Chapter 4 of Stein's book
Jesus the Messiah is titled "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary: How it All got Started." It deals with the conception and birth of Jesus. He here lays out the importance of the virgin conception of Jesus--what it means and what it doesn't mean.
"Some have argued that the virginal conception was necessary to keep the Son of God from inheriting the corruption of the sin of Adam...Yet the person who thinks this way must somehow protect the Son of God from inheriting such sin and corruption via Mary. It is not surprising therefore that the logical consequence of this kind of thinking was to argue for the immaculate conception of Mary. Now the Son of God could truly be protected from such sin, since he could not have inherited sin from his mother. The New Testament does not enter into such speculations. Luke simply says that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and overshadowed her through all this. Through his protection, the offspring would be holy, the Son of God (Luke 1:35).
The incarnation, not the virginal conception, is the essence of the Christmas story. For orthodox Christianity that is self-evident. The Son of God did not come into existence through a virginal conception. The Son of God was, is, and always will be. Long before the virginal conception, the birth of Mary, the entire genealogy of Luke 3:23-38 and the creation of the world, the Son was. The virginal conception was simply the means by which God brought about the incarnation of his Son.
Nevertheless, the Bible does say that the incarnation was brought about by a virginal conception. If that was God's way of bringing this about, we can do nothing but acknowledge it. The importance of confessing or denying the virginal conception lied not in its christological consequences. The virginal conception and birth did not make Jesus the Son of God. It was not required to keep him holy and undefiled. What is at stake involves not a doctrine of Christ but of Scripture. The virgin birth served for the authors of The Fundamentals as a kind of litmus test concerning one's view of the Bible. To deny it was obviously to reject the Bible as an infallible rule of faith. In this respect the question 'Do you believe the virgin birth?' served as a kind of 20th century shibboleth (Judg. 12:6) testing a person's view of the Bible."
Robert Stein
Nice one, Mr. Stein. I appreciate the "reasoning" behind the "litmus test". Great point. From what I understand, several misapplications of early church staements concerning Mary being the Theotokos are similiar to the 20th Century litmus test concerning Scripture. Her being the God-bearer pertain more directly to the Christological consequences of His incarnation than in Mary's personage persay. (i.e. Christ is God and He was born of Mary, rather than Mary is the mother of God.)
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, Marc. Let me give you an excerpt from Alister McGrath:
ReplyDelete"Jesus is fully human.
Jesus is fully divine.
If both theswe statements are simultaneously true, it was argued, then what was true of the humanity of Jesus must also be true of his divinity--and vice-versa. An example might be the following:
Jesus Christ is God.
Mary gave birth to Jesus.
Therefore Mary is the Mother of God.
This kind of agrument became increasingly commonplace within the late fourth century church; indeed, it often served as a means of testing the orthodoxy of a theologian. A failure to agree that Mary was the 'Mother of God' became seen as tantamount to a refusal to accept the divinity of Christ."
--Alister McGrath, "Historical Theology"
See also Donald Macleod:
"Chalcedon also confirmed the place for the word 'Theotokos' in the Christian credal tradition...It would be unwise, however, simply to walk away from Nestorius' reservations over this term. Its precise meaning is 'God-bearer,' but we can be fairly confident that in fifth-century Constantinople it served as an emotionally charged slogan equivalent to 'Mother of God.' We can be even more confident that although to the theologians 'theotokos' was a statement about Christ (affirming his divine identity), to the populace it was a statement about the Virgin Mary, just as it is today..."
After explaining the history for a couple of pages, Macleod concludes:
"In view of such developments, it is difficult not to concede that Nestorius' apprehension was well-justified. We certainly cannot feel free to use 'theotokos' without careful elucidations and safeguards."
Donald Macleod, "The Person of Christ"