![Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Gal 4:3-5, King James Version)]()
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Gal 4:3-5, King James Version)
The false teaching of Born Again Baptist Pastor Emilio A. Ballesteros, Jr., the defiler of the Mother of God:
Excerpts from: IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS BY EMILIO A. BALLESTEROS, JR. p. 24:
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17. IS MARY THE “MOTHER OF GOD”?
- If God, who is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, has a mother, then the Bible is nothing but a book of lies! God could not be a real God if He came from a mother! Eternity simply means having no beginning and no end! How in the world could a God of eternity have a mother?
- It is more correct and sensible to call her “mother of Jesus.” Look into the following verses and see how she was properly addressed: Mat. 1:18; 2:11,13,14,20,21; 12:46,47; Mk. 3:31,32; Lk. 2:34; 8:19,20; Jn. 2:1,3,12; 6:42; 19:26. Nowhere in the Bible can you find the phrase “mother of God.” It was used in AD 431 at the Council of Ephesus.” Read TRUTH ENCOUNTER by Anthony Pezzota, a former Italian priest who became a biblical Christian and later worked with Baptists in the Philippines.
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The true teaching of Catholic Apologist and Mariologist Atty. Marwil N. Llasos, the defender of the Mother of God:
Excerpts from DEFENDING MARY OUR MOTHER VOLUME 1 BY MARWIL N. LLASOS, O.P., pp. 24-32:
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Reformers
Classical Protestantism regarded Mary as the Mother of God. Despite the break from Rome, nearly all Protestant reformers held the historic doctrine on Mary’s Divine Maternity. Mary remained to them as the Theotokos – the God- bearer.
The man who started the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, was deeply devoted to the Mother of God. Even after his publication of the Ninety Five Theses in 1517, Martin Luther’s high view of Mary was not significantly altered. For the former Augustinian monk, she is “preeminent among all God’s creation only because God chose her to be the mother of his son.”
Far from discarding the ancient and traditional belief in Mary as Mother of God, Martin Luther affirmed and emphatically preached it. Martin Luther said:
God is born … the child who drinks his Mother’s milk is eternal; he existed before the world’s beginning and he created heaven and earth…. these two natures are so united that there is only one God and Lord, that Mary suckles God with her breasts, bathes God, rocks him, and carries him.
Throughout his life, Martin Luther used and defended Mary’s title Theotokos. Luther argued:
She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God … It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God.
According to the founder of Protestantism and faith alone theology, Mary “is the model of by faith alone through grace alone.” In the Sermon Preached at Erfurt on the Journey to Worms, John 20:19-20, April 7, 1521, Martin Luther maintained that even “the holy mother of God did not become good, was not saved, by her virginity or by her purity or her motherhood, but rather by the will of faith and the works of God, and not by her purity, or by her own works.”
God indeed chose and prepared Mary and filled her with His grace alone to be His mother. In his Commentary on the Magnificat, Martin Luther expressed:
Men have crowded all her glory into a single phrase: the Mother of God. No one can say anything greater of her, though he had as many tongues are there are leaves on the trees.
It is clear that for Martin Luther, all praise and glory to Mary is summed up in her title as Mother of God:
In this work whereby she was made the Mother of God, so many and such great good things were given her that no one can grasp them … Not only was Mary the mother of him who is born [“in Bethlehem”], but of him who, before the world, was eternally born of the Father, from a Mother in time and at the same time man and God.
Another reformer, John Calvin is considered to be the most systematic of the Reformed theologians and the most guarded about Mary. Yet he also held Mary’s Divine Maternity:
It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor … Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God.
Among the last Reformed theologians to treat at length the Blessed Virgil Mary was Charles Drelincourt, pastor of the Reformed church of Paris. He wrote:
We do not simply believe that God has favored the holy and blessed Virgin more than all the Patriarchs and the Prophets, but also that he has exalted her above all Seraphim … The holy Virgin is not only the servant and the creature, but also the Mother of this great and living God.
Although Protestant reflection on Mary weakened further from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, there were nevertheless some references on Mary in Reformed confessions. The Formula of Concord of 1576 defended the title “Mother of God” and the reality of Mary’s motherhood. Dr. Tim Perry reports that Mary “is similarly treated in Reformed confessions.”
Contemporary Protestants
With the resurgence of Protestant interest on Mary as reported by Time, contemporary Protestant writers are beginning to write more favorably about her. Protestants are giving a second look on Mary and her Divine Maternity. With this recent development, there is reason to hope for a more fruitful ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Protestants. As it now seems, Mary is no longer a stumbling block to Christian unity – she fosters it.
Very Rev. Dr. H.W.M. Tajra, a Lutheran member of the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, commenting on the intercessory verse of the Ave Maria added after the formal break between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches, stated –
We contemplate here the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary within the Communion of Saints which we confess in the Apostle’s Creed. Just as all Christians ask other Christians to pray for them in a common cry for help (auxilium) from our Lord, so too the faithful should ask the Mother of God for her prayers, she who lives everlastingly in the Kingdom of Heaven, in that (to us) invisible realm which we confess in the Nicene Creed. We pray to our Lady to look with mercy and pity on our human deficiencies. This is the great lesson which St. John taught in the second chapter of his Gospel when he related the great Sign at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, In that pericope, the Evangelist drew a mighty portrait of her essential ministry – a ministry springing out of that motherhood and rooted entirely to it – her ministry of Mediatrix of the living grace which is Jesus Christ her Son, and Mediatrix of all the graces which he, in his divine power and glory and total sovereignty, chooses to accord as a result of her prayer to him. These graces, which the Blessed Mother of God mediates, were symbolized in the story of the miracle at Cana by the abundant and heady Messianic wine poured out at the wedding feast, poured out by Jesus Christ our Lord so that his disciples and the world beyond might believe.
In Jesus Called Her Mother, Evangelical writer Dee Jepsen, wife of former U.S. Senator Roger Jepsen, noted –
Throughout the church’s early centuries, Mary was regarded as the “mother of God” by all believers, This title was given to her not to elevate her, but to emphasize the truth that Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man, a doctrine under attack.
Dee Jepsen cited leading Evangelical scholar Kenneth Kantzer’s comment on the practice of calling Mary the Mother of God:
While the phrase may be awkward, Protestants generally have agreed that it is faithful to the real sense of Scripture, and that to deny it is to suggest that we really do not believe in the full deity of Him who was born of Mary.
Evangelical author Scot McKnight shares the same observation in his book The Real Mary. McKnight noted that –
Roman Catholics have never hesitated to call Mary the “mother of God.” The expression gives evangelicals alarm. Should it? If Jesus is God and Mary is his mother, then Mary is the mother of God. Please note, “mother of God” does not mean the one who existed before God and gave birth to God, but the one who “carried” God in her womb as the “God- bearer.” It is reasonable to connect Jesus to God, Mary to Jesus and Mary as mother of God, but the Protestant impulse is sola scripture: “to the Bible we go first.”
Having said thus, McKnight asked the question: “Does the New Testament teach that Mary is the “mother of God”?” The Evangelical author proceeded answer his own question:
Elizabeth asked this of Mary: “But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Mother of God, Mother of the Lord – is there a difference? For most of us, it is far easier to speak of Mary as the “mother of the Lord” than to speak of her as the “mother of God.” Still, we have to admit that there is some biblical support for calling Mary “mother of God” or “mother of the Lord.”
Scot McKnight traced the history of the expression “mother of God” in this wise:
What we can agree on is that the expression “mother of God” played a very significant role in one of the major clashes in the development of our orthodox Christian understanding of Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the trinity. In AD 431, the Council of Ephesus addressed the teachings of Nestorius, who maintained that Mary gave birth to a man named Jesus but that she did not give birth to the Word. In effect, Nestorius divided Jesus into a God part and a human part. The Council of Ephesus disagreed and settled for a major, major conclusion: Jesus’ deity and humanity, his two natures, were perfectly fused into one person, so that Jesus was not both God and man but the God-man. If Jesus is the God-man of one person and not just God and man, then Mary gave birth to the single person who is the God-Man. If she did, then Mary is in some sense the “God-bearer” and not simply the “Christ-bearer” (as Nestorius thought).
McKnight further observed:
The expression “God-bearer” soon shifted into the expression “mother of God.” So, when theologians speak of “mother of God” they mean “God-bearer.” We Protestants can, and rightfully should, stand with the whole Church on the importance of what the Council of Ephesus decided. If “Mother of God” means “God-bearer” as the one who gave birth to the human Jesus, who as a single person was the God-man, then we can also stand together with Roman Catholics in affirming Mary as the ”Mother of God.”
As Protestant, Scot McKnight expressed his apprehension over the title Mother of God and clarified –
For many of us neither the “God-bearer” nor “Mother of God” is the issue. The question we ask is this: Does addressing Mary as “mother of God” involve veneration, adoration, and devotion of Mary as well? Does it get mixed up with “Wife of God” or even “Mother of the Trinity”? Does it result in giving attention to Mary or does it, as it originally was intended to do, give attention to Jesus Christ as fully God and fully human as the God-man? Because of the implications of what “mother of God” might mean, most Protestants shy away from calling Mary the “mother of God,” but we should have no hesitation in referring to Mary as the God-bearer.
In the scholarly theological field, Dr. Tim Perry proposed the Theotokos as “ground of Mariology.” Thinking that Mariology naturally arises from Christology, Dr. Perry posited that “the point at which Mariology and Christology intersect is the confession of Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God.” However, Dr. Perry admitted that such assertion is “not uncontroversial and must therefore be unpacked further.”
After demolishing the misconceptions and fallacies on the title Mother of God, Dr. Tim Perry discussed the historical circumstances that led to the title in the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Thus –
… The councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) affirmed that the Son of God was of one substance with the Father, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary. And it was Cyril’s conviction that, by assuming all that being human is in the manner described by Nicaea, God the Son redeemed humanity.
Prescinding therefrom, the Evangelical scholar proceeded:
From this perspective he [“Cyril”] spotted that, whatever the legitimacy of Nestorius’ worries, his position had the undesirable effect of sundering the humanity and divinity in the incarnation, effectively creating two sons in the one Jesus Christ. If Nestorius’ views were to win the day, then Nicaea would ultimately have to be repudiated for, even if Nestorius himself did not recognize it, his argument led to a devastating conclusion. On the one hand the human son of Mary was born, grew, suffered, died and rose, while on the other hand the divine Son of God remained eternal, impassible and (crucially) consequently uninvolved in the human condition. To maintain this position, Cyril countered, was to deny the Nicene conviction that the Son of God actually assumed a human nature. If Christians cannot confess that the incarnate was conceived and born of Mary, then God has not embraced their lot and they are not saved. To put it in the starkest of terms, if Mary did not bear God in her womb – if she is not Theotokos – human beings are not saved.
To elucidate the point, Dr. Tim Perry presented the Greek metaphysical terminology of natures and persons from Cyril of Alexandria’s point of view:
Cyril’s theological worry, as expressed in the metaphysic available to him, has to do with the identity of the subject of the Gospels and just how we predicate actions or states to that subject. When we read, for instance, that Jesus became enraged and drove the merchants out of the temple, are we reading about a man or a God? When we read that he suffered death, are we reading about his humanity or divinity? Cyril’s answer is that the Gospels predicate anger (or any other human emotion) and death (or any other human limitation) neither to a human nature nor to a divine one, but to a person. And that person is the incarnate God. We cannot dissect the Gospels seeking to attribute this or that emotion or act to either Jesus’ humanity or divinity, we predicate them instead to the one fully divine, fully human person. The Gospels are God’s own human story. The conclusion is now inescapable. If God the Son entered human time and space as a human being and he did so by taking on the humanity given to him by his mother; then Mary is the Mother of God. No less a title will do.
Wrapping up, Evangelical professor and theologian Dr. Tim Perry queried: “How can we evangelical Protestants be true to the witness of Scripture and avoid joining our voices with those of Gabriel and Elizabeth and generations of Christians thereafter who name her blessed?” Dr. Perry argued: “Once it is granted that Theotokos encapsulates a profoundly biblical concept necessary for a fuller understanding of the identity of Jesus Christ, we ground Mariology … “
Mother of God explained
Catholics believe that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos]. This dogma of faith safeguards the truth about the full divinity of Christ. Jesus is truly God and so we call his mother the Mother of God. Peter M. Gerard comments –
Without stating that Mary is Theotokos, the Church would not be able to teach that Jesus is Theantropos, the God-man possessing a fully human and fully divine nature united in the one divine person.
How can a woman, a mere human being, be God’s mother? To remove the confusion, clarification is in order by stating what the title Mother of God does not mean:
- Mary is not the mother of God the Father. If that were so, she would be the grandmother of Jesus Christ.
- Mary is not the mother of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; thus, he has no father or mother. The Holy Spirit was never incarnate.
- Mary is not the mother of the Godhead because God is eternal and infinite whereas Mary is a mere creature; hence, finite.
- Mary is not the mother of Christ as to his divinity because as God, the Word existed from all eternity – even before Mary was born. As to his divinity, God the Son has no mother – he only has a father, God the Father. Similarly, as to his humanity, God the Son has no earthly father – he only has a mother, Mary of Nazareth.
Why then do we say that Mary is Mother of God? Catholic Answers responds –
A woman is a man’s mother either if she carried him in her womb or if she contributed half of his genetic matter or both. Mary was the mother of Jesus in both of these senses; because she not only carried Jesus in her womb but also supplied all of the genetic matter for his human body, since it was through her – not Joseph – that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3). Since Mary is Jesus’ mother, it must be concluded that she is also the Mother of God …
Although Mary is the Mother of God, she is not his mother in the sense that she is older than God or the source of her Son’s divinity, for she is neither. Rather, we say that she is the Mother of God in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person – Jesus Christ, God “in the flesh” (2 John 7, if.cf. John I:14) – and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to the human form God took in Jesus Christ.
Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ likewise explains:
Thus, in Jesus there is one Person but two natures – a human nature taken from Mary and the divine nature which is common to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Since a mother gives birth not just to a human nature but to a person, it can be said with full truth that Mary is the Mother of God. For, Jesus is not a human person; he is a divine Person who has taken himself a human nature.
In brief, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:
Mary is truly “Mother of God” since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself.
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DEFENDING MARY OUR MOTHER VOLUME 1 BY MARWIL N. LLASOS, O.P. may be available in:
Totus Bookstore & Publishing House
2nd Flr. Missouri Square Bldg. Connecticut cor. Missouri Sts., Greenhills, San Juan City
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Email Address: info@totusbookstore.com
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