Truth Unites - Is Mary the "Mother of God?"

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

In this video Gavin Ortlund articulates that calling Mary the Mother of God need not be a concern for Protestant Christians, and then clarifies what the Protestant concern actually is. Pope Francis' comments on the obligatory nature of Marian devotion: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/37427/pope-on-new-years-day-devotion-to-mary-is-a-must 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/

Recently I put out two videos, one on the bodily assumption of Mary and the other on the immaculate conception of Mary, offering a Protestant perspective on those. One of the things people asked about is, what about calling Mary the mother of God? Because I referenced how, while those points, the assumption and immaculate conception are Protestant concerns, calling Mary the mother of God historically generally hasn't been and need not be a Protestant concern. That's something we can agree upon. And several people asked about that, you know, and understandably have a worry of just they feel uneasy with that language.

And so I thought I'd make a very brief video to address that. I'm always happy when I can find something where we can agree upon, you know. Believe it or not, I don't wake up in the morning desiring to do polemics and stuff like that. I do that as a labor of love, honestly, if you can believe that, to help people who are wrestling with these things. But I'm happy to celebrate where we agree. and here is something that all Christians can agree upon, properly understood, the label Mother of God is a legitimate title for Mary. The Council of Ephesus in 431 used the label Theotokos, meaning God-bearer for Mary, and the Protestant reformers did not object to that language in itself, though sometimes they had concerns about its effect and usage and understanding more on that at the end of this video.

but let me just encourage contemporary Protestants, though this might not be comfortable language for us to be careful here and to think this through. And I'll just make a brief explanation as to why this is a legitimate title for Mary and perfectly fine. In fact, it actually is an appropriate way to convey the truth of the incarnation. So to make it simple, really short and to the point here, Mary was Jesus' mother, Jesus is God, therefore, In that sense, Mary is the mother of God. And the simple grammatical point here is that we can use the term God to refer to one person in the Trinity.

For example, we can say, God sent his son Jesus. There, the word God means God the Father. Or we can say God became incarnate. And in that sentence, the word God means God the son. Or we can say God dwells within us, and the word God means the Holy Spirit. So in calling Mary the mother of God, we are not saying that Mary predict. divine nature. Rather, we're simply saying, Mary is the mother of Jesus, Jesus is God, therefore, marries the mother of God. Now, you know, someone might say, okay, technically,

but isn't it really confusing and that kind of thing? Let me give an explanation of this from a Protestant standpoint from Carl Bart. Now, I know Carl Bart has become a very controversial figure in recent years, even more so. He's all, I guess, among evangelicals, he's always had a very much contested reception. And I've published a little bit on that for anybody who's interested, say more. But I'll just say for our purposes here, I find him helpful. Just because there may be problems in his personal life doesn't necessarily mean he's useless, theologically, to engage. He's someone outside of U.S. evangelicalism who has a lot of deep knowledge of the Christian tradition. And so engaging him can be helpful. I wrote a blog post about how, you know, it's total avoidance is

not the right approach, in my opinion. So on this point, let me read what he said, because he went so far as to say, calling Mary the mother of God is a test of your understanding of the incarnation. And I'll just read a little bit from the church dogmatics where he addresses this. He says, to a certain extent, it amounts to a test of the proper understanding of the incarnation of the Word that as Christians and theologians, we do not reject the description of Mary as the mother of God. But in spite of its being overloaded by the so-called Maryology of the Roman Catholic Church, we affirm and approve of it as a legitimate expression of Christological truth. Those final words are important there, and that's the key, a legitimate

expression of Christological truth. This is the Protestant position that the title Theotokos and the recognition of Mary as bearing God, that was originally motivated primarily by Christological considerations, and only then gradually began to kind of become its own independent theological domain. So here's how Bart puts it, as he continues. He says, the description of Mary is the mother of God, was and is sensible, permissible, and necessary as an auxiliary Christological proposition, but its use as the basis of an independent Mariology, as it is called, was and is one of those characteristically Roman Catholic enterprises against which there has to be an evangelical protest, not only

for their arbitrariness in form, but also for their precariousness of their content. In this case, We are dealing essentially not with an illumination, but with an obscuring of revealed truth. In other words, with a false doctrine. Mariology is an excrescence. That is, a diseased construct of theological thought, excresences must be excised. So an excrescence is like a diseased outgrowth. And so that's actually an eloquent way of articulating the Protestant concern about Marian devotion, some of the other Marian dogmas as well.

Think of it just like this, to be simple. Mary is theologically important in relation to Jesus. But when she starts being disconnected and pulled over here, now we've got this whole new theological enterprise devoted at her that can have the effect of taking focus away from Jesus. And, you know, we often hear that it's always a both-and. People say, no, no, no, the more we love Mary, the more we love Jesus. It's not, they're not, it's not competitive.

But some things can be an either or. John the Baptist didn't say, he must increase and I must increase too because it's above hand. He said, he must increase and I must decrease. In principle, it's at least possible for a focus upon Mary or any other person to displace a focus upon Christ. I don't, I'm amazed, frankly, at the naivety and lack of concern about this. I don't know why people aren't more worried about it.

It just seems to me very clear that it's entirely possible, you know, even if someone just affirms down the line, say, to take the Roman Catholic tradition. I'm not trying to pick on Roman Catholics. I know that the other non-Protestant traditions often will share a lot of the Mariology. But just as an example, let's say a person just signs on the dotted line on every single thing. I would think they could still understand this concern in principle. What about when Christians love Jesus less than they love Mary and pray to Jesus less than they pray to Mary? And is that always a both-hand?

Can't you see that sometimes it's not a both-and? That would be kind of my amazement is the lack of concern for that. I just don't get it. I'll keep listening to try to better understand because to me it's kind of like just a no-brainer. that, yeah, we can commit idolatry and put someone else functionally in our hearts in the role that Jesus alone should have. And Protestants do it all the time. Everybody can do it. It's a perennial temptation. I just don't understand the lack of why no one's ringing the alarm bell more,

because even if you think that all these dogmas are true and so forth, that still in principle could be a valid concern, I should think. So the basic point here is, yes, Mary's the mother of God, but that's a Christological affirmation about the incarnation. Don't start. divorcing it from the incarnation and start spinning out new doctrines from it alone. Okay? I know that nobody thinks they're doing that, but that's the concern of what we think is in effect happening. Let me conclude by drawing attention to Martin Luther's concern along these lines, because people often will act as though the Protestant concerns about Mariology are just a recent thing, and that the reformers were totally on board with medieval Mariology, which they were not.

a lot of the dogmas hadn't been defined yet. So it's not as shocking. These were not as much frontline issues in the 16th century as other things. So it's not shocking that you wouldn't have as much opposition. But it is true that the reformers anticipated and articulated the essential Protestant concern of elevating Mary too highly and making her honor into a matter of salvation. Here's a sermon from Luther 1522, pretty early, on Matthew 1. and it's pretty amazing. It's just like an exact articulation of this concern. He says,

we have an obligation to honor Mary, but be careful to give her honor that is fitting. Unfortunately, I worry that we give her all too high an honor, for she is accorded much more esteem than she should be given or than she accounted to herself. So from this comes two abuses. First, Christ is diminished by those who place their hearts more upon Mary than upon Christ himself. In doing so, Christ is forced into the background and completely forgotten. The other abuse is that the poor saints here on earth are forgotten. I would allow a high regard for Mary and her praise just so long as you do not get carried away and consider making a law out of it so that she must be honored as a condition for your salvation.

For the scriptures have recorded nothing about her birth or life. So your hearts must not be placed upon her, and she must not be exalted above her proper status. The monks invented all this abuse. They wanted to praise the woman. They have used Mary as an excuse to invent all kinds of lies by which she could be used to establish their twaddle. They have used scriptures to drag Mary by the hair and force her to go where she never intended. For the gospel that is read today reveals Christ's nativity, not Mary's. See how many lies have come out of this, which we can in no way tolerate. I can surely allow her to be honored, but not in a way. that belies the scriptures. Of course, the great question we all have now, what is the German word for twaddle? Somebody asked that when I put this up on Facebook, I had the same thought.

A lot of these great historic theologians were not only great theologians, they were great writers, and their language is kind of amazing. That's true of Bart. He's a good, he's sharp in his rhetoric. But modern theologians sometimes are great theologians, but not always great writers. I think historically that they were often both.

Anyway, so you see Luther's concerns, there. You feel his concern there. Honor Mary, but it can go too far. Don't make her a requisite for salvation. Don't make honoring her a requirement for salvation. That's completely alien to scripture. Don't put so much focus upon her that Christ and other saints here on earth are forgotten. So that essential concern is kind of the heartbeat of the Protestant view on Mary that Bart talks about as an excrescence, something that kind of, of, you know, what we've originally got here, the Theotokos, the incarnation, Christ, Mary's the mother of God in that sense, and it starts going sideways on us. And now,

2,000 years later, we're here where, you know, Pope Francis says that devotion to Mary is obligatory in the Christian life. You can look that one up online. I'll try to put a, remember to put a link. And you've got to believe in things like the bodily assumption and immaculate conception on pain of anathema. And the required obligatory, irreformable, infallible, dogmas of the faith. And what I've observed in my other videos is that changes the parameters of just what is Christianity, what are the basic doctrines you have to believe as a Christian. And so that's our concern, but it's not calling Mary the mother of God because Jesus is God. So that's my explanation for that. Hope that will help people who are wondering about this topic.

All right, just a short one. Thanks for watching everybody.