What Do Catholics Really Believe About Mary—and Should Protestants Care? ONESTOP THREAD

No brother–

Jesus was not created when the Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary
The Scriptures teach that the Son preexisted His incarnation.

He was with God and was God before the world began – Joh_1:1–3, Joh_8:58 cf. Exo_3:14, Col_1:15–17, Heb_1:2–3.

The flesh (humanity) began at the conception (Mat_1:20; Luk_1:35), but the Person who took on that flesh was eternally begotten–not created.

• Mary is rightly called the “Mother of God” in the sense of the Theotokos (God-bearer)
While Mary did not originate the divine nature of Christ, she did bear the Person of Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man – Isa_7:14; Luk_1:43 (“the mother of my Lord”); Mat_1:23; Joh_1:14; Gal_4:4.

Denying this can lead to the Nestorian error of separating Christ’s divine and human natures into two persons.

• Jesus is not merely ‘the flesh that robed the Spirit’
The Son is not just a human shell for a divine spirit. Scripture affirms the full hypostatic union: God the Son took on human nature and became flesh – Joh_1:14; Php_2:6–8; Heb_2:14–17.
Col_2:9 – “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

• Yes, Jesus truly died, but not as God ceasing to exist

The divine nature did not die, but the Person of Christ did truly die in His human nature – Mat_27:50; Luk_23:46; Rom_5:6–8; 1Co_15:3.

The divine Logos did not perish, but He experienced death through His assumed humanity – Heb_2:9, Heb_10:5, Act_20:28 (“God purchased with His own blood”).

• Jesus rose bodily, not just ‘God rose again’
The resurrection is of the same body that died – Luk_24:39–43; Joh_20:27; Joh_2:19–21; Rom_6:9; Act_2:24, Act_17:31; 1Co_15:3–4, 1Co_15:20–22.

God bless.

Johann.