Thoughts on Mary, The Mother of Our Lord
by Charles P. Schmitt
An article was recently placed in my hands entitled “Venerating Our Most Holy Theotokos [Mother, or Bearer of God]”, written by a Greek Orthodox priest from Pennsylvania. Webster defines the word venerate as “to worship, to reverence,'' and I was immediately reminded of our Lord's words: “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. '' God alone — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — is to be the object of our worship and our reverence. And that is the point of this brief response.
In carefully reading over the article, my attention was caught by these statements: “The irony is that the whole of Protestant confessions claim to be Bible believing churches. This very claim is clearly disproved by their stubborn rejection of the Theotokos [Mother, or Bearer of God]…If they are Bible believers`, why do they deny the ever-Virginity of the Mother of God? …Why is it for some so hard to say: “ Most Holy Theotokos, save us !”
To begin with, the reason why it is not only hard, but also impossible for Bible believing Christians to say “Most Holy Theotokos, save us !'' is because the Holy Scriptures are emphatic that only Jesus saves us. Peter boldly declares in Acts 3:12; “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved”; and Paul ever so clearly instructs us, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord [not on the name of Mary or on the name of any other person] will be saved” (Romans 10:13)! Nothing, absolutely nothing, must ever steal our hearts away from the singularity and the centrality and the supremacy of our Lord Jesus Christ!
The Greek word “orthodox” literally means “straight-thinking.” When we deviate from the Holy Word of God, our thinking becomes twisted and crooked. When we are aligned most clearly with the Holy Scriptures our thinking becomes straight and we are truly orthodox. And that, again, is the purpose for this response.
In considering the issues raised in the article we must initially ask ourselves, “What is a Protestant? ” The word “Protestant” comes from the word protest and speaks of the loud and clear protests of early Catholic reformers against the institutional Catholic Church. Here were devout Catholic priests and theologians who protested against how far astray the institutional Catholic Church had gone from basic New Testament truth. Their appeal was to return to the apostolic simplicity of the New Testament, “the faith that was ONCE FOR ALL entrusted to the saints” (Jude, verse 3).
The Catholic reformers first of all clearly saw that the catholic and apostolic faith had “once for all” been entrusted to the saints. The divinely inspired apostolic writings of the New Testament were complete and totally sufficient in themselves. The Church, the reformers saw, had grievously erred in deviating from that holy truth by incorporating into the truth centuries of ongoing tradition and extra-biblical ideas. And Mary, the blessed mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a clear example of that concern. Let us examine what the New Testament (which is “the faith that was ONCE FOR ALL entrusted to the saints”) tells us about Mary.
The first mention of Mary in the New Testament is found in Matthew 1:16–24. These Scriptures clearly declare two truths: first of all, that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit (1:18,20,23). Therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ was virgin born! But these very same Scriptures also clearly teach that Mary's virginity was not perpetual after the birth of Jesus. Note Matthew 1:25 —“But [Joseph] had no union with her UNTIL she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus”. The fruit of Joseph's union with Mary (their children born after the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus), are actually listed for us in Matthew 13:55–56. Speaking of Jesus, people were asking, “Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us?” So, Jesus had brothers and sisters. In Galatians 1:19, Paul singles out one of these brothers and writes of him, “I saw none of the other apostles — only J ames the Lord's brother. ”. The Greek word used for brother is adelphos, which literally means “from the same womb.” It is therefore doubtful that these “brothers” and “sisters” mentioned were really cousins of Jesus. James was Jesus' half-brother — Mary and Joseph's son. We believe this James was also the author of our New Testament book of James and that the Judas (or Jude) mentioned in Matthew 13:55 was the author of our book of Jude. (Jude calls himself “a brother of James” in Jude, verse 1.) James and Jude were both half-brothers of our Lord Jesus, having Mary as their mother and Joseph as their father. (John 7:3 also refers to “Jesus' brothers ”, as does Acts 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 9:5).
And so we can clearly see that the miraculous virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is a part of our “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints”; but the idea of Mary's perpetual virginity comes from centuries of men's traditions and extra-biblical ideas which cover over the original apostolic revelation.
The next passage of Scripture (a wonderful one!) which speaks extensively of Mary is Luke 1:26–56. Here Mary is clearly declared to be the virgin mother of our Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 1:27,34). Here Jesus is also clearly declared to be “the Son of God”, with God (and not Joseph) as his Father (Luke 1:32,35). Here Mary is also called “blessed” (Luke 1:42,45). And here Mary also prophesied about herself that “all generations will call me blessed ” (Luke 1:48). Therefore, for us to refer to Mary as “blessed” is perfectly Scriptural. Mary is the blessed mother of our Lord Jesus Christ! Let us confess that proudly! In her prophetic song, called The Magnificat, Mary also declared of herself: “my spirit rejoices in God MY SAVIOR” (Luke 1:47). Obviously Mary needed God to be her very own Savior! The concept of Mary's sinless conception and sinless life (officially declared by the Catholic Church in 1854) is not a biblical doctrine. Mary, along with all the rest of sinful, lost humanity, needed to be saved. And God was her Savior! The Immaculate Conception of Mary and the sinless life of Mary are extra-biblical traditions that come from men, and are not a part of “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” by our God.
The final reference to Mary in the New Testament is Acts 1:14, where she is joined in prayer with the 120 awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit. There we find “Mary the mother of Jesus, and … his brothers, ” seeking the Pentecostal blessing to make them witnesses of our Lord Jesus Christ. After this reference there is no further mention of Mary by name in the New Testament. Down through the centuries, however, men have added various fantasies to Mary's life — not one of them with so much as a shred of biblical, apostolic support. These concepts include the notion of Mary's bodily assumption into heaven (officially declared by the Roman Pontiff in 1950); and the notion of Mary's exaltation as Queen of Heaven (an Old Testament name given to the pagan goddess Ashtoreth); and the further notion of Mary's role as mediatrix between God and men, which is a clear contradiction of 1 Timothy 2:5 where we are told that there is only “ one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus…” Nowhere in God's Holy Word is Mary ever referred to as co-mediatrix or co-redemptrix with Jesus; and nowhere in God's Holy Word do people pray to Mary. Prayers are always offered to God the Father alone, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Actually, Mary is never called “the mother of God ” in the pages of the New Testament either, only the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The institutional church (both the western Roman Church and the eastern Greek Church) wandered astray from the original catholic and apostolic simplicity contained in the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. From within their very own ranks reformers and protesters arose calling the Church back to its original apostolic foundations. The institutional Church excommunicated these and put many of them to a brutal death —but their cries have come down to our very own generation, down to us who are called upon “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints ”(Jude, verse 3). And this we will do. With love in our hearts and with a graciousness in our spirits toward those who may disagree, we will yet “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). And the Holy Scriptures, God's infallible and inerrant word, is that holy truth! We are told that “every word of God is flawless …Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.” (Proverb 30:5–6) By God's grace we will never put the words of men above the Word of our God! Amen!
