Immaculate or Surrogate

Ann Barnhardt, a bold, articulate, courageous, knowledgeable, passionate young woman (who has in recent months championed the fight against evil no matter its form) has once again written a brilliant piece and posted it on her blog. Her post is the best and most understandable explanation/argument for the Catholic teaching of the Conception and the "Holy Mother" Mary I have been exposed to. I admit to having great difficulty in refuting any of her points. As a hardcore Protestant I must resolve this Catholic/non-Catholic controversy. 

As I see it there are three possibilities. Yes, I said three (not two, but three) separate possibilities. Only one of these possibilities is, of course, correct. Which one? The Catholic teaching?; The non-Catholic teaching?; Or, what the Bible actually reveals, and for that matter does not reveal? I know you are probably scratching your head about now, no matter your religious/denominational bent. If the Catholics are wrong about Mary than by default the non-Catholics must be correct, or visa versa. It is not possible for them to both be correct - that is a given. But consider this - it is possible they could both be wrong. To sort this all out let's first read the Catholic teaching as Ms Barnhardt has posted on her blog. Then once we have read her comments I will explore teaching of most non-Catholic denominations as best I am able.

I have copied Ms Barnhardt's comments from her blog dated, December 17, 2011, and pasted it here. While you are reading and digesting her argument, you too may realize the one main scriptural fact, which she completely ignores. By doing so it blows a hole completely through what otherwise would be a solid Biblical teaching.

ON THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION & SCIENCE

POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT - DECEMBER 17, AD 2011 9:19 PM MST

Here’s your Christian catechesis for the weekend. First, who exactly is “the Immaculate Conception”? Most Catholics today are so incredibly ignorant and poorly catechized in their faith that a sickening number would say that Jesus is who the term “Immaculate Conception” is referring to. That would be wrong. Mary is the Immaculate Conception.

And here is where all of the non-Catholics begin to feel a distinct tightening in the solar plexis, a rush of blood to the face, a clenching of the jaw and a grinding of the teeth. Why? Because any mention of Mary other than as a human brood mare – and only around Christmastime - engenders RAGE amongst the Protesters. Why? Because, apparently, Mary draws people’s attention away from Jesus instead of pointing people TOWARD Him. Because, apparently, Jesus takes absolutely no delight in any of us, most especially His own mother, is insanely jealous of His own creation and thus hates His own mother, and demands that nobody EVER so much as LOOK at her, much less LOVE her, because Jesus is extremely insecure and just can’t handle people observing, loving and appreciating beauty in HIS OWN CREATION, even though everything in the universe was made by Him and through Him.

So every time a parent looks at their child in love, Jesus gets pissed. And every time a man looks at his wife in love, Jesus gets pissed. And every time a son looks at his mother in love, Jesus gets pissed. And every time a man looks at the mountains, or a sunset, or up at the stars in loving wonder and appreciation, Jesus gets pissed. And every time a person looks in loving appreciation at a beautiful painting, or building, or reads a beautiful bit of prose or poetry, or gazes upon a particularly elegant bit of mathematics or even computer programming code . . . JESUS GETS PISSED.

Do I have that about right, y’all? Snorf.

Anywho, back to the Immaculate Conception. This doctrine and non-negotiable tenet of Christianity teaches that Mary was, by the grace of God, prevented from carrying the stain of Original Sin from the moment of her conception. Mary was saved from sin by her Son, like all of the other faithful, it is just that the timing of her salvation was different from everyone else. This is why Mary calls God “my Savior” in her Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55. Instead of letting Mary fall in the mud puddle of sin like the rest of us, God stuck out His Arm back through time from the Cross and kept her from falling in the mud puddle – but if it wasn’t for God’s positive action of reaching out across time from the Cross and holding her from falling, she would have fallen. This is called “grace”, and is what the Angel Gabriel was referring to when he greeted Mary at the Annunciation with the words, “Hail! Full of grace! The LORD is with thee. Blessed art thou among women.” Luke 1:28

Full of grace means FULL. OF. GRACE. How full is full? Full is totally full. To the brim. Full does not mean half-full or mostly-full. Full means full. Mary was FULL OF GRACE. And because Mary was FULL of grace, there was absolutely no room for sin. Mary didn’t sin because God her Savior had filled her with grace and therefore she just COULDN’T sin. Most of us reading this have a tiny taste of what this is like. For example, I’m guessing that everyone reading this would be incapable of killing a baby. We just COULDN’T do it. No matter what threat was made against us, no matter what the adverse consequences to our own lives might be, we would take any adverse consequence before killing a baby. We are simply incapable of performing that act. Why? What is that internal force of energy that prevents us from committing acts of evil even when under intense duress and threat? It is grace. Pure and simple. Sadly, most of us have a little grace, but are not in any way FULL of grace. I am personally much closer to being full of crap than of grace (which many of you have already pointed out to me – thank you very much), hence the daily, persistent, repeated sinning on my part. And I suspect it is a similar situation with you, dear reader, with the grace-to-crap ratio being much higher for you than for me. I really am quite full of crap.

With Mary there was no crap because God her Savior had FILLED her with grace, and thus there was no room for crap, and thus there was no sin. It’s really just 2nd grade math if you think about it. But WHY? Why was it essential for Mary to be sinless and sinless from the moment of her conception? That’s where the science comes in.

There are two phases to Mary’s existence. The first phase was from the moment of her conception until the Annunciation, which is when Jesus was conceived in her womb. The second phase was from that moment of conception forward for all eternity. Each phase has its own physiological delight attached to it which required Mary to be a sinless vessel for Our Lord.

First, the pre-Annunciation period. As it turns out, all baby girls have all of the eggs that are ever going to be in their ovaries fully formed not just at birth, but fairly early in their fetal development phase. Unlike men who are continuously producing new sperm, a woman’s eggs aren’t created and formed with each menstrual cycle. All that is happening during a cycle is that an egg, which has been fully formed in a woman’s body since she was a pre-born fetus, is released into the reproductive tract. What this means theologically is that the egg containing the 23 chromosomes that God would miraculously fertilize with 23 chromosomes that He miraculously supplied (including a Y chromosome) to become the Word Made Flesh, Jesus Christ, was physically present inside Mary’s body from the time that Mary was inside of her mother’s womb. That egg, and those chromosomes, that physical constituent of Our Blessed Lord was present inside of Mary’s body, waiting to be . . . if I may use the word . . . consecrated. The word consecrate, when broken into its Latin components means:

Con: With
Secr: Holy
-Ate: Territory of a Ruler

And so, Mary was, from the time she was inside St. Ann’s womb, already carrying a portion of Our Lord’s physicality, namely 23 of His chromosomes. And thus Mary was, from her very beginning, already a tabernacle, already the Ark of the New Covenant, carrying within her what would be consecrated into The Law Incarnate, The High Priest, and The Bread of Life – just like the Old Ark, except perfected and fully fulfilled as God Incarnate. And as we know from the book of Exodus, the Old Ark had to be “perfect”. And thus, the Ark of the New Covenant was also perfect, except this perfection was a perfection that only God Himself could accomplish: the perfection of Mary, full of grace and thus saved from all sin.

The second phase is actually broken into two sub-phases. The first sub-phase is when Mary was pregnant with Jesus and His entire body was inside of hers. The second phase is that phase from the time of Jesus’ birth forward into all eternity. Jesus is STILL physically inside of Mary in a unique way. It was discovered just a few short years ago that immune cells pass from a pre-born child to the mother across the placenta. Not only do these immune cells, which are the child’s and thus carry the exclusive DNA of the child, pass across the placenta, but they persist in the mother’s body for the rest of her life. A woman who has carried a son has immune cells with Y-chromosomes in her bloodstream that can now be filtered out of her blood and observed. Female children also pass cells to their mothers. Thus, a woman truly does carry her children around inside of her, with their DNA coursing through her heart, for the rest of her life. That isn’t just a sentiment – it is a physiological fact.

Thus, Mary continued and continues to this day to be a perpetual, living tabernacle of her Son, as she carries cells with His DNA in her bloodstream. And so now we see why Mary had to be filled with grace and thus saved from the stain of sin from the moment of her conception eternally forward – because she was and is a perpetual Ark of the New Covenant.

This also explains why Mary’s body was assumed into heaven immediately at the end of her earthly life, because her body literally contained living cells of Our Lord and thus her body could not remain on earth in physical death to decay in any way. She simply was afforded the same physical resurrection that all of the faithful will receive, albeit instantaneously for her, given her very special state, both spiritually and physically. This is what is doctrinally referred to as “The Assumption”.

Finally, if you are reading this and it has made you the least bit angry, you need to sit down and ask yourself one excruciatingly simple question: WHY?

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Soooo, where does Ms Barnhardt miss the mark in her theological points which otherwise does have a sound ring to them. At least as sound as the teachings of non-Catholics. And just what is it most non-catholics teach, be it the main line Protestant denominations, Holiness denominations, Baptist denominations, Pentecostal denominations, who are actually continuing to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

To explore this other side of the ledger I direct you to Isaiah where the birth of Jesus was prophesied in chapter 7 verse 14 “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”  Please not Isaiah wrote “the virgin shall conceive”. What Isaiah did not say was how the physical conception would take place - only that would take place.

Matthew 1:18 says, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.” Here Matthew does not go into much more detail than Isaiah prophesied about how Mary was approached by the Holy Spirit. Verse 18 does say “they came together” and that “she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit”. Before we go any further let me make it clear that Matthew is not reporting Mary had any type of sexual relations with the Holy Spirit. If you believe that then you are wasting your time reading any further as far as this post is concerned. You might as well go do whatever it is you otherwise do – unless of course, you would like to learn the truth.

We have to turn to the book written by Luke, chapter 1:30-35 to read these words, ³⁰ Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. ³³ And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” ³⁴ Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” ³⁵ And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”

Here we read, “you will conceive in your womb”. Luke makes it clear Jesus was conceived as a fetus in Mary’s womb”. Luke does not say how that conception happened but that it happened. Mary did ask the angel how a baby could possibly be conceived in her womb since she was a virgin, and the angel replied “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you.” At this point I remind you I reject completely the word “overshadow” to somehow mean a kind of sexual relationship.

We learned from Ms Barnhardt’s post that Mary was without sin and thus there was no sin in any of Mary’s eggs. Therefore, all the Holy Spirit had to do was create a sperm without sin and impregnate Mary’s egg with that sperm in some sort of miraculous way. But…was Mary really sinless? In Romans chapter 3 Paul writes “There is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Therefore, even Mary was not without sin. “No one” means “noooooo one” and “all have” means “allllll have”. Based on Romans 3 even Mary the mother of Jesus was not without sin, and if she wasn’t without sin then her egg could not be without any taint of sin either. And if her egg was tainted with sin than Mary’s fetus could not be without sin. As best as I can tell, non-Catholics teach the fetus of Jesus was a result of Mary’s egg somehow being fertilized by the Holy Spirit, but how could that be. Mary’s egg, an egg containing sin being mixed with a seed without sin would by default result in a fetus containing sin. A fetus containing sin would have to be born in sin. If that were true then we have no Gospel; we have no Savior. But that is not true and we do have a Gospel, the Gospel is true; we do have a Savior and His Name is Jesus who was born of a virgin.

Now, we non-Catholics must face this question: How was it possible for the baby Jesus to be born of a sinful woman, and possessed only sinful eggs – how could this be? There is only one way. Non-Catholic are you ready for this?

In the Book of Genesis, God created the first Adam. This FIRST Adam was created as a full grown man, but created just the same. If God could create the FIRST Adam as a grown man, then it would stand to reason God could create the LAST Adam as a fetus. Not as a full grown man, but a baby conceived in the womb of a virgin. The FIRST Adam was born without sin, but yet had the ability to sin. And sin he did! The LAST Adam was born without sin, and yet He too had the ability to sin. In that regard, being created without sin but with the ability to sin, there is no difference between the FIRST Adam and the LAST Adam. Both were created by God. Both were created without sin. Both were tempted to sin. One man yielded to temptation and the other did not. One brought ultimate damnation onto all the earth. The other man brought complete salvation back to the earth.

You might be asking why all of this important. In order for Jesus to be born by a sinful women and yet without sin He had to be completely created in the womb. There was no fertilization of an egg. The Holy Spirit created a fertilized Egg and implanted that fertilized Egg inside of Mary’s womb.

As a result, Jesus was born a man. He was all man. He was God who became man. Jesus’ deity remained intact, thus He was all God and He was all man.  Jesus is all God and all man. He was all God before He sat aside His deity to become a man to ive on earth as a man. Jesus had become all God and all man.

Some might say Jesus could have sinned while here on earth, because He was all man, and they would be correct. And others might say He didn’t sin because He was all God, and they would be wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus lived His life on earth strictly as a man. He temporarily put His deity aside to live strictly as a man. “But wait!, but wait!, How can this be? After all didn’t Jesus perform all kinds of wonderful miracles of healing, didn’t He do amazing things that defied nature, and didn’t He die on the cross?” you say. Yes, He did do all of those things and more, (but let me break it to you gently) He did it all as a man. Not only that, He told His disciples, who were mere men by the way, that they would do even greater things than He did. And as it turns out they did, just as many other men have done down through the ages and continue to do even today.

But I digress.

Having said all of that let’s get real. You know and I know we mortal men cannot do any of those miraculous things in our own filthy rags, in our own weaknesses, in our own sin. We can’t even do those miraculous things after we have become born again, and no longer live in sin; no longer live wearing filthy rags; and no longer are mere powerless sinners. But yet miracles happen all of the time at the hands of men. People are healed, saved, delivered from addictions, have relationships restored, at the hands of men. Men can perform all of these great miracles just as Jesus said they would, only through the power of God; only by having a right relationship with God, only by living a holy life before God; only by prayer and fasting before God, and ultimately only by faith in God. We must believe God will do what He said He will do.

That is how Jesus lived as a man. He dedicated Himself to learning the Holy Scriptures, to prayer, to fasting, to spending hours with His Father, and ultimately believing His Father would do anything He ask Him to do. At any point in His earthly life Jesus could have prayed and ask God to allow Him to not go on, to not die on the cross, to not have to bare all the sicknesses, sorrows, and sins of mankind. He could have cashed in this being a man thing, and went back to being the Son of God. But He didn’t. Why? Because He loved the world so much He was willing to die that the world might be saved. Had He decided not to go through terrible ordeal of the cross He would have been OK; He would still have been God. But the stark reality is had He not died all of mankind would have been lost to damnation. Satan would have won!

He was punished and died as a man, and took on the guilt of all the sins of all mankind. He died in that sin and went to Hell as a man – not as God, not as the Son of God, but as a man. He did all of this for the salvation of all of mankind and He did it by faith. Faith that His Father, the God of the universe, would raise Him from the fiery pit and in so doing justify all men who would believe in the Son of God and His resurrection.

Because Jesus was willing to live as a man without yielding to sin, die as a man guilty of all sin, be damned to Hell as a man so mankind would have a way of eternal escape. God His Father resurrected Him as a man from that fiery pit and not only allowed Him to robe Himself with the same deity He had before, but God went on to give Him much, much more. God gave Jesus incomparable great power which He in turn gives to those who believe in Him. God gave Jesus mighty strength (the same kind of strength it took to raise Him from the dead). God seated Jesus at His right hand in heavenly realms. God placed Jesus far above all rule and authority, far above all power and dominion, far above every title that can be given (including all present day titles and all titles that are yet to come. God placed all things under Jesus’ feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church.

Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected not by His power, but by the power of God. We can do the same, but only by the power of God.

Back to this immaculate conception thing.  I do not often disagree with Ann Barnhardt, but I fervently do concerning the immaculate conception. I also disagree with non-Catholic teaching on the subject of Mary’s conceiving. The man Jesus was not a result of some sort of immaculate conception between Mary and the Holy Spirit. Neither was He the result of some sort of union of the Holy Spirit and Mary’s own sinfulness. No, Mary will always be called Blessed because she was chosen by God to be a surrogate mother to Jesus and raise Him to become a man. He lived and died as a man and then God raised Him to become LORD of all.

That is the Truth! That is the Christmas Story!