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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. Well, hello, here is not

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James White. This is Turtin Fan. I'm guest hosting the Dividing Line this evening. And my guest today is

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Pastor David King, with whom you may all be familiar. He is the author of Holy Scripture, the pillar and foundation of our faith.

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And the topic that we're going to discuss today has to do with Roman Catholicism.

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There may be a surprise appearance later in the show by another guest, but the topic will be

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Roman Catholicism. We're hoping that Roman Catholics will call in and ask questions, raise objections to what we're saying, or simply comment on what we're saying.

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We'd be happy to answer any comments, questions, or objections. As far as I know, there's no callers yet, though, so what we'd like to discuss to begin with anyway is the

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Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception. As you may know, this week there was the feast day of the

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Immaculate Conception, and so there have been a number of blog articles that have been generated on this dogma.

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And what I'll do to start with is I'll pose for Pastor King the argument and ask

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Pastor King to give us what his response would be to the

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Roman Catholic argument. Argument number one for the Immaculate Conception is, Mary is full of grace.

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Luke 128 refers to Mary using the verb kakartmene.

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Pastor King, what would be your answer to those who say that because Mary was described as being, according to some translations, full of grace, or in King James Version, highly favored, that therefore she must have been entirely free from sin and always free from sin from the moment of her conception?

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All right. Well, until we hear from Pastor King, I'll give my answer to this first argument.

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The answer I would give is that the verb here, kakartmene, does mean highly favored.

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The most obvious answer to the highly favored nature of Mary here is that she had been selected to be

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Jesus' mother, to bear Jesus in her womb. It doesn't have to do with whether or not she was a sinful woman, whether she was a sinless woman.

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The text doesn't mention sin, it's not referring to sin. And the point of the angel's greeting is to announce this great blessing that's been bestowed upon her, that she's going to be

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Jesus' mother. So the first aspect of the response is that the first has nothing to do with sin.

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It doesn't mention sin. And of course, even if, as some people eventually seem to think, the verse did refer to cleansing from sin or purifying from sin, there's no reason that that would necessarily mean that she was purified from the moment of conception.

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But of course, they like to say that the verb itself is so intense that the verb indicates that she was purified from conception.

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The problem with that argument is that the same verb is used in Ephesians of all believers.

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All believers are said to have been made accepted, is the translation usually employed, but the verb is the same verb.

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It has the same intensive qualities there in Ephesians as it does in Luke. And consequently, this argument must fail.

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And so we must reject the argument on at least that ground.

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The second argument is an argument from Mary as the new

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Eve. This is an argument that's employed actually by the defining document, the document that defines the

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Roman Catholic dogma. And the defining dogma there is that Mary as the new

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Eve has enmity with Satan. And the translation that's used to support this idea is

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Genesis 315. I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed. She shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

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Now, that may be an accurate translation of the old Clementine Vulgate or even some of the other

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Vulgate translations that came before the Clementine version. I should say versions, of course, they're all

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Latin translations. That may be an accurate translation of the

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Vulgate text there. The problem is the Vulgate isn't an accurate translation of Hebrew.

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I've noticed that one of the called to communion, this is one of the Roman Catholic blogs, one of the called to communion contributors tried to make an argument, this is

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Mr. Taylor Marshall. He tried to make an argument on his own personal blog on December 8th.

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He said that historically there's been a debate over how to translate this verse and render it from the

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Hebrew. The debate centers on whether God says he shall crush Satan's head or whether she shall crush

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Satan's head. And with respect to Mr. Marshall, there's really not a debate about how to translate the verse and render it from Hebrew.

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For in Hebrew, it's clearly it, not he or she. The appropriate translation would be it, referring to the seed.

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The seed is neuter, so the noun should also be neuter. And of course, we would say he because we understand that the seed of the woman is

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Jesus. But the noun, the pronoun itself would be neuter. It's not either masculine or feminine.

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And Mr. Marshall goes on to say it doesn't matter much since either reading is orthodox and true. Wasn't that marvelous?

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Not only are the two wrong readings, he or she, are both orthodox and true, but the argument is that the two opposites can both be orthodox.

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And his argument is, well, Christ crushes the head of Satan, absolutely, and Mary crushes the head of Satan by virtue of her role as the mother of God and New Eve.

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Well, of course, that just begs the question. The argument was made from this verse, that she's the

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New Eve. So to support that argument that she's the New Eve, you can't take the verse in a faulty translation and then justify the faulty translation on the basis that she is the

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New Eve. So, yes, it is the traditional reading as he asserts.

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It is the traditional reading, but it's the wrong reading. And in fact, the new Vulgate acknowledges this error silently but changes the pronoun to the appropriate neuter pronoun.

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And the neuter pronoun, of course, refers the person back to being the seed whose heel is attacked by the serpent.

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So the idea of the New Eve is one of these ideas that occasionally one will find a reference to in the church fathers.

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In other words, sometimes you might find a church father who draws a parallel between Eve and Mary after drawing a parallel between Adam and Jesus.

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And it's an easy parallel to make in the sense that Jesus is called the

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New Adam. Scripture uses that typology. That's a scripturally authorized typology.

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But when we look at Adam, we see Eve. And so someone might look around and say, well, who's the

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Eve to Jesus, Adam? Looking at the issue of New Eve.

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And if Pastor King wishes to find another way to contribute here, perhaps we can work that out at the break.

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But in any event, the issue of Mary as New Eve isn't a scripturally warranted typology.

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In other words, Scripture does call Jesus the New Adam, but doesn't call Mary the New Eve. Mary's connection with Eve is simply made by a number of commentators.

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So sometimes the commentator will draw a parallel and say, well, Christ is the New Adam and Mary is the

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New Eve. And this may sound nice. It's not necessarily heterodox simply to make some kind of connection between one and the other.

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But it's not scripturally warranted. And what's dangerous about it is that then they start with this typology and build on the typology and start drawing out further analogies.

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So they say, well, Eve was created without sin. Therefore, Mary, since she's the

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New Eve, must have been created without sin. Well, that's an arbitrary selection of one of the many things that's true about Eve.

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In other words, Eve was created in innocence. But Mary perhaps was not.

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There's not necessarily a connection there. Let's take another parallel. Eve was taken from Adam's body.

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Was Mary taken from Jesus' body? No. In fact, just the opposite. So Jesus is taken from Mary's body, which is a mirror parallel.

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So why not, on the same kinds of grounds, suggest that Eve was created sinless, innocent, and eventually fell.

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Whereas Mary came into the world sinful and eventually was healed by grace.

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Doesn't that seem like a better mirror parallel to draw, if you're going to draw a parallel? Of course, these parallels we're drawing are largely arbitrary.

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Scripture doesn't tell us we have to find a parallel here. It doesn't say that Eve is a type of Mary.

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And the use of this particular topology is just an unconstrained use of the mechanism.

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Now, I don't know whether Pastor King is back on the line yet. If you are, please... Hello, Turretinfan.

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I'm here. Oh, great. I'm glad you're back on. I'm just getting to the third argument here.

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I don't know how much you've heard as we were experiencing these technical difficulties. I just covered Rome's first two arguments.

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When I say Rome's, I'm actually picking on an article from Called to Communion by Taylor Marshall, published on December 7th, according to their blog.

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The first argument was the argument that Mary is full of grace, and I'd covered that this isn't very much of a killer argument, because first of all, full of grace or highly favored doesn't have any reference to sin, either in the context or in the most reasonable explanation.

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And as well, the same verb, although it's an intense verb, is used of all believers in Ephesians.

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Then I moved from there to the discussion of Mary as the new Eve, and I pointed out that Scripture doesn't warrant this topology.

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It doesn't call Mary the new Eve. And even though people have tried to draw some analogies, sometimes the analogies actually are mirror analogies.

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In other words, Jesus derives his flesh from Mary, whereas Eve derived her flesh from Adam.

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So it's the opposite. So if we're going to draw a parallel, we're just as justified in our arbitrary parallels of pointing out that Eve was sinless and became sinful, and Mary was sinful and became, through grace, upon entering into glory, sinless.

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So in other words, the new Eve argument is simply one from an unwarranted topology, and then the direction that the topology is taken is simply arbitrary.

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And of course, Adam and Eve are married. There's no marriage between Mary and Jesus, although some of the worship that's given to Mary might almost seem to suggest they're equals.

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But the third argument, which we're getting to, is Mary as the Ark of the Covenant. How would you respond if a

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Roman Catholic came to you and said, In the Old Covenant, the Ark of the Covenant contained the Word of God on stone.

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In the New Covenant, the Word made flesh was also contained, and that in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, the

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Catholic Church has therefore understood Mary as the mystical Ark of the New Covenant. This connection is made in the

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Book of Revelation, and then citing to Revelation 11, into 12, which is the part of Revelation that talks about the woman closed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

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And then this woman contains the Messiah, and therefore the argument is that this is a reference to Mary.

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How would you respond? Yes, it seems to be a rather torturous stretch of typology in order to try to make

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Mary be the Ark of the Covenant. When you go to the

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Book of Hebrews, it seems that Christ is described as a type of the

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Ark of the Covenant himself, rather than Mary. And I think that just by reading back into Scripture some later development in the

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Church of Mary carrying Christ in her womb, reflecting, you know, and the

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Ark being reflective of that, I think it's just really pushing typology too far. What would you give as your specific answer in terms of Revelation 11?

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Let me read you the passage that they like to quote. This is the translation that Taylor Marshall provided.

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The citation is Revelation 11, 19, through chapter 12, 2.

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The passage states, Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the Ark of His Covenant was seen within His temple.

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And there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail, and a great portent appeared in heaven, and a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

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She was with child. Well, I think the woman in Revelation 11, the vast majority of the

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Church Fathers interpreted that as reflective of the Church. And again,

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I think it's certainly pushing typology in order to try to read

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Mary into that passage. One thing that had occurred to me in thinking about how to respond to this was when

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I read through the discussion there in the flow of the chapter, there's first a reference to Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the

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Ark of His Covenant was seen within His temple. And then, after that, there's flashes of lightning, voices, and so forth.

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And then, after that, there's a portent in heaven, specifically this woman clothed with the sun, which makes me think that we're talking about three different things as opposed to three of the same things.

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Does that seem like a reasonable answer as far as the idea that somehow John is trying to tell us that the

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Ark refers to Mary? Or even to the woman? Let's not get into the question of whether or not the woman is the

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Church, which, as you mentioned, is one of the leading patristic views.

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But let's say instead that just the woman, whether the woman is the

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Ark of the Covenant there. Well, you know, it seems to me that if the woman had been closely connected with the

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Ark of the Covenant, I think that John would have been more explicit in the book of Revelation when he speaks of the temple that was opened in heaven.

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He says the Ark of the Covenant was seen in his temple. I just don't see the link that they're trying to draw there between Mary and the

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Ark of the Covenant in that passage. Well, the next...

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I mean, I certainly agree with you. I think there's... it's really a strain at best.

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There's so many other arguments we could even bring out. One example, I don't know,

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I welcome your thoughts on this. Another example is they like to say, well, the Word of God, meaning the

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Law, the Law that was written on the stone tablets, was placed inside the

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Ark of the Covenant. But if you think about that, that situation, the Ark was made, then the

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Law was written down on stone. It was placed into the Ark of the Covenant and it was there to stay. It wasn't something that would later emerge.

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But rather, it was there as an archive, as a permanent abode for those stone tablets.

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And in exact contrast, although Jesus was in Mary's womb, once he came out, he was never coming back.

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So it seems like it almost couldn't be a worse parallel. You couldn't have picked something more opposite than the selection they've made by simply referring to that.

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Right. Again, it's interesting to me that when the writer of the

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Hebrews does mention the Ark of the Covenant, I believe it's in Hebrews 9,

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I think, in verse 4, where he speaks of the contents of the

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Ark of the Covenant, again, it isn't spoken.

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There's no reference there. There's no comparison there to Mary whatsoever. And he reminds us of the very contents that was placed in the

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Ark of the Covenant. You had the tablets of the Covenant. You had Aaron's rod that budded, as well as the golden manna.

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And again, I see Christ as the fulfillment of God's law.

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That's to be sure. But at the same time, it seems to me a pushing typology beyond its limits in order to read in, once again, a later development concerning Mariology.

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In fact, to pick up on what you're saying, Hebrews 9, Hebrews 9, verse 1 starts,

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Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary.

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For there was a tabernacle made, the first, wherein was the candlestick and the table and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary, and after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had the gold censer, and the

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Ark of the Covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant, and over it the cherubim of glory, shadowing the mercy seat, of which we cannot now speak particularly.

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Now, when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God, but into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the heirs of the people, the

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Holy Ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while, as the first tabernacle was yet standing, which was a figure for the time then present in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the services perfect has changed the conscience but actually let me stop the sentence there it's a very long sentence and point out the

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Holy Spirit is inspiring the author of Hebrews to write this and what he says is that the

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Holy Ghost was signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest and he's pointing us to the fact that although there's other priests could go into the first part of the tabernacle the second part was reserved for a single person not

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Jesus and Mary but only Jesus so then when he completes this sentence which stood only in meats and drinks and diverse washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of the

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Reformation but Christ being come and high priest of good things to come by greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands that is to say not of this building and so when we say not made with hands speaking of the whole tabernacle what is that?

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is it Jesus whole family? of course not, it's Christ himself so the whole tabernacle pictures

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Jesus it's not just the tables of stone inside the ark or the manna inside the gold pot inside the ark the whole thing represents

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Jesus he is the one who goes into the ark it says neither by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us and so on and the whole message of Hebrews is the perfection of Jesus the fact that he's unique there's no mention of Mary in there and then it says even in verse 24 for Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands which are figures of the true so the holy place which is where this ark is located is a picture of the true holy place but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us not yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place every year with blood of others for then he must have suffered since the foundation of the world but now once in the end of the world have appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself it almost couldn't be said more strongly this is all about Christ it's not about Mary I don't know how the writer to the

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Hebrews could have been more explicit in identifying Christ as being as the fulfillment of that which the ark was a type this will bring us this discussion of the ark of the covenant from what

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I know there are no Roman Catholics who have been brave enough to call in or wise enough to call in and actually challenge what we're saying the lines are open as far as I can tell and the technical problems have been resolved so we should be able to receive additional calls and we're coming up on a break shortly but once we come back from the break what we'll be discussing is the issue of do the fathers teach the immaculate conception and the

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Roman Catholic answer is yes but Pastor King who has read more of the fathers although I think he would still consider himself a student of the fathers as opposed to an expert over them he he will discuss with me this question of whether or not the church fathers taught the immaculate conception and amid today's emphasis on the renewing work of the

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Forgotten Trinity by going to our website at aomen .org more than any time in the past Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together they are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils they are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements and many

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Evangelicals are finding the history tradition and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing this newfound rapport has caused many

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Evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided

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Protestants and Catholics aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language James White's book

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the history of the Christian Church pivots on the doctrine of justification by faith once the core of the

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The God Who Justifies theologian James White calls believers to a fresh appreciation of understanding of and dedication to the great doctrine of justification and then provides an exegesis of the key

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and we are back after the break hopefully there was not too much of a lag there between the end of the commercials and our rejoinder but in any event what we are discussing is the question of do the

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Church Fathers teach the Immaculate Conception and the Roman Catholic argument is that they do and we'll look today at a few quotations that are brought up to try to prove this theory the first go ahead

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I was wondering if before we actually go into some of those if maybe we could just pause for just a moment to speak a word about the use of allegory by the early

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Church Fathers and some of the comments that they had with respect to it would that be ok?

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that would be great well I couldn't help but think when we started discussing this and when it was being discussed the other day on another blog the use of allegory although Jerome was not consistent really with his own principle nonetheless he made this comment in his commentary on the

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Gospel of Matthew I believe he is commenting on Matthew 13 in verse 33 he's talking about how people use certain typology to come to a description of the

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Trinity and this is what he said he said they interpret the three measures of wheat in this way while there is not a different nature in each person that is each person of the

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Trinity they tend toward the unity of substance and then in other words after he speaks of this interpretation now

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Jerome is going to comment upon this interpretation and this is what he says interestingly enough he says this is a godly interpretation to be sure but a doubtful understanding of a parable and an enigmatic saying can never advance the authority of dogmas in other words he's laying down the principle that it's very clear to steer away from allegory and trying to pin something as important as a dogma de fide upon some kind of allegorical interpretation of scripture

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Augustine himself said in one of his letters to Vincentius he said for what else is it than a superlative impudence for one to interpret in his own favor any allegorical statements unless he has also plain testimonies by the light of which the obscure meaning of the former may be made manifest in other words what

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Augustine is saying it's fine to some extent to use an allegorical interpretation of scripture in order to illustrate a doctrine but it is not something on which we are to pin or hang a particular dogma that sounds a little bit like what the reformed churches teach which is that we should interpret the more obscure portions of scripture in light of the more clear portions of scripture and not vice versa is this view that you just explained from Augustine is it unique to Augustine in that time period or have you seen it in other ancient

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Christian writers as well well I have seen I have seen the same thing

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Epiphanius said he said that none of the sacred words need an allegorical interpretation of their meaning he says they need examination and the perception to understand each proposition's force and then of course

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I like what Chrysostom says he's looking at a passage of scripture and he's looking particularly at Isaiah chapter 5 and he comes to a particular passage and he says there's something we can learn here and he says what sort of thing is it he says it is when it is necessary to allegorize scripture and then he talks about how were the why were the allegorized at certain times he says we ourselves are not the lords over the rules of interpretation but must pursue scripture's understanding of itself and in that way make use of the allegorical method he says what

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I mean is this the scripture has just now spoken of a vineyard he's referring to the prophecy of Isaiah chapter 5 wall wind wind that the reader he says is not permitted to become lord of the passage and apply the words to whatever events or people he chooses and then he says the scripture interprets itself with the words and the house of Israel is the vineyard of the

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Lord Sabaoth to give another example he says Ezekiel describes a great large great winged eagle who enters

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Lebanon and takes off the top of a cedar the interpretation of the allegory does not lie in the whim of the readers but Ezekiel himself speaks and tells us first what the eagle is and then what the cedar is and then he says to take another example from Isaiah himself when he raises a mighty river against Judah he does not leave it to the imagination of the reader to apply it to whatever person he chooses but he names the king whom he has referred to as a river and then

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Chrysostom makes this point he says this is everywhere a rule in scripture when it wants to allegorize it tells the interpretation of the allegory so that the passage will not be interpreted superficially or be met by the undisciplined desire of those who enjoy allegorization to wander about and to be carried into every direction so although there was some use of this and perhaps there was some misuse of allegory among the early church fathers there was this warning against it to be very careful the way one handles holy scripture when

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I've been reading through what the church fathers wrote when it comes to topology

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I'm aware that there are there's more than one let's say school of topology there's sort of a western approach which

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Augustine might be a representative of a western approach maybe more than one western approach but in the east

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I've noticed that there seem to be those who closely follow the style of origin in terms of not just topology but figurative interpretation in general and then there seem to be those who

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I would say are in the Antiochian school which have which seem to me to have a different approach have you noticed a similar

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I would just comment on that because very often what you read sometimes and sometimes if you hear a lecture you will hear that the tendency to allegorize in the school of Alexandria is often pitted over and against the literal school of interpretation in Antioch and though there's a sense in which those principles do hold true between the

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Alexandrian and the Antiochian schools of interpretation nonetheless you see exceptions on both sides for instance even though Athanasius was he was the bishop of Alexandria after his his mentor

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Alexander but when you see him interacting with Arian exegesis he's very careful not to over -allegorize in his exegesis in fact it's often been remarked that he's not very representative of the

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Alexandrian school of allegory in his dispute with the Aryans because very often he is so clear and he's coming from a literal interpretation of scripture over and against some of the wild interpretations that the

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Aryans had placed on scripture and then to take an example over in the

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Antiochian school someone like Theodore oftentimes if you read through his glosses on the

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Octitude you look at some of the typology that he draws upon he's talking about the goats bearing the iniquity of the children of Israel and he brings out the connection between the imputation of the sins of Israel to the head of the scapegoat and the scapegoat being released into the wilderness and then

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Theodore is very clear to stress that this is the type of Christ that our sins being transferred to him and so you find even that concept of the imputation of our sins being brawled out by Theodore here in his gloss upon that particular passage of scripture and so although it's helpful

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I suppose in one way to speak of certain tendencies of the Alexandrian school to allegorize and the more literal view of interpretation by those in the area of Antioch to some extent but one needs to be careful because there are exceptions to those rules and they do not hold hard and fast

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I appreciate that in fact I think another kind of exception in the other direction you had mentioned

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Athanasius as sort of an exception in the Alexandrian school and one might suggest Didymus the blind as an exception in the other direction seeming to take more of origin than we'd like yet really being associated with the

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Antiochian school but you may be pleased to hear that despite our technical difficulties in terms of the phone connections which

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I suppose are probably caused by the vast volume of calls coming in I joke but actually one listener has kindly emailed me and told me he had some trouble connecting but we have brought on board into this discussion

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Mr. James Swan I'm glad to hear James is with us

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Good evening gentlemen, can you hear me? Yes, loud and clear James, good to hear from you.

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Yes, likewise Pastor King I just realized none of us are Baptists We will tell the owner of this program he's out running a very godly errand this afternoon so we will give him some due respect and he's and our aides in the studio are

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Baptists and have their finger on the button in case we start baptizing babies here on the program so that said we have we have a list that I found in Taylor Marshall's article on the

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Immaculate Conception and it's a list of fathers that supposedly teach that Mary is the

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Ark of the Covenant now having heard of the

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Roman Catholic teaching on this before can you take a guess Mr.

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Swan where this list may have been derived who's famous for putting out a list on Mary the

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Ark of the New Covenant I have a Roman Catholic apologist

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I haven't seen this list I haven't read it either well

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I saw the first couple of items on the list the first one was one from Hippolytus allegedly from Hippolytus the next one was from Origen and the next one from Ephraim the

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Syrian and I started to recognize you know all of these alleged quotations seem to have a familiar ring to them and of course then it this is

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Steve Ray's list I have to laugh when I hear the reference to Origen because it's interesting the double standard that is invoked when a

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Protestant quotes from Origen if you ever quote from Origen then it's pointed out to you that he was declared a heretic some two centuries after his death but if they cite from Origen it's just fine forgive me but I had to point out the double standard did

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Ambrose make that list? no no no this is not a patristic list this is there's a large quotation the largest

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I think the largest quotation in terms of number of words I may be wrong I may be wrong it's slightly longer that's listed here and it appears to be

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Steve Ray's list in some modified form but perhaps it's not perhaps it's just you know drawn from similar sources there's a quotation from allegedly from Athanasius from his homily of the papyrus of Turin which is a very fanciful title for a sermon ascribed to Athanasius but which is like practically all sermons ascribed to Athanasius not actually his work but as you pointed out on the double standards the first selection is from Hippolytus now he is considered a

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Roman Catholic saint this much is true so perhaps it's fair to quote from him but he's also listed as the first anti -priest but he really had to overcome his opposition to the pope at that time in order to ascend to the rank of a saint please proceed yes exactly he was in opposition to the bishop of Rome at that time and he's listed as an official anti -pope in the typical lists of popes and anti -popes it's remarkable his comments are he was the ark formed of incorruptible wood for by this is signified that his tabernacle was exempt from putridity and corruption now what would be a problem with using this he was the ark formed of incorruptible wood to refer to Mary as the ark of the new covenant well it seems like there is a confusion of persons there indeed the leading problem right there is it says not that Mary was the ark but that Jesus was the ark exactly not a great proof the next quotation the one taken from Origen who is quickly accused of heresy and so forth whenever he says something against what

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Rome says here's what he says allegedly from homily one this virgin mother of the only begotten of God is called

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Mary worthy of God immaculate of the immaculate one of the one

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I'm not making this up this is actually on the list of teachings yes it's somewhat taking my breath away can

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I ask you a question for both you guys similarly I have an Ambrose quote in front of me that's been bouncing around where Ambrose says

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Mary a virgin not only undefiled but a virgin whom grace has made inviolate free of every stain of sin and these quotes are just thrown out there without any context at all and I think what you're surprising even with those other quotes it's the same thing

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I'm finding here is what exactly is the quote saying or is the quote saying that Mary was freed from sin during the conception of Christ or during her own conception it seems to be they'll take anything and apply it to Mary do you know anything about the

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Ambrose quote it's taken from some of the sermons that Ambrose gave well really we would call it the 119th

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Psalm but it's the 118th Psalm numbered according to the

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Septuagint in Ambrose expositions and that particular quote it simply says that she was a virgin not only undefiled that is she was a virgin but a virgin whom grace has made inviolate and free of every stain of sin there's a sense in which the

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Lord Jesus Christ does that for every single believer and in that respect I don't think there's anything unique there there's no mention whatsoever with any connection to her conception in that particular passage by Ambrose and if I were going to go elsewhere in Ambrose there are plenty of passages in Ambrose that could counter the

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Roman Catholic use of that word there's not even a conception mentioned in his commentary on the

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Gospel according to Luke Ambrose says holy alone of those born of woman was our

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Lord Jesus who by the strength strangeness of his undefiled birth has not suffered the pollutions of earthly corruption but dispelled them by heavenly majesty and in his disputes particular with the

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Pelagian Julian Augustine cites that passage from Ambrose repeatedly and emphasizes for instance in his work on the grace of Christ the original sin

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Augustine quotes Ambrose there and he says moreover when expounding the

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Gospel according to Luke he speaking of in Ambrose and this is Augustine quoting him he says it was no cohabitation with a husband which opened the secrets of the virgin womb rather it was the

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Holy Ghost which infused immaculate seed into her unviolated womb and then he quotes

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Ambrose for the Lord Jesus alone of those who are born of woman is holy in as much as he experienced not the contact of earthly corruption by reason of the novelty of his immaculate birth in other words what

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Augustine is saying if you want to speak about a novelty of an immaculate birth it was

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Christ he's not speaking about Mary per se but that which was born of Mary I came across the same situation and Turchin probably will remember this as well when the

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Roman Catholic apologists would get a hold of Luther they would read something that said Luther was saying something like Christ was conceived of a virgin without sin and they would apply that to Mary whereas if you were to read it in context you would see that it was applying to Christ it seems like they'll take anything anything even remotely that can be applied to the immaculate conception and try to cram it into the doctrine or the dogma of the immaculate conception are there any other quotes like that you can think of where it's clearly something else?

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well I think that when you come to Augustine and when he's giving his I believe it's his second exposition upon the 34th psalm he makes this comment he says just to put it briefly

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Mary descended from Adam died because of sin Adam died because of sin and the

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Lord's flesh derived from Mary died to abolish sin so what he's saying is that Mary died as a result of original sin it is sin that has brought death into the human race and Augustine and when you speak with a

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Roman apologist about Mary they will say well we don't know when she was assumed into heaven if she died or if she was assumed while she was alive but here's

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Augustine saying that she died as a result of sin so although I think that one needs to be careful and Augustine was careful not to speak of Mary's actual sins nonetheless he did not see her as an exemption from original sin we can add to that that eventually there are fathers who start to treat

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Mary as though she never had any personal sin and medieval authors who certainly take that position that she never had any personal sin and as a matter of historical theology we can accept that fact and it may be that even at some point someone like Luther would have held to a view of Mary's personal sinlessness and we don't let that bother us because our rule of faith is something other than majority vote or simply looking to a particular church father like Augustine and saying okay we accept everything that he says we don't think he made any mistakes or anything like that all of the sayings of the fathers are to be brought to the touchstone of scripture itself and you do not find the immaculate conception as something

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I think Ludwig Ott a Roman theologian says that there is no explicit teaching by the fathers of the immaculate conception and again

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I think someone like Fulgentius the bishop of Ruspe he says for the flesh of Mary which had been conceived in iniquities in the usual manner was the flesh of sin which begot the son of God in the likeness of the flesh of sin and Fulgentius was one of these followers he was

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Augustinian in his theology and here he is stating explicitly that she was conceived in iniquities in the usual manner and I think these testimonies from the ancient church are so often ignored by Roman apologists it seems as though there is some flight of fantasy to find some later development that is being taught in the church and they try to push it back in or read it retroactively or anachronistically back into the fathers if I could pick up on what you are saying there it's kind of interesting because we are mostly when we study what the fathers say we are trying to learn from them both positively and from their mistakes and comparing their writings to scripture to see what value there is in this particular case the

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Roman claims that it is an apostolic doctrine handed down through tradition they claim their only sources are oral tradition and scripture and that there isn't some third source of doctrine so we hold them to that using historical theology and we show that it's not true but on this particular issue

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Augustin's correct view that Mary was not immaculately conceived is proven by his seemingly mistaken view that the manner in which original sin is transmitted is the normal marital union between husband and wife that produces the child because he believes this can't take place without lust and Fulgentis is making that same argument in the quotation you provided he is saying she was brought about in the usual way meaning by Anna and her husband having a normal marital relationship and his view his asceticism, his view that that kind of relationship is almost inherently sinful is what guarantees to us that he won't find a doctrine of immaculate conception for Mary it doesn't mean that we want to follow him we don't want to adopt his asceticism but from a historical theology standpoint we can take the good by examining his views in light of scripture and discard those portions of his theology which scripture doesn't teach but maybe someone would say that we're not allowed to do that what would

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Augustin answer to us if we insisted that we're not allowed to just cherry pick the good parts of what

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Augustin's theology was well I think Augustin would say that anything that he says it needs to be considered in the light of scripture he often emphasizes the supremacy of scripture and that even bishops can and have erred he even says that councils have erred and that's why everything needs to come back to the touchstone of scripture well how about against the

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Arians did he at least say you guys have to listen because Nicaea was an ecumenical council well in his controversy with Maximinus it's interesting that he says

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I'll put aside the council of Nicaea and you put aside the council of Arimin and he says let us go to scripture which is not the property of anyone he says and there let us compare and there let us draw forth our arguments based upon what scripture says and not upon conciliar pronouncement and it's interesting that the fathers always direct us back to holy scripture doesn't direct us to any infallible interpretation of the church but to scripture itself what about Mr.

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Swana you're our Luther expert what about with Luther would he be offended if someone could prove that Luther held to one of these

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Marian dogmas would he be offended if we would throw that out on the basis that scripture doesn't teach him I think it's hard to say actually

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I want to say yes in some ways and I want to say no in some ways because when it came to Mary being a perpetual virgin he was adamant that she was a perpetual virgin there was no backing down in fact even some of his treatises the really controversial one like on the

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Jews and their lives it was actually some arguments were being put forth that Mary was not a perpetual virgin and that got him very heated very fired up and he would not change on that and it's just a way of looking at we don't follow

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Luther just because he was one of the first Protestants I think that he was still infected by a lot of the

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Mariolatry of the day on the other hand when it came to something like the Immaculate Conception that was still highly debated during that time period between the

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Immaculists and the Immaculists positions so he was well aware of those type of debates that it wasn't settled so when it came to the

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Immaculate Conception you can find early in his writings where he would actually speculatively say yes

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I do believe in the Immaculate Conception and even some of those quotes they're not in depth they're just passing comments but what you'll find later on in his writings as the

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Reformation progresses and as Scripture continues to drive

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Luther he comes right out and says things about the Immaculate Conception that it's a fraud there's actually one comment where he says it's a fraudulent thing this is something that came to my attention recently with this cultic communion gang and Taylor Marshall in particular because he actually posted a whole web article on Luther's Mariology and we clearly

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I think you were also involved we clearly showed him that the citations he was pulling out from Luther were completely erroneous and completely out of context in fact one of them

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Luther actually took right out of one of his sermons but these guys they didn't even admit that they had taken

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Luther out of context which is really surprising to me because here they are especially

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Taylor Marshall's guy who went to Westminster Seminary you would think that he would be willing to even look at the evidence that we provide for them even with Pastor King's evidence on what we've been talking about here but for some reason these

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Roman Catholic apologists they will not listen to context

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I don't know if you've found that also George and Ben I think it's just there is a certain amount of human nature that once we get an idea in our heads some of us just want to cling to that idea and not examine the evidence that's against it it would be great for example some people have websites where they make all kinds of claims in favor of Augustine being almost exactly like Calvin on almost every doctrine and it would be nice to just believe that without actually investigating it but I think it's the only honest thing to do if you're going to make those claims and someone's going to present you with some evidence that your claim is not true is to examine what that evidence is rather than just dismissing it out of hand and I hope that what we've

01:00:05

I was just going to say it's something of a caricature and I think

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I noticed this even today when someone says that we as Protestants view someone like Augustine as a proto -Calvinist that's such a caricature we can see both continuity and discontinuity with Augustine the fact is we don't have to make

01:00:29

Augustine to be this or that we can just let Augustine be what he was but it seems as though that the

01:00:37

Roman apologists must force upon the father's conformity to later dogmatic development within the

01:00:46

Roman communion well they ignore the discontinuity absolutely precisely, they ignore the discontinuity and I got an example of that today

01:00:57

I know we're running out of time here but I got an example of that today I pointed out that Augustine's church wouldn't have looked like a modern

01:01:04

Roman Catholic church with its crucifixes, its incense its images and statues everywhere and the response

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I got back was, oh do you think the preacher was standing around in a suit and people are drinking grapefruit juice instead of wine and some other similar typical

01:01:24

American evangelical scene well that's not it either, we're not trying to do what these

01:01:30

Roman Catholics are trying to do we're not trying to say that Augustine held our views and even when it comes to Scripture we're trying to learn what

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Scripture has to say that's why when we go and we examine this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in light of Scripture and we come to the portions of Scripture that Rome likes to argue from like Luke 1 .28

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Mary is highly favored, yes but there's no discussion about her being immaculately conceived and and in the instance you spoke about today that was an attempt to project upon you the particular mindset of the

01:02:04

Roman apologist he was trying to project upon you what he was attempting to project upon Augustine indeed, it was an attempt to assert that I'm trying to do

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I'm trying to assert a complete continuity which I'm not, the Scriptures are what were handed down from the apostles, they are preserved for us by the providence of God in an amazing way which has been talked about many times on this show that's our rule of faith and when we examine these doctrines in light of it we see that they've done the same thing to Scripture as they do to the fathers they read in their own doctrines, they force it onto the text, whether or not it fits it doesn't fit in Luke 1 .28

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as we discussed, it doesn't fit in Genesis 3 .15 they have to mistranslate the text to try to make it fit, even the defining document did that the document defining the document did that Mary as the

01:02:59

Ark of the Covenant it's not the scriptural topology the scriptural topology as you explained,

01:03:05

Pastor King, is exactly the opposite, and when we examine the Church Fathers, the arguments are extremely weak, the

01:03:11

Ark was formed of incorruptible wood according to Hippolytus, but that's referring to the

01:03:18

Ark is formed of incorruptible wood it's not a discussion about the tree from which the

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Ark was formed, it's talking about the Ark itself, which is Jesus He was the

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Ark and I appreciate, Pastor King, that you came on, I acknowledge that I nearly forced you to come on here by twisting your arm, but I really do appreciate that you came on as a guest and thanks also,

01:03:44

Mr. Swan, for coming on. You're welcome, thank you for the discussion, turds and fans and most of all

01:03:51

I'd like to thank Dr. White for allowing me to guest host tonight, I've seen in the chat channel some indication that he may have been listening to part of this although perhaps he tuned out after the comment about baptizing babies but nevertheless thanks again and I expect shortly you'll all hear the closing out music don't forget to tune in next