The Ark & the Bride: The Catholic Doctrine of Mary
A dissection of the four Marian dogmas & the misplaced exaltation of the Queen of Heaven.
(Disclaimer: In this post I am addressing the doctrines and teaching of Catholicism and the Catholic Magisterium, not individuals who identify as Catholic. I recognize it is not because of, but in spite of the false teachings of the Catholic Church, that there are truly regenerated Christians within the Catholic community. When I refer to “Catholics” in this post, I am referring to the Roman Catholic Church and Catholicism as a doctrinal whole. It is with love for the Catholic people that this post is written to expose the false teachings of the Catholic Magisterium so that those who know Christ may come out of her and those do not may come to faith.)
I was on my way to writing some things about eschatology recently when I got sidetracked by a brief conversation with a professing Catholic. I’ll make a long story short: I quickly turned the conversation to the Catholic Church’s teachings about Mary to expose the fact that Catholicism is a different religion from biblical Christianity. It ended with the Catholic confirming to me that I was indeed not a Christian because I did not believe what the Bible taught; i.e. that Mary was sinless. Instead, I had ordained myself as an author of scripture and made up my own doctrines.
I made no attempt to defend myself because I am, in fact, anathema (that is “damned”) according to the Catholic Church if I do not accept the 4 Dogmas of Mary, and those aside from all the other doctrines of the Catholic Church. This objectively confirmed my original point that we do, in fact, not share the same religion.
As I contemplated my exchange, I couldn’t help but think about the other Catholic acquaintances I had, even if only nominal. I had neglected to ever tell them the truth. And, it’s not just me, but so often we as Christians have neglected to confront Catholicism simply because we don’t exactly know how to say Catholicism is wrong. We know something is off—we can name the fundamentals of our disagreement—but we are too afraid to say so and face a debate, because, after all, Catholics defend their faith with as much zeal and vigor as any evangelical—if not more so in many cases! It is easier for us to assume their fellowship as believers than to get into the weeds of doctrine and show them they are deceived.
Evangelical Compromise
To make matters worse, so many prominent evangelical leaders today have caused confusion and an extremely awkward situation for the Christian church by partnering and fellowshipping with the Catholic Church through the ecumenical movement. In 1994, the document titled Evangelicals & Catholics Together (ECT): The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium was drafted, signed and endorsed by leaders in the Catholic Church and Evangelical leaders. As a result, today we have what is uncommonly known as New Evangelicalism infecting pulpits of countless church bodies and purporting another gospel, namely, a gospel of personal and social reform. That is to say: salvation by works.
(See Chapel Library’s article Evangelical Compromise for more detail on the error and danger of this document and the ecumenical movement.)
Beginning with the Obvious
One of the starkest differences between biblical Christianity and the Catholic Church is the doctrine surrounding Mary. It’s not just the most recognizable difference to the Christian uninitiated in Catholic teaching, but also the doctrine that they will almost always come to saying something akin to the following: “Well, I can see where you’re coming from on some other doctrines and we can coexist with those differences, but I don’t get the stuff about Mary and I don’t see where you get it from in scripture, so I have a problem with that.”
And yet, the Catholics have their supposedly scriptural defense, as my Catholic acquaintance did. And this is aside from their appeal to other “authorities” such as the apocryphal books and the counsel of Trent, which will have to be another topic for another day. But scripturally speaking, where do they get it from?
That’s the question I want to address today. The issue of Mary seems to be the most confounding for Christians in that they don’t know why Catholics believe what they do about her or how they (attempt to) support their beliefs with scripture. This topic always seems to end in a stalemate. Therefore, I want to begin with arguably the most obvious error of Catholic doctrine so that Christians may be equipped to answer (with gentleness) their Catholic friends when they pull out scripture in support of their veneration of the Queen of Heaven. Additionally, addressing Mariology is an easy gateway to deeper conversations on the gospel, which I will get to in the latter half of this article.
The Queen of Heaven
The dogmatic doctrines regarding Mary (meaning you must accept these doctrines or you are not actually a Catholic and, therefore, do not have access to salvation, which is gatekept by the church) according to the Catholic Church Catechism, are as follows:
Immaculate Conception (Mary was born without original sin and lived a sinless life) (490-493)
Divine Motherhood (Mary is called the “Mother of God,” the “God-bearer” or “theotokos”) (495)
Perpetual Virginity (Mary was not only a virgin before and during the birth of Christ, but remained so her entire life) (499-501)
The Assumption (Mary was resurrected and taken up into heaven after her life on earth and sits at the right hand of Christ) (974)
Let me repeat: according to Catholicism, if you do not accept these dogmas, you are not truly Catholic and, therefore, do not have access to salvation, which the Catholic Magisterium believes it holds the keys to.
For the sake of brevity (I don’t even think you can call this article brief), this article will only dissect the dogma of the immaculate conception. If the immaculate conception is not true, neither is the dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity nor Mary’s assumption. It is only the belief that Mary was immaculately conceived that necessitates the subsequently adopted Mary dogmas. The only dogma that would remain, should immaculate conception be scripturally disproven, is the dogma that Mary was the theotokos in the classical sense of the word, with which scripture does agree.
(Note: Christianity agrees that Mary was the mother of Christ, the God-man, as this upholds the doctrine of the hypostatic union—that Christ was fully God and fully man. However, Catholicism has exaggerated the concept of Mary being the theotokos in an unbiblical sense with which biblical Christianity does not agree.)
The Immaculate Conception
I think when many Christians hear that Catholics believe in “the immaculate conception,” they assume it is referring to Christ’s immaculate conception and agree they believe it, too. An easy mistake to make when glossing over terms. But, believe it or not, there are two “immaculate conceptions” in Catholicism. And so begins the appropriation of Christ’s glory and the eclipsing of his uniqueness by the Catholic Mary.
It was not until 1854 that the Immaculate Conception of Mary was proclaimed to be dogma by Pope Pius IX. However, if pressed on the issue (or any issue that appears to be adopted hundreds of years later in the Catholic Church) Catholics will cite “Sacred Tradition,” claiming it was always believed by the church, despite not being written down.
Yes, you heard me. A Sacred Tradition not written down. Where have you heard that before?
(Psst: The Pharisees.)
Although the Catholic Church believes scripture is authoritative, just as the Pharisees did, they believe the oral traditions derived from the lived experience of former saints and church leadership are also authoritative. Just as the Pharisees did. This is why in the Catholic Church Catechism you will often find doctrines with foot notes citing not just scripture, but also councils and the writings of other men. Many times there are doctrines supported only by extra-biblical writings or pronouncements. This is exactly the case with the Immaculate Conception:
“Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, ‘full of grace’ through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854: ‘The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.’” (CCC 491)
Scriptural Support?
Translation Matters
Faced with the conundrum of having to scripturally support the claim that Mary was conceived and lived her entire life without sin, if for no other reason than to pacify objections, the Catholic Church rests her argument almost entirely on a singular verse, and almost on a singular translation of that verse:
“And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” - Luke 1:28, Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
The key phrase to support Mary’s immaculate conception is “Hail, full of grace,” which Catholics claim is proof that she was without sin. (This is also where Catholicism derives its famous rosary repetition “Hail, Mary, full of grace.”) This is purported as proof because this phrase is only ever used one other time in the Bible and that is to describe Jesus himself:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” - John 1:14, ESV
There are a few other translations approved by the Catholic Church, none of which you will find commonplace in Protestant circles. (I would caution against anyone who tells you there are only certain translations you can study; in fact, the more translations you can compare, the better you will understand what the biblical author was intending to communicate.)
Let’s compare the above translation to a few others:
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
- ESVAnd the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. - KJV
And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
- NASBAnd the messenger having come in unto her, said, `Hail, favoured one, the Lord [is] with thee; blessed [art] thou among women;' - YLT
“Full of Grace” or Grace Bestowed?
Rather than “full of grace,” we find the phrase “favored one” in other translations. Does this equate to sinlessness and is it the same language used to described Jesus in John 1:14? Here is the verse in greek:
“Chaire kecharitomene ho Kyrios meta sou eulogemene sy en gynaixin.”
“Greetings [you] favored with grace! The Lord [is] with you. Blessed [are] you among woman.”
The Greek word chairo can either be used as a salutation or indicate that a person is favorably disposed. Properly, it means “delight in God’s grace;” literally, it means “to experience God’s grace (favor).” It is most often translated in scripture as “Rejoice!”
Following his greeting, the angel uses a verb closely-related: charitoo. (This is where we get our word “charity.”) It literally means “grace freely bestowed.” Does this mean, as the Catholic Church claims, that Mary was “full of grace,” i.e. she was sinless? No. In Ephesians 1:6, the same word is used to describe God freely bestowing his grace on us. The only sense in which Mary was sinless was in the same sense that any Christian is: when we are declared righteous (sinless) in heaven when we are justified in Christ because God freely bestows his grace on us.
What of John 1:14? Although the same word in noun form appears—charis, meaning “grace”—another important word appears here: pleres— “full.” Or “abounding in/completely occupied with.” This word does not appear in Luke 1:28 as you can clearly see above, even though the Catholic Church would have you believe it is translated the same. John 1:14 does not speak of God bestowing grace and favor on Christ, as he does upon us through Christ, but instead speaks of Christ as full of that grace and favor. These two verses are not comparable and offer exactly zero support that Mary was either “full of grace” as Christ was or that she, by inference, was sinless.
Christ was the only sinless—inherently full of grace—human being who ever lived, while the rest of us, including Mary, have been merely recipients of that fullness of grace which God freely bestowed on us in Christ. Favored are those who receive the grace with which Christ is inherently filled! This was the sentiment the angel expressed to Mary.
Further citations in the Catechism for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception refer us to the Vatican’s document Lumen Gentium (Pope Paul VI, 1964). In this document the following sources are cited as authoritative in its determination and adoption: Saint Augustine, Saint Germanus of Constantinople, Saint Irenaeus, Saint Epiphanius, and Saint Hieronymus. The only scripture cited as teaching this doctrine is, again, Luke 1:28.
Misplaced Dogmas
Let’s go back for a moment and examine the four dogmas of Mary again. We can see how Mary has virtually become the “Christ” of Catholicism:
Immaculate Conception - Mary was born without the seed of original sin.
Divine Motherhood - Mary housed God in the flesh as his tabernacle.
Perpetual Virginity - Mary maintaining virginity her whole life is another way of saying Mary was without blame or sinless.
The Assumption - Mary either died and was resurrected and taken to sit at the right hand of Christ, or never died and was assumed to heaven just the same.
But imagine we take the four dogmas of Mary and reframe them a bit; quickly we will see who these dogmas should truly be describing:
Immaculate conception - The immaculate conception of Mary is only a necessary doctrine if Mary is to take the place of Christ as the one to whom worship is due; however, the doctrine is immediately rendered unnecessary when we look to Christ. Jesus was born of a virgin, immaculately conceived without the seed of original sin (Isa. 7:14).
Divine Son of God - Rather than pivoting our attention to the mother of the son, we return our gaze to the Son. Jesus housed God in the flesh, tabernacling among us (John 1:14).
Perpetual Virginity - Though we don’t usually describe Christ as virginal, we do describe him with a biblically synonymous concept: blameless. Jesus was the spotless Lamb who lived a sinless life (Heb. 7:26).
The Assumption - It was not Mary who was assumed into heaven to be seated at the right hand of Christ, but Christ who was risen from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father (Heb. 10:12).
The Revelation of… Mary?
Well, it would be rather shaky to stake the divinity of Mary on one verse alone with the very cherry-picked statements of former saints and church fathers. So, of course, there are a couple of other linchpin passages on which the immaculate conception hangs. Namely, Revelation 11:19-12:2,5:
“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth… She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,”
Representing the general sentiment of Catholics about this passage, I quote to you from AboutCatholics.com:
“Finally, we reach the book of Revelation where she is shown most compellingly in chapters 11 & 12. It is here, that we are given an eye-opening view of just who she is. Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.
Everything in the OLD Covenant is a foreshadowing of the new. The Ark of the Covenant held the ‘Word of God’, both in the OLD Covenant (the Torah) and the new (Jesus). Read the first few lines of the Gospel of John. Jesus is the Word, the Word made flesh, so wouldn’t he deserve an ark as well? The Ark was so holy it wasn’t even to be touched. Those who had the Ark with them were never defeated. Make no mistake, The Ark of the Covenant, and the queen of the apostles (the 12 stars in Revelation) is Mary.”
Conveniently, a) this vision is stretched back into the previous vision so that the ark of the covenant can be mentioned and lumped in with this interpretation as evidence that Mary is the Ark (the idea that Mary is THE theotokos is derived from this idea that Mary is the Ark, therefore, we direct our petitions to and through her); and b) the rest of the passage that is actually relevant is left out as it does not square with the teaching that this illustration is one of Mary.
For instance, if Mary is the woman appearing in the heavens, what of the wilderness she flees to after Christ is caught up to the throne of God (Rev. 12:6)? Why is that a completely neglected detail and what on earth would it be referring to? (It can’t refer to the flight to Egypt because it occurs after Christ’s ascension.)
As a matter of fact, they skip right over the entirety of chapter 12 and isolate verse 17 to further pad their point:
“Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.” - Rev. 12:17
Of this verse, never minding all that’s said from verse 5 to 16, AboutCatholics.com goes on to say:
“This last passage not only shows proof of Mary in the Bible and her importance, but it shows that all followers of Christ, all Christians, are children of Mary as well as we already know that we are children of God. The grammar and syntax of that passage do not say otherwise. “Her offspring” refers to the statement that immediately comes after the comma of that statement. “Her offspring” are the followers of Jesus Christ. We are new people reborn in Christ through baptism, thus his Father becoming our Father and only logically his mother becoming our mother.”
Further commentary on this from the Pontifical Council:
The Virgin Mary is the living shrine of the Word of God, the Ark of the New and Eternal Covenant. In fact, St. Luke’s account of the Annunciation of the angel to Mary nicely incorporates the images of the tent of meeting with God in Sinai and of the temple of Zion. Just as the cloud covered the people of God marching in the desert (cf. Nm 10:34; Dt 33:12; Ps 91:4) and just as the same cloud, as a sign of the divine mystery present in the midst of Israel, hovered over the Ark of the Covenant (cf. Ex 40:35), so now the shadow of the Most High envelops and penetrates the tabernacle of the New Covenant that is the womb of Mary (cf. Lk 1:35). (Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, The Shrine: Memory, Presence and Prophecy of the Living God)
It seems that Catholicism forgets that the Word made flesh no longer dwells in the womb. So what of the Ark now except to say it is empty? To paraphrase one former Catholic priest: Jesus is only ever presented to Catholics in one of three ways: as a dead man on a cross, as a helpless baby in his mother’s arms, or in a lifeless wafer. None of which is the risen Christ of Christianity. Yet again, Mary becomes a stand in for Christ as she is called the Ark of the new covenant.
Christ, the Ark of God
The Ark of the Covenant wasn’t just a box (or womb) that carried God’s presence among his people, but it was the location of the mercy seat, where propitiation for the sins of Israel would take place (Exo. 25:17-22; Lev. 16). This was an Old Testament type of Christ, who would come to be our true mercy seat in the new covenant, where the final propitiation for sin was made. Here we begin to see more of how the Catholic Church has elevated Mary to a place of competition with Christ, with Christ ultimately being blasphemously demoted in favor of the Queen of Heaven.
Mary is widely referred to in Catholicism as the “Mother of Mercy” and is prayed to as such. When she is said to be the ark of the new covenant, it is easy to see why this is the case. Rather than Christ being our true mercy seat, Mary supplants him and becomes the Mother of Mercy through whom our appeals to God are made.
No Catholic would phrase it this way; they insist, of course, they do not worship Mary. But this is exactly how this misuse of typology shakes out. So called “veneration” of Mary steals Christ’s rightful place as the only One deserving of our reverence, as THE Ark of God’s presence among us and our once-for-all sacrifice for the propitiation of sin. Christ is the tabernacle and Ark who was “overshadowed by the Most High” and walked among us. It was his body which housed the Law of God in flesh (the stone tablets), which was the Bread of Life (the jar of manna), and was the Tree of Life which was cut down and yet bore fruit (Aaron’s rod) (Heb. 9:4). (These were the three things inside the Ark of the Covenant.)
The Bride, the New Eve
The abuse of typology, sadly, does not stop there. In order to shore up their theology that Mary, not Christ, is the ark of the new covenant, Catholic teaching purports that Mary is also the new Eve, which makes her in some mystical sense the mother of all Christians. This inspiration they draw from from Saint Irenaeus, who in one instance said: “Death through Eve, life through Mary” (CCC 494). They also tie this in with the vision of the woman in Revelation 12:17. There are a few problems with this, though.
If Mary is the mother of God, and Christ is the new Adam, can Mary be the new Eve in any special sense? It cannot be the case because the type foreshadowed to us through the persons of Adam and Eve immediately becomes abominable if the new Adam is Christ and his bride is his mother, Mary. Will the spotless Lamb take his mother as his wife?
Rather, Adam and Eve and the original marriage union were the guardian which brought us to Christ, yet again. Christ, the new Adam has a new Eve born of blood and water from his side, just as Eve was taken from the side of Adam. This bride is the church and is the woman displayed in Revelation 12. This is consistent with all the rest of scripture and relates to the theme of Christ, the Bridegroom, making his church the pure virgin by his sacrifice.
Of the church, Paul writes:
“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” - 2 Corinthians 11:2
Of the church, John writes:
“It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.” - Revelation 14:4-5
“I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” '- Revelation 21:2
Of Israel, Jeremiah writes:
“Thus says the LORD: ‘The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the LORD appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.” - Jeremiah 31:2-4
And of Israel, the Lord says:
“For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.” - Isaiah 54:5
Divorced from Israel, married to the church
This is just a sampling of all scripture has to teach us about Christ being our husband and we his virgin bride! But wait, you might say, some of these verses apply to Israel. Yes! For Israel is the woman from whom the male child who would rule the nations was born (Rev. 12).
“They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” - Romans 9:4-5
Christ was the first fruit and the rest of Israel’s offspring whom Satan wars against is the church. Originally, God made a covenant with the nation of Israel, though he divorced her:
“She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.” - Jeremiah 3:8
Despite Israel’s unfaithfulness, if we continue reading Jeremiah 3, we see that God calls her back and makes clean those who repent. In divorcing the nation, God has made obsolete the old covenant and, at the same time, called into a new covenant not only Jews from the old covenant, but also gentiles, forming the church and Christ’s faithful bride. For it is by faith that both Jew and gentile are counted as children of God, continuing in Romans 9:
“But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” - Romans 9:6-8
(For more on this theme, read my series Whore’s Glory. Galatians 3 would also be helpful.)
The Mother of All Living
In Genesis 3:20, the woman is given the name “Eve” by Adam because she is the “mother of all living,”or the “life giver.” Although Mary gave birth to Christ, and no doubt that is a special way in which she brought life into the world, it is the church who bears the name “life giver” in the new covenant. How can this be?
Because we inherit all things that Christ accomplished (Eph. 1:11), we are conformed to the likeness of Christ (Rom. 8), and we have become his dwelling place (1 Cor. 3:16), what is true of Christ becomes necessarily characteristic of the church since she is one with him.
As the vessel of the Spirit of Christ in the world, the church is the conduit through which Christ administers his justice and his mercy in the world. It is when the church gives that we are the hands and feet of Christ (Matt. 25:35-40). It is when the church prays that healing and judgment come to the nations (Rev. 21:24; 22:2). It is when the church preaches that God saves men by power of his Word (Rom. 10:14-15). It is as the church carries the presence and the Spirit of God through the world that we give life to the world as ambassadors of Christ.
One of the Bride
So, ironically, there is a way in which these things do apply to Mary—a way in which she is the new ark, the new Eve, and the pure Bride of Christ.
Let’s return to our four dogmas one last time and see how, in Christ, we, the collective Bride, have inherited the mercy of the Son rather than the mercy of his Mother:
Immaculate conception - Because Christ was conceived without the stain of original sin, we have a mediator between God and man who is worthy and able to redeem us from the curse of original sin (Heb. 9:15).
Divine Children of God - Because Christ ascended and sent the Holy Spirit, we have now become the tabernacle, the temple, the dwelling place of God (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
Perpetual Virginity - Because Christ lived a sinless life, we who are hidden in him have been justified from before the world was formed, are being sanctified on the earth, and will be glorified with him; we are blameless in his sight (Rev. 14:4-5).
The Assumption - Because Christ was resurrected, we too will never die, but will be resurrected with him on the last day (John 6:44).
As one of the church, Mary became a temple of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, just as we do when he comes to dwell in us. She does not stand alone in her inheritance of the favor of God and should not be elevated as if she does.
Not only has Catholic doctrine elevated Mary as a saint endowed with special graces above the rest, but it has automatically caused greater devotion to her than Christ himself.
Catholic adherents should recognize the irony of putting Mary on a pedestal. There is no need to venerate Mary for she is merely human, like any one of us. Rather than elevating her to a Divine Mother, we bring her down to be our sister. She will stand beside us on the last day, blessed with the same favor all who humbled themselves before God have been blessed with. For Christ has said:
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” - Matthew 23:12
Holy & Blameless
We have barely scratched the surface of Catholicism. This is the longest article I’ve ever written, and yet we’ve only touched on one small aspect of this topic. But the next time you find yourself in conversation with a Catholic friend or family member and the topic of Mary comes up, I hope you will be able to recall the 4 Marian dogmas as we examined them here. I hope you will gently turn their gaze from a humble peasant girl to the exalted Son of God. I hope you will show them that in Christ, they too will be exalted if they humble themselves before him. I know that’s what Mary would want.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” - Ephesians 1:3-4
Thanks! I’ve casually looked for information on this topic over the past few years but never come up with good sources, so this is helpful. I’ve also thought if Mary was sinless, or divine then Christ could not be considered God/man - right? And if he wasn’t both God AND man then he could not truly be the propitiation for our sins.