Transcript

Recently, I was invited to debate a Protestant on Mary being the mother of God, but unfortunately, the debate fell through.

However, I thought you all might benefit from hearing a modified version of my opening statement that engages how some Protestants object to this doctrine.

So, here we go.

Father John Hardon once said that bad Mariology leads to bad Christology, and that's definitely true among those who reject calling Mary the mother of God.

This comes from the more ancient title, Theotokos, which means God bearer.

But first, let's define our terms.

By God, I mean a divine person.

When Saint Thomas said to Jesus, My Lord and my God, he was not saying, My Lord and my Trinity.

Thomas was saying Jesus is a divine person, Jesus is the infinite God made man.

When we say God was born or God died on a cross, we are not saying the Trinity was born or that the Trinity died on the cross, we are saying a divine person was born and a divine person died, namely the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, who became the man, Jesus of Nazareth.

By mother I mean a human who conceives, gestates, and gives birth to another person.

Being the mother of God does not mean Mary created Jesus' divine nature or even His human soul.

The catechism of the Catholic Church says, Every spiritual soul is created immediately by God.

It is not produced by the parents.

Instead, Mary gave the Son His human nature and she cared for this divine person in her womb, just as every other human mother gives a human nature to a person, her son or daughter, who resides in her womb.

Saying Mary is the mother of God simply means that Mary conceived a person within her womb and that person was the second divine person of the Trinity, God the Son.

Mary also gestated that divine person in her womb as He grew and developed, and then she gave birth to this divine person who had assumed a fully human nature.

Saying Mary is the mother of God is another way of saying that Jesus was God throughout His entire human existence, and this shows why the dogma of Mary, mother of God is so important and why it was officially proclaimed in the early church at the Council of Ephesus.

Specifically, it is heretical to deny Mary is the mother of God, because in doing that, you deny the divinity of Christ.

In the early church, adoptionist heretics claimed Jesus Christ was a human person who became divine later in life at His baptism or even His resurrection, but this theology denies the incarnation, it denies that God became man and replaces it with the heresy that a man became God.

To safeguard against this heresy, we call the blessed virgin Mary, Theotokos, the God bearer or mother of God.

Unfortunately, some Protestants deny this important doctrine.

Here's Protestant pastor, John MacArthur.

In fact, Roman Catholics refer to her as Theotokos, God bearer.

They say she gave birth to God and thus is to be elevated and adored.

She gave birth to God.

That is a terrible misconception.

She gave birth to Jesus in His humanity.

She did not give birth to God.

God was never born.

A critic who denies this dogma is really in a pickle.

If he says Mary was only the mother of Jesus' body or only the mother of His human nature, then I would ask, Where was the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, when Mary was pregnant with Jesus?

If he says God the Son was identical to the fetus in Mary's womb, then he has to admit Mary is the mother of God.

If that fetus is God and being pregnant with a human fetus means you are a mother, then Mary is the mother of Jesus, end of discussion.

Francis Swaggart, the wife of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart once wrote on Facebook, While Mary was essential to harbor His developing human form for nine months, she had nothing whatsoever to do with His godhood.

But this is the heresy of Nestorianism.

It divides Christ into a human form and some other person who is divine.

A Christian cannot say Mary was only pregnant with the human body of Jesus or the human nature of Jesus because women don't gestate and give birth to natures or mere bodies, they gestate and give birth to persons.

I would ask evangelicals like the Swaggarts if they think all unborn children are persons with a right to life.

If they do, then what person was in Mary's pregnant womb?

The divine person, God the Son, that's who.

In response, the Protestant apologist, Erik Svensson claims in his book, Evangelical Answers that, The person of Jesus isn't merely God any more than the person of Jesus is merely man.

Put another way, Mary gave birth to a person who is both God and man.

She did not give birth to the pre-incarnate form of the Logos.

It is proper to call Mary the mother of Jesus, but not the mother of God.

And now you did a heresy.

Mary didn't give birth to anything pre-incarnate because birth occurs after the incarnation, but Mary did give birth to the word, to the Logos.

John 1:14 literally says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

To say Jesus is a human person and a divine person can be easily twisted to say the second person of the Trinity, a divine person, changed in His very person at the incarnation to become a composite human divine person.

But God is infinite being itself.

God cannot change.

God is immutable.

That's why Saint Cyril of Alexandria told the heretic Nestorius, We do not say that His flesh was turned into the nature of the Godhead, nor that the unspeakable Word of God was changed into the nature of the flesh.

For He, the Word is unalterable and absolutely unchangeable and remains always the same as the scriptures say.

All right, so let's take a look at a few objections.

Number one .

the term Mother of God isn't found in scripture.

Although Jesus Christ is God, and although Mary was the mother of Jesus, humanly speaking, that does not make Mary the Mother of God.

See, this is a faulty logic.

They take these extra steps, instead of just believing what the Bible tells us.

'Cause you can't find a verse that says Mary's the mother of God.

Show me that verse in the Bible.

That's man's logic.

Man's logic says, Well, Mary's the mother of Jesus and Jesus is God, ergo, Mary is the Mother of God.

But that is not correct logic.

Yes, it is.

You also have to use man's logic to show God as a trinity, since the Bible never uses the word trinity.

Also, where does the Bible say everything we must believe has to be found explicitly in a specific Bible verse?

It doesn't.

The Bible never says every theological term must be found in scripture.

Because if it did, you couldn't believe in the Bible.

Besides, in Luke 1:43, Elizabeth calls Mary, The mother of my Lord.

And if Elizabeth's Lord was Yahweh, then she's calling Mary, the mother of Yahweh, the Mother of God.

Number two, the argument for Mary being Mother of God commits a logical fallacy.

Matt Slick says the argument for Mary being the Mother of God is as bad as this argument: Jesus is God, God is a trinity, Jesus is the Trinity.

But they're not the same argument.

This bad argument is like saying the Son is God, the Father is God, therefore the Son is the Father.

A Protestant could answer this heretical modalist argument by saying that the statement, The Son is God, just means the Son is a divine person.

It does not mean all statements about God apply to Jesus, because God is a trinity, the Father is God.

Because God is not an individual person, the Son and the Father can both be God without being identical to one another.

The oneness argument only proves that the Father and the Son are divine persons, it does not prove they are the same person.

And this response rebuts arguments that claim the Theotokos argument's absurd.

That argument is as valid as this argument most Protestants would accept: Jesus is God, Jesus was born in a manger, therefore God was born in a manger.

Or this one: Jesus is a divine person, Mary is the mother of Jesus, therefore Mary is the mother of a divine person.

Number three, Mother of God can mislead people, so we shouldn't use it.

Because He's the creator of Mary.

If Mary is the Mother of God, then she came before Him.

She gave birth to Him.

He was revealing His divinity.

As the divine, He cannot have a mother.

I've heard Bishop Mari Mari, who was featured in that clip, that he's not a Nestorian heretic, he just may be uncomfortable with the term Mother of God because it can be misunderstood.

But just because something can be abused does not mean it should never be used.

When Christians say Jesus became incarnate through Mary, some Muslims misunderstand this.

They think Christians believe the Father had sexual relations with Mary.

They say God cannot have a son in this way.

But their misunderstanding about the incarnation does not justify denying the incarnation, just as other misunderstandings do not justify rejecting Mary being the Mother of God.

Number four, we don't say Herod was the King of God, so why say Mary is the Mother of God?

Other people's relationships with Christ were extrinsic to His incarnation.

Herod being the King of Judea only means the God man was under his political rule, but Herod played no active role in Jesus becoming the God man.

Other appropriate titles, like Baptizer of God for someone like John the Baptist, never arose in Christian devotion and they don't emphasize Jesus's unique divine nature.

Mary, however, was the means by which the incarnation occurred, and her declaration that all generations will call her blessed makes the title Theotokos a natural development for her.

Number five, the term Mother of God, Theotokos, is not found in the earliest church fathers.

Now, what about the phrase Mother of God?

Some of you say, Well, I don't like that idea.

Where did that phrase come from?

Well, it came from the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. It was ratified again at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

The earliest unambiguous reference to Mary as Theotokos, the God bearer, is in Alexander of Alexandria in the fourth century, 100 years before the Council of Ephesus.

Although later writers in the early Church claim Origen used the term Theotokos in the third century.

But even if the term wasn't used, the idea was clearly present in the earliest church fathers.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch said in the year AD 107, For our God, Jesus Christ was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary.

Hippolytus writes in Benediction of the Patriarchs, What was born in your virginal womb?

For it was the firstborn Word of God.

By the way, some apologists like James White claimed the title Mother of God is orthodox, but that it only refers to Christ and it says nothing about Mary.

The hypostatic union, balancing the divine truths we find in scripture.

Calling Mary Theotokos guards this.

It's not about Mary.

It doesn't exalt Mary, it doesn't make Mary some intercessor.

That all comes later.

That, and I fully understand why a former Roman Catholic, now a believer in Jesus Christ and trusting in His grace, doesn't want to use that terminology.

But that's not how the term Mother of God or Theotokos were traditionally used.

A prayer many scholars date to the third century says, We take refuge beneath the protection of your compassion, Theotokos.

Do not disregard our prayers and troubling times, but deliver us from danger, oh only pure and blessed one.

And Cyril of Alexandria said in the fourth century, Oh Mary, Mother of God, venerable treasure of the entire world, inextinguishable lamp, crown of virginity, scepter of orthodoxy, imperishable temple, container of Him who cannot be contained.

Finally, I want to point out that all historic branches of Christianity recognize that Mary is the Mother of God.

The Swiss Protestant reformer Huldrych Zwingli said, I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste immaculate Virgin Mary.

And Martin Luther said, Men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God.

Even modern Protestant apologists recognize Mary as the Mother of God.

The late Norm Geisler wrote, There are many things Catholics and Protestants hold in common on the doctrine of Mary.

These include being her being the most blessed among women, her virgin conception of Christ the God man, and by virtue of that, her being in this sense the Mother of God.

Gavin Ortlund says Protestants should not deny Mary is the Mother of God, as has James White, who I referenced earlier.

I would implore modern evangelicals who deny this doctrine to see just how far they've strayed from historical Christianity, even historical Protestant Christianity.

They should follow the advice of the evangelical author Timothy George, who writes the following: It is time for evangelicals to recover a fully biblical appreciation of the blessed Virgin Mary and her role in salvation history.

Evangelicals can and should join the Church Catholic in celebrating the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God, the God bearer.

Or as Jaroslav Pelikan suggests, that we might better render Theotokos, The one who gave birth to the one who is God.

Thank you all so much for watching.

Definitely like this video, subscribe to our channel, and I just hope that you have a very blessed day.