The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301-B, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 4."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  ©1976. All Rights Reserved.

Question

Where does the worship of Mary come from?

Answer

Now, I think this is an important question. You know, today there are many people in the Catholic church who I keep running into who have committed their lives to Jesus Christ. I think this, in much of the cases, is in spite of the Catholic church, not because of. But through even those things, the Spirit of God has directed them to the truth of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But, Mariolatry is probably the most serious poison of the Roman system and it is a very important question about where Mary worship came from. Basically, it came out of the Counsel of Ephesus in 431 AD. It didn’t come out of scripture because it isn’t in scripture.

You see, the Catholic church teaches that there are two sources of truth, two sources of divine revelation. One is the holy scripture; two is the holy Catholic church. So, if the church says something is revelatory, it is. If the pope speaks ex cathedra, that’s like the voice of God and has equal weight with scripture. If a church counsel says this is revelation, it is. So, you’ll read a Catholic theology like Ott’s Theology, which I was reading this week, and you’ll read in there and it will say, “Such and such and such is true” and instead of giving you a scripture reference, it will just say “The Counsel of Ephesus, 431.” Or it will say, “Such and such and such and such,” and then it will give you “Pope Pius XII” because that’s equal revelation. Therein lies the conflict.

Now, this is what the Counsel of Ephesus in 431 declared (and I’m quoting from the Counsel): “If anyone does not confess that the Immanuel Christ in truth is God, and the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (theoticas), he is to be judged,” essentially, is what it says. Serious. Anybody who denied that she was the mother of God! Now, that’s a heavy statement, folks. She was the mother of the human Jesus, but it is not accurate to say she is the mother of God for that indicates that God was born.

Now, subsequent counsels repeated and refined this particular statement of Ephesus. Ott in his book, on page 197, says that “Mary is the spouse of the Holy Spirit and she is to be honored as the wife of the Holy Spirit.” Now, again, you see this is pushing her into deistic identity. In fact, the Catholic church has made the Song of Solomon refer to Mary and the Holy Spirit.

There is no scripture for Mary worship. Pope Pius IX, in one of his—I think it was called “bull, Ineffabilus”—promulgated the following doctrine: “The most holy virgin Mary was preserved free from all stain of original sin.” So said Pope Pius IX, so it became divine revelation; she was sinless. Ott says that—he’s the Catholic theologian—“the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary is not explicitly revealed in scripture.” But it is believed by the Catholic church because of the counsel. The Counsel of Trent said no justified person can, for his whole life, avoid all sins, except on the ground of special privilege from God such as the church holds was granted to the blessed virgin; she was born sinless and she stayed sinless.

Now this whole confusion goes back, really, to the amalgamation of the Babylonian cultism and the early Christian church. The founder of Babylon was Nimrod. Nimrod was an apostate of the patriarchal age. Remember reading about Nimrod in Genesis? He persuaded his followers he was to build a tower to heaven and thus began pagan worship. Nimrod was the grandson of Ham. He had a wife who was really bad news, her name was Simeramus I. With Nimrod and Simeramus I, there was a beginning of Babylonian idolatry. Simeramus became the mother of the cults. She became the famous mother whose name is different in different cultures; sometimes she’s Diana, sometimes she’s Ashtaroth—it just depends on where you are. Sometimes she’s Osiris, connected with Isis… Various different names as the Babylonian mystery cult spread.

When Babylon was finally destroyed, the high priest of Babylon with all of his cultism (that went back to Simeramus) fled to Rome, and Rome became the center of the Babylonian cults. Interestingly enough, it also became the center of the Roman church. The cult of Simeramus, the high priestess, was mixed with Christianity and gave birth to modern Mariolatry.

The interesting thing to note is that the worship of Mary today as the mother and the virgin is not really Christianity, but it is an acquiescence to Babylonian cultism. For Simeramus was impregnated by a sunbeam and gave virgin birth to a son. Her son is known in the Old Testament as Baal. The son was killed by a wild boar. For 40 days, he was dead—according to the legend—at the end of 40 days, he rose from the dead because his mother spent 40 days in mourning and fasting and therein is the basis of Lent! It isn’t scriptural; it’s Babylonian.

So, you see, the whole thing was mashed together in Rome. Incidentally, you can read about the Queen of Heaven—that’s the Catholic church term for Mary—you read about it in Jeremiah 44 and Ezekiel 8 and it’s talking there about Ashteroth and Simeramus, the high priestess of Babylonian cultism and it calls her the “Queen of Heaven.”

So, you can see where the problem came. So the worship of Mary is not scriptural; in fact, Mary had to be redeemed just like anybody else. She was a wonderful woman. Mostly they got this thing going because they took the statement from Elizabeth, you know, “Blessed art thou among women” and so forth and so on, and they made that the center of the whole Mariolatry.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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