I’ve found a treat for you.
The following two short videos are of a Roman Catholic apologist leading a class on the defense of the Immaculate Conception. He starts off the conversation explaining his conversation with a Christian youth pastor (who evidently needs to spend less time playing games and organzing ski-trips with his youth group and more time studying the Word of God to know what he believes and why he believes it).
The speaker is interesting to listen to but my head really spun when this apologist and his class used the pure conjecture of worldly human wisdom (and very minimal Scripture) to dismiss Romans 3:23. When “all” doesn’t mean “all.” He also provided us with his “most important verse in the Bible” in an attempt to justify his point.
Now things get really interesting when one student in the class named Frank brings up a great point: If Mary was sinless, then why did she die if death is the wage of sin? If Mary was sinles then she would have never died.
The Catholic apologist teaching the class seemed to realize this was detrimental to his teaching so he provided the quick but incorrect reply “Mary was still human.” Allow me to remind the teacher that humans only die BECAUSE OF SIN! The teacher’s pious answer sounds humble but it fails to address the fact that if Mary knew no sin then she should not have died.
The teacher quickly moves on and just when he thinks he’s out of the woods, another student (who brought up the Romans 3:23 problem) directs the conversation back to Frank’s inquiry: If sin = death + Mary died = she must have been a sinner. Even with the valiant effort of another pupil who jumps in to help–trying to just explain the problem away with human reason–it still leaves the teacher a little perplexed. He tries to use the sinless Messiah as an example but obviously forgot that Jesus took on the sins of the world, Mary did not.
In spite of all the speculation and assertions hurling around the room (very little if any of it being Scripture) Frank didn’t give up so easily–still pressing the issue. Finally, after seeing the gaping hole in this Romish false doctrine of Immaculate Conception, the teacher decides to “shift gears.”
All in all, the two videos (6 minutes and 5 minutes respectively) are actually rather entertaining. If you’re going to watch these videos, however, be prepared to jump through some wild hoops as you follow along.
Part One:
Part Two:
Apparently when Pope Pious IX proclaimed the doctrine of Immaculate Conception in 1854, he couldn’t imagine those pesky little verses (Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23) causing so many problems.
Sola Scriptura!
Solus Christus!
This is funny, but sad at the same time. The Truth is starting them in the face, but they choose to believe in the lies of Romish tradition rather than what Scripture really says!
How much weight on the heart must it be to bury the Truth as they did…
In the first video at 3:45 the instructor attempts to address Romans 3:23 and how Mary could be sinless:
Uh…so what’s the point? We know Mary didn’t die as a baby. So is his position that Mary was “severely, mentally retarded”? There’s one I haven’t heard before.
Pathetic.
They also need to explain the implications of Mary being born sinless since this would require her mother Anna and every woman in her genealogy all the way back to Eve being sinless…but…ooops! Adam AND Eve both sinned! I guess the Bible is telling the truth and all really have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God!
But let’s not pester the heretical church of Rome which was founded upon the very gates of hell itself with such minor details from the scriptures they so love to twist and wrest to their own destruction!
Wow. After listening to that, I’m starting to feel like a…
Or would this be more appropriate?
Question: Where in the Bible does it say that “babies and the mentally handicapped” can’t sin? It certainly is a nice sentiment and we would like to believe it, but it isn’t biblical.
You know, there were about 60 years from Christ’s ascension until God closed the canon with Revelation. And in all those years, don’t you think the Holy Spirit could have told us a little bit more about Mary if it was that important? I mean, couldn’t he have thrown us a bone about her being sinless, assumed into heaven, etc?
Mary’s mother was called Anna? Where is this information?
Thanks.
doreen,
Mary’s mother’s name is actually a matter of extra-Biblical church tradition. My emphasis wasn’t on her name because regardless of her actual name Rome’s falsely implied sinlessness remains, all the way back to Eve.
Hope this helps.
In Christ,
CD
Hi
In my opinion the concept of Immaculate Conception of Mary developed very lately. Paul- an enemy of Jesus, later presented himself as a follower of Jesus, never gave any importance to Mary. He never met her to pay regards to her or for any consultation with her in matter of religion. Paul changed all concepts of Jesus with his own philosophical theology invented or imported from the pagans at Rome.
Later the Catholics Prealized their mistake and went to another extreme of making a sort of deity of Mary; which is also wrong, as Jesus never said anything like that.
Kindly visit my blgosite for interesting posts and for peaceful discussions on threads there.
Thanks
I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim
Ahmadi,
I am not surprised that you, as a Muslim, reject the Bible. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to believe it.
I have a question that I’ve asked Muslims over and over, and none have ever been able to answer. You believe hell is eternal torture, correct? The Bible agrees with Islam on that. We’ve sinned against an infinitely holy God and our punishment is therefore infinite. We have all sinned against God, and therefore we all deserve this punishment. Since God is infinitely just, payment for sins must be made. One way to make payment is hell, but if any Muslim ever hopes to get to heaven, how do they pay their infinite penatly?
Thanks,
Bill
Joseph did not believe in the Immaculate Conception since on discovering Mary was pregnant he was prepared to divorce her, obviously considering the possibility that Mary had committed sin.
Well, in all fairness, the “defender” of the Faith in this case is a layperson not a theologian, and not sufficiently well informed concerning his own religion. Actually, it’s in the place where he departs from Catholic teaching (in saying that “Mary died”) that he leads himself into the swamp and can no longer reconcile one part of what he’s saying with the rest. (His questioners are correct in seeing the contradiction between sinlessness and death.) But actual Catholic teaching does *not* say that Mary died. The dogma of the Assumption says: “Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
Incidentally, the The Immaculate Conception (not to be confused with the Assumption) was defended in the 13th Century by Blessed John Duns Scotus, so it is certainly not new. What’s “new” is declaring it to be a dogma (1854).
God Bless,
Rich
“Now things get really interesting when one student in the class named Frank brings up a great point: If Mary was sinless, then why did she die if death is the wage of sin? If Mary was sinles then she would have never died.”
There is no historical evidence that she did die. The Church holds the position that she was assumed into Heaven the same way Elijah was, body and soul together.
There is however, plenty of historical evidence to suggest that most people believed she was assumed into Heaven.
dmh724 says…
“There is however, plenty of historical evidence to suggest that most people believed she was assumed into Heaven”
Is there biblical evidence? Where in God’s word does it say she was assumed into heaven the way Elijah was? The bible speaks of Elijah’s being carried off into heaven in a whirlwind {2Kings 2:1, 11}, but there’s nothing on Mary being carried off in such a way. If this is the case, why is God’s word silent on this issue? Surely it would have been noteworthy if the maidservant chosen by God to deliver the Christ child were carried off in such a way; one would think God would have included such a matter in His word. Yet, we find of no such incident.
Sadly, it is an apostate church that teaches Mary was assumed into heaven. It is a religious organization full of the traditions of men, false teaching, and finds itself without true knowledge of the Almighty God of heaven and earth.
God created the world in 6 DAYS, but in the 60 YEARS between the resurrection of Christ and the writing of Revelation He couldn’t squeeze in a word or two about Mary’s sinlessness.
For Mary to have been sinless then it follows that either a.) she must have descended from a sinless line of humanity in order to not inherit the original sin of Adam or else b.) she must have been miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in her mother’s womb in the same manner as Jesus Christ.
The Bible teaches neither of these, in fact the Bible teaches that Mary was a normal human being in need of a Savior just like everyone else.
For more read Exposing the Idolatry of Mary Worship: An Overview by John MacArthur. With that I’m off to church! Have a blessed Lord’s Day!
In Christ,
CD
I don’t find this surprising. When I last debated Roman Catholic apologists I found a great deal of the writings of the early church fathers directly contradicted scripture on the roles of priests in the old testament and there was a general ignorance of this.
Protestants may abuse scripture but at least they know what it says.
I too would like to weigh in on this subject.
If Mary was presumed to be sinless, then why did God not choose her to be the propitiation for the sins of mankind instead of sending His own Son?
Additionally, if Mary was sinless, then there was absolutely no reason for her to bring a sacrifice to the temple in Luke 2:24. The grounds for this is laid out in Leviticus 5:11 and 12:8. And why in the world (if Mary had committed no sin) would she acknowledge God as her Savior? Sinless people do not need a savior?
Also, in regards to Lyn and 4 Pointer’s comments, one would be surprised to discover how little the Bible speaks of Mary in contrast to the amount of emphasis, veneration, adoration, and flat out worship of her by many adherents to the Romish faith.
One would think that with the amount of emphasis placed on Mary that there would certainly be something about her in the Epistles and Acts (church history).
Once you leave the gospels, Mary is absent from Scripture. The following is a quote from my post It’s all about Mary?:
The Pilgrim –
Great post except I loved the line “Additionally, if Mary was sinless, then there was absolutely no reason for her to bring a sacrifice to the temple in Luke 2:24. The grounds for this is laid out in Leviticus 5:11 and 12:8. And why in the world (if Mary had committed no sin) would she acknowledge God as her Savior? Sinless people do not need a savior?
There is one line I would disagree with. This devotion and near-deification of Mary is something you cannot find anywhere in the early Church. That’s just not true, you can certainly argue it is not scriptural and I think you did a great job on that but I’d want to caution you on the later point. There is pretty good evidence that the Marys: Mary Mother of God, Mary of Magdala and Mary the prostitute, Mary of Bethany…. go back to will into the 1st and frankly I think even earlier into proto-Christianity. I’d stay away from the historical argument the evidence is more mixed.
Dear CD-Host:
What I was thinking and what I typed were a little different. What I was referring to specifically was the early Church as recorded in Acts.
“This devotion and near-deification of Mary is something you cannot find anywhere in the early Church. The silence of the Scriptures alone speaks volumes against the RCC’s current obsession with Mary.”
I clarified it (in my mind) with the sentence immediately following the line you disagree with. But I can see how unless you were inside my head, you could easily misunderstand me.
However, in order to understand anyone’s reference to “the early church” one must define “early.” How early is “early?” How late can it be before it’s no longer “early?”
As anyone knows with me, everything (including church history) takes a back seat to Sola Scriptura, and Sola Scriptura obliterates any vain attempt to justify the deification and worship of Mary.
When church history takes precedence over Scripture it is then known as tradition.
Sorry for any confusion.
- The Pilgrim
OK seems like we agree on that last point.
And I wasn’t justifying with history just saying that early history is more diverse than Acts. Today I was just reading a reconstruction / translation of The Great Deceleration of Simon Magus, very likely 1st century Christianity but very far away from scriptural.