WWJD Did Jesus Pray to Mary?

[Hammster]

Ha-ha.... now you are going play the authority card ..... huh? I love it!

And you are just going to avoid dealing with it.

 

[Fidelibus]

And you are just going to avoid dealing with it.

Well my friend, I can only surmise that you don't read my posts in their entirety. The reason being, I have suggested/invited you on numerous occasions to follow and participate in the discussion of Romans 3 I am having with timoyhyu. If you were to do so, you would see that I am making my case for the sinlessness of The Blessed Virgin Mary, and not avoiding anything.

For some reason, I have noticed some of timothyu's and mine latest posts have been deleted for reasons I don't know. I never received a reason why from the moderators. Can't help from feeling a little disappointed for we were just starting to get somewhere in our discussion.

Anyhoo..... if you are interested, you and I could continue on in discussing Romans 3. I will re-post where timothyu and I pretty much started, from post # 405.

So you are probably starting to wonder the significance me bringing up Romans 3:11. Well the reason being is, when I asked you where Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned, and if "all' is an absolute, you answerd with a yes, it is an absolute. So if Romans 3:23 is an absolute, then "no one" in Rom 3:11 must be an absolute as well,,,, right? So, when Protestants/ Sola Scripturists who says Romans 3:23 means everyone, without exception, has sinned, cannot be seeking God in his or her life because Romans 3:11, according to their methodology of interpreting Scripture, says that absolutely no one is seeking God.
Can you not see the dilemma here, either the Protestant is not seeking God in his or her life, or the Bible is lying...at least, according to the Protestant interpretation. The only other possibility timothyu, is that the words, "no one," are not being used in an absolute sense. And, if they are not being used in an absolute sense, then it can be argued that the word "all" in 3:23, is also not being used in an absolute sense. Which shoots a hole in the argument about Mary.

In regards to Romans 3:23, I recall you as well saying when asked, if 'all have sinned' as stated in this verse is an absolute, that is, 'all' absolutely means 'all', you responded with a yes.... all does means all! With that being said, I would like to ask you, do you believe 'all' includes babies in the womb? Does 'all' include babies just being born? Does 'all' include children under the age of reason? Does 'all' include people that were born severely mentally handicapped, and that will be bed-ridden their entire lives?

I closing this post my friend, I would like to ask you your thoughts regarding a verse in Romans 3. In verse 10 it says......."No one is righteous, no, not one." Sooo.... if it is your belief that in Romans 3:23 that "all' is an absolute, meaning 'all' absolutely means 'all', do you also believe "No one is righteous, no, no one" is an absolute, meaning absolutely no one is righteous?

Have a Blessed Day!

 

[Hammster]

Well my friend, I can only surmise that you don't read my posts in their entirety. The reason being, I have suggested/invited you on numerous occasions to follow and participate in the discussion of Romans 3 I am having with timoyhyu. If you were to do so, you would see that I am making my case for the sinlessness of The Blessed Virgin Mary, and not avoiding anything.

For some reason, I have noticed some of timothyu's and mine latest posts have been deleted for reasons I don't know. I never received a reason why from the moderators. Can't help from feeling a little disappointed for we were just starting to get somewhere in our discussion.

Anyhoo..... if you are interested, you and I could continue on in discussing Romans 3. I will re-post where timothyu and I pretty much started, from post # 405.



In regards to Romans 3:23, I recall you as well saying when asked, if 'all have sinned' as stated in this verse is an absolute, that is, 'all' absolutely means 'all', you responded with a yes.... all does means all! With that being said, I would like to ask you, do you believe 'all' includes babies in the womb? Does 'all' include babies just being born? Does 'all' include children under the age of reason? Does 'all' include people that were born severely mentally handicapped, and that will be bed-ridden their entire lives?

I closing this post my friend, I would like to ask you your thoughts regarding a verse in Romans 3. In verse 10 it says......."No one is righteous, no, not one." Sooo.... if it is your belief that in Romans 3:23 that "all' is an absolute, meaning 'all' absolutely means 'all', do you also believe "No one is righteous, no, no one" is an absolute, meaning absolutely no one is righteous?

Have a Blessed Day!

Where is your authority for this view? That’s the question I’m asking.

 

[Fidelibus]

Where is your authority for this view? That’s the question I’m asking.

Yeah right, I've asked you more times than I can count who gave you the authority informing us what any certain scripture passage means, and what did I got....
Crickets! And now you are wanting to know where my authority comes from? Thts not the way it works my friend. So, how about just addressing my last post so I don't get accused of avoiding you.

 

[Hammster]

Yeah right, I've asked you more times than I can count who gave you the authority informing us what any certain scripture passage means, and what did I got....
Crickets! And now you are wanting to know where my authority comes from? Thts not the way it works my friend. So, how about just addressing my last post so I don't get accused of avoiding you.

It is how it works. And if you can’t or won’t answer, so be it.

 

[Fidelibus]

It is how it works. And if you can’t or won’t answer, so be it.

Yeah, I get it too, when questions start to get difficult, and make you start to scratching you're head, the next thing to do is...... deflect. Looks like its you doing the avoiding now. So be it.

 

[Hammster]

Yeah, I get it too, when questions start to get difficult, and make you start to scratching you're head, the next thing to do is...... deflect. Looks like its you doing the avoiding now. So be it.

I responded to your post about Romans 3 by asking where your authority comes from. Three times now you’ve deflected.

 

[Fidelibus]

I responded to your post about Romans 3 by asking where your authority comes from. Three times now you’ve deflected.

Ha-Ha, nice try, but you know as well as I know, you only started playing your authority card after you were confronted with questionsyou are realize that your Protestant theology has difficult addressing. When you decide to stop avoiding my post regarding Romans 3, get back to me. If you really want to talk authority, start a thread on it. I would love to debate it with you.

 

[Hammster]

Ha-Ha, nice try, but you know as well as I know, you only started playing your authority card after you were confronted with questionsyou are realize that your Protestant theology has difficult addressing. When you decide to stop avoiding my post regarding Romans 3, get back to me. If you really want to talk authority, start a thread on it. I would love to debate it with you.

This is now the fourth deflection.

 

[concretecamper]

Ha-Ha, nice try, but you know as well as I know, you only started playing your authority card after you were confronted with questionsyou are realize that your Protestant theology has difficult addressing. When you decide to stop avoiding my post regarding Romans 3, get back to me. If you really want to talk authority, start a thread on it. I would love to debate it with you.

I like your presentation in debunking the "all have sinned" ace in the hole protestant card.

No one has been able to refute it...including the current participant.

Keep up the good work!!!

 

[JulieB67]

When Christ was crucified, the veil was rent from top to bottom. That means we can go straight to the Father. Because we know before that only the high priest could go behind the holy of holies. That's the meaning and the importance of the veil being torn.

And Christ taught us how to pray and he told us to pray to the Father, not Mary.

She was blessed in the fact that she gave birth to our Savior, who came in the flesh. But she is not to be prayed to. Not one verse mentions doing so. We only have one advocate to the Father, that being Christ.

And she is never mentioned after the book of John. She will be called blessed because she gave birth to again, our Savior but that's it. We are not to reverence her in prayer or any other fashion other than knowing she was Christ's Mother and was blessed to be so. In reality she was a flesh woman in need of a Savior, just as we are. To put her on the same level as Christ as being sinless is not right seeing how he was our perfect sacrifice for one and all time. There's not one verse stating she was sinless and being full of grace is not the same thing as having no sin. That's really reaching and we shouldn't have to reach. We need to let the scriptures speak for themselves. And God has bestowed grace on many people.
Also, there's not one verse that says she remained a virgin. In fact, quite the opposite is laid out in scriptures. Again, we need to let them speak for themselves, instead of trying to force something that's not there.

Traditions can truly make void the word of God.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Traditions can truly make void the word of God.

How true!

 

[ViaCrucis]

We do know that she is the Mother of God and was declared full of grace by an angel of God. If you can provide any evidence that she was a sinner do so. I for a fact am quite certain that God would not be born of a sinner, the logic of that is so obvious that it is hard to believe that anyone could disregard it.

"Full of grace" does not necessitate "without sin"; that seems like an anachronistic interpretation. Other translations render the language as "highly favored". Mary was favored, gifted this great grace by God, to be the mother of our Lord. I'd argue that's really the only thing that the text is saying here.

I do not think that this supports a belief that the Blessed Theotokos was immaculate.

That she is indeed blessed among women, indeed, blessed above all--her Son excluded of course, as He is God and Lord; that she is to be rightly called Theotokos or mother of God, these things are of course biblical and true articles of Christian faith.

As for her being perpetual virgin, I don't see how I could possibly know one way or the other. However the most ancient opinion of the Church has always been that she remained chaste until the conclusion of her mortal life.

Likewise, I would agree with Luther, "Mary is in heaven, how she got there, we don't know", in other words, on the question of the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, it should be regarded a matter of adiaphora rather than a matter of dogma. So the Assumption or Dormition of Mary (being different ideas here) is, as I see it, a fundamentally non-issue. Did Mary experience something special at the conclusion of her mortal life? There is no clear, universal, and unambiguous teaching here on this subject, and so should amount to adiaphora and opinion.

Was Mary preserved, immaculate, in some way? I don't know. I don't believe this is necessary for her to have been Theotokos; God has always worked with, inside, and through ordinary sinners in order to accomplish His purposes. The Ark of the Covenant that bore the tablets of stone and over which the Shekinah dwelt in the Holy of Holies was made of the basic, mundane matter of this world. It isn't the gold that made the Temple holy, but the Temple that made the gold holy. What makes Mary the Holy Mother of God is the Child that sprang from her womb. It is not the materials of the Ark that made it holy, but the One who dwelt there that made it holy.

Was Mary taken bodily into heaven? I do not know. That she's in heaven is certain, by what manner she "got there" is not known.

Was Mary perpetually a virgin for the rest of her mortal life? I have no idea, and frankly her sex life (or lack thereof) simply isn't my business.

Which is one reason my Marian arguments tend to both critique anti-traditional sentiments such as that Mary couldn't have been a perpetual virgin; and by the same token I think it's important to recognize that not all the traditional Marian positions are necessarily as substantial as they are sometimes presented. The truth is that there is much we don't know, and it's okay for opinions to be varied on certain matters.

Such matters of varied opinion, matters of "indifference", are called adiaphora by Lutherans. They are the sorts of things that we don't get our underwear all twisted up about, because they don't actually matter that much in the grand scheme of things. Like, should we remain standing during the whole liturgy, or do we have seating, such has been the general practice of the West since the late middle ages. The first pews were introduced in the 13th century and they were simply benches lining the walls of the nave, they were then moved into the center of the room in the 15th century, and did not become normative until the 16th century. But does it really matter? No.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[disciple Clint]

"Full of grace" does not necessitate "without sin"; that seems like an anachronistic interpretation. Other translations render the language as "highly favored". Mary was favored, gifted this great grace by God, to be the mother of our Lord. I'd argue that's really the only thing that the text is saying here.

I do not think that this supports a belief that the Blessed Theotokos was immaculate.

That she is indeed blessed among women, indeed, blessed above all--her Son excluded of course, as He is God and Lord; that she is to be rightly called Theotokos or mother of God, these things are of course biblical and true articles of Christian faith.

As for her being perpetual virgin, I don't see how I could possibly know one way or the other. However the most ancient opinion of the Church has always been that she remained chaste until the conclusion of her mortal life.

Likewise, I would agree with Luther, "Mary is in heaven, how she got there, we don't know", in other words, on the question of the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, it should be regarded a matter of adiaphora rather than a matter of dogma. So the Assumption or Dormition of Mary (being different ideas here) is, as I see it, a fundamentally non-issue. Did Mary experience something special at the conclusion of her mortal life? There is no clear, universal, and unambiguous teaching here on this subject, and so should amount to adiaphora and opinion.

Was Mary preserved, immaculate, in some way? I don't know. I don't believe this is necessary for her to have been Theotokos; God has always worked with, inside, and through ordinary sinners in order to accomplish His purposes. The Ark of the Covenant that bore the tablets of stone and over which the Shekinah dwelt in the Holy of Holies was made of the basic, mundane matter of this world. It isn't the gold that made the Temple holy, but the Temple that made the gold holy. What makes Mary the Holy Mother of God is the Child that sprang from her womb. It is not the materials of the Ark that made it holy, but the One who dwelt there that made it holy.

Was Mary taken bodily into heaven? I do not know. That she's in heaven is certain, by what manner she "got there" is not known.

Was Mary perpetually a virgin for the rest of her mortal life? I have no idea, and frankly her sex life (or lack thereof) simply isn't my business.

Which is one reason my Marian arguments tend to both critique anti-traditional sentiments such as that Mary couldn't have been a perpetual virgin; and by the same token I think it's important to recognize that not all the traditional Marian positions are necessarily as substantial as they are sometimes presented. The truth is that there is much we don't know, and it's okay for opinions to be varied on certain matters.

Such matters of varied opinion, matters of "indifference", are called adiaphora by Lutherans. They are the sorts of things that we don't get our underwear all twisted up about, because they don't actually matter that much in the grand scheme of things. Like, should we remain standing during the whole liturgy, or do we have seating, such has been the general practice of the West since the late middle ages. The first pews were introduced in the 13th century and they were simply benches lining the walls of the nave, they were then moved into the center of the room in the 15th century, and did not become normative until the 16th century. But does it really matter? No.

-CryptoLutheran

I do not think that this supports a belief that the Blessed Theotokos was immaculate.

Do you believe for even one moment that God could receive His body and blood and be carried within the body of a mother who is a sinner? Clearly we know that God does not tolerate sin. Regarding how Mary got to heaven, I have not expressed an opinion.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Do you believe for even one moment that God could receive His body and blood and be carried within the body of a mother who is a sinner?

Well yeah, of course. That would be in keeping with all of God's works throughout redemptive drama, God in the midst of the world of sinners to rescue them. It's what the Incarnation itself is all about. So if the Blessed Virgin was no different than any of us, sin included, it reinforces the redemptive hope of the Incarnation. She who bore the Savior is herself one of those He came to save. I realize that the idea that Mary was kept immaculate on account of a special grace of God, on account of Christ Himself, does not negate the Doctrine of the Incarnation; but neither does it especially preserve it. Is is not necessitated that for Christ to be conceived free of Original Sin that His mother herself be immaculate; for if God can grant to the Blessed Virgin an immaculacy without the need for she herself to have an immaculate mother, it would follow that with the conception of our Lord Himself there can be that immaculacy without it needing to be a property of His mother.

As such I do not see how Mary's immaculacy is required theologically; at the same time I am not saying that the lack of it being required does means it is not true. But at that point the validity of her immaculacy must be judged by a different metric than by attaching it to our Lord's Incarnation.

Clearly we know that God does not tolerate sin.

No, He doesn't. But He certainly comes right into the midst of it, makes Himself present where it is--that's the Gospel.

Regarding how Mary got to heaven, I have not expressed an opinion.

I included purely to be listed as part of the broad Marian tradition.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[JulieB67]

Do you believe for even one moment that God could receive His body and blood and be carried within the body of a mother who is a sinner?

Galatians 4:3 "Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:

Galatians 4:4 "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law"

Galatians 4:5 "To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."

This states that she was "under the law" just like everyone else at that time.

Verse 4 doesn't single her out as special in regards to being sinless etc. Quite the opposite in that she was just like everyone else in regards to being under the law and in bondage and in need of a Savior.

Christ was made of "a woman" made under the law at that time. If she was sinless and perfect at that time wouldn't this have been the perfect opportunity to single that fact out? Instead, it is pointed out that Christ was made of her "under the law" just as everyone else was under the law.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Do you believe for even one moment that God could receive His body and blood and be carried within the body of a mother who is a sinner? Clearly we know that God does not tolerate sin. Regarding how Mary got to heaven, I have not expressed an opinion.

Much more extraordinary is how the eternal God could possibly become the subject of time.

 

[disciple Clint]

Much more extraordinary is how the eternal God could possibly become the subject of time.

That one is easy, He didn't. God did not change in any way, God can not change. Remember that Jesus is 100% man and 100% God, man is governed by time, God is not.

 

[Servant78]

Do you believe for even one moment that God could receive His body and blood and be carried within the body of a mother who is a sinner? Clearly we know that God does not tolerate sin. Regarding how Mary got to heaven, I have not expressed an opinion.

Jesus was created by Holy Spirit and did not need any material of man or ovum of a woman.

So Jesus is an Israelite but not genetically a Hebrew.

 

[prodromos]

Jesus was created by Holy Spirit and did not need any material of man or ovum of a woman.

Much heresy in this post.