Mary Is Not the Mother of God

TO APPROXIMATELY 590 million Roman Catholics throughout the world this statement will undoubtedly be shocking, but it is what the Holy Bible affirms. Why be afraid to consider its testimony? As God’s inspired Word, the Bible is the truth, and the truth can never mislead you.

If you search throughout the Bible, you will be unable to find a single statement that even suggests that Mary is the mother of God. Why, then, do so many people believe it? Because it is an official teaching of their church. The reasoning behind the teaching is revealed in the official Roman Catholic publication A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, published in 1949. It states on page 61: “Although Christ’s conception and birth were miraculous, He, like other men, came into the world as an infant, having Mary for His Mother. Since His origin from the Blessed Virgin is true generation, Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ, who is God, and she is therefore truly the Mother of God.”

On the surface this may seem like sound reasoning, but it is built upon an assumption that is not correct, and, therefore, the conclusion is wrong. That is why the Bible gives no support to the conclusion. The error is in assuming that Jesus Christ is God. Jesus never regarded himself as God and neither did his disciples. This is readily seen from what the Bible says.

CHRIST IS SUBJECT TO GOD

Consider what the Sacred Record states as to how Jesus regarded himself. All the Bible quotations will be from the Catholic Douay Version unless otherwise indicated. To the opposing religious leaders of his day Jesus said: “Do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?” (John 10:36) Notice that he did not claim to be God but the Son of God. Jesus always regarded himself as being inferior to his heavenly Father and subject to him. As shown at John 14:28, Jesus acknowledged this by saying: “The Father is greater than I.” He also showed it by pointing out that he had not come to earth to do his own will, which he certainly would have been doing had he been God. As recorded at John 6:38, he said: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.” On another occasion he observed: “If God were your Father, you would indeed love me. For from God I proceeded, and came; for I came not of myself, but he sent me.” (John 8:42) If he were God, he would have come of himself.

It is, therefore, evident from Jesus’ own testimony that he did not regard himself as God or try to make himself equal to God. By referring to himself repeatedly as the Son of God he indicated that he was one of the creations of God, as were the angels and Adam. They all are called sons of God.—Job 1:6; Luke 3:38, Knox.

The fact that Jesus Christ acknowledged God as his Father indicates that God brought him into existence, gave him a beginning. After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ testified to this in the revelation that he gave to the apostle John, saying: “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, who is the beginning of the creation of God.” (Apoc. 3:14) That Jesus Christ was speaking here is indicated by Revelation 1:5.

On one occasion Jesus spoke of his Father as being his God, which he could not do if he were actually God himself. To Mary Magdalen he said: “Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God.” (John 20:17) Since Jesus was ascending to his God, the One who had sent him, how could Jesus’ mother Mary have been the mother of God?

TESTIMONY OF JESUS’ DISCIPLES

But what about the disciples of Jesus Christ who were inspired to write about him? What is their testimony? The apostle Paul was inspired to testify, at 1 Corinthians 11:3, to the inferior position that the resurrected Jesus Christ holds in heaven with respect to his Father, saying: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” If Jesus Christ were God, he would have no one as head over him, especially after returning to the heavens.

Further showing his subjection to God after ascending to heaven, 1 Corinthians 15:28 states: “When all things shall be subdued unto him, then the Son also himself shall be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”

But you may say, “What about John 1:1, which says that ‘the Word was God’?” On the surface it would seem from this that Jesus Christ is God, but that would be a wrong conclusion, as it would not be in harmony with the other texts we have just considered from the Catholic Bible. The difficulty arises when translating the Greek text into English. A Bible translation entitled “The New Testament in an Improved Version,” which was published in 1808, renders this passage in a way that is harmonious with the rest of the testimony that the Bible gives regarding Jesus Christ. It says: “The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” This agrees with the very next Joh 1 verse 2, which says that the Word was “with God.”

By wrongly assuming that Jesus Christ is God, it is possible to conclude that Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, is the mother of God. But since the Scriptures testify to the fact that Jesus Christ is not God Almighty, but is the Son of God, the Father’s first creation, the conclusion is in error. It has misled all the millions of people who venerate Mary as the mother of God. It has induced them to be among those, mentioned at Romans 1:25, who “changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.”

Religious organizations that mislead people into worshiping a creature are not God’s true representatives on earth as they claim. Instead, they are part of the world empire of false religion called in the Bible “Babylon the Great.” To honest persons, misled by Babylon the Great, who want to do what is right in the eyes of God the command is given at Apocalypse 18:4: “Go out from her, my people; that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.”