Immaculate Conception?
All orthodox Christians believe in the Immaculate Conception of Jesus, that Jesus was sinless from the moment of His conception. But the Catholic Church also teaches as dogma the Immaculate Conception and sinlessness of Mary, His mother. Is this a biblical idea?
Protestants frequently point to the teaching of Scripture that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) as proof that Mary must have been sinful, just like everyone else. Catholic apologists counter that the “all” here has at least one exception (Jesus), so there is no reason why it might not have two exceptions. True, but in Jesus’s case we have very clear and explicit Scriptural teaching that Jesus was completely without sin (Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:22). There is nothing anywhere in Scripture that even hints at something similar being true of Mary.
Many Catholic apologists point to the angel’s greeting to Mary, “Hail Mary, full of grace!” (Luke 1:28) as proof that Mary must have been sinless. For if grace purifies us from sin, and Mary was full of grace, they argue, then Mary must have been completely pure of sin.
However, the best translation of the angel’s greeting here is not “full of grace,” but “highly favored one.” This is what the vast majority of scholars understand the meaning of the Greek word the angel uses (charitoo) to be. We should note that this same word is used by Paul when he writes of “God’s great favor, which He has highly favored us with in His beloved Son” (Eph 1:6). If the meaning of this word were that one is “full of grace” and thus sinless, then we would have to say that all Christians are sinless, which is obviously not true.
In the Christian tradition, the word “grace” has come to be used to refer to something which is infused into Christians and cleanses them from sin. This concept of “grace” may be a true theological concept, but we cannot read this concept back into the New Testament whenever it uses the word “grace” (Greek: charis). When used in the New Testament, charis means attractiveness, goodwill, benefaction, favor, or gratitude. For example, Luke writes that “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor (Greek: charis) with God and all the people” (Luke 2:52). There is absolutely no reason to think that when the angel addresses Mary as “full of grace” that he means that she is completely sinless.
In spite of the lack of Scriptural support for the idea of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Catholic apologists often make a theological argument that, in order to conceive and give birth to the sinless Jesus, Mary must herself have been free of sin. But using that logic, Mary’s mother must have also been free of sin in order to conceive and give birth to a sinless Mary. And then her grandmother must have also been free of sin, and so on to infinity. This, obviously, is absurd. If, according to Catholic theology, Mary’s conception could be an Immaculate Conception, in spite of Mary’s mother being sinful, then there is no reason that Jesus’s conception could not have been an Immaculate Conception, even if Mary were sinful. Jesus was free of original sin because He was God. There is absolutely no reason to think that His Immaculate Conception required Mary to be sinless.
Some Catholic apologists acknowledge that the Immaculate Conception of Mary was a later idea not believed by the earliest Christians. They argue that it is a true idea developed by the Church as it has gradually come to have a fuller understanding of who Mary is. But if the Immaculate Conception of Mary really was not believed in by the apostles, then it can hardly be a dogma which all Christians are required to believe, as the Catholic Church proclaimed it in 1854.
Ark of the New Covenant?
There are instances in Christian literature of Mary being referred to metaphorically as the ark of the covenant going back to the third century. Mary did, after all, literally have God inside of her during her pregnancy, which could be seen as being analogous to the Presence of God dwelling within the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament. But does the New Testament ever teach the idea that we should understand Mary to be the Ark of the New Covenant?
Many Catholic apologists argue that Luke clearly teaches the idea that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant. In the Gospel of Luke, the angel tells Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be Holy, and He will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). At the end of the book of Exodus, after the tabernacle was built, “the tent was filled with the glory of the Lord. And Moses was unable to enter into the tent, because the cloud was overshadowing it, and the tent was filled with the glory of the Lord” (Ex 40:34-35). There is a possible connection here, but we need more than this one verse to reasonably conclude that Luke intended to communicate the idea that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.
Catholic apologists argue that, in Luke’s account of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56), Luke deliberately alludes to the story of David bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem (II Sam 6) in order to present the idea that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant. David asks, “How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?” (II Sam 6: 9). Elizabeth asks, “Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). As David brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, he was “jumping and dancing before the LORD” (II Sam 6:16). When Mary greeted Elizabeth, the baby in her womb “jumped for joy” (Luke 1: 44). “The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the LORD blessed him and his entire household” (II Sam 6:11). “Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months” (Luke 1:56), and Elizabeth calls Mary and her child “blessed” (Luke 1: 42, 44).
On close examination however, these alleged allusions are quite tenuous. David’s question, “How can the ark of the LORD ever come to me?” is an expression of fear after God strikes Uzzah dead for touching the ark; it expresses David’s unwillingness to bring the ark any closer to his home (II Sam 6:6-10). In contrast, Elizabeth’s question, “Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” is an expression of joy and delight after Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s home. David repeatedly jumps as he goes alongside the ark, bringing it to Jerusalem. In contrast, Elizabeth’s baby jumps once, after Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s home. In any case, Luke uses a different word for “jump” here (skirtao) than the Greek version of II Samuel does (orcheomai), making it extremely unlikely that Luke intended this to be an allusion to the II Samuel passage. “Three months” is simply a reference to a length of time that could appear in any narrative (it appears 17 times in the Bible); it is a highly tenuous basis upon which to argue for a deliberate allusion. In II Samuel, the ark blesses Obed-Edom’s household. In contrast, there is no reference in Luke to Elizabeth’s house being blessed, only Elizabeth blessing Mary.
So, there is no good reason to think that Luke intended to convey the idea that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant. One can refer to Mary as the ark of the covenant in a metaphorical sense. But the New Testament never teaches that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.
The Assumption of Mary
There is no hint anywhere in the New Testament of the idea that Mary was bodily taken into heaven at the end of her life. Nor is there a hint of such an idea anywhere among the early Church Fathers. It is not until the late fourth century that we see evidence that some Christians were speculating that Mary had not died a normal death. This speculation grew until belief in the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven became widespread. In spite of the fact that it is clearly an idea made up centuries after the apostles, the Catholic Church declared the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven to be an infallible dogma in 1950.
Now, there is nothing at all heretical about the idea that Mary bodily ascended into heaven. Enoch (Gen 5:24) and Elijah (II Kng 2:11) ascended into heaven. There is no reason per se that God could not have taken Mary up into heaven as well. But if such an extraordinary thing had really happened, we surely would have had some record of it in the early centuries of the Church. We do not. It is quite obviously a later invention of human tradition.
Queen of Heaven?
The Catholic Church teaches that Mary is the Queen of Heaven. The biblical basis for this idea is said to be found in Revelation 12, where John sees in heaven “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head” (v. 1), who gives “birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter”” (v. 5), which is apparently a reference to Jesus. Thus, Catholic apologists argue, the “woman” here is Jesus’s mother Mary, depicted as crowned as Queen in heaven.
It seems more likely, though, that the woman here represents the Church, not Mary. The crown of twelve stars on her head is clearly symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel, making it likely that she represents God’s covenant people as a whole. The book of Revelation often uses individual figures as symbols of broader entities. For example, the “woman” of Revelation 17 represents Rome.
God’s covenant people “give birth” to Jesus, who ascends to heaven and brings about the defeat of the spiritual powers of darkness (vv. 5-9). Those spiritual powers of darkness then try to destroy God’s covenant people, but God preserves His Church, in spite of the persecution they must endure (vv. 13-17). This seems to be the best reading of the passage. It fits with John’s focus of allegorically depicting the conflict between the Church and the Kingdoms of this world in a way that focusing on the hardships of an individual, Mary (who is not a significant figure in the rest of the New Testament), would not.
There is also a Catholic theological argument that Mary is Queen of Heaven because she is Queen Mother to the King of Heaven, Jesus. But Jesus is King of Heaven because He is God. There is no reason to think that this Divine Kingship transfers to His human biological relatives. Now, there is a sense in which all Christians are royalty, since we have been adopted as children of God and will reign with Jesus over God’s creation (II Tim 2:12; Rev 20:4, 22:5). In this sense, Mary certainly can be legitimately considered a queen of heaven. But we should not think of her as holding the status of Queen of Heaven in a uniquely superior sense.
Conclusion
There are aspects of Catholic mariology that are true and good. But certain key aspects of Catholic mariology are deeply unbiblical, highly speculative, and/or clearly ideas made up by human beings centuries after the apostles. Mary is the Mother of God, and a perpetual virgin. But there is no good reason to think that Mary was conceived without sin or was bodily assumed into heaven.
We can certainly venerate Mary, just as we venerate the saints. She gives Christians a paradigmatic example of obedience to God and submission to His will. But we should not regard her as having a uniquely exalted status that makes her worthy of a uniquely high level of veneration. “Elijah was a human being, just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops” (James 5:17-18). Elijah was a human being just like us, yet God used him to accomplish extraordinary things. In the same way, Mary was a human being just like us, yet God used her to accomplish extraordinary things. This is genuine New Testament mariology.