Should Protestants Affirm the Immaculate Conception?

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What if I were to tell you that the Immaculate Conception is probably not what you think it is? That's what we're going to talk about today on Conversations with a Calvinist, which begins right now.

00:28

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:30

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.

00:35

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

00:37

In fact, it's the time I love the most, and that is Christmastime.

00:41

Looking forward to celebrating with my family, enjoying a time of remembering the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, getting to preach on those important texts about his birth, and just celebrating the season together as the body of Christ.

00:59

Well, today I want to address a subject that I often hear misunderstood within the church, and that is the subject of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

01:11

Oftentimes I do believe that, especially among evangelicals, we use that term in a way that is incorrect.

01:21

In fact, by show of hands, and of course I can't see anyone, has there ever been a time where you thought the Immaculate Conception, or maybe you still think that the Immaculate Conception, is about the conception of Jesus? Raise your hand if that's you.

01:40

I will say this, for several years, when I was a young Christian, that was me.

01:44

When I heard people say the term Immaculate Conception, when I used the term Immaculate Conception as a 1920-year-old new believer, I became a believer at 19 years old and used that term Immaculate Conception.

02:00

I thought that what I was talking about was the very clear and very biblical teaching that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and therefore he was born in a miraculous way.

02:18

Again, mixing up terms, I thought Immaculate referenced a miraculous thing, and that we're going to see later, that's actually not what it means.

02:28

I assumed it had to do with Jesus' conception.

02:32

Again, this was my ignorance, and for those of you who knew all along that that's not what it was about, then you can feel free to feel somewhat intellectually superior to me at a young age, because I didn't know.

02:43

I know this, a lot of Christians don't know this, and I know that simply by anecdotal evidence.

02:50

I hear Christians all the time saying, yes, we need to celebrate the Immaculate Conception.

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I hear evangelical non-Catholics say that.

02:59

Now, when Catholics say it, they know what it means, and we'll find out why that is in just a little while.

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But when I hear an evangelical say, praise God for the Immaculate Conception, my immediate question is, do you know what you're talking about? Do you understand that there is a difference between the clear biblical teaching of the virginal conception of our Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and what is known as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception? Do you know that there's a difference? And again, I have to believe, based on my anecdotal evidence, based on things I see people say online, based on conversations I've had with family and friends, I have to believe people often don't know that there is a difference, and the primary reason is, especially in my neck of the woods, where I'm from, there's not a lot of interaction with Roman Catholics.

04:00

In fact, I remember I talked about this on a previous episode when I had Uncle Rich on, and we were talking about where we grew up in a small town, Callahan, Florida.

04:10

We both grew up here.

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We both graduated from West Nassau High School, and I think we had a graduating class of about a hundred people, so it wasn't a big school, wasn't a big group, and I might be off on that number.

04:23

Uncle Rich will tell me if I'm wrong, but in our town, there was the Baptist church where just about everybody went, and then anything else other than that was sort of like ...

04:40

There were some Pentecostals, of course.

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There's a big Pentecostal church in town, so I guess you were Baptist, Pentecostal, but there were a few Catholics, and we noticed I had a friend who was a Catholic who had certain restrictions on his diet certain times of year, but I didn't know much about it, and I didn't ask him a lot of questions.

04:59

Again, I wasn't a believer in high school, so I wasn't super interested in these things, so I didn't know, didn't really care, but again, as I became a believer in my adult life, I began to hear terms, use terms, think about terms that I hadn't thought about before, and one of those is the doctrine of the immaculate conception.

05:20

This idea, again, what I thought had to do with the virgin birth actually is not directly related in the sense that it is not ...

05:32

When we say immaculate conception, we're not talking about the conception of Jesus, and that's the part that I really want to stress today.

05:40

When someone uses the term immaculate conception, it's actually not referring to Jesus.

05:49

It's referring to Mary.

05:51

This is the doctrine that is held within the Roman Catholic Church that Mary was conceived in a particular way wherein she was kept from the taint or the stain of original sin so that she could be the sinless God bearer, so that she could be the one who was able to give birth to Jesus Christ herself needing to have a special dispensation of cleanliness, as it were, or a special dispensation of having her be this particular vessel for the Lord Jesus Christ to come through.

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This actually is part of a series of teachings regarding Mary, which are known within Roman Catholicism as the Marian dogmas.

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I'm going to pull up a list here.

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There are four dogmas within Roman Catholic teaching, and these are four dogmas that regard Mary in Roman Catholic teaching.

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I want to talk about these four today.

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We're going to specifically talk about the immaculate conception, but I want to talk about the others as well.

07:15

I'm going to be using Roman Catholic resources for today's video because I do think any time ...

07:21

This is an important lesson.

07:22

I will say Dr.

07:23

James White was very helpful in sort of implanting this in my mind.

07:28

As a young believer, as I would listen to him teach a lot, and he would say any time you want to deal with something you disagree with, you need to represent it well.

07:39

You need to represent it correctly.

07:40

You need to be able to argue from the other side.

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I believe that's the truth.

07:44

I believe we should always try to represent the other side truthfully, even if we disagree.

07:49

We shouldn't be disagreeing with something they don't believe because that's called creating a straw man.

07:55

If I simply build up a straw man to burn, that's not solving anything.

08:01

That's not really dealing with the actual arguments of the other side.

08:07

I've been accused of that on a few of my short videos.

08:10

Oh, you're just creating straw men.

08:12

I tell people, well, my short videos are often humorous, and they're often dealing with an exaggerated position from the other side, and they're not intended to be scholarly and debating.

08:23

They're just making a funny point regarding a particular issue.

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I always tell people, don't take those two too terribly seriously.

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They're meant to be humorous and to make a humorous point.

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But when we deal with someone's actual beliefs, we do need to be fair.

08:40

We do need to honestly evaluate them.

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Again, we're going to look at these four Marian dogmas, the title Mother of God.

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We're going to look at the Immaculate Conception, the Perpetual Virginity, and the Assumption of Mary.

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We're going to look at these as they are taught by the Roman Catholic Church, and we're going to use two resources.

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We're going to use Catholic Answers, which is, if you go to catholic.com, you'll find Catholic Answers, which is the apologetics arm for popular Roman Catholicism.

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I would say this is fair to use them as a resource.

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Another resource we're going to use is Catholic News Agency, and the only reason why I'm using this is because they have a really good article on the four Marian dogmas, and I want to cite that a couple of times as we go through this.

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So let's begin really with at least defining what these four dogmas are.

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So let's look first at the first one, which regards the title Mother of God.

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So I'm going to read from catholicnewsagency.com.

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It says, Mary's divine motherhood was proclaimed at the Council of Ephesus.

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Various names are used to describe Mary's role as mother of Jesus.

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She is called mother of God, which translates to the more accurately stated Greek term, Theotokos, as birth giver of God.

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The Council of Ephesus attributed the title to Mary, mother of God.

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She needs to be, this needs to be read against the Council's declaration that in Christ there are two natures, one divine and one human, but only one person.

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Indeed, according to the Council, the Holy Virgin is the mother of God since she begot according to the flesh, the word of God made flesh.

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This decision was further explained by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which says with regard to Mary's divine motherhood, quote, begotten from the father before the ages as regards his Godhead and in the last days, the same because of us and because of our salvation, begotten from the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, as regards his manhood, one in the same Christ son, Lord only begotten and the quote ends.

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It goes on to say Mary's divine motherhood was not the object of an independent or exclusive dogmatic declaration.

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This statement is embedded in text defining the person and natures of Jesus Christ.

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Thus, the dogma of divine motherhood becomes an integral part of the Christological dogma.

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This does not diminish its definitive and binding character.

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The dogma of divine motherhood is generally accepted by all Christian denominations.

11:39

Okay, so that's a good point that they make there in the end.

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That's what I want to deal with.

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As far as this regarding Mary, calling her the mother of God, Theotokos, again, it depends on how we define that.

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Just this coming Sunday, I'm going to be preaching Jesus, the God man.

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That's the title of my sermon because I'm going to be looking at Colossians chapter one.

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I'm going to be looking at verse 19, which says that the fullness of God dwelt in him and it says that again in chapter two, verse nine, it's in fact in chapter two, verse nine, it's more emphatic because it actually uses the word for deity.

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It says that all the fullness dwelt in him bodily, all the fullness of deity dwelt in him bodily.

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I have no problem saying that Jesus is the God man.

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I have no problem saying Jesus is God incarnate.

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Even the simplest term, Jesus is God, yes, in the sense that he is God incarnate, absolutely.

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I'm a Trinitarian Christian and I've argued for Trinitarian theology on this show before, so I have no issue with that.

12:57

Wherein we're saying, if a person is simply saying that Mary gave birth to the person of Jesus who is himself the embodiment of the divine Logos, and in that sense, mother of God, well, okay.

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That seems to be what the council is saying, that she was ...

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In fact, if you go back, it says the father in Christ were before all ages within the Godhead, but what came about bodily was in regard to how Mary was participating.

13:42

We typically say Mary is the mother of Jesus in the sense that Jesus Christ as the man, the human nature of Christ, came into the world through the birth in Bethlehem, but the divine nature, the Logos, has always existed.

14:07

In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, and so this idea of Mary being the mother of God, I think where Protestants, and myself included, would take the biggest issue with that is in some way it seems as if the human agent being Mary, the human agent of birth, and the human agent of giving birth to Christ is obviously important, obviously used by God in a miraculous way.

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Nobody has an issue with that.

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Nobody takes issue with that.

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The problem is when you say mother of God in the sense of God having come from her, I think that's where some of us would take the issue and say, okay, she's the mother of Christ.

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She's the mother of Jesus.

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Jesus is God, and in that sense, yes, you could say mother of God in one sense, but God himself, and when we say God, we say God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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The triune God is from no one and is born of no one, and therefore, I think where so many have the issue is it seems as if Mary in that sense is being exalted in a way that is unhelpful, and so would we say that Theotokos is absolutely off the table? Probably not, but it's not a term that many Protestants are going to use without clarification, and again, there's clarification even in this article.

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There's clarification, and this is a Catholic article, so I don't think this is the hugest of the four as far as issues.

15:57

Certainly there are issues that could arise, and there are people who have elevated Mary to a position of equality with Christ, and that is a problem.

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We're going to talk about a little bit later some who are pushing for titles like co-redemptrix, co-mediatrix.

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These are terms which some have applied to Mary, even though I will admit that is not something that has been officially declared by the Roman Catholic Church as dogma, but it just needs to be understood that there are those who, because of terms like mother of God and queen of heaven, things like that, are elevating Mary in a way that certainly is not something we see in Scripture, but also something that is brought with the possibility of the potential dangers of idolatry, and certainly even within Roman Catholicism, there has to be recognition that there are those who take an ungodly approach to Mary and do set her up as an idol, even though, as we're going to see in a little while, the Roman Catholic Church would deny that they do that.

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What's denied officially doesn't always ring true with what's happening within the rank and file believers.

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I can tell you that the statues made to Mary and people hugging them and bowing down to them, and there's a picture that one of the missionaries we used to support used to bring from his area, which was over in Eastern Europe, and he would come back and he would show us pictures of a statue of Mary that was in the center of the town, and people encircled this thing for several hundred feet, down on their hands and knees, face down, prostrate before a statue of Mary.

17:55

And so, yes, it's problematic, it can cause a lot of problems, and so again, getting back to the four that we discussed just a moment ago, the first one, the title Mother of God, that's an issue that can be discussed, but that's one of the four dogmas regarding Mary.

18:17

The second one that we're going to look at is the Immaculate Conception.

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Now this is, of course, probably why you tuned into the video, because, well, the Immaculate Conception is the subject of today's video.

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And the Immaculate Conception actually, we said, doesn't deal with the conception of Jesus, but actually deals with the conception of Mary herself.

18:36

And I want to quote from Catholic Answers, okay? So we have this quote, it says, The Immaculate Conception is a Catholic dogma that states that Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain.

18:58

That's what immaculate means, without stain.

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All right, so right away, we recognize the Immaculate Conception is not about Jesus's virginal conception.

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This is about Mary herself, and the argument, as it's explained, and you can go to Catholic Answers, you can look up the Immaculate Conception and Assumption, that's the title of the article that I'm citing today, and that's where this comes from.

19:27

They go through immediately beginning to define how this operates, because one of the Protestant arguments, and they actually bring this up, one of the Protestant arguments is that, and I'll read it here, Protestants' chief reason for objecting the Immaculate Conception and Mary's consequent sinlessness is that we're told that all have sinned, Roman 3.23, besides they say Mary said, her, quote, spirit rejoices in God my Savior, end quote, Luke 1.47, and only a sinner needs a Savior.

20:02

All right, so real quick, it's interesting that at least they recognize that the Protestants do have an objection to this, and one of the biggest objections that I've made and I've heard is the fact that when they say Mary is sinless, we go back and we say, okay, there are two problems with that.

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One, all have sinned, and two, the issue of Mary does say that the Lord is her Savior, and again, sinners are the ones who need Saviors.

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If Mary is sinless, why does she need a Savior? So the answer is that, at least the answer that they give, is that Mary does receive a salvation of sorts, but her salvation is what happened in her when she was conceived and being kept from sin.

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That was like a preemptive salvation.

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It was keeping her from being a sinner, and this is an analogy directly from the website, directly from Catholic Answers.

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It says this, suppose a man falls into a pit and someone reaches down to pull him out.

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This man has been saved from the pit.

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Now imagine a woman walking along and she is too about to topple into the pit, but at the very moment she is to fall in, someone holds her back and prevents her.

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She too has been saved from the pit, but in an even better way.

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She was not simply taken out of the pit.

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She was prevented from getting stained by the mud in the first place.

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This is the illustration Christians have used for a thousand years to explain how Mary was saved by Christ, by receiving Christ's grace at her conception.

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She had this grace applied to her before she was able to become mired in original sin and its stain.

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All right, so the argument from their side is that, yes, Mary is being saved, but she's being saved preemptively.

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She's being saved from the original sin of Adam, being transferred to her.

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That's why it's a miraculous or immaculate, remember immaculate means without stain.

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So the reason for the immaculate conception or this without stain conception is so that she doesn't receive the stain of Adam.

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And so therefore she is, she still saved as it were, but she saved preemptively.

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So Protestants argue that Mary was a sinner because she said she needed a savior or that God was her savior and that all have sinned.

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And their response to that is, well, she would have been a savior, but she was kept preemptively.

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That's the illustration they give from falling into the pit of sin.

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And so she's kept sinless.

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And so what we end up with then in scripture or rather not in scripture, in Catholic tradition is the idea that we really have two sinless people in history because often we argue there's only one sinless person and that's Jesus Christ.

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But the Roman Catholic teaching would be, no, there's two sinless people.

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There's Jesus and then there's Mary and Mary was kept from original sin and therefore kept from actual sin.

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They believe Mary was sinless not only by virtue of the fact that she didn't carry on the Adamic nature and the original sin, but that she herself wasn't a sinner.

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And I remember very specifically Dr.

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James White telling or in a debate with a Roman Catholic apologist and the Roman Catholic said, he said he was retelling the story of Jesus with the adulterous woman being thrown at his feet and how Jesus said, he who was without sin cast the first stone.

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And now this was a story told by the Roman Catholic.

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He said, he said in his, in his version, a stone flew in and hit the woman and Jesus stopped and looked.

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And he says, I'm not talking about you, mom, not you, mom, as it to say, yes, there is someone who is without sin who could have cast the stone.

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And it wasn't Jesus only.

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It was Jesus and Mary who were sinless.

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And again, where we take the biggest issue with this, this doctrine is that it is nowhere found in scripture.

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It's based on, and when I say we, I say Protestants because they say, well, here, here, here's the Protestant argument that she says she needed a savior and she herself was a sinner because all have sinned.

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Yeah.

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I think those two are still legitimate, even though the Roman Catholic would disagree with our arguments there and they make their own, you know, sort of run around by saying that she was, you know, still saved and she was saved without sin.

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But the bigger issue is that we don't find this in scripture.

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A lot of, a lot of, um, a lot of the argument from, from Roman Catholics comes from the gospel of Luke where we get what's known as the magnificent or, or Mary song, uh, in the gospel of Luke.

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And one of the arguments they make is that in this, in this particular instance where we have Mary interacting with the angel Gabriel, that Mary is, uh, expressing certain, certain things that they can draw from that, that arrive at these conclusions.

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I want to read from Luke chapter one, Luke chapter one, verse 26 says in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the Virgin's name was Mary.

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And he came to her and said, greetings old favored one.

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That that's a huge one because that, that, that, uh, that word favored one, uh, is often they, they, they attach a lot to that because it refers to being, uh, full of grace.

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And so you'll hear the term hail Mary, full of grace, uh, that term, oh, favored one, as we as translated in the ESV is the term which is often attached to this idea of Mary being, uh, having this grace prior to even this event, but that this grace has been on her whole, whole life.

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And they will argue that that grace is what kept her from sin.

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Um, but it goes on verse 29 it says, but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

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And the angel said, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

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Again, the, the word there, grace, you found grace in the eyes of God and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus.

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He will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the Lord will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom.

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There will be no end.

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Mary said the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin? And he answered her, the Holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you.

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Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the son of God.

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And therefore your relative or behold, your relative, Elizabeth and her old age has also conceived a son and the six month with her who was called barren for nothing will be impossible with God.

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And um, it says in verse 38 and Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord.

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Let it be to me according to your word and the angel departed from her.

27:53

Well, then we later after she, uh, has this instance where she goes to the house of Elizabeth and she speaks with Elizabeth and John the Baptist is in Elizabeth's womb.

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He, he, he leaps with joy, uh, upon her visit.

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Uh, we, we, we read these words in verse 44, it says for behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leapt for joy.

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Verse 45 says, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of the, of that which was spoken to her from the Lord.

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And verse 46 and Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior.

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There's that phrase, God, my savior.

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And that's again, a lot of process say, well, there it is.

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She, she needed a savior.

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She was a sinner.

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And we already heard about that argument earlier where he has looked on the humble estate of his servant for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed.

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And again, they, a lot, a lot of theology is being attached to these ideas.

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Well, okay.

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All generations must call her the blessed virgin is, is one of the arguments that comes from this and it goes on verse 49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

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He has shown strength with his arm.

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He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts.

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He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of the humble estate.

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He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away is helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

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Again, that is the, that's the second section, which is often referred to as the beneficent or Mary's song regarding her blessings from the Lord.

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And these are the, these are the sections, the sections I just read in Luke chapter one that where Gabriel visits Mary and then where Mary visits Elizabeth and, and, and, and we hear this song.

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These are the two sections where so much of the dogmas are, are, will point to, they'll say, well, see where Mary said here, you know, all generations will call her blessed.

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And, and, and we see here where the angel said, oh, oh, favored one.

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And if there was ever, in my opinion, if there was ever a time where we could rightfully call out, hey, that's eisegesis.

30:23

When you're arriving at a doctrine of sinlessness based upon those very specific passages, which are not clearly saying what you're saying, they're saying, and you're having to do these eisegetical runarounds that this is where, this is where so many Protestants take issue.

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And I've heard it said, well, you Protestants, you just disrespect Mary.

30:58

No, no, it's not about disrespecting Mary.

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It's about not allowing Mary to be put in a place that the scripture doesn't allow.

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And someone might from the Roman Catholic side might argue, well, well, we get to define what the scripture means because we have the Pope and we have the magisterium.

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And again, this is, this comes back.

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And for those of you who are evangelical Baptist, maybe from a tradition similar to mine, where you haven't had a lot of exposure with Roman Catholicism, it's important to understand that where we hold to a doctrine called sola scriptura, which means the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

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We hold to the fact that the Bible is the sole authority that is infallible in the church.

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We have other authorities.

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We have elders, we have pastors, teachers, you know, we have even creeds and confessions that we look to, but all of those things are subservient to scripture.

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Scripture alone, sola scriptura is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

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And that's the Protestant position.

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Well, the position of the Roman Catholic church is not the same.

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The position of the Roman Catholic church is that the, the magisterium of the church, the, the, the, the, the teaching and tradition of the church have the ability to declare de fide, to declare what is to be believed.

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And it can be done outside of scripture.

32:29

It can be done without the scripture.

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And, and, and what's interesting is about the doctrine of the immaculate conception is it did not become official dogma.

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And remember dogma means what must be, what must be believed.

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Dogma is, is not optional.

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Dogma is, this is, this is what you must believe to be a good Roman Catholic or to, to be a record, to, to, to be part of the, the, um, to be accepted as part of the Roman Catholic faith.

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These are things have to be believed.

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And so the doctrine of the immaculate conception was not officially recognized until Pope Pius the ninth did so in 1854.

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Now just, just think for a moment.

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1854, that is, that's what, 170, 180 years ago.

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You know, it's not that long ago.

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And when we think about that, we have to also consider the fact that for 1850 years, it was not dogmatically taught.

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Now I'm not saying people didn't believe it.

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And that's what the argument, if you, if you go to Catholic answers, it says the document, the doctrine of the immaculate conception was officially defined by Pope Pius the ninth in 1854.

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When Protestants claim that the doctrine was invented at this time, they misunderstand both history of dogmas and what prompts the church to issue from time to time definitive pronouncements regarding faith and morals.

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They're under the impression that no doctrine is believed until the Pope or an ecumenical council issues a formal statement about it.

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I, I don't, I don't think that I know that there were people who believe these things about Mary prior to 1854.

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I mean, obviously it wasn't just in 1854, this became a thing.

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No people, there were people who believed this.

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The issue is at this point now, it can't be, it can't be disbelieved.

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If you're a Roman Catholic, you, you have to believe this because this is official church doctrine.

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Now it's official church, church teaching.

34:34

And, and, and where I see that the big danger is there are people who now, again, going back, there are people who now believe within Roman Catholicism that Mary is co-mediatrix and co-redemptrix with Christ.

34:50

And even though if you look up that on Catholic answers, you'll, you'll see one of their, one of their hosts received a call and there's a transcript of the call.

35:02

And I read through the transcript and what he says is he says that, well, you know, in a sense she is, you know, she participates with God in the salvation, you know, by bringing Christ into the world.

35:15

So in that sense, it's true, but there's, there's no, there doesn't seem to be any direction in which this is, is ever going to actually become official.

35:27

In fact, let me pull it.

35:27

I just want to read, read, read what he says.

35:30

He says, and this is just, just to be clear, this is again from Catholic answers and this is Jimmy Akin, does the church teach Mary is co-redemptrix? And so he, he, he kind of explains it here, what, what he believes that means in the sense that co meaning does, doesn't mean equal, but it means with, and therefore they're not saying Mary's equal with Jesus.

36:05

They're just saying, she's a woman who cooperates with the redeemer.

36:07

She cooperates with God's plan and her son's role in it.

36:10

And therefore she's cooperative in our salvation.

36:13

Again, still participant, still participant in our salvation.

36:17

But he goes on to say this.

36:19

He said, Pope Benedict in an interview has said, even as far back as the reign of John Paul II, that he didn't think that there would ever be an action to make this a dogma to proclaim this language as dogma.

36:30

So, so here, here's my issue.

36:32

They're saying this, this will probably never become dogma.

36:38

But he goes on to say later, and I hope I can find it here.

36:42

He says, ultimately that if, yeah, here it is.

36:46

He says, now that could change with a future Pope who might have a different opinion, who might revive it.

36:53

But that's my assessment on the current status of the phrase visa V authoritative teaching.

36:58

And so, so he's saying, he's saying, yeah, right now, I don't think we should use the expression.

37:01

This is, this is his, he was, he was referring to a Pope saying, I don't think we should use this expression.

37:07

But he says, but a few, a future Pope may have a different opinion.

37:10

And again, this is where, this is where the problem lies.

37:13

And this is something I want to, I'm trying to point out in today's episode.

37:15

What we have is we have Roman Catholic teaching, which you can move from something being something that is believed among Catholics to being demanded to be believed.

37:30

And it is so at the, under the authority of the Pope, because again, they're not under the authority of scripture, which is unchanging and is certain and is a plumb line against which we can measure everything else.

37:46

They have the magisterial authority arm of the church.

37:50

They have the papacy and the papacy has the ability, as he just said, he can have a different opinion, which means the, the opinion of the previous Pope would become void at that point.

38:01

And, and another Pope could come along in this idea of co-redemption, co-redemptrix.

38:06

Sure.

38:07

Yeah, that could go back on the table.

38:09

So, so again, you know, if you're wondering, you know, why is all this an issue? It's an issue, I think, because quite frankly, we're dealing with the issue of, of authority, because when it comes to the Marian dogmas, and again, looking back at what they are, the four dogmas, the title, mother of God, again, we could debate how to understand that, but on the immaculate conception, if you're a Roman Catholic, you don't have an option not to believe this, because this is dogmatically defined, even though it's only 170, some, some years ago, it's been dogmatically defined, it must be believed.

38:46

And if you don't believe it, you're, you're not part of the church, the Roman Catholic church in the sense of you're not affirming what the Roman Catholic church teaches.

38:54

Now, there are two other dogmas regarding Mary.

38:56

I just want to mention, even though today really was about the immaculate conception and it's, it's the perpetual virginity and the assumption of Mary.

39:06

Now, the perpetual virginity of Mary is simply the doctrine that she, she was never not a virgin and there are, let me read, I'll go back to the Catholic News Agency article.

39:21

It says this, it says, the expression perpetual virginity, ever virgin, or simply Mary the virgin, refers primarily to the conception and birth of Jesus from the first formulations of faith, especially in baptismal formulas or professions of faith.

39:33

The church professed that Jesus Christ was conceived without human seed by the power of the Holy Spirit only.

39:38

Here lies the decisive meaning of expressions such as conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, Mary's virginal conception or virgin birth.

39:45

The early baptismal formula since the third century state that Mary's virginity without further explaining it, but there is no doubt about its physical meaning.

39:54

Later statements are more explicit.

39:56

Mary conceived without any detriment to her virginity, which remained inviolate even after his birth.

40:02

That's the Council of the Lateran in 649.

40:04

So in 649, it was declared at a council that she was a virgin before she was, before she gave birth and she remained with her virginal integrity intact after the birth of Christ.

40:21

And there are different ways that this has been understood, but it seems as if what is taught is that Jesus was not birthed in the normal way, which of course would disturb any virginal integrity, but that Jesus was birthed in a way that was somewhat miraculous.

40:45

Again, citing Dr.

40:46

James White, who mentions that it's like the, it's like a Star Trek, beam me up Scotty, you know, that he was, that he was translated from the womb to the room that he didn't come through the normal means of virginal delivery.

41:02

Now, again, going back to the Bible, we find no evidence that Jesus came through any other means other than the normal vaginal delivery birth that would, that has happened billions of times and will continue to happen because it's the normal way that children come into this world.

41:24

And there's, there's nothing in the text that would indicate this.

41:28

So, so again, this has to be, this has to be something imposed upon it.

41:33

And where many Protestants take issue with this is that later we see in the gospels, Jesus having brothers and sisters who are mentioned and the, again, the response, because Roman Catholics do have a response to that, is that these were, that Jesus was Mary's only child, but that there were brothers and sisters who came through Joseph's second wife.

42:07

I was just talking to Uncle Rich about this just yesterday, and he mentioned having a conversation with a Roman Catholic.

42:12

Now, again, this is anecdotal.

42:13

This isn't, this isn't, this isn't proclaimed in a, in a dogmatic statement, but this was just a conversation with a Roman Catholic.

42:21

And the guy said, yeah, he had a second wife and her name was Mary also.

42:24

And it's like, there's, there's no evidence, one, that Joseph had any other wife.

42:30

There's no, no biblical evidence that he had another wife.

42:34

And there's no biblical evidence, certainly, that he had a second wife named Mary, that we just don't see that.

42:41

And again, as a, as a, as a Protestant, I do not hold to the authority of the Pope or the authority of the magisterial teaching of the church, because I see things in those that have been wrong.

42:56

And this is, it's like what Martin Luther said at the Diet of Worms, he says, he says, you know, my conscience is captive to the word of God.

43:04

And I, I don't look at Popes and I don't look at councils because they, they often contradict each other.

43:11

Just like what we talked about earlier, a Pope can come along and say what the last Pope said was wrong.

43:15

And then who's to say it's, it's him.

43:18

There's, there's no final authority with the word of God.

43:21

And the word of God doesn't, doesn't stand on its own as a, as an ultimate authority in Roman Catholicism, but rather it has this equal weight with, with church tradition and the, and the magisterium.

43:34

So again, this is all, this is where Protestants take issue.

43:37

We say there's no biblical evidence that Mary remained a virgin after her giving birth to Jesus.

43:45

And there's really no, no necessity of it.

43:49

There's the, the, the, the, the argument that it's needed.

43:54

And this is what I'll go on and read some more from the article.

43:57

It says, although never explicit in detail, the Catholic church holds a dogma that Mary was and is virgin before in and after Christ's birth.

44:06

It stresses thus the radical novelty of the incarnation.

44:10

Mary's no less radical and exclusive dedication to her mission as mother of her son, Jesus Christ.

44:16

Vatican II reiterated the teaching about Mary, the ever virgin by stating that Christ's birth did not diminish Mary's virginal integrity, but sanctified it.

44:26

The catechism of the Catholic church ponders the deeper meaning of the virgin bride and perpetual virginity.

44:32

And I guess it's questions 499 to 507 because reference there.

44:37

It also maintains that Jesus Christ was Mary's only child.

44:40

The so-called brothers and sisters are close relations.

44:44

Now that's doesn't give any other information than that.

44:47

Like I said, I've heard it argued that they were brothers and sisters from, from Joseph's other wives.

44:54

Again, all of this speculation, none of it.

44:58

We have to prove something.

45:00

So we're going to prove it by simply saying, well, what the scripture says about Jesus having brothers and sisters and them coming with Mary to Jesus.

45:13

That's another thing that these, these brothers and sisters come with Mary to, to speak with Jesus.

45:17

And I say, well, all of that, that's just, those are his half brothers and sisters.

45:20

Those are not his brothers and sisters.

45:22

Again, as a Protestant, I have no allegiance to the papacy.

45:28

And so I don't feel the need to believe this.

45:31

I have no allegiance to this particular council in 649.

45:35

I don't consider this to be a, uh, an authoritative council, like one of the earlier councils, maybe like Nicaea or something, which, which I do believe spoke with a certain level of authority because of its early nature and ecumenical nature.

45:48

But these later councils, you know, speaking of her virginal integrity, having not been affected by his birth.

45:57

Again, I have no reason to believe that.

45:59

And, um, as, as a Protestant, again, you know, you're certainly within your right to believe this.

46:05

This is, I don't think that this is heresy in the sense that if you believe that Mary remained a virgin, that that's a problem.

46:12

I think, uh, there's arguments recently I've seen online where people say, well, Luther believed these things.

46:17

And I say, well, one Luther, Luther didn't never, we have to understand historically Luther's intention in the beginning was not to abandon the Roman Catholic church, but was to see reform from within.

46:32

And when, when it finally came about that he, you know, was in a sense divided, uh, through the, through the, the problems and the inability to reform within, he carried a lot of the Catholic, uh, beliefs with him.

46:45

I mean, he, he, he still maintained a, a, a, a strong belief in the, in the, um, the, the, the elements of the bread and the cup actually being the physical body and blood of Christ.

46:59

It's still believed in Catholic, or excuse me, Lutherans still believe that today.

47:04

And, uh, I think this quote was from Luther.

47:08

And again, I'm quoting from memory.

47:09

I think he said, I'd rather drink, I'd rather drink blood with the Pope than to drink mere wine with a radical, uh, or a fanatic, I think was the quote.

47:19

And basically what he's saying is, you know, there were certain things about Roman Catholic teaching that, that Luther did not abandon.

47:26

Um, and, and so the fact that Luther held to, to Marian teachings doesn't one doesn't make them right.

47:32

And doesn't mean that those things should be believed by Protestants.

47:35

But my point is to say that things like the virginal, the perpetual virginity for me, it's just an issue of one, I don't believe the Bible teaches it to, I don't believe the Bible even defends it in any way.

47:47

Uh, even in inferentially, uh, I don't think there's a explicit teaching or an, uh, uh, inference.

47:54

So I just don't have any reason to believe it based on my sole authority, which is the word of God.

47:59

Soul infallible rule of faith and practice is the Bible.

48:03

And so the last one of course, is the assumption of Mary.

48:06

Now the assumption of Mary, again, this is the four, four teachings about Mary title, mother of God, the immaculate conception of the perpetual virginity and the assumption of Mary.

48:15

So on this fourth one, the assumption of Mary, allow me to bring up a quote again from Catholic answers.

48:22

The assumption is the doctrine that says that at the end of her life on earth, Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven, just as Enoch, Elijah, and perhaps others had been before.

48:33

Some people think Catholics believe Mary ascended into heaven.

48:35

That's not correct.

48:37

Christ by his own power ascended into heaven.

48:40

Mary was assumed or taken up into heaven.

48:43

Um, Mary was assumed, excuse me, uh, uh, Mary was assumed or taken up into heaven by God.

48:50

She didn't do it under her own power.

48:53

Again, that's the quote from Catholic answers.

48:57

So let's just for a moment, kind of, kind of consider this again, as, as doctrine, the idea that Mary was assumed in heaven.

49:06

Um, now this, this particular doctrine again is, is, is, is, is, has, has, has an even more recent, uh, uh, pedigree than the doctrine of the immaculate conception.

49:19

Immaculate conception was in 1854 with the Marian dogma about the assumption was not proclaimed until Pope Pius the 12th on November the 1st, 1950.

49:30

All right.

49:30

So, so like my dad was alive when this became a, uh, official Roman Catholic doctrine and teaching.

49:37

And, and this is, it essentially states again that Mary was assumed into heaven in the same way that Enoch and Elijah were that not ascended in the sense of Christ.

49:49

And again, I want to be fair to, to what the Roman Catholics say that Roman Catholics who were not saying she ascended in the same way that, that, that, that, that Jesus did.

49:57

But we are saying that she was assumed into heaven in the way that, uh, you know, Enoch was, and then, then comes an even bigger question.

50:07

And this is, this is addressed in the, um, in the, the, the teaching on, on Catholic answers.

50:14

And that is, did she actually die? And, and some believe that she did.

50:18

Some believe that she didn't.

50:20

Um, and, and therein is a, uh, a question about that is, does, does assumption mean that she actually died? Um, and I'll read a quote.

50:31

It says, the church has never formally defined whether she died or not.

50:33

And the integrity of the doctrine of the assumption would not be impaired if she did in fact die.

50:38

But the most universal consensus is that she did die.

50:41

Pope Pius the 12th in the, um, in the statement that he made in 1950 defined that Mary, after the completion of her earthly or after the completion of her earthly life.

50:52

And it says, note, the silence regarding her death was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.

50:58

Now, an argument they go on to make is that the, there are no remains of Mary that, um, certain Christian remains of early church leaders, like some of the apostles and stuff that they, they believe they have those.

51:12

And there are places where they believe that they're enshrined or they're, they're, they're, uh, buried.

51:17

Um, but there's no remains of Mary.

51:20

Therefore, it's one of the, one of their sort of arguments or this doctrine of her assumption.

51:27

So again, uh, uh, what is that, you know, what is the necessity of believing that and why is this now something that is, is demanded among Roman Catholics? Well, again, I, I think that what we have to consider is that there is this, that there's this push within Roman Catholicism and it's this push of the, of the elevation of Mary.

51:58

And it's this push of this idea that, that, that she is in a, in a place of, of uniqueness that's, that's more than what the Bible gives her.

52:08

The Bible gives her a position of uniqueness.

52:09

The Bible gives her the position of being the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ.

52:14

The, the one who through whom, uh, the, the God man was born, uh, she is given the, the, the, the category of being blessed by God.

52:22

I mean, we see that she's blessed to be chosen by God to be the one to, to bear the, the, the God man in the sense of giving birth to the Lord Jesus Christ.

52:31

But, but all of these additional things are added on, not as speculations or possibilities, but as dogma, as what must be believed.

52:42

And again, as a, as a Protestant, my issue becomes an issue of, I, I, I will believe what the Bible teaches and I will believe with all of my heart that the Bible is the authority and I will give allegiance to what the Bible says.

53:01

Um, but I'm, I'm not going to be beholden to something that is not given in scripture at all.

53:10

And again, obviously the, the issue of Mary's, um, supposed assumption, that's not found in the Bible.

53:19

Uh, and, and the argument is, well, it's actually in church history.

53:25

Um, but again, it's, it's not something that has to be believed there.

53:30

There are things about church history that I can believe.

53:33

Like for instance, let's talk about the birth or the death of Peter, right? The Bible doesn't talk about the death of Peter.

53:40

Church tradition says that he was hung on a cross and that he was hung on a cross upside down because he said he didn't want to be crucified like his Lord.

53:50

So he wanted to, he, he, he wound up being crucified upside down.

53:54

Um, I don't have any problem believing that, but if somebody came along and said, you know what? I think that story is made up.

53:59

I don't believe it.

54:00

So what? Who cares? Okay.

54:02

We have a different view on, uh, uh, the, the potentiality of a historic event.

54:08

It's the only, um, or it's, you know, it's the only tradition I'm aware of in regard to the death of Peter.

54:14

Um, that seems to have any, um, historical pedigree and, and potential truth to it.

54:19

So I think it's likely true, but if somebody doesn't believe it doesn't matter.

54:25

But what the issue is, is these, this proclamation of dogma.

54:29

And again, it's, it's, it's about where, where we find our authority, where we exercise our power and how we demand things that are to be believed that aren't in the scriptures.

54:40

And that's the issue that I think most Protestants have with the Marian dogmas is, um, that they are not founded in the scriptures.

54:51

They're not based on an exegetical understanding of what the scripture says.

54:55

They are founded upon a church tradition that has shown itself to be corrupt, shown itself to be, um, motivated by many factors outside of scripture and truth.

55:08

Um, and so we have no reason or desire to follow after these things.

55:13

We just see them as being superfluous and ultimately potentially dangerous.

55:20

Because again, going back to the, the, the, the four things here, going back to the four dogmas, we, there are ways in which the, even the first one, the title mother of God, even though that was, that's the, probably the oldest and one that has the most historic pedigree.

55:36

Um, there are ways that that can be misused and misunderstood.

55:40

And certainly people would say, well, we're, we're not worshiping Mary, but there are those who do, there are those who evaluate, who, who, who bow down again to statues of Mary, who, who, who offer up prayers to Mary.

55:54

And again, I mean, there's the prayers to Mary are a huge thing in Roman Catholicism because they believe, and this is a, maybe something for a different episode, but they, they, they do believe in prayer to the saints.

56:04

And of course, Mary is the greatest of the, of the saints.

56:06

And, and, and so we see this, we see this problem, uh, even with the first one, the second one, again, the immaculate conception that Mary was sinless, was conceived without sin, no biblical evidence, no, nothing in the Bible to teach that.

56:22

And, um, no reason to believe that perpetual virginity.

56:26

Again, there's actually reasons in the Bible to dismiss that, but yet there are those who believe it.

56:31

Um, and the assumption of Mary, all of these things are unnecessary.

56:37

All of these things are being forced upon Roman Catholics, but this is one of the reasons why Protestants say, no, we, we are not going to accept these teachings because they are not founded on the word of God.

56:52

And so those are the four, uh, dogmas regarding Mary.

56:56

Of course, there are other things that we didn't get into such as praying the rosary, the hail Mary's and all those things.

57:01

And if you want to hear more about those, you want to talk about those on a future episode, send me a message and, um, I'll be happy to look into those and, and, and, uh, teach more about those.

57:12

Um, if you have questions and you want me to go over them.

57:15

Um, so with that being said, I want to, uh, draw today's episode to a close by, as I always do reminding you that, uh, if you are listening to us via YouTube, please take an opportunity to subscribe to the channel.

57:29

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57:31

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57:32

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57:33

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57:37

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57:47

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57:52

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57:56

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58:01

So again, I want to thank you today for listening to conversations with the Calvinist.

58:04

I hope this, uh, investigation into the Miriam dogmas has been helpful for you and hopefully will help you to better understand your Roman Catholic friends as you have conversations with them about what we believe as Protestants.

58:16

Thank you again for listening to conversations with the Calvinist.

58:19

My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.

58:22

May God bless you.