In the second article of the creed, Christians confess that we believe in “in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all the ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father, through whom all things were made. For us human beings and for our salvation he came down from the heavens, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became a human being.”
Here the Virgin Mary is named specifically as the woman of whom Jesus Christ was born. This is remarkable because there are only three people named in the creeds—Jesus himself; Mary, his mother; and Pontius Pilate, his executioner. For many Christians, this inclusion and confession of the “Virgin Mary” is troublesome. How can we confess a virgin birth? Doesn’t that fly in the face of reason? And how can we include Mary in our confession of faith? Isn’t Mariology nothing more than idolatry? These are good questions, and ones that evangelical Christians can answer.
For Martin Luther, the question of honoring Mary was one about faith in Jesus Christ. Luther didn’t oppose honoring Mary, but he insisted that that honor be given her because of her role as the Mother of God, not because she had won special favor with God of her own accord or merit.
Honoring Mary is rooted in the incarnation of God among us in Jesus Christ, as the one who brings release to captive sinners one and all. Thus, the confession that Christ is born of the Virgin is not so much a confession about Mary, but rather one about Christ himself. He was truly born of a human flesh—of a virgin by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
This confession—“incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary”—confesses and underscores the reality that Christ is both man and God, and the virgin birth raises the ante. Christ is not merely a man, but God—so much so to be born truly of a woman, albeit a virgin. Nothing short of a miraculous occurrence ordained by God the Most High could bring about this sort of incarnation.
Mariology—that is, “the study of Mary”—is closely and inextricably related to Christology—that is, “the study of Christ.” When Christians confess a belief in Christ, they make a claim about God’s activity in the world through Christ—namely, that “for us human beings and for our salvation he came down from the heavens.” Christ born of Mary became incarnate to redeem lost sinners, one and all, from their damnable sinful condition. To redeem them from the coarse, wretchedness foisted upon them by their own action and the action of the world against them.
But a Christian doesn’t merely confess that Christ is the Savior of the world. A Christian confesses that Christ redeems the whole world—even the individual confessing. Christ born of Mary came to redeem all who believe, and that means you and me along with all the great saints like Mary, James, John, and Peter and Paul. Mary did not give birth to the Christ for her salvation alone or even for the pillars of the Christian church. Christ’s birth of Mary was for the whole world and its salvation. Christ is not merely Mary’s child, but is the Lord and Savior born of a virgin for the whole human race, every sinner who falls short of the Glory of God.
Mary, a poor girl of no account, is the faithful, graceful vessel God chose to turn the world around. In this virgin girl from a nameless background, God turns conventional wisdom and reason on its head and shows the world and its order the nature of God’s saving power and intention. In the weak and lowly God’s power is shown at its highest and most impressive. In a virgin girl God plants the saving seed for all humanity and creation.
When we honor Mary, we don’t do so because she is the greatest of saints. We do so because we recognize that in her God chose to come among us in the least expected place. In her, God chose a young woman, not a great a great King, to raise and nurture the Savior of the world, my Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. In a Christmas Day sermon in 1530 Luther addresses this very issue. He goes to the heart of the question about Mary and the individual salvation of the believer within the collective salvation of the world—
“But even if you believed as much”—namely, that Christ is the Savior of the world—“it would still not be enough, unless there were added to it the faith that he was born for you. For he was not born merely in order that I should honor the mother, that she should be praised because he was born of the virgin mother. This honor belongs to none except her and it is not to be despised, for the angel said, ‘Blessed are you among women!’ But it must not be too highly esteemed lest one deny what is written here: ‘To you this day is born a Savior.’ Here he was not merely concerned to be born of a virgin; it was infinitely more than that. It was this, as she herself says in the Magnificat: ‘He has helped his servant Israel;’ not that he was born of me and my virginity, but born for you and for your benefit, not only for my honor’” (LW 51:215).
Lutherans, and all Christians alike, honor Mary because she was highly favored by God the Most High to be the Mother of God, but more than that, we honor her because she was the first to hear and believe the unadulterated message of God’s salvation in the Christ child. For countless generations the people of Israel had the promise of salvation proclaimed to them by prophets and patriarchs, but in these last days, God came among us and preached to us through the Son, born of Mary. God’s promise took on flesh in blood in Christ Jesus, and was born of a virgin named Mary.
We don’t honor Mary because she earned special favor in God’s sight, but because she, like so many other saints before us and living among us now, had faith in the promises of God to crush sin, death, and the devil underfoot and win for all faithful people a place in God’s kingdom. Mary, the Mother of God, was the first to hear this promise proclaimed as by a Christ—and of her own flesh and blood. We honor Mary for her faith in to God and the promise, and more importantly because of God’s faithfulness toward us shown through her in Jesus Christ, the sure and solid Rock of our faith.
-DS
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