MARIOLATRY AND TRUE HONOR
"Hail, thou that
art highly favored, the Lord is with thee" Luke 1:28
These were the words which Gabriel
employed when, sent from God, he came to Nazareth, to tell Mary the awful and
tremendous secret of the part she was
chosen to take in the Divine activity of human redemption. Thus the angel
greeted her in the terms of respect, born of his apprehension of the greatness
of the sacred sorrows and joys which were to be her lot. Moreover, his words
reveal the fact of her character and fitness for the high honor; she was a
woman "endued
with grace," and one with whom the Lord was in COMMUNION.
The Christian Church generally has, in the process of time,
fallen into two attitudes toward the Virgin Mother, one of which is utterly
wrong, while the other is mistaken.
- The first is that of the
Roman Church, which has placed her between humanity and the Son of God.
This is IDOLATRY, and its effect has been disastrous. She is not the
Advocate and Mediator between God and man, that One is the Man Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). Mary was “highly favored” (Luke 1:28). The phrase highly favored comes
from a single Greek word, which essentially means “much grace.” Mary received God’s grace just as we do for our work He has for
us.
- The second is that of
Protestantism, which, in a warranted re-bound from Mariolatry, has
forgotten to hold the mother of our Lord in the esteem which is due to
her.
Mary was a member of the sinning race, and needed and shared
in the redemption which was provided by her Son; but the HONOR conferred on her
was of the HIGHEST, and our thoughts of her, and our language concerning her,
should at least not lack the dignity and
respect manifested in the words of Gabriel. Hers was the crown and glory of
all Motherhood, and we should forever think and speak of her reverently.
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