Truth Unites - Are the Marian Dogmas Credible?

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

See the full interview here: https://youtu.be/r1Fvxd8VI3s See Becket Cook's channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@BecketCook   Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

So she was bodily assumed into heaven. Where did that idea come from? And when did it develop? And when did it become dogma? And also, when did it become, I think it became anathema to not believe that. Okay. So this is a big one. So one clarification to make, too, is that the doctrine of the bodily assumption of Mary

doesn't necessarily say whether or not she died. Sometimes it said she was immediately assumed into heaven. Other times it says she was died, resurrected, and then, assumed into heaven. So at least for Roman Catholics, they leave that open. The dogma leaves that open. You can believe either way on that. But you have to believe in the bodily assumption of Mary. And so I'll address the last part of your question first, because this is important for setting the stakes. In 1950, Pope Pius XIth defined the bodily assumption, and it is an infallible dogma. It is therefore obligatory upon Christians to accept the exact language in that apostolns.

Constitution is that basically anyone who willfully denies this dogma will merit the wrath of God. And it even says the wrath of Peter and Paul as well. Right. So this is not, now people could try to qualify this and so forth. But, you know, it's very clear. This is being taught as an essential. This is obligatory and essential. It's not an option to believe in the assumption of Mary.

And so that's very significant because of how little evidence they're. is for it. I'll keep answering that in a second, but go ahead. And what does that mean? So what is, according to the Roman Catholic Church, what does that mean merit the wrath of God? What does that exactly mean? I mean hell or does it just mean more punishment or what is that exactly, that anathema? I think it is a reference to hell. Okay. To merit the wrath of God. Yeah. Yeah. And historically, anathemas have been understood as that. Right. To be a cursed of God, to be thrown into the lake of fire to, you know, not be saved. And again, you know, you always want to try to

be as careful and generous as possible to try to look at it from another point of view. A lot of people say, well, that is binding. That's not necessarily binding upon someone who may not know of this or who may have what they call invincible ignorance or maybe someone who isn't willfully rejecting it. So, you know, just I at least want to flag for attention that there are nuances to work through and how that would be applied to every single person. Nonetheless, the level of importance being attached to this dogma, to me, it is unfathomable. I really, I mean, I don't know how strongly to state my concern. I don't know how strongly to state my concern about it. It is just so problematic to define as an essential dogma, infallibly revealed and irreformable, therefore, it's never going away,

that Mary was assumed to heaven when there is absolutely not one shred of historical evidence to believe it's a historical event. And this has been an area of research for me. I would summarize it by saying this. It gives every indication of only coming into the church in the fifth century. So you can, the first time you ever hear of anything about a bodily assumption is an gnostic legend. So it's not something among Orthodox Christians.

It's an gnostic group. And that's in the book of Mary's Repose. That's earlier than that, sometimes dated on. the third century, perhaps. In the late fourth century, you find another set of texts that reference it that are also heterodox, meaning outside of mainstream Christianity. And then it's after the Council of Ephesus in 431. When you get a significant increase in interest in Mary, that's where you get the title for Mary as the Godbearer or Theotokos, which we can talk about that. In concerted to that, the Marian devotion, so devotion to Mary praying, thinking of Mary as an object of prayer, for example, and then interest in Mary, one aspect of which will be the assumption, all that starts to spike significantly.

It's not to say it's universal at that time, but the scholarly consensus on this is that it's between 450 and 500. So that latter half of the fifth century that you really start to see the assumption take root in the church. And I just, so in other words, it's not just that it's not biblical. It's that it doesn't have any good historical evidence for it as well. And if I could just say one other thing, all throughout that prior period, I have found about 24 lists of people assumed to heaven in the church fathers. Every single one without exception never mentions Mary, but it all. always mentions Enoch and Elijah, of course, Jesus. So the idea that, well, maybe it was believed, but we just don't have any historical evidence of it.

People try to say things like this. It's like, no, no, no, no. Surely, if Mary is as important as you say, and if she actually was assumed to heaven, and that actually happened in the first century, surely we'd hear something of it for 400 years. And so in light of that historical just dearth of evidence, for it to be proclaimed as an essential part of Christianity, it's, I find it offensive, if I can be honest. I mean, I just find it just the overreach of authority is just so egregious. Yeah, and you mentioned the Greek term Theotokos, and it's interesting because you did a video on, you kind of a, a, the debate between Ali Bestucky and George Farmer, who is Candace Owen's husband.

And they mentioned, I think they mentioned, I think George Farmer mentioned Theotokos. So what does that Greek term mean? I think it was at the Council of Ephesus when that was, as you mentioned, that it was discussed. Okay, so the term means Godbearer. And it's simply a reference to the incarnation, really. It just means that Jesus is God. and so this would be one of the areas where a lot of times I would encourage Protestants to be very careful here to not be too dismissive of the whole idea.

Actually, this has not historically been a point of difference between Protestants and Catholics or other Christians that we can speak of Mary like this. And the Council of Ephesus is an ecumenical council very early on. And originally, the context was to say something about Christ mainly. It's a Christological truth that Jesus is God. And therefore, and this would be the first Roman Catholic dogma about Mary, on which Protestants and Roman Catholics need not disagree, that Mary, we can call her the mother of God. Now, I think when people hear that language today, sometimes they freak out and they think, oh, does this mean that Mary is like the mother of divinity or the divine nature? It's like, no, no, no, no, that's not the idea. It's just talking about the incarnation. we can reference each person of the Godhead as God.

So we can say God became a man. And what we mean by that is the second member of the Godhead became a man. The word of God became a man. The son of God became a man. Or we can say God indwells us. And what we mean by that is the Holy Spirit. Or we can say God sent Jesus. And what we mean by the word God there is the Father, God the Father.

So when we speak of Mary as the mother of God or the Theotokos, that is fine. That's all we're saying is Jesus was God and Mary gave birth to Jesus. Let's move on to another dogma, the Immaculate Conception. So, you know, a lot of people, when they hear that term immaculate conception, they think it means the virgin birth, that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. But what it actually means is that Mary was immaculately conceived. that she didn't have original sin. So how did that dogma develop?

Where did it come from? Okay, this is another one where it's very clear that it's after the apostolic age, that it's coming in because you don't see any testimonies of it early on. People try to read it back into certain passages, but it's very forced to try to get it in the New Testament. There's no hint of that in the New Testament. And then you find lots of prominent church fathers who have no hesitation attributing moral faults to Mary.

And in my writings, I've drawn attention. to a lot of these in their commentaries on like John 2, the turning of the water into wine. They're often faulting Mary for being impatient or having vain glory and how she interacts with Jesus in that passage. And Luke 1, Simeon's prophecy about the sword shall pierce your own heart. There's a big tradition in the early church that this is referring to Mary's doubt, a sinful doubt at the cross, where at the death of Jesus she falls into sinful doubt. That's one of the ideas floating around.

So you have, and it's very clear a lot of them, a lot of the fathers, John Chrysostom, origin. He's not technically a church father, but others like that are Basel, are thinking of this as sinful, you know, Mary's. So you've got, and what's amazing about those passages is there's no awareness that they're saying something controversial. There doesn't seem to be any kind of sense of, well, I know I'm attributing a moral flaw to Mary in my commentary, and I know this is going to be not taken. well by others who thinks she was sinless. So I need to defend this. I mean, they're not even aware that it would be a controversial idea. At the same time, you also have some others, starting around, I would say, third century, a few, but then a lot more, fourth and fifth centuries, who think of Mary as sinless. And so, but it's not always the immaculate conception. It's not always that she was

preserved from original sin. But, and so sometimes there's kind of a spectrum of options that are coming in and developing. This is the complexity of history. You know, it's just so complicated and there's diverse views. But it's, sir, I, but the counter testimonies are such that I think it's very clear. This is not an apostolic truth. This is a later innovation, a later development that doesn't, you know, I think I have to be, and I've learned to be more confident because I'm a pretty gentle person in my personality, and I've learned to just be more confident in saying when the truth is clear,

just to say it, because other times, otherwise people sometimes don't get it. There is absolutely no reason to think that the apostles of Christ or Christ himself ever dreamed of things like the bodily assumption or the immaculate conception. They are not apostolic truths. And yet they have been made into irreformable essential dogmas by the Roman Catholic Church. And that's just a serious concern that I have.