Doctrinally Challenged

“When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: "Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel," which means "God with us."  Matthew 1:20-23

 One of the most important aspects of our Christian faith is the Virgin Birth. Why does this matter so much? Is God against sex? Does He like virgins more? No, that’s not it at all. There’s a reason why it matters that Mary was a virgin, but first I want to share with you what I learned today about this whole concept that surprised and changed me.

 I was about to write a paragraph here about original sin and the doctrine of total depravity which I discussed in an earlier post. This doctrine teaches that sin has been transmitted, like a change in our DNA, throughout human history from the “seed” of the father to his child. The result of this is babies born in sin and thus needing infant baptism to “forgive” their original sin seed in order for them to go to heaven. Now, I’ve never believed in the need for infant baptism. My belief is that baptism is a public confession of your faith in Christ and a declaration that you are turning from your past sin and choosing to follow Jesus. So, how did these two opposing ideas live in my mind without colliding? Good question. I think that my understanding of the doctrine of total depravity, the concept that we are all subject to sin due to the seed of Adam being transmitted to us by our fathers, was woven into my spiritual teaching throughout my life. Looking at it today, I see that this doctrine was passed from the catholic church to the Lutherans and the Calvins, and has found root in most modern, Western denominations.

 Here’s what stopped me short today. I was writing my post here and I went to find a verse, as I often do, to demonstrate what the Bible teaches about this. To my surprise, I couldn’t find one. So, I followed my backup course of action, and I began searching the concept on Bing. In the past this has led me to a verse that I couldn’t find otherwise, but today it taught me about church history instead. It turns out that I believed in the concept of total depravity, without having thought it through or learned it from scripture or possibly without having ever been directly taught it, because of how it had permeated my Christian teaching from the time I was a small child. Like many other aspects of my faith that I have had to reanalyze through study and scripture when I realized that I had been believing them without basis, I was now confronted with the idea that perhaps the doctrine of total depravity was not specifically laid out in the scripture.

 I cannot find a Biblical basis for the doctrine of total depravity. There is nothing mentioned in the interaction between Adam and God after he and Eve are found in sin in the Garden about Adam’s sin cursing future generations in this way. It does say that his sin made it so that Adam’s work, and therefore the work of future generations, would be cursed in becoming painful toil because the ground will produce thorns and thistles. But nowhere does it say that Adam’s progeny would be cursed with his sin. At least nowhere that I can see, if you know of something I couldn’t find, I’d love to hear about it in the comments! My new understanding is that some people believe that Exodus 20:5 implies total depravity through original sin when it says, “You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.” When I read this, though, I am more inclined to see it as a description of generational sin. This would be a sin that children are more prone to because of how it was demonstrated to them by their parents. This is not an imputed or automatic sin that they cannot escape, but a chain of sin through generations that, by the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, can be broken. In another Old Testament passage, Ezekiel 18:20, we read, “The person who sins is the one who will die. A son will not suffer for his father's iniquity, and a father will not suffer for his son's iniquity; the righteous person will be judged according to his righteousness, and the wicked person according to his wickedness.” This tells me that God holds us accountable for what we do, not what our parents did. Based on this, God would not hold us accountable for what Adam did either.

 The doctrines of total depravity and original sin teach that it is important that Mary was a virgin because the seed of sin was passed down through the father. Here’s the problem with that, then wouldn’t Mary have been infected with original sin by her father? The Catholic church evidently tried to get around that problem with their doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Now that’s one I had never heard of before today! According to this doctrine, Mary was, “not afflicted by the lack of sanctifying grace that afflicts humankind, but was instead filled with grace by God, and furthermore lived a life completely free from sin.” Now I don’t see ANYTHING in the Bible that says that! On the contrary I can see several times in the gospels where Mary and her other children try to stop or correct Jesus. Many interpret what Jesus says to Mary at the Wedding in Cana as a rebuke or correction. In Mark 3:21, it tells us, “When his family heard this they went out to restrain him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." Later we read in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that Jesus’ mother and brothers were outside the house He was in and wanted to see Him. I’ve always understood this to mean that they were there to correct Jesus, His mother included. He famously says, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it," and the Bible never tells us if He eventually spoke with His family or not. Either way, this seems like Mary was a part of a family group that didn’t believe Jesus was following God’s direction and He needed to be corrected. I certainly wouldn’t build a doctrine on this, but I neither can I see anything in the Bible that says Mary was without sin or immaculately conceived.

 So why is it important that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived? In Isaiah 7:14, he prophecies that the Messiah will be born of a virgin. This miracle is pivotal to pointing to Jesus as the promised One of God. That’s why it matters that Mary was a virgin.

Here’s the Thing: Phew I had no idea what I was in for today! Sometimes Bible study takes us in directions we never imagined. Three days ago, I was on a bus in Spain where the tour guide told the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection as well as the story of James, one of His disciples, who took the command to take the gospel to the ends of the Earth literally and got on a boat as far as it would go, ending up in Spain. The town I toured, Santiago, was named after Saint James and the cathedral there is dedicated to him, and it seems as though they worship him there. In fact, you can stand in line for your turn to “Embrace the Apostle” and hug a statue of James.

 

 Anyways, as the tour guide was telling the story, he always referred to Mary as “the Virgin Mary.” In my mind, I had to correct him because Mary did not stay a virgin. The Bible talks in several places about Jesus’ brothers and sisters, naming at least four of His brothers. There is certainly nothing in the scripture about Jesus’ siblings having been immaculately conceived. In fact, in Matthew 1:24-25 it says, “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus,” which says to me that eventually they did consummate their marriage, meaning Mary would no longer have been a virgin.  All that to say, it was amazing to me that the status of Mary’s virginity would be brought up to me so blatantly and then a few days later be the subject of a major revelation God was going to show me through my Bible study. I love how God works in our lives!