Snapshot: Is Mary Really the ”Mother of God?” (#168)

Welcome back to the podcast. This is going to be the final episode of 2023, and I want to use it to address the first thing that’s happening in 2024.

Because on January 1, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. It’s not a normal liturgical feast, it’s a solemnity, one of the most important days on the annual calendar, and a holy day of obligation which Catholics are required to observe by attending mass.

So, I wanted to do this quick snapshot to address the question that inevitably comes up when this feast is mentioned.

1. Introduction to Evangelical Thought

Because for most American Protestants, especially evangelicals and Pentecostals, the very idea, the mere suggestion, that Mary could be called “the Mother of God,” is jarring. Even deeply offensive or frightening, because it sounds like idolatry, even polytheism, raising Mary to be some sort of fourth member of the Trinity, even the source of the Trinity. Telling my evangelical friends that we’re celebrating the “Feast of Mary, Mother of God” confirms all their worst fears about Catholicism.

Why? Because the doctrine of Mary as the Mother of God an ancient Christian doctrine. So ancient that it emerged around the same time that the canon of the New Testament — the list of official books included in the New Testament — was being decided. It’s at least that old, and it didn’t originate in Rome in Latin, but in foundational Greek churches of Antioch and Alexandria around 100, 200, 300 AD.

And it was and is foundational doctrine for all the ancient Churches—Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Syrian, etc. and most of the major Protestant reformers.

The doctrine of Mary as the Mother of God was called in ancient Greek the doctrine of theotokos, Greek for “God-bearer.” That’s how it’s formally referred to in theology, so I’m going to use that term rather than the English translation. I’ll explain it in a bit, but I want to start with this question: why do American evangelicals so reflexively recoil at the very idea of a doctrine so ancient, accepted, and essential to the Christian faith?

2. The Evangelical Context: Scripture and Tradition

Well, the Evangelical perspective is centered on their understanding of the doctrine of'Sola Scriptura,' the principle that the Bible alone is the supreme authority, and anything not explicitly mentioned in the Bible (especially as translated and read by evangelicals) is not to be accepted. So, because the term Theotokos, is not found in Scripture, it’s seen as either non-essential or a man-made intrusion upon the New Testament.

Now, I’d just like to point out that there are other theological terms that evangelicals accept that aren’t explicitly used in the New Testament. The most obvious is “New Testament.” The New Testament writers never refer to themselves or each other as writing a New Testament. But the Church gathered their writings together, recognized them as divinely inspired, and declared them a “New Testament.” So the idea is in their writings, but the Church assigned a term to that idea. Another example is the Trinity. The NT describes God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so the idea is there, but the Church assigned a term to that idea that isn’t in the text itself.

Theotokos is like that: the idea is in scripture, but not the word. The Church assigned a term to the idea. But evangelicals resist this term and thus reject a thoroughly biblical idea. Why?

I think it comes from their natural skepticism, usually based on misunderstandings and even myths, toward Catholicism. Their default belief is that the Catholic Church invented and added doctrines which distorted the pure text of the New Testament. And so, they reflexively suspicious of not only the term Theotokos, but the idea that it was assigned to describe.

3. Mariological Concerns and Theological Clarity

And to be honest, the title 'Mother of God' sets off all kinds of alarm bells within Evangelical circles, because At first glance, it sounds like Mary is the mother of the Godhead or the Mother of the Trinity. Even when a Catholic explains that that isn’t what the theotokos doctrine means, Evangelicals are afraid to overemphasize Mary’s role in salvation. They want to maintain a clear distinction between the worship of Christ and the reverence of biblical figures, including Mary.

4. Evaluating Theotokos: An Evangelical Approach

Even while they acknowledge Mary's blessed role in the salvation story, they predominantly focus on her obedience and humility as depicted in the Gospels. They engage with her role in the incarnation narrative, but refrain from delving into the Christological implications that lead to the doctrine of Theotokos. 

Even when it’s explained and they cautiously admit it’s validity, they de-emphasize it. They want to keep the focus on Christ’s death and resurrection, not the theological and philosophical discussions of his divine nature and the implications for understanding Mary. And they absolutely loath giving her titles beyond, “Jesus’ Mom."

5. Conclusion: Bridging Understanding

Now, I spent most of my adult life and ministry as an evangelical pastor and writer, so I understand and deeply appreciate their commitment to preserving the integrity of the scriptures, their emphasis on the Gospel, and their cautious approach to doctrine. I know they respect Mary, but they fear that the term 'Mother of God' will lead to a misunderstanding or distortion of the Gospel. I hope that in this snapshot, I can at least explain to anyone listening why the theotokos doctrine doesn’t distort the Gospel, but makes it more powerful.

The Historical Journey and Theological Impact of Theotokos

So, let’s start from the beginning. The concept of Mary as the theotokos, the God-bearer or Mother of God, emerged the early Church, during it’s first one or two hundred years. As we’ll see in a few minutes, the idea is in scripture just as the idea of the Trinity is in scripture even though it took a few generations after the apostles for both ideas to be unpacked and given theological terminology and articulated as fully formed doctrines.

A lot of Christian doctrines become defined through debates over misunderstandings and heresies. So in the case of the Trinity, some Christians and non-Christian critics began to describe God in ways that weren’t in line with the written or oral teachings of the apostles. For example, some said that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were three gods. Some said they were just modes and forms, appearances or faces, of the same divine being. And so, the bishops of the early Church, known as the Church Fathers, wrote and occasionally held councils in which they defined the truth: that he is one God, yet in three distinct persons, and they used the term Trinity to describe this. In Church history, these were known as the Trinitarian controversies, that defined the Trinitarian doctrines, and condemned the heresies that denied the doctrine of the Trinity.

In the same way, there were Christological controversies in the early Church, debates over the nature of Jesus Christ. Was he God, who just wrapped himself in human form for a while, like a disguise? Or was he a very holy man who God adopted as his son? Or were his two natures divided and distinct, so he was part God and part man? All of those were heretical positions that were taken in the early Church or misunderstandings by critics of Christianity.

And so, even while the apostles were alive, they defended the truth: that Christ had two natures: he was both fully God and fully man, but those natures could not be divided. At the moment of his conception in Mary’s womb, those two natures were forever completely fused. God became a man in every way possible, even capable of dying. And a man’s nature was forever grafted into God. This unique being was both the Second person of the Trinity, the divine logos, but also Jesus of Nazareth, and yet through the incarnation those two identities became The Christ, the Anointed One, the Lord.

Now every faithful Christian, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, whatever, affirms that truth about the Christ. To deny it is to deny Christianity itself, because unless he is fully God and fully man, with those natures fused into the Christ, the Gospel cannot be true.

Now lots of supposedly Christian teachers did deny it, and that’s through those debates and councils of the early Church they were declared heretics. Around the year 200 AD, a heresy known as Docetism arose. It denied that Christ was fully human. A few decades later, the Arrian heresy rose. It denied that he was fully God. Both of those heresies were condemned by the bishops of the Catholic Church at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, which gave us the Nicean Creed as a proper declaration of the truth of the Trinity and the nature of Christ.

Now, these conflicts over the nature of Christ raised other questions, notably: who or what exactly was in Mary’s womb? What did she give birth to? Did she just give birth to the human Jesus, but not the divine Christ? Because if she just conceived a human being who then, at some point later, had a divine nature added to or infused into him, then then the Docetists, or the Arrians, or other heretics like the Nestorians were correct, and Jesus was not fully and completely and simultaneously both God and man.

But, as the Church rightly declared based on scripture and the teaching of the apostles, Christ was from the moment of conception a fusion of divine and human natures, what they called in Greek a hypostatic union. What Mary conceived, carried, and gave birth to was, by a miracle of the Holy Spirit, nothing less than the God Man.

This truth was drawn from the scriptures and unpacked by in the generations following the apostles, often by bishops and theologians who had been mentored or discipled by the apostles themselves or by those who had been been discipled by the apostles.

For example, the Church Father Ignatius. He was the archbishop of Antioch, mentioned in the New Testament as the place where followers of Jesus were first given the name “Christians.” He died around 108 BC, which means he was the leader of the Church in Antioch in the generation or so after the death of the apostles. In his writings, he unpacks this idea that the child Mary in Mary’s womb was fully God and fully man from the moment of conception.

The Church Father Irenaus, bishop of Lyon, was discipled by Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, who had been personally instructed by the Apostle John. In his writings around 150 AD, he attacked heretical doctrines which denied the fusion of Christ’s natures, and upheld Mary as the pivotal figure that made the God-Man, and thus the Gospel, possible.

I could go on, mentioning Church Fathers like Tertullian, Athanasius, and others who, in defending against Christological heresies, progressively explored and unpacked the nature of what really happened in the incarnation.

But still, these heresies continued, as they do today with groups like the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses or any number of others who deny the fullness of the incarnation.

And so, the Church had to define, once and for all, what exactly occurred in Mary’s womb at the moment of conception, and who she bore and gave birth to.

At that led to the Council of Ephesus, in 431 AD. To put an end to this controversy, the bishops of the Catholic Church, which is to say the bishops of all the Christian Churches in the world, declared that Mary was the Theotokos, the God Bearer, because he who was conceived in her womb was, from that moment, nothing less than fully God and fully man, the Christ.

And that made her the God bearer.

Now, I know evangelicals who, when this is explained, will say, “Sure, I can buy it if you put it that way. But to call her the Mother of God is a step to far, because it implies that she was the Mother of the Trinity.”

And my response to that is, “You’re not listening. Stop and listen. No one has ever claimed that she was the Mother of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No one has ever claimed that she was some preexistent divine being. So don’t put those words in the mouths of what the Church has taught informally for 2,000 years and formally for 1,600 years.

“But also, don’t downplay her role. Mary wasn’t just the oven the Christ bun was baked in. She wasn’t just the mother of his human nature. In the incarnation, God became man and human nature was fused with God. Mary wasn’t just an artificial womb and she wasn’t just an egg donor.

Her DNA fused with what the Holy Spirit contributed to the incarnation. Her DNA ran through his veins. When he bled on the cross, her DNA was in each drop. The blood that washes us clean from sin contains her DNA.

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son as the sacrificial lamb by which all could be saved. But the same can be said for Mary: she also gave her only begotten son, the same son as God for the salvation of all who would believe so they might have eternal life.

That is the undeniable truth that the Church has taught since the time of the apostles.

I recognize how all of this creeps out evangelicals because they don’t want to glorify Mary, or draw attention to her and away from Jesus.

But I want them to understand how important the doctrine of the theotokos is. How necessary it is to safeguard against heresy and error.

The doctrine that Mary is the Mother of God, was never about glorying Mary for her own sake. It always was and always will be about honoring and protecting and elevating the most profound truth of all, the truth of the incarnation.

And that is why in the mass we bow at the mention of how Jesus was made incarnate through the Virgin Mary. We bow because that was the moment when our salvation was made possible and real. Yes, he still had to die and rise again, but none of that was possible without the miracle of the incarnation. And that would not have been possible without Mary saying, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be unto me according to thy will.”

And that is why we celebrate the feast of Mary, the Mother of God, on January 1. Through honoring her, we honor Him, and thank the Father for the gift of the Christ.