted accomplished. If that is the case then so are we, so was Paul, Moses, Abraham, and even Peter. We hold what these men did as great and we honor them, why can't we do the same with Mary?

But what does all this mean to us now?

Some Protestants tend to focus on God, and sometimes deny the fact that Mary did play a very big role in God fulfilling His plan through her. I do believe as do the Catholics, that we can learn alot from this woman, and when the Lord calls us to serve we should do what she did and let it be. She is a true example of what a totally selfless act can do to the lives of many. And to be honest I do not think it a bad thing to try and imitate her response to God.

Many have tried to allegorize and create doctrines to further state what I stated above. Some have even tried to say that she was sinless, which to me does her another great dishonor. Sin is by definition, the active rebellion against God. If Mary was free from all sin (or rebellion against God), then she had no capability to say no to God. In effect it would seem that God stacked the deck by asking her to do what she did, if he removed the ability to say no, or to rebel. It seems to me that this is a dishonest thing to do, and not one I would associate with God. In every instance of asking someone to do something for Him, God gives the chance to say no. He did the same for Mary.

To me it seems that Mary was a wonderful child, and God saw fit to use her as the person in which His child would be born. That is a great honor, as God does not offer to use everyone to bear His child into the world, and she will be forever known as blessed because of it.

That is where the story of Mary ends for me, because that is where the story for her really ends in the Bible. She is mentioned at the wedding, and in passing at the cross, and at Pentecost. She very well may have been a great Saint while here on earth but anything written after the fact or any doctrines created about her are at this point all conjecture. I will instead stick with what I know, and I will always call her what she was:A saint and Blessed among women.

JMHO

 

[Yebo]

Greetings from a sunny South Africa

so you are saying she was mother of Jesus the human??
Jesus was both human and God so how can that be??

Jesus is 100% God and 100% man.

 

[SPALATIN]

I think the problem that many Protestants have is that while they agree about her being the chosen one to be mother to the Christ they often see her as only human afterwards and having no special purpose. They also don't believe that she was like Elijah taken into heaven without dying. I'm not sure but I believe Catholic tradition supports this but scripture is silent about what happened to her.

 

[SumTinWong]

I think the problem that many Protestants have is that while they agree about her being the chosen one to be mother to the Christ they often see her as only human afterwards and having no special purpose. They also don't believe that she was like Elijah taken into heaven without dying. I'm not sure but I believe Catholic tradition supports this but scripture is silent about what happened to her.

Bingo. We have a winner. I see her as human before and after the birth of the Messiah, and there is nothing in the Bible to refute that.

 

[Oblio]

Bingo. We have a winner. I see her as human before and after the birth of the Messiah, and there is nothing in the Bible to refute that.

I don't think any here would argue that.
We would say that she definately had a special purpose, both prior to and after the Nativity of our Lord. We have established the prior purpose, afterwards she was responsible for the upbringing and protection of our Lord, just like any mother. What made it special was Who she was mothering.

 

[SumTinWong]

I don't think any here would argue that.
We would say that she definately had a special purpose, both prior to and after the Nativity of our Lord. We have established the prior purpose, afterwards she was responsible for the upbringing and protection of our Lord, just like any mother. What made it special was Who she was mothering.

Again we would be in agreement. She raised the child Jesus, and that was a special act.

 

[Axion]

Many have tried to allegorize and create doctrines to further state what I stated above. Some have even tried to say that she was sinless, which to me does her another great dishonor. Sin is by definition, the active rebellion against God. If Mary was free from all sin (or rebellion against God), then she had no capability to say no to God. In effect it would seem that God stacked the deck by asking her to do what she did, if he removed the ability to say no, or to rebel. It seems to me that this is a dishonest thing to do, and not one I would associate with God. In every instance of asking someone to do something for Him, God gives the chance to say no. He did the same for Mary.

To say someone is born free from original sin is not the same as saying they have no free will. Gabriel, Lucifer, Adam and Eve all came into existence free from original sin. Yet they still had a Free Will and chose to use it in very different ways. So did and does Mary.

To me it seems that Mary was a wonderful child, and God saw fit to use her as the person in which His child would be born. That is a great honor, as God does not offer to use everyone to bear His child into the world, and she will be forever known as blessed because of it.

Mary was a child??? Not an adult. Rather patronising.

That is where the story of Mary ends for me, because that is where the story for her really ends in the Bible.

Only if you choose to ignore so much else that is there.