Is there a mother god?

Then again how illogical to call the Virgin Mary “the Mother of God.” A mother—a human mother as Mary was—is antecedent to her son. But God is from all eternity to all eternity, without beginning or end. Who can be His mother?

How illogical and irreverent is the title given to her—“Mother of God,” She was privileged above any in being the mother of the Man Christ Jesus, but she could not be the mother of God.

Can any creature, however blessed, be raised to this place of supreme worship? Was she the eternal mother of God? or the creature mother of the humanity of our adorable Lord? As to His humanity, she was the mother of the Lord. But does the word of God ever present her either as an object of highest worship, or as an intercessor of the saints? These priests who shut out the light say, “With delight let us celebrate the conception of Blessed Mary; so may she intercede for us to Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Page 178.)

Yes; she needed a Redeemer, and found a Saviour in Him who was her Son according to the flesh, yet withal “the mighty God, the everlasting Father [literally, the Father of Eternity]” (Isa. 9:6), the Object of her faith and worship.

And see what dishonour is put upon both her and her Son in praying to her. The usual statement is that her heart is loving and tender, and what son will deny his mother a favour. So she is superstitiously approached and prayed to that she may intercede with her Son. First, there is no warrant in Scripture from cover to cover for this. Second, she cannot hear the prayer offered to her, She is happy in her Saviour’s presence but has not the attributes of deity—omnipotence and omniscience. She is not appointed an agent to hear prayer. Third, what mother would be gratified to be approached on the ground that she had a heart more tender than her son’s. That would be an insult to both mother and son.

Since the 16th century she has added to her blasphemies and errors the declaration of the absolute sinlessness of the Virgin Mary, lifting her to the position of a female God, and declared that she was caught up to heaven without dying and crowned queen of heaven.

And He needs to assert His claim, for she who claims to be His bride, in her own self-assertion, is doing what she can to lower it. She has taken the grace of His incarnation to subject Him to His human mother; or if she remember His divine title, it is to raise Mary into the "Mother of God." Systematically Rome degrades Him amid a crowd of saintly mediators and intercessors with God, all more accessible than Himself, foremost of whom is this "queen of heaven" with her woman's heart, more tender than His!

And so, in the nineteenth chapter of this book, are slain with the sword proceeding out of His mouth. But in the meanwhile the Word precedes and anticipates this judgment, and in Pergamos it is still there to appeal to, to warn of coming wrath, to separate between joints and marrow, and soul and spirit, and bring men into the presence of Him with whom we have to do, before whom all things are naked and opened. Plenty of perverters of the Word there are too in Pergamos, as we have seen; but the Word is also there witnessing for itself against them. In Thyatira it remains no longer: we hear of Jezebel's doctrine, and the word of the living prophets, clearer and more decisive, as her followers claim, has superseded practically the Scriptures. With the Church's word men may be more safely trusted than with the word of God. Thus it is no more "He that hath the sharp sword with two edges," but the "Son of God," who has to assert His authority as a divine Being over the Church, rising into a sphere where she dare not pretend to be. With Him alone are the "eyes as a flame of fire," the really infallible and holy insight, which the "feet like fine brass" accompany with irresistible judgment. And He needs to assert His claim, for she who claims to be His bride, in her own self-assertion, is doing what she can to lower it. She has taken the grace of His incarnation to subject Him to His human mother; or if she remember His divine title, it is to raise Mary into the "Mother of God." Systematically Rome degrades Him amid a crowd of saintly mediators and intercessors with God, all more accessible than Himself, foremost of whom is this "queen of heaven" with her woman's heart, more tender than His! Here, then, He speaks as Son of God to those who would confound the Church's authority with His. Has she His eyes of fire? Has she His feet of brass? That which she binds on earth is bound in heaven, will she bind with her decrees the throne of God itself? Will His all-conscious wisdom stutter in her infant's speech or His holiness attach itself to error and frailty and sin? It is well known, and shortly to come before us, how Rome escapes from such perplexity; and it is safe to assert there is no other way. But to all assertors of Church-authority alike, the Lord here maintains His distinctive place. He alone is the "Son of God," in a place unapproachable by His people, and His glory will He not give to another. He alone is the governing head; the Church His body, in wondrous relationship to Him as that, but perfectly distinct and wholly subject. As "Son of God," also, He now sits upon the throne - His Father's throne, - that of pure deity, vhich no creature could possibly share. His words to Laodicea afterward bring out the force of the ssertion here, - " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne" (chap. iii. 21). As Son of man the postle has seen Him in the vision with which he book commences; as Son of man He will presently take a throne which He can share with men, His redeemed. Till then, they are in the field of conflict, to overcome as He overcame, nd this is the manifest answer to the dream of authority in the world which in Thyatita possesses he false church. Rome would reign before Christ eigns, or reign upon the throne of God with Him. Thus His claim to be the Son of God is here of the greatest possible significance. This is as to authority over the world, and in this way, of course, "whatsoever ye shall bind on earth hall be bound in heaven" cannot possibly apply. The passage in Matthew connects it with the maintenance of discipline among the saints, with care of the holiness which His people are to exhibit. This not founded on relationship to Him, save as disciples to a Master, and then of obedience to tim which they are under responsibility to enforce. In the fulfillment of this responsibility He surely with them: what they bind He binds; it apart from His word they bind nothing, nor re they even the authorized exponents of it. Themselves subject to that Word, He is for them in all true subjection. It is the Word that has authority, not they; and let it be shown that the Word has not guided them, then Christ cannot bind upon His people insubjection to the Word: it would be to be a party to His own dishonour. And all claim of ecclesiastical authority other than this is real rebellion against Christ Himself. Here as elsewhere, "no man can serve two masters." The conscience is to be before God alone, and this is a first principle of all holiness, all morality. Swerve from it by a hair's breadth, right is no longer right, nor wrong wrong; all lines are blurred; the unsteady tremulousness of the soul warns but too surely of the approach of spiritual paralysis. Yes, the "eyes of fire" are still with the "Son of God" alone. Let us take heed how we hear and what!

Finally we see she is the fountain-head of the worst kind of idolatry that Satan has ever brought into his kingdom of darkness. "Having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornications; and upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth" (Rev. 17:4-5). In the Scripture "abomination" is a term frequently used for idols as being so hateful to God and abominable in man; so also fornication and adultery are constantly used for idolatry or any false religious system to which men turn in unfaithfulness to the Lord who had espoused His people to Himself (see Ex. 34:15-16; Lev. 17:7; Ezek. 6:9; 1 Kings 11:5, 7). What is more abominable than to mingle with the worship of God the Father and the Son, the adoration of Mary (blasphemously called the Mother of God), the veneration of saints, and the worship of the host?

I will give the account of this transformation, as given us by M. de Beugnot, a very learned Romanist, whose work was crowned by the Institute of France. "After the Council of Ephesus the churches of the East and West offered to the adoration of the faithful, the Virgin Mary, victorious over a violent attack (she had been decided to be mother of God then). The peoples were dazzled by the image of this divine mother, uniting in her person the modesty of the virgin and the love of the mother — emblem of gentleness, of resignation, and of everything that virtue presents of sublime; who weeps with the unhappy, intercedes for the guilty, and never shews herself, but as the messenger of pardon or of kind succour. They received this new worship with an enthusiasm sometimes too great, since, for many Christians, this worship became the whole of Christianity. The heathen did not even endeavour to defend their altars against the progress of the worship of this mother of God. They opened to Mary the temples which they had kept shut against Jesus Christ, and confessed themselves conquered. It is true they often mixed with the adoration of Mary those heathen ideas, those vain practices, those ridiculous superstitions, from which they seemed unable to separate themselves. The church, however, was delighted to see them enter into her bosom, because she knew well that it would be easy for her, with the help of time, to purify from its alloy a worship whose essence was purity itself." M. de Beugnot, Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme en Occident, vol. 2, 271. His illustration of the fact is in the following note: "Among a multitude of proofs I chose only one, to shew with what facility the worship of Mary swept before it the remains of heathenism, which still covered Europe. Notwithstanding the preaching of St. Hilarion, Sicily had remained faithful to the old worship (heathenism). After the Council of Ephesus (that which declared Mary the mother of God), we see its eight finest pagan temples become in a very short space of time churches under the invocation of the Virgin. These temples were, first, the temple of Minerva at Syracuse; second, the temple of Venus and of Saturn, at Messina; third, the temple of Venus Erycina, on Mount Eryx (it was said to have been built by Aeneas); fourth, the temple of Phalaris, at Agrigentum; fifth, the temple of Vulcan, near Mount Etna; sixth, the Pantheon, at Catania; seventh, the temple of Ceres, in the same town; eighth, the sepulchre of Stesichore. The ecclesiastical annals of each country furnish similar testimonies." And that is pretended to be Christianity!

Mary the mother of Jesus is seen here for the last time in Scripture. She takes her place simply with the rest, humbled, no doubt, rather than exalted by God's grace towards her. What a grief it would have been to her to have known the place in which an apostate church would set her in the time to come! She is neither prayed to, nor even leads in prayer, but remains as in the beginning "the handmaid of the Lord," and with this passes out of the history. In the doctrine of the epistles she has no place, and is never mentioned. Blessed and honored she is, and always will be; by none so dishonored as by those who would force her into a place impossible for a creature, that of a Pagan goddess rather than a Christian saint.