On Monday, the White House gave a strong presidential message recognizing the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day in the Catholic liturgical calendar. The President’s message begins, “On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Catholics celebrate what they believe to be Mary’s freedom from original sin as the mother of God.”
Of course, Protestant do not accept this belief, and Orthodox Christians hold an alternative view. All the same, it is notable that President Trump’s White House recognized it.
The statement briefly explains and celebrates the biblical story of how a lowly virgin from Nazareth is chosen by God to give birth to the Savior of the world. The statement properly states, “Mary’s decision forever altered the course of humanity.” But of course, God becoming man changed all of redemptive history.
This statement from the White House can at least be appreciated by all Christians as a reminder of the historical and biblical truth of the coming of the Son of God, even if we don’t accept the Catholic belief surrounding Mary’s own conception. So, the Trump White House is to be thanked for that. After all, as the statement documents, Catholic believers have played important roles in our nation’s founding and success.
But the statement included an unfortunate error that, no doubt, the president nor his staff who drafted the statement, intended.
At the end of the third paragraph, it states:
Can you spot the error? We hope so!
God did not become man – while also remaining fully God – at His birth. The incarnational miracle that shifted the balance of the whole universe happened at the moment of conception within Mary’s womb.
In fact, the Scripture beautifully notes this divine God-drama in the womb.
Shortly after hearing the angel Gabriel’s remarkable announcement, Mary went to the “hill country, to a town in Judah” to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was miraculously pregnant with Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist. As Mary entered Elizabeth’s home and greeted her, baby John excitedly leapt in Elizabeth’s womb. Elizabeth then exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” She then added, “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43 ESV)
John the Baptist, while in his mother’s womb, miraculously discerned the approach of the Savior of the world in Mary’s womb and leapt in joyful worship. Elizabeth also noted the blessed nature of the preborn Jesus in the womb, calling Mary blessed at that moment and “the mother of my Lord.”
God became flesh in a womb.
Of course, this is also a profound statement about the wonder of the feminine, the maternal and the nature of the unborn, for God used all of these to reveal Himself. It is also a profound statement about the second person of the divine Trinity, Jesus Christ, and His human origins.
This, after all, is the miracle of Christmas and Christianity itself. In fact, it is what C.S. Lewis called “the Grand Miracle”:
It is important to get our theology right on the matter. We hope the White House will correct this mistake.
The post Correcting the White House: God Became Man at Conception, Not Birth appeared first on Daily Citizen.
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