Audio Transcript

You know how we’re reading through the Bible together this year? Well, we hit Mark 3 on Wednesday, and that’s a text that has sparked quite an interesting question. I mean, we’re talking about Mary here — Jesus’s mother — and how different professing Christian traditions view her role. Actually, one of our listeners, Caroline, has been having some pretty deep conversations about this with her Roman Catholic family and friends. I’ll read to you what she wrote to us.

“Hello Pastor John,” Caroline writes. “I have many conversations with Roman Catholic friends and family about the role of Mary in the faith. She was a godly woman, for sure. But I reject that she is a co-redemptrix, that she partners with Christ in our salvation. And no one should ever pray to her. I often take these conversations to Scripture and to Jesus and his words in Mark 3:31–35. It seems to be a text that honors Mary and puts her within the family of followers of Christ in a way that equalizes her, too. When it comes to speaking with Roman Catholics, is this a text you use? If so, what do you see in it that would help all of us who have conversations with Roman Catholics? Thank you!”

Mary as Mediator?

Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, wrote a letter to introduce the second edition of the official Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. And at the end of the letter, he signed off like this: “To Mary, Mother of Christ, whose Assumption body and soul into heaven we celebrate today, I entrust these wishes so that they may be brought to fulfillment for the spiritual good of all humanity” (xvi).

Now, I think that dedication is a classic example of the de facto diminishment of the glory of Jesus Christ by the intrusion of Mary as the one to whom we entrust our prayers and from whom we expect that they will be brought to fulfillment. And this view of Mary is consistent with the official catechism of the Roman church. No matter how many times the Roman church says that this devotion to Mary “differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word” (section 971), what dominates the teaching and creates the virtually global diminishment of Christ among millions of ordinary Catholics is this:

In a holy, singular way, she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. . . . Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. . . . Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix. (sections 968–969)

Later, it says she is the one “to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs” (section 971). And then, to support this amazing foregrounding of Mary as our helper and mediator of salvation, the Roman church creates the doctrine of Mary’s sinlessness. The catechism says, “The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthy life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things” (section 966).

“The only way a person can show that he has any saving relationship with Jesus is whether he does the will of God.”

Now, what we need to realize here is that there is a massive, fundamental difference between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestantism when it comes to the authoritative foundation of church doctrine. For Protestants, that foundation is the Bible and the Bible alone, which is the only final authority for determining what should be taught as true. For the Roman church, it is the Bible plus the equally authoritative Roman Catholic magisterium — that is, the pope and bishops united with him. And they don’t just interpret the Bible; they add to the Bible. That difference is why, over the centuries, the Roman Catholic Church can add more and more teachings about Mary that are not in the Bible and that I believe cause a distorted view of what is in the Bible, especially the unique glory of Jesus Christ.

Mary According to Jesus

By all means, let us call Mary blessed. Only one woman gave birth as a virgin and carried in her womb the Savior of the world. That was a glorious and painful privilege. So, we join Elizabeth in saying, in Luke 1:42, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”

But Jesus, in the Gospels, and the Holy Spirit, whose mission was to glorify Jesus and inspire the writings of the New Testament, hold us back. Jesus and the Spirit hold us back from the kind of exaltation of Mary that we find in the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, on this matter of calling Mary blessed, Jesus reorients our thinking very differently from the Roman church. Here’s Luke 11:27–28: “A woman in the crowd . . . said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!’ But [Jesus] said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’” In other words, there is a greater blessedness in carrying the word of God in an obedient heart than in carrying the Son of God in your physical womb. That’s striking. And that’s true.

Jesus did the same reorienting of our minds about Mary in Mark 3:32–35:

A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Now, that must sound utterly astonishing, even heretical, to a Roman Catholic who elevates Mary the way the Roman church does. Jesus is saying, “Nobody has any saving relationship with me through natural family ties, whether it’s my mother or my brothers. The only way a person can show that he has any saving relationship with me is whether he does the will of God.”

Mary’s Limited Legacy

Now, consider a few more New Testament realities to help us get our bearings in relation to Mary.

After the mention of Mary in the upper room as one of the 120 who were praying in Acts 1:14, Mary is never mentioned again in the New Testament. Not one of the letters of Paul, Peter, John, James, Jude, or Hebrews ever mentions Mary, which is very strange if she was meant to be a significant part of Christian life and devotion — astonishing, if the Roman church is correct.

Second, in the one place where Paul comes close to mentioning Mary, he chooses not to and simply speaks of a generic woman. He says in Galatians 4:4, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman.”

Third, the virgin birth is true and important. But after the birth narrative in Luke, it’s never mentioned again in the New Testament.

Fourth, Mary was a magnificent person, a great model of faith for women and men. Her humility shines in Luke 1:48: “He has looked on the humble estate of his servant.” Her faith was profound: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45). Her suffering was deep: “A sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Luke 2:35). Her God was sovereign: “He has shown strength with his arm . . . he has brought down the mighty from their thrones,” Mary said (Luke 1:51–52). And her meditations were full of truth: “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Therefore, by all means, remember Mary, admire Mary, bless God for Mary, be inspired by Mary — but do not go beyond what the New Testament portrays. Our calling is to be the mother of Jesus more than it is to venerate her. As Jesus said, in Luke 8:21, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”