Mary and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin

[MennoSota]

That is not at all true. Plus, you had the scripture references given to you before. In sum, you're just wasting everyone's time now with this kind of repetition.

It is entirely true.
You make an assumption from biblical silence and then attempt to interpret the silence in order to establish a dogma. It's entirely ludicrous and pathetic hermaneutics. It shocks me how horribly weak paedobaptism is as a doctrine, yet Lutherans, Romans, EOCs, refuse to nail up the question on the door of the church. It's as if the entire congregation has chosen to stop thinking and questioning.

 

[Albion]

It is entirely true..

Then prove it; don't just do the work of some denominational hierarchy by robotically repeating a claim with nothing to support it. And do try to stick to the topic.

 

[MennoSota]

Then prove it; don't just do the work of some denominational hierarchy by robotically repeating a claim with nothing to support it.

I have.
I prove it by showing that there is literally zero scripture. ZERO! You can't find ANY scripture supporting paedobaptism. NONE.
The proof is that you have provided no scripture.
The only thing provided is an assumption of what might possibly be if one forces into a text what is not actually found in the text. Such horrible hermaneutics should be appalling to you, yet you accept it with no questions asked.
Believe your fantasy interpretation if you must. Just don't claim it has any legitimacy in scripture.

 

[atpollard]

I love hyperbole.
(and it seems like I am not alone)

 

[Arsenios]

It doesn't forbid because humans should have known better.
The Apostles simply figured the church would follow their practice of only baptizing confessing believers. They never imagined the heresy of infant baptism would be introduced by a silly follower a few generations down the road.

The Apostles INITIATED the Baptizing of infants...

How ELSE would EVERY Apostolic Church world-wide have been practicing it from the beginnings...

Look - Just show me ONE instance of ONE Church refusing to baptize an infant in the first, say, 200 years...

Anywhere - Anywhere on earth...


Arsenios

 

[MennoSota]

The Apostles INITIATED the Baptizing of infants...

This is a completely unsubstantiated claim that has zero support in scripture. Zero support.

How ELSE would EVERY Apostolic Church world-wide have been practicing it from the beginnings...

They didn't practice it in the early church. It was introduced after the Apostles as a heresy into the church.

Look - Just show me ONE instance of ONE Church refusing to baptize an infant in the first, say, 200 years...

Show me one instance of one infant being baptized in the Bible.
I know of no documentation of infants being baptized in the first 200 years after Jesus went to heaven.
The heresy was likely introduced into your church by an ignorant person.

 

[Arsenios]

Declaring perpetual virginity without evidence is adding speculation to truth.

It is adding the Church's witness of her BEING a Virgin without ceasing...
A consistent witness held by all for the first 1500 years of the Faith of Christ...

What is written is that she had not known Joseph until she gave birth to her first born son.
That indicates that Jesus was her firstborn Son.

Correct...

The implication being that she had other sons and daughters as Scripture states.

Scripture does NOT state that SHE had ANY other children...

It states that Jesus had brothers, which He did, through the betrothal to Joseph...
He was concealed in another man's family together with His Mother...

Your example of a man who never drank until....
makes you sound as though I would have said he was a drunk and that is what your post inferred

Forgive me - I did not intend you to infer that conclusion...

There is nothing in Scripture that indicates that Mary DID live in concealment!
Just innuendo and conjecture.

Hard to avoid - All Christ's neighbors thought Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph...

Pretty good concealment for a virgin God-birther and her Son in my book...

You are right, marriages in Jerusalem are consummated...
Young women need to marry...

But not this one...

I mean, c'mon! They would both be destroyed were they found out...

You know this how? Where do we read that Mary was already committed to virginity? More conjecture

It is built in to her question to the Angel Gabriel, who confirmed it by not giving her a sign, as he did other doubters...

No it is not clear from the Bible that she consented only upon conditions! More conjecture

Luk 1:30-38
And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I am not knowing man?
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
For with God nothing shall be impossible.
And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Vs 38 is called consent...
It came AFTER vs 34...
Which is a reply to vs 33

Sequence, my Dear...

The Angel did not depart until She consented...

Previous to this, Joseph had discovered that Mary was with child and wanted to put her away (divorce her) then the angel told Joseph to NOT put her away rather take her to be your wife because that which is in her is of H S

Yes - To raise a Child not his own AS his own...

This is called concealing the Truth - A whole 'another level of it!

Concealing the Christ Child is not the same as remaining a virgin

They are related, in that both had to be concealed...

The Child and Her virginal Way of Life had to be concealed, and they were...

Joseph fled into Egypt so the Child would not be murdered.
That is in Scripture.

Indeed, and by fleeing he concealed the Child from Herod...

The rest of your conjecture and innuendo are not.

They are the received understanding of the Apostolic Church from the beginnings...

God protected the child by telling Joseph to leave and go into Egypt, where the Christ Child would be safe.

And they told no one, and coming back, they were still in fear, 12 years later, of Herod's son...

We need to keep Scripture in its proper context and exegete the Scriptures not read into them.

Holy Scripture is a PART of Holy Tradition...

It does not exhaust it...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

This is a completely unsubstantiated claim that has zero support in scripture. Zero support.

How else did every one of the Apostolic Churches for 2000 years consistently agree with one another on the matter were it NOT discipled by the Apostles TO them???

They didn't practice it in the early church. It was introduced after the Apostles as a heresy into the church.

Yes, they did...

Show me one instance of one infant being baptized in the Bible.

Show me a Biblical household without infants...

I know of no documentation of infants being baptized in the first 200 years after Jesus went to heaven.

OK - So IF I can document infant Baptism in the Church prior to 234AD, will you change your mind?

The heresy was likely introduced into your church by an ignorant person.

The heresy is keeping the little children OUT of the Kingdom of Heaven...

Of FORBIDDING Christ to Children...

Of not getting in one's self and keeping one's kids out too...

We Baptize our infants INTO Christ...

You do not...


Arsenios

 

[atpollard]

A consistent witness held by all for the first 1500 years of the Faith of Christ...

This argument is raised a lot.
The preeminence of the Pope is also a consistent witness held by MOST for the first 2100 years of the Faith of Christ.
I wonder, for how many centuries of those 1500 years were people who disagreed with Church doctrines burned alive?

I think there may have been external political pressures that contributed to the long period of ‘doctrinal unity’ in Christendom.
(Just as the success of the Protestant Reformation owes as much to the politics of the time as the Theologians of the time.)

 

[atpollard]

The heresy is keeping the little children OUT of the Kingdom of Heaven...
Of FORBIDDING Christ to Children...

Arsenios

I have no desire to argue, and I understand that MennoSota can be intense, but I suspect you overestimate our power over the foreknowledge and predestination of the Father, the Blood of the Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I do not believe that you have the power to compel God to an action He has not preordained by sprinkling a little water, and I do not believe that we have the power to thwart a salvation that God has preordained by withholding a sprinkling of water.


“Remember me when you come into your kingdom” said the thief on the cross.
“I wish I could, but we have no water to sprinkle you and God is powerless to save without some human first sprinkling water” Jesus never said.

 

[MennoSota]

I have no desire to argue, and I understand that MennoSota can be intense, but I suspect you overestimate our power over the foreknowledge and predestination of the Father, the Blood of the Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I do not believe that you have the power to compel God to an action He has not preordained by sprinkling a little water, and I do not believe that we have the power to thwart a salvation that God has preordained by withholding a sprinkling of water.


“Remember me when you come into your kingdom” said the thief on the cross.
“I wish I could, but we have no water to sprinkle you and God is powerless to save without some human first sprinkling water” Jesus never said.

Me... intense? I'm just a teddy bear Martin Luther seeking to Reform. A John Owen fighting against the heresy's of Rome and her sister Russia.
Light up a cigar and drink a toast to the joyous blessing of God's gracious redemption...procured by nothing we do, but solely by the good will of the Almighty Sovereign King who has chosen to die on our behalf so that we might become the children of God.
Let us slay the thought of our own efforts to please God and somehow gain his favor. It is the devil who prods us to imagine we save ourselves by our ceremonies of self-righteousness.

 

[atpollard]

OK - So IF I can document infant Baptism in the Church prior to 234AD, will you change your mind?

Let’s be honest ... not likely.

For that matter, I strongly suspect that IF I could document that none of the half-dozen ‘Households’ mentioned in scripture had any children under the age of 5, you would not stop baptizing babies either.

In any case, proof of an early date to a belief or practice does not make it correct. They had heresies in the Church even in the First Century ... remember the Judaisers and the Gnostics. So why should we think they had no strange teachers appearing in the Second and Third Century.

 

[Arsenios]

This argument is raised a lot.

The Orthodox argue that the Church is authoritative in matters of the Faith...

The Latin Church argues that Rome is the Authority over the earthly Church...

The preeminence of the Pope is also a consistent witness held by MOST for the first 2100 years of the Faith of Christ.

Pre-eminence perhaps, but not having power over -
First Bishop, yes, a status of honor, not of power...
For the good order of the Church when it convened...

I wonder, for how many centuries of those 1500 years were people who disagreed with Church doctrines burned alive?

We used exile for the Arians who had been murdering us...

The Latin Church became militant in the 9th century - The Knights Templar etc were monks consecrated to war...

In the East, we hired Islamics to do the fighting...

I think there may have been external political pressures that contributed to the long period of ‘doctrinal unity’ in Christendom.

Well, Ethiopia disappeared from contact with everyone around 500AD, and was "rediscovered" by civilization a thousand years later...
A thousand years of self-governing with only local pressures...
The same Faith emerged, and exists today in Erethria and Ethiopia, just like ours...
Cosmetic differences - Resembling Jewish practices more than ours do - And one doctrinal difference...

We are what the Faith of the Apostles looks like...

The only power we have over another Church is to withdraw our Communion from them...
This we did in 1054 with the Latin Church...
We still do not share Communion with them...
We have no authority over them...
Only over ourselves...
In varying degrees of exercise...
Mind you!


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Let’s be honest ... not likely.

I know, but I had to ask! A rotten question, I know...

For that matter, I strongly suspect that IF I could document that none of the half-dozen ‘Households’ mentioned in scripture had any children under the age of 5, you would not stop baptizing babies either.

That would not matter - Infant Baptism is a received Doctrine of the Church, and always has been...
And for the Sola Crowd, the Church is the Ground and the Pillar of Truth...
So its doctrines are not to be Biblically sneered at,
Present practices to the contrary notwithstanding...

In any case, proof of an early date to a belief or practice does not make it correct.

Holy Tradition is the received doctrines of the Church accepted everywhere, by all, at all times...

They had heresies in the Church even in the First Century ... remember the Judaisers and the Gnostics.

And they were dealt with...

So why should we think they had no strange teachers appearing in the Second and Third Century.

We did, most notably the Arians, and eventually they were dealt with...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I suspect you overestimate our power over the foreknowledge and predestination of the Father, the Blood of the Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We have NO power over these...

I do not believe that you have the power to compel God to an action He has not preordained by sprinkling a little water, and I do not believe that we have the power to thwart a salvation that God has preordained by withholding a sprinkling of water.

Well, sprinkler management is not Orthodox, mind you!

Our Baptizing does not compel God, but is COMMANDED BY God...

We are only obeying His Commandment when we Baptize into Christ...

THAT obedience makes our hands Christ's Hands...

It is Christ Baptizing men into Himself...

“Remember me when you come into your kingdom” said the thief on the cross.
“I wish I could, but we have no water to sprinkle you and God is powerless to save without some human first sprinkling water” Jesus never said.

His blood Baptized him, as it does for all martyrs for Christ not yet baptized...

The Wise Thief was the first into Paradise, yes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO8E3VVltaA


Arsenios

 

[FredVB]

It is adding the Church's witness of her BEING a Virgin without ceasing...
A consistent witness held by all for the first 1500 years of the Faith of Christ...
Scripture does NOT state that SHE had ANY other children...
It states that Jesus had brothers, which He did, through the betrothal to Joseph...
He was concealed in another man's family together with His Mother...
Hard to avoid - All Christ's neighbors thought Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph...
Pretty good concealment for a virgin God-birther and her Son in my book...
But not this one... I mean, c'mon! They would both be destroyed were they found out...
It is built in to her question to the Angel Gabriel, who confirmed it by not giving her a sign, as he did other doubters...

Luk 1:30-38
And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I am not knowing man?
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
For with God nothing shall be impossible.
And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

Vs 38 is called consent...
It came AFTER vs 34...
Which is a reply to vs 33

The Angel did not depart until She consented...
Yes - To raise a Child not his own AS his own...
This is called concealing the Truth - A whole 'another level of it!
They are related, in that both had to be concealed...
The Child and Her virginal Way of Life had to be concealed, and they were...
Indeed, and by fleeing he concealed the Child from Herod...

His mother and brothers came, to call to him, Mark 3:31. You would say she happened to come with his cousins, or half-brothers, but not her own sons. It does not say anywhere that it was only through the betrothal that those were Jesus' brothers. It would be relevant where James in his epistle wrote that he was the brother of the Lord. And certainly as any women in that time expected to be married and to hopefully have children, there was no reason for Mary, or any other young woman, to make any commitment to perpetual virginity. There was no virginal way of life to conceal, nor was there any need for a virginal way of life, nor was any virginal way of life implied in scriptures. Mary was just to be the
virgin that would be pregnant and give birth to Jesus, the promised Messiah. That was what was prophesied. Joseph was going to choose to put her away quietly, to not expose her to accusations, until told by an angel that this son was from God to fulfill prophecies. So with being espoused to her, he would not then have it exposed that her son was not from him, still. There was no perpetual virginity to continue, even quietly.

 

[Josiah]

His mother and brothers came, to call to him, Mark 3:31. You would say she happened to come with his cousins, or half-brothers, but not her own sons. It does not say anywhere that it was only through the betrothal that those were Jesus' brothers. It would be relevant where James in his epistle wrote that he was the brother of the Lord. And certainly as any women in that time expected to be married and to hopefully have children, there was no reason for Mary, or any other young woman, to make any commitment to perpetual virginity. There was no virginal way of life to conceal, nor was there any need for a virginal way of life, nor was any virginal way of life implied in scriptures. Mary was just to be the
virgin that would be pregnant and give birth to Jesus, the promised Messiah. That was what was prophesied. Joseph was going to choose to put her away quietly, to not expose her to accusations, until told by an angel that this son was from God to fulfill prophecies. So with being espoused to her, he would not then have it exposed that her son was not from him, still. There was no perpetual virginity to continue, even quietly.

I think this OLD, OLD abandoned thread has been beaten to death.... The opening poster CLAIMED to want to discuss one issue (the Assumption of Mary) but did not.... then switched things to his Anti-Paedobaptism rant (which he also would not discuss).... then all around the block with other unrelated rants.

Look, you are right, the Bible says NOTHING - read NOTHING WHATSOEVER - about Mary having or not having other children. Not one word. About her HAVING given birth to others or NOT having done so. Nothing. Nada. Zip. And of course, this thread isn't even about the Dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary.

EVEN IF Mary had no other children, that is entirely IRRELEVANT to her being a perpetual virgin (the dogma) unless you can biologically prove that EVERY act of marital relations results in the birth of a child (and also recorded in the Bible). Yes, IF she was a perpetual virgin, then she likely had no other children (unless they too were miracious) BUT the opposite is not true. LOTS of couples have LOTS and LOTS of sex but no kids.

There's nothing from the Apostles either. Nothing from the earliest church. It's a THEORY, a 'pious opinion" that developed later. It's only dogma in ONE denomination (the Catholic Church) and that for less than 200 years - but it IS a commonly held view in the Orthodox churches, too.

There's NOTHING in Scripture or early Tradition to support it..... and NOTHING in Scripture or early Tradition to deny it. Kind of like Mary being 8 feet tall and being allergic to fish - that too would have NOTHING to support it, NOTHING to deny it.

Why it matters how often a married couple has relations.... why that must be DOGMA.... no one has ever explained to me. I consider it a PRIVATE matter between spouses and no body's business (perhaps even rude to discuss about a married couple?). Frankly, all the ancient Christian dogmas I can think of would not be impacted ONE BIT if the couple had had relations (or didn't).





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[Particular]

We have NO power over these...



Well, sprinkler management is not Orthodox, mind you!

Our Baptizing does not compel God, but is COMMANDED BY God...

We are only obeying His Commandment when we Baptize into Christ...

THAT obedience makes our hands Christ's Hands...

It is Christ Baptizing men into Himself...



His blood Baptized him, as it does for all martyrs for Christ not yet baptized...

The Wise Thief was the first into Paradise, yes?

Arsenios

So, why do you stop at infants who have no capacity to tell you to shove off? Why not baptize every human you meet, regardless of their opinion? If baptism saves, then baptize the whole world regardless of their opinion. Don't you want the whole world to be saved?
I mean...you are COMMANDED by God.

 

[Josiah]

So, why do you stop at infants who have no capacity to tell you to shove off? Why not baptize every human you meet, regardless of their opinion? If baptism saves, then baptize the whole world regardless of their opinion. Don't you want the whole world to be saved?
I mean...you are COMMANDED by God.

Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother.... It has been the understanding of Jews and Christians for thousands of years that no one can "by pass" and dishonor parents. God command circumcision for example, but Jewish law prohibits one doing this without the authorization of the parents.




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[Lamb]

So, why do you stop at infants who have no capacity to tell you to shove off? Why not baptize every human you meet, regardless of their opinion? If baptism saves, then baptize the whole world regardless of their opinion. Don't you want the whole world to be saved?
I mean...you are COMMANDED by God.

Parents have authority over their own children. They do not have authority over anyone else. That's why we don't just baptize anyone at leisure.