ABOUT MARY
- UnstoppableRevKev
- Jun 25, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: May 13
Pointing to His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”
-Matthew 12:49-50
Despite the overwhelming biblical testimony regarding the horrifically detestable abominations erupting from human religious customs and traditions, they have continually run rampant in humanity, dating back long before Christianity. The Old Testament exposes the nation of Israel's insatiable addiction to idols from the outset. Despite repeated warnings from God through the prophets, Israel refused to abandon the customs and traditions associated with their idols. Throughout the intertestamental period (the time between the Old & New Testaments), Israel invented new ways to sin rather than repenting and embracing God's divine discipline.
Throughout the New Testament, Jesus, Israel's prophesied Messiah, repeatedly chastised the Pharisees and religious leaders for their misguided religious customs and traditions. Their initial attempts to discredit Jesus stemmed not from Scripture but rather from their contemptuous customs and twisted traditions. When discrediting Jesus backfired, they resorted to more desperate measures and began plotting to murder Him. The final straw, which led to their justifying His murder, stemmed from Jesus questioning and rejecting their religious customs and traditions.
The recurring theme throughout Scripture is that human religious customs and traditions are utterly detestable to God. Lot's daughters justified their incestuous relations with their father because of human customs (Gen 19:31). Laban justified deceiving Jacob by swapping Leah for Rachel based on human customs (Gen 29:26). The Israelites justified worshipping idols and serving other gods based on their religious customs (2 Ki 17:33). The LORD chastised the Israelites because they observed the religious commands of Omri and all the practices of Ahab’s house, and followed their traditions (Micah 6:16). King Jesus called out the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, saying, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition... they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matthew 15:3-6).
Historically, the Roman Catholic Church has embraced the same folly of human religious customs and traditions with things like the veneration of angels and saints, the worship of Mary, the doctrine of Purgatory, the adoption of non-canonical writings into Scripture, the Pope revered as the head of the Church, etc. While Catholics typically deny worshipping Mary, their dogma and practice suggest otherwise.
Take, for example, the Roman Catholic dogma of Mary as the "Mother of God." Luke 2:7 reveals that Mary was undeniably the mother of the incarnate Christ. John 1:1 and 8:58 reveal that Jesus is undeniably God. But to say that Mary is the "Mother of God" is a grossly erroneous and heretical conclusion.
God exists eternally as Holy Trinity, i.e., Father, Son, and Spirit, three distinct co-equal, co-eternal "persons," yet existing eternally as One triune God. Genesis 1:1 reveals that God (Hebrew "Elohim") is the preexistent Creator who caused creation. Genesis 1:26 reveals that this God of Holy Trinity had a discussion among themselves, saying, "Let us create humanity in our image, according to our likeness..."
Romans 3:23 and 5:12 reveal that sin is the universal condition for all of humanity, i.e., all of Adam's natural descendants. Therefore, it is impossible for Mary, a finite and naturally sinful human, to be the "Mother of God." Mary was simply the prophetic fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel."
Once human religious customs and traditions regarding Mary as the "Mother of God" (in 431 A.D.) seeped deeply enough into Roman Catholic theology and doctrine, numerous other heresies emerged to support the first. The Roman Catholic Church decided that Mary must have been pretty special to have given birth to God. Therefore, at the Council of Lateran in 649 A.D., the Roman Catholic Church decided that, despite biblical evidence of Jesus having numerous siblings (Matthew 13:55-56), they would ratify their manufactured doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity. Their confirmation bias required the Roman Catholic Church to invent dogma and doctrine that exist nowhere in Scripture to support their heretical, blasphemous, and non-biblical views.
Once the Roman Catholic Church had doubled down on human-derived religious customs and traditions, there was no going back. The doctrine of "The Immaculate Conception," which was formulated as recently as 1854, has to do with Mary's conception, not Jesus'. It is the heretical belief that Mary was somehow preserved from Original Sin stemming from Adam. In 1913, under the Papacy of Pius X, the Roman Catholic Church ratified the doctrine of Mary as "Coredemtrix," i.e. that Mary participated in the redemption of humanity along with Christ Jesus. Then, in 1950, Pope Pius XII invented the doctrine of Mary's Assumption. "The Assumption" claims Mary's body did not undergo the natural process of decomposition, but instead was immediately "assumed" into heaven at the moment of her physical death. The Roman Catholic Church admits the doctrine is evidenced nowhere in Scripture, but rather was "divinely revealed." Joseph Smith invented Mormonism in the same way.
The first characteristic Scripture reveals about our adversary, the Devil, is craftiness (Gen 3:1). Scripture reveals that Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14). As a finite and created being, he understands that long-term effectiveness must be subtle. Our enemy knows that the best way to seduce humanity into sin and idolatry is to make it as close to the real thing as possible. As Charles Spurgeon once said, "Discernment isn't about telling the difference between right and wrong; instead, it is telling the difference between right and almost right."
In Luke 11:28, right after King Jesus had finished preaching that a divided house cannot stand, we read:
As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and blessed are the breasts that nursed You!”
It was the perfect opportunity for Jesus to squash all the misguided and heretical dogma and doctrine about Mary before it started... and He did. With perfect eloquence and simplicity, He replied:
“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
In Mark 3, we read that when Jesus went to his hometown to preach, a crowd gathered, so that He and His disciples could not even eat. When His family heard about this, they went out to take custody of Him, saying, “He is out of His mind.” Mary and Jesus' brothers apparently went out to put an end to His public ministry. When Jesus’ mother and brothers came and stood outside, they sent someone in to summon Him. “Look,” He was told, “Your mother and brothers are outside, asking for You.” Once again, King Jesus had the perfect opportunity to publicly herald Mary as the "Queen of Heaven," the "Mother of God," to call her forward and lavish her with praise and honor. Instead, King Jesus said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” And looking at those seated in a circle around Him, He said,
King Jesus overtly rejects and explicitly denies natural, biological, hereditary relationships while upholding and affirming supernatural ones, stating emphatically:
“Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and sister and mother.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17 reveals, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." The opposite is true of human customs and traditions. Our religious customs and traditions are truly diabolical. Scripture exposes they arise from deceiving spirits and the teaching of demons (1 Tim 4:1). They sabotage our worship of God. They undermine our relationships with one another. They manifest as the "obvious works of the flesh," creating divisions, hatred, jealousy, strife, and pride. Historically, our religious customs and traditions have been the source of unspeakable atrocities, persecutions, wars, and genocide.
Before gloating and walking away with smug smirks, Protestants everywhere must realize that much of what goes on in our churches and worship services today is equally repulsive to God. Just because our Golden Calves differ from those of the Roman Catholic Church, it doesn't make them better. In 2 Corinthians 13:5, the Apostle Paul challenged Christ's real church of every place and time to examine and test ourselves to see whether or not we are truly in the faith. Paul wanted to ensure that Christ Jesus was truly found alive in our hearts, lives, midst, and ministry so that we would not be found counterfeit... lukewarm... having a reputation for being alive, but dead inside because we've abandoned our first love, Christ.
True revival isn't the result of the idols we're willing to tear down; it's limited by the ones we won't.
Maybe if we actually took King Jesus seriously, we'd start with the plank in our own eye. If Protestant churches would begin by tearing down all of our high places and cleansing the idols from the corrupted and prideful temples of our own hearts, lives, families, and churches... then we'd have a legitimate testimony of God's will being accomplished. Then we would see Christ's kingdom advancing on earth.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, "Everywhere it is the same; the avoidance of literal, simple obedience." It'll always be easier to point out sin in others. Maybe that's why so many will never examine, never test, and never pray to God as the psalmist did, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the everlasting way."
Sadly, most are perfectly content with their religious customs, traditions, and idols as hypocritical counterfeits. Therefore, many will never go further than simply noting, "There's something just not quite right about Mary."
Grace and Peace,
Kevin M. Kelley
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