CATHOLICISM AND MARY (I)
I. Roman Catholic doctrine does catechize the apotheosis of the wife of Joseph, Mary, who received the unprecedented favour of being the vessel of the Incarnation. In its catechesis the Catholic Church feeds its adherents with the dogmatic Christotokos. It is the Greek title of Mary, the mother of Jesus, used historically by non-Ephesians followers of the Church of the East. Its literal English translations include ‘Christ-bearer’ and ‘the one who gives birth to Christ.’ Theotokos (θɪˈɒtəkɒs) is another, it means ‘Mother of God’ (used in the Eastern Orthodox Church as a title of the Virgin Mary). They believe so unscripturally and firmly that “the love poured into the Theotokos to enable her to love so fully in her turn.” Could Mary have given birth to Christ, God the Son? One can only beget a one coming into the existence of creationism for the first time. Of truth is the fact that there is nothing too hard for the LORD to do. But it is also a crystal pellucidity that it will amount to spiritual incongruity for a creature to beget the Author of creationism. The simple fact is that the begotten is actually coming into existence for the first time. If Mary did beget the Ancient of days then she was nothing less than a Goddess (with capital ‘G’): for Jehovah’s deity is of the true living God. Should Mary be a Goddess the Apostolic ink would have had it couched in God’s protocol. Christ’s eternal being would have ceased. He would have to be brought under a new beginning of existence.
The given Son of Isaiah 9:6 was essentially the Divinity
Isaiah 9:6 prophesied “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Inside Mary’s matrix was a Personage, wielding a dual existence of God and a man. The parturitive ‘child’ is Jesus. The ‘Son’ is the incarnation of Him ‘who was, is, and is to come.’ The Eternal One. The man, Jesus, was born. But the Eternal Son could only be given. Amen! The Incarnation is a compound of God and man. A compound unknown to science. It was an unprecedented –one hundred percent of God, and one hundred percent man– historical event. This is the hypostatic union! Mary gave birth to the man, Jesus, the humanity of the Incarnate Jehovah, all because a man of Adamic nature is legally required to champion the spiritual regeneration of the sinful nature of mankind (for all have sinned and have come short…– Romans 3:23). Mary gave birth to the one part (not a fraction) of the dualism that did hunger, slumber, thirst and experienced physical fallibility. She did not, could not, birth the One who is the Resurrection, Way-Truth-Life, I Am, Christ, Giver of eternal life, One who was, is, and is to come; the Almighty. Amen!
Matthew 1:24 & 25 “Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: 25) And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.” ‘Till’ is, in the Greek, heos (heh’-oce) ‘a conjunction, preposition and adverb of continuance, until (of time and place).’ If the word of God clearly says, “knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son:” then the period of Joseph’s continuance of not knowing (not having sex with) his newly, legally, married wife, Mary, carnally was definitely up until after the birth and weaning of her firstborn, Jesus. So where does Catholicism pick the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity? It even goes as far as teaching of her own immaculate birth by her own parents! Phew!
Madonna & son
I have perused the scriptures countless times and I am yet to find one rhema that teaches this immaculate birth of Mary. Mary’s biological father is here, in Luke 3:23,“And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,” for this Heli is Mary’s father, Joseph’s father-in-law. “As the Hebrews never permitted women to enter into their genealogical tables, whenever a family happened to end with a daughter, instead of naming her in the genealogy, they inserted her husband, as the son of him who was, in reality, but his father-in-law” (from Adam Clarke’s Commentary).“The family of the mother is not called a family” (explained John Gill’s Commentary).
Joseph’s genealogy is documented in Matthew 1:16, “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” Anyone who teaches the immaculate birth of Mary must teach the same, not only of hers, (but that) of Joseph’s, and, in fact, that of Heli and Jacob, their fathers-in-law and even the mothers-in-law. Mary and Joseph both came from Davidic royal line. That gives Jesus a royal genealogy. The King. David was also a priest. Through the matrilineal consanguinity Mary -a Judahite- had with Elizabeth -a Levite-, probably by marriage, we see Jesus, the Branch, as a priest. Our High Priest.
NB= I’d very much love to read your candid contributions. Thank you!
(…to be continued…)
Read part two here
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