{"id":28861,"date":"2014-04-17T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T14:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=28861"},"modified":"2015-03-19T21:34:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T04:34:48","slug":"mary-the-right-type-of-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2014\/04\/17\/mary-the-right-type-of-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary, the right “type” of mother? (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"virgin_mary\"Yesterday I took a break from my\u00a0series<\/a>\u00a0on Mary, but today I would like to continue looking at some further\u00a0objections<\/a>\u00a0raised by a reader, Monica in the comments section of an old post concerning\u00a0The Ark of the New Covenant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"stained-glass\"<\/p>\n

Today’s discussion will focus around the notion that Mary is enthroned as Queen of Heaven.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Most Painted Lady in History<\/h2>\n

After her initial comments, Monica referred to some paintings she had seen of the Blessed Virgin in Heaven:<\/p>\n

I have seen pictures of Mary sitting next to God in His throne as she was was co-equal with God when she was only a human like any of us.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I think it must first be said that perhaps it would be better to object to the actual dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church, rather than criticizing some unnamed artwork whose creator might have taken some artistic liberties in his work. I would recommend the Catechism<\/a>\u00a0as\u00a0a concise and accurate encapsulation of Catholic belief concerning Mary.<\/p>\n

Regardless, I would still suggest that Monica has made something of a mental leap in her objection. Does being on a throne in Heaven automatically elevate Mary to equality with God? After all, in the Book of Revelation, we are told of twenty-four\u00a0elders who also have thrones in Heaven (Revelation 4:4<\/a>)…yet there’s no implication that they are therefore co-equal with God.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the issue is the physical position of Mary in the painting? Is Monica objecting the fact that in this painting Mary is sitting\u00a0“next to God”<\/em><\/span>? Again, I don’t see why this would necessitate or even imply equality with God, particularly since the Church explicitly<\/em> teaches that Mary is not divine.<\/p>\n

I think it might be helpful to spend some time looking at the Biblical typology that is in the background here in the hope of clearing up the confusion…<\/p>\n

Would you really not offer your mother a seat?<\/h2>\n

In Jesus, the Kingdom of David<\/em> is restored, renewed and elevated. Therefore, to understand the Kingdom of God<\/em>, we need to look at the earthly foreshadow recorded in the Old Testament.\u00a0For our purposes today, I’d like to look at a particular event\u00a0in the life of David’s son, Solomon, found in\u00a01 Kings 2:13-25<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0man comes to the Queen and asks her to intercede on his behalf before the King. Sound familiar..? The Queen in this case is Bathsheba. Since the King had many wives, the Queen of the Kingdom was the King’s\u00a0mother<\/em>, a common practice among near eastern kingdoms of that era.<\/p>\n

What is important to consider in this episode is how Solomon responds when his mother enters his throne room:<\/p>\n

“…the king rose<\/span> to meet her, and bowed<\/span> down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a seat brought<\/span> for the king\u2019s mother; and she sat on his right<\/span>“<\/em> – 1 Kings 2:19<\/span><\/p>\n

Solomon is the most powerful man in all of Israel and yet how does he respond to his mother’s entrance? He honours her with a bow and seats her at his right hand. Seating her next to him in no way threatens or diminishes his own glory! In fact, it magnifies<\/em> his glory and righteousness, since by honoring his mother he is fulfilling God’s Law (Exodus 20:12<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If this was true in the Old Covenant, how much more is it true in the New! If this was true for the shadow, how much more true this should be for the fulfillment!\u00a0In God’s Kingdom we have a great King Jesus who perfectly loves His mother and perfectly fulfils the Law by honouring her. Since He is our King, as His mother she is our Queen who petitions her Son on our behalf.<\/p>\n

The Queen of Hearts<\/h2>\n

Later in her comments, Monica made reference to Mary’s title of “Queen of Heaven”<\/em><\/span>. Hopefully this now makes sense given the Old Testament Davidic Kingdom background I gave above. Here’s what she said:<\/p>\n

…pagans used to worship a goddess called the \u201cMother of God\u201d, and \u201cqueen of heaven\u201d. Read Jeremiah 7:18 and Jeremiah 44:17-25 where the Jews were worshipping this false goddess named \u201cqueen of heaven\u201d provoking the Lord to anger. This is exactly what the Catholics are doing today.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Again, I find this logic presented here rather dubious. Does the fact that some people once worshipped a pagan “Queen of Heaven”<\/em> <\/span>automatically mean that Mary can’t<\/em> be Queen of Heaven? Over the course of history, many people have claimed to be God or the Son of God. Does that therefore automatically invalidate Jesus’ own divine claim? Of course not! It invalidates Jesus’ claim no more than the existence of counterfeit<\/em> money invalidates the real<\/em> deal. The same is true for Mary as Queen of Heaven.<\/p>\n

Although Monica does not explicitly say it, I get the impression that she would deny Mary the title of “Mother of God”<\/em><\/span>, or its Greek equivalent,\u00a0Theotokos<\/a>. If this is the case, I would like to know why she doesn’t see this as a denial of the divinity of Christ, since when the Council of Ephesus (AD 431) declared Mary to be “Theotokos”<\/em><\/span>, that is exactly what was being safeguarded.<\/p>\n

So, with all due respect, no, this is not “exactly what the Catholics are doing today”<\/em><\/span>. We worship the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We worship Jesus,\u00a0our Lord and King; we honour the Theotokos, His Mother, the Queen Mother, the true<\/span> Queen of Heaven (Revelation 12:1-6<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Since tomorrow is Good Friday, we’ll pick this up again on Saturday…<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/a> | Part 1<\/a> | Part 2 | Part 3<\/a> | Part 4<\/a> | Part 5<\/a> | Part 6<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I took a break from my\u00a0series\u00a0on Mary, but today I would like to continue looking at some further\u00a0objections\u00a0raised by a reader, Monica in the comments section of an old post concerning\u00a0The Ark of the New Covenant. Today’s discussion will focus around the notion that Mary is enthroned as Queen of Heaven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2608,2969,1338,20,2604,2607,1106],"class_list":["post-28861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","tag-bathsheba","tag-featured","tag-honour","tag-mary-the-saints","tag-new-ark-response","tag-solomon","tag-throne"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28861"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30017,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28861\/revisions\/30017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}